ZBrushCentral

MatCap Mystery Material

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Matt, Marcus or anyone else who knows…

Hidden amongst all the other default MatCap materials is one named MatCap2 which, when selected, displays a more complex profile of parametric sliders different from all others. It is the only default matcap afraid to show its icon. Its profile even includes an optional second window (Material Texture 2) where another, square map can be loaded, apparently having to do with reflection.

I can’t find ANY documentation detailing the purpose of these alternative parameters (highlighted in the list below) and after much experimentation I haven’t been able to discern how most of these sliders affect this MatCap2 format.

Can anyone point me to some additional documentation? Is this an unfinished material definition released by accident?

Thanks, Svengali

Opacity slider
Cavity Detection slider
Cavity Transition slider
Intensity A slider
Intensity B slider
Hue A slider
Hue B slider
Saturation A slider
Saturation B slider
Depth A slider
Depth B slider
Reflect lighten A slider
Reflect lighten B slider
Reflect darken A slider
Reflect darken B slider
Reflect Curve A slider
Reflect Curve B slider
Reflect Curvature A curve
Reflect Curvature B curve
Base - A - B - Col (color icons)
Material Texture 1 (sphere or double sphere icon) - Material Texture 2 (square map)

#2

Digital Tutors has a tutorial (paid) that deals with matcap 2 (materials and rendering for ZBrush 3.1).

#3

Sven,
As far as I can tell I think it’s basically a way of adding in a Reflection map with the ability to control its effect in quite subtle ways.

EDIT: Different settings for Reflect Curvature:

MatCap02.jpg

And the material in the zip.

Attachments

MatCap02b.jpg

#4

Hi marcus,

Yup, mostly about reflections - that’s about all I could figure, too. Frankly, I suspect MatCap2 was tossed in as an afterthought (since all the unique sliders display the same generic popup info… and it’s just weird that it doesn’t generate an icon).

By the way, from my tests I concluded the map for the reflection should be square, not a sphere, since the four corners also show up in the reflection. Though both formats seem to work.

Actually I haven’t tried defining a new matcap2 material from scratch so perhaps I may be missing something there. So, if Matt has nothing to add, I’ll mess with it some more and post here if I discover anything.

Thanks for the feedback - :wink:

Sven