When you multimark a complex object you have to do it from one angle due to the nature of zbrush. As you are multimarking you can make use of the gyro to place your tools with presition. The problem is that once you are using the multimarker tool you are not able to use the gyro. I know that you can still move, rotate and scale, the problem is that you cannot constrain that movement throuh a particular axis. In other words the xyz transform modifiers don’t work anymore while you are manipulating tools in a multimarker object. For simple objects this is not a problem but for complex objects that require presition it’s very cumbersome and tedious to get the results you want. Is there a way to constrain the movement or have more control while using the multimarker tool?
It’s still kind of a pain but here’s what I do. Maybe there’s a better way… ?
Let’s say you have three objects:
Head
rEye
lEye
(Assume that each eye is actually a seperate object/tool and not just the same eye marked 2X)
You’ve already modeled, colored, materialed, and textured them
Place the head on the canvas, mark it.
Place the eyes where they look right from the view you are currently in. Let’s say you placed the head so it’s looking right at you with the nose parallel to the Z axis. Position the eyes so they are correct from the XY perspective, and roughly in the Z by using the “W” gyro and click-dragging outside it to move them to the point where they are just coming out of the head. don’t forget to mark each eye.
Make sure that ALL the options are turned on in the Marker pallet so your textured, tools, colors, etc. are recalled when using the multi-marker tool.
Clear the canvas or create a new layer.
Select the multimarker tool, and draw the object colection on the canvas. Use the appropriate gyros to position it, say rotating it to a 45 degree oblique angle so you can see where the eyes are going in or out of the head.
I press “T” 2X to get out of all editing modes but still having the multi-marker “active”. You’ll notice that in the TOOL:MULTIMARKER pallet for the MM you are working on (most likely called something like MultimarkerCopy) when you are out of editing mode, the button “Reposition” will become clickable. Click it so that each marker in the composite MM object is repositioned.
Clear the canvas again.
Now you have to think about what object you want to edit. Let’s say we want to move the rEye object. Mouse over each marker on your now blank canvas. Click on each object leaving the object you want to edit for last. since you should have TOOL selected in the MARKER pallet, you will most likely do somethign like this:
-
Click the head marker once to recall the tool
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click the head marker again to actually place the tool (I’m still not sure why you have to click the marker twice like this but so far it seems that I always have to. Perhaps there’s a reason for it that I have not figured out yet)
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Click the lEye marker 2X to place it
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Click the marker for the rEye once to recall the tool, then again to place the object
Now for the trick…
Unmark this marker you just selected by pressing the M- button (I think in the draw pallet, but I’m not sure as I’m doing this from memory away from my system)
Now press the appropriate gyro you want to use to position this rEye object. Once you get it into position, don’t forget to M+ mark it again.
You can now select the MM tool again, clear the canvas, rotate the MM object and repeat for all the objects.
So yes, it is possible, and yes it is kind of a pain. I’d love to see an option that allows ZBrush to go into a full 3D multi-tool mode like a more traditional modeler for complex object creation. Obviously it has the capability, it just needs a UI paradigm other than the MM to make it more robust.
Hope that helps. If anyone has a better way to do it, I’d LOVE to hear from you.
Thanks a lot for the reply Monkeyfarm. I tried your method and it works although like you said is kind of cumbersome. Your idea about a 3D multi-tool mode to work with complex objects sound like a great idea. But if it was possible to constrain the movement of the individual tools within the multimarked object to a particular axis using the modifiers in the transform palette would be a very big improvement.
Oh and is there a way that you can keep the material information when working with multimarkers? What I mean is that if you multimark 2 objects with different materials and then use the multimarker tool both objects material will turn into the currently selected material. Is there a way around this?
Make sure in the MARKER pallet that MATERIAL is active. Then each object will keep it’s material setting.
Thanks again Monkeyfarm. I think I found the solution to your problem with Wings3d. Check your thread.