ZBrushCentral

Old ZTL support in Z4.

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hey folks,

has anyone else tried to open an old tool? that is .ZTL format? I just loaded a mesh I was working on that I had saved as a tool in .ZTL format and when I loaded it I got an message window that said something along the lines of

THis is not a shadowbox mesh converting to a shadowbox mesh

the message box had no options just an OK buton.

when I clicked OK the main object mesh loaded as a cube I don’t know if it was a fluke or some sort of glitch. the odd part was the eyes were still spheres and only the main mesh was lost.

loading a Z3.5 mesh into Z4.0
Running Z4.0
Windows 7 x64bit
intel i7 12gigs ram

If anyone else had this issue or knows what might have happened that would be great.

Thanks
-J-B0t

#2

I am having this problem as well. Most of my old ztools from 3.5 open and then give me a sequence of errors all stating:

“Invalid ShadowBox mesh detected. Mesh will be discarded and replaced by a new ShadowBox mesh.”

This is obviously not ideal. Is there no way to turn off this check for ShadowBox meshes and simply allow the meshes to load regularly ?

#3

The only error I have come across regarding loading 3.5 tools in 4 is that some subtools disappear when the object is rotated and viewed from certain angles.

It only has done this a few times, and only to meshes that have been extracted.

Other than that; solid release! :smiley:

#4

Well, 50% of my work in ZB 3.5 can not be opened in ZB4 because the meshes get interpreted as ShadowBoxes and discarded on import. Other than clearing the SubD history and exporting them as objects I can find no way to get ZB4 to accept the majority of my work from 3.5. (Objects work, and I can use the new paint tools to poly paint them in 4, but it would be nice to have the SubD history in as well.)

I’ve tried most everything I can think of in 3.5 when saving the ztools but V4 refuses to see them as ztools.

Is this a bug or an incompatibility feature that we will simply have to get over in moving to ZB 4 ?

#5

Hey Folks,

I was going over the mesh in question and I tried a few things.
I had 10versions saved of the mesh from Zspheres to a more complete version. some of them loaded the first 6 versions loaded fine. Not sure if it has to do with size of the model or if it was something I did at the 7th version. Still looking. it does seem to randomly affect files at the moment.

Work around!!
So I figured out a way to get my most recent version. I went to Export and exported it as a .goz file then I opened it in Z4 and it loaded the file with all the detail on the highest subdiv. Downside was the mesh had lost all the lower SubDiv levels, and I had to export each subtoool. I was happy that the reconstruct button did its job and i got all my SubDivs back. Its not a perfect fix but I’d figure I’d share.

If anyone figures out more let me know!

Thanks
-J-B0t

#6

I did a slightly different workaround. I exported the effected subtools as .obj files with high res displacement maps. I then imported the low res .obj files in version 4 re-subdivided them to the same SubD level as the ztool in 3.5 then apply the displacement maps.

It works well. Once I got a workflow established it goes quickly as well. IN fact, I find that I can slightly optimize the models even, by only dividing them to a Sub D level or two below the 3.5 sculpted version before applying the displacement maps.

Not ideal, or as easy as simply opening the 3.5 ztl files, but at least it works, and I can continue work on the projects now in V4.

Still not sure what triggers the problem. It seems pretty random. At first I thought it was Sub D level related, but some of my tools, of even higher subdivisions, import perfectly fine.

#7

Allright…
Not to sound aggressive or anything but I do not want a workaround, I would want a patch ! When you got an important list of files to transfer and when this problem happens it is not a workable solution.
That plus the fact that when you import a obj with polypaint baked in, the polypaint is not imported in Z4.

Really annoying…

#8

Bump
Cheers !

#9

After waiting so long for the Mac version, you could be dead by the time a patch came out.

I’d assign some uvs to the mesh, convert the polypaint to texture, export the texture and then re-import it and convert the texture to polypaint. Quicker than waiting for a patch.

#10

in 3.5 hide all the other layers but mantain the one that have the object you like to save or export to ZB4.

#11

Any update on this issue? I seem to be having even more difficulty - ZBrush 4 crashes and vanishes when I try to load any previous version ZTool. I tried loading them back in ZB 3.2 (I’m on a Mac), but that’s crashing every time as well now. So I assume there’s a common link between both now behaving like this?

I tried placing one of them in the ZBrush 4 ZTools folder and it shows fine as a Lightbox preview, but again as soon as I click to load it - poof no more ZB4.

These are ZSphere models, so any obj workaround isn’t going to do the trick for me (even if I could load them into ZB 3.2).

EDIT - I’ve realized it’s only happening with old ZTools saved from ZB2/2.5. Those saved out of 3/3.2 seem to be fine, so my problem appears to be different to the ones mentioned by the others above. I can’t open these in ZB3 any more either… I guess I could always try reinstalling ZB2 again to see if that works…

#12

I am having the same issue. I get the shadow box error when I open 3.5 tools in 4. Its very unfortunate. I hope this is resolved quickly. Its also going to be difficult to convince my studio to upgrade to 4 with such an issue.

#13

Just to voice out, same here too, im having to leave ZB4 alone till this, and other issues get sorted out, as im spending more time trying to work around problems than actualy getting on with my job at hand. Il continue to report new issues that are not covered in the manual in my spare time, but while working, havent got time to beta test ZB4.

#14

You’d have thought these issues would have become apparent early on in the development of ZB4, I am sure the testers would have flagged it up.

Backwards compatibilty is essential for any gfx software…it’s baffling.

#15

Here the problem is not backward compatibility, but rather the forward kind…

#16

Z4-loadztl-error.jpg

Can’t load 3.5 ztl.

#17

I would have thought so yes. They had a deadline to meet, and must have had a list of bugs prior to its release for fixing the first patch. We have to give them time, and keep using what works for now.

Personaly I think a public beta would be better next time. There are pros and cons in having a public beta, but in a way its happining now, only in a un-organized way with threads dotted all over the place.

When im working, if recall a feature being advatised for any software that I own, I check the manual quckly because I intend to use it right off the bat.

If it fails, the next stage is to look on forums which can take a while at times. Often it finnishes with it being a bug, and odd wacky methology, a workaround which takes 3 times longer than the method I was to use before giving a new feature a go. This has happend so many times in the past that I just dont bother once it dont work as advatised.

Its good to add, or contribute to posts with the same problem your having, so as to give more weight that its a bug.

#18

Nope, backwards compatibilty is correct for this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backwards_compatibility

#19

My bad, thanks for educating me :slight_smile: (makes sens in fact !).
Still not fix the issue.:confused:

#20

Bumping this thread. This is an important issue that I would like to get an answer on.