Nolan_R,
I’m afraid that the cursor change is to do with using Move mode rather than Draw mode. There’s no way round that.
Fair enough, thanks anyway
Is there any way to do this stuff in Draw mode? If I try and switch to Draw mode it tells me I have to convert it to a polymesh (somehting like that) and, if I do, it messes it all up.
I just thought it would be nice to use mroe than just move, like the nudge brush, or… !!! THE Smooth Brush!!! <-- It would be nice to be able to smooth things after manipulating to bring it back a little, like if I have to pull in a part to match a lumpy area, I’d like to smooth it out to less distortion, but I have to do this manually.
Two other things I’m wondering about, one of which is probably totally impossible, so the other one first:
I’ve noted that, especially after a lot of manipulation, the red dot indicating where you’re working ends up being nowhere near the cursor and while I cvan deal with this and compensate for it, it’s annoying and in some cases it’s impossible to get to certain parts, because if you move the cursor to where the red dot would be, I’m off the mesh and, as a result, no longer getting the red dot at alll (and if I do anything I just end up rotating the image plane, which aappears to be not undoable on top of it all)
The other that is probably impossible due to the shamefully limited image format output options and the way Projection Master works and stuff, but hey, if I’m wrong and it IS possible, I may as well ask (besides, maybe this way Pixologic will hear about somehting interpreted as a lack that should be addressed anyway) So here it is: Alpha channel on textures.
Gonna elabourate on that last part, in the sense that Pixologic should make this possible, because if they don’t someone like one of the open source coders for mudbox is going to eventually jump on this and make a standalone app, and I’ll buy it out of potential ZBrush 4 funds:
Right now we can do some amazing stuff to wrap textures onto a mesh using Projection Master. Problem is, then once we pick them back up the “fade” fades not to transparent, but to white (or whatever was there before). This means we have things overlapping each other or fading into white and if we want to stitch them together we have to erase edges manually (and possibly need to erase near a seam, which introducsed texture seam visibility, which is bad)
If textures were able to maintain an alpha channel, we could start PM with a transparent channel and fade to transparent. Then when we take our sections and load 'em into Photoshop and layer the exports together, they marge up right, so we just erase the random little gray bars and anything that got onto the wrong area on a later layer, and viola.
Right now it’s great that we can do that, but cleaning up the results takes nearly as many hours as making a texure the old-fashioned way.
(While I’m making a wishlist item in this post, I may as well add: Support for OBJ materials with separate textures built for each would make all this even better – in case it gets heard OR said proverbial other programmer is trawling forums for ideas)
Dude I could kiss you right now!!! thank you soooooooooooooooo much man, damn good workflow, wont forget this 4 real, cheers :lol:
dodger - I’m responding to this very late but here it goes. problem 1 can be solved by a change to your workflow.
First, layout the UVs of your model with production level UV’s.
Second, establish a basic rough texture for the face by projecting front, side, top, etc views and take it into Photoshop
Third, use ZAppLink to create specific spot texture maps for the chin, side of nose, under part of nose and other hard to reach areas.
Fourth, overlay the texture map for the specific area on top of the roughed in texture map. Create a Layer Mask that hides everything and then paint back in the area that you need (for example, the chin, nose…).
Fifth, check texture in Maya or ZBrush
sixth, repeat step 4 for all your problem areas.
3rdman2009 - glad it was useful. 
Thanks for this tutorial
The download movie link is giving me the “This server can only be accessed by the proper referring server.” webpage. Anyway of reuploading?
good idea to a freshman.
xluox
hey can anybody tell me how to do this in zbrush 3.5 as i can seem to get it to work no matter what i try
I would recommend using ZAppLink for a more robust approach. If memory serves correctly, this approach pre-dates ZAppLinks’ first incarnation.
Will Zaaplink reappear or is it completely gone now in the latest and future versions of Zbrush?
ZAppLink is included in the installer for ZBrush 3.5 R3. If you’ve installed 3.5 R3 without ZAppLink then you can install it by modifying the installation through the Control Panel. If you’ve not got 3.5 R3 then it is free to registered users - raise a ticket through Support .
Hi everyone,
I’m new with Zbrush, and i’m trying to do what does this tutorial.
But, it seems very old for now. What would be the best way to achieve this with ZB 3.2 (OsX)?
Thx a lot!
Aeron
Hi Aeron,
This is the best method to use if on the Mac:
http://www.pixologic.com/docs/index.php/Tutorial:ZProject_and_Adjusting_Photo_Reference
Be sure to follow the instructions specific to the Mac - it’s important that the plane is made into a polymesh and the Move brush is used to adjust the image.
HTH,
Thx a lot Marcus
I’ll will try that! 
Hi Marcus,
I had tried this method for texture in zbrush3-3.1 & it worked perfectly for me.Somehow i have started to face a weird problem in Zbrush 4R2, The photo reference used via imageplane 3d doesn’t cover the whole face.The image when loaded comes in the center ( of the face while texture). So in this case only texture is visible on some area of the ear & shoulder.
The image instead of being in the foreground is coming in the center.
Kindly Help…
Dan
Hi Dan,
If the image is not showing on some nearer parts of the model, such as the nose, it will be because it is too far back. You can bring the image forward by:
- Setting the Tool>Deformation>Offset slider to the Z axis by clicking on the little Z and clicking off the little X (on the right-hand end of the slider).
- Enter a negative value in the slider. You may need to repeat until all the nearer parts of the model are covered.
- If you need to enlarge the image you can adjust the Tool>Deformation>Size slider.
Hi Marcus,
Thank you for the prompt reply, Problem solved !
Appreciated.
Thank you.
Dan