ZBrushCentral

Rotation Issue

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

I’m not sure if this is neccesarily something to cry over, but it’s certainly causing me a lot of pain.

I’m using Zbrush 3.5 R3. Basically, I like to use a background photo for reference when I work on projects. In order to do this, I have to Crop and Fill a texture into the 3D workspace, and then Offset the prim I’m editing so that it doesn’t meld through the “3D” image.

In the older version of Zbrush, when a prim of offset towards you it retained it’s center of rotation, however in this version the rotation’s axis is in a fixed plane at the center of my reference image.

I’ve tried double-clicking with the rotation tool to create a new axis, and yet it still falls behind my image when rotated too far.

Is there any possible way to recalibrate the center of rotation to the tool I’m working with rather than somewhere out in the middle of my image?

#2

You can try to go into the Deformation palette and either hit “Unify” and then “Store” or you can adjust the center point of rotation manually by adjust the Offset value relative to the little red crosshair in the center of the Preview palette to be in the center of your model. If it’ symmetrical you can then try to recreate the symettry by using the resym commands in the deform palette.

Once that’s stored, click on the model in the viewport once in edit mode to set it as active, then make sure Local is turned on on the right shelf and you should be able to use the Rotate button on the shelf to orbit around your center just fine, even with a filled up canvas. If that doesn’t work, not sure what else you can do in zbrush.

#3

Mmm, unfortunately all of these methods reset my tool’s position back into the center instead of moving the axis to my object.

Ah well, I guess it can’t be fixed, I’m going to have to find some other way of using background images. Thanks for your help, anyway though!

#4

There’s a pre-made image plane ztool in the ztool folder you can append to your mesh as a subtool then put your reference on that. Should get rid of your problems, but you will have to adapt your workflow. Zbrush 4 should let you work the way you want to no problem as from the looks of it, they’re really pushing working with textures and references using the fill canvas technique you’re used to. Right now I’m wagering those problems you’re encountering are due to certain functions that were “reworked” in preparation for the upcoming release from the sound of it.

#5

I think there is a misunderstanding here, you are crop/filling the canvas and want to move your tool in the zaxis, in Canvas depth, not tool depth, what you need to do is use the transform gyro to move towards you, DO NOT use the deformation offset.
here is a macro i use all the time for this.
please forgive me if the misunderstanding is mine.

also for future reference, another way to get your pivot point back to the center is to use the centerpivot button in the transform palette, this is sometimes better than using 'unify"(deformation) because it doesn’t scale your tool and also you can clear the pivot back to the offset if you like.

#6

Yeah as Spaceboy said, if you’re using Offset to move your object, that’s what’s causing your problems right there, just use the Move tool (not the Move brush, but the Move Tool, the one with the gizmo) and drag off of the side of the move tool towards you to bring your object “off the canvas”. This will keep your pivot point centered.

No wonder I couldn’t replicate your problem, but I see from your post you’re probably using “offset” in the z axis to position your piece, which is unnecessary and causing your probs right there.

#7

@ Extra and Spaceboy:
Extra I couldn’t replicate your move tool solution, but all is well now; spaceboy’s macro worked like a million-dollar charm.

Basically, from what I can tell, it moved my tool towards me and the canvas (crop-filled) away from me. This gap was large enough to keep most objects away from eachother in the workspace so they no longer collided. This was the reason in the first place that I was trying to move the object using offset, which resulting in rotational errors.

So there we have it, a happy ending to a frustrating situation! Thank you all so much for your support and all the information you’ve given me, I’ve learned tons more about Zbrush than I ever new before :smiley:

#8

Cool, good to know Spaceboy’s macro worked for you.

Not sure why you’re having problems using the move gizmo though, that’s puzzling. If you have the move gizmo active, then click off to the side of the gizmo, while holding the mouse down and dragging towards you, you bring the object forward in zspace (pixolwise). If you hold the mouse button, and push forward, you push the object back. That’s all I’m saying, it’s a basic function which shouldn’t be giving you any problems, first time I’ve heard of it not working.