Set a custom pivot point for an InsertMesh brush?

[natureintheory]

I made a simple InsertMesh brush, but the point that I want it to insert to its parent from is not at the mesh’s center.

I thought that setting the Gizmo3D to that point might preserve it:

It doesn’t. When it’s made an IM, the pivot resets to the mesh’s center. The Depth setting doesn’t help in this case.

So when I draw it out, it floats away from the point where I wanted it to be. I then have to move it, which sort of defeats the purpose of saving time with an IM.

Is there a better way to draw out a shape like this from the desired point?

Or maybe a “snap to point” feature for snapping meshes to specific points on other meshes? (I googled this but only saw some 3rd party scripts from years ago that might not work exactly as I need; I wonder if there’s a simpler way.)

[natureintheory]

Related question: is it impossible to delete / remove a single brush from the brush palette except by restarting ZBrush or hitting Reset All Brushes?

[Spyndel]

@natureintheory

Is there a better way to draw out a shape like this from the desired point?

Maybe, depending on your expectations. The orientation of an IM Brush is determined when the brush is created. The screen plane represents the surface of the target mesh. So if you were making an insert mesh out of the Dog mesh from lightbox, and wanted the dog to attach its nose to the target surface, you would have to create the brush with the dogs head facing away from the viewer into the screen plane.

This video should also be helpful:

Also keep in mind you can hold Spacebar while inserting a mesh to tweak its position.

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@natureintheory

I then have to move it, which sort of defeats the purpose of saving time with an IM.

It’s still much faster than the alternatives.

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@natureintheory

Related question: is it impossible to delete / remove a single brush from the brush palette except by restarting ZBrush or hitting Reset All Brushes?

The brushes that are set to load with zbrush will always be a part of the brush library unless you remove it from the startup content. You can clear (most) recently used brushes from the brush lists by pressing the R button in the Brush palette.

[natureintheory]

Thank you!

I should clarify that I made the brush facing forward (I knew about the camera orientation part), though the screenshots are in profile view to demonstrate the problem.

It’d be really nice if pivot point could be set and preserved in the future, since IM has abilities to preserve so many other properties.

I ended up manually moving each one with the gizmo; didn’t know about the spacebar. Will try that too.

[natureintheory]

Thanks again for the tips, Spyndel!

I tried the spacebar trick today and I wish I’d known about it before I placed ~30 of these things manually. Oh man, such a timesaver.

For future ref:

I had these curve tubes and the blue point is where I wanted my IM’s non-vertically-centered point to come out of:

Since my IMB was created facing forward, I used the Transparency function in the lower-right corner of this screenshot so that when I dragged it out and held spacebar to move it, I could see exactly where to position it:

Perfect!

[sclptrjoel]

The bit about the space bar is a great tip. Thanks!