ZBrushCentral

Size of Sculpt within Zbrush

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

My question is, how do I know what “size” my sculpt is, and how do I know what the “correct” size is to be working in? I have searched the internet several times on this and have never seen it mentioned in a book, so I feel I’m missing a fundamental concept here. Is there a reason for size? Should I always try to go as small as possible or the reverse? What else should I know about size?

I have been using Zbrush for several months now and I realized an issue I have with the size of my sculpts. I could not get a particular sculpt to cast a floor shadow. Then, while working on one of the shadow settings, I saw it had a maximum range of 500 pixels.

This made me realize that my object was probably too “big”. Sure enough, I shrunk it with the deformation slider a few times, then I was able to get results.

The model was a download from the internet, so I assume it was created in another program.

Anyway I had no idea that objects had “size” in any real way. What gives?

Thanks for you help.

#2

Zbrush should assume the proper scale on import based on the object bounding box.

But to test it, you can check your object inside of tool.preview. It should fit in that box.
If it doesn’t, you can always use tool.deformations.unify (but this does change your actual scale, not just a temporary resize for Zbrush.)

#3

Very simple solution! Thanks. That should help my workflow be consistent. Tool size will always be the same, etc.

You say it will change the “scale” of the object permanently. Does the scale refer to any kind of real-world measurement? Will the scale affect how it performs in other programs or what size it will be for printing, etc.?

I did find some numbers under the Tool>Geometry>Size. What are those numbers actually measuring?