ZBrushCentral

Subtool Madness

Hello! I’d like to make my #1 most important request (out of any I can think of) for ZBRUSH.

Subtool Management!

I’m looking at a character today, I want to start on his front, but his back has about 35 metal plates that I need to hide to speed up the viewport and just to work cleanly.

PLEASE add a subtool group feature (like Photoshop) that lets me put a set of subtools into a folder that can be hidden or shown?
Not a merged group of geometry but a subtool ‘file folder’ option for hiding and showing.

As to merge all these subtools would attach them together too strongly and make them hard to later manipulate.

So for example now, I really don’t want to click one at a time on each subtool, then hide. I also dont’ want to isolate only one subtool in the front.

Additionally , we need a ‘quick hide’ hotkey. I tried an online macro for this and it was flakey / unreliable. For us to alt click, then use that little eye icon is slow. It also often will mistake the click for a ‘hide all or show all’ subtool command. Which when that happens, undo does not ‘undo’ the hide or show all.

The program is -awesome- but the subtool palette has been largely ignored and is starting to become a super slow part of the program to use. I believe overall it actually slows down completing an entire character model by up to 20% if you count how many times your messing with subtool management, where you are forced to manage your subtools ’ one at a time '.

THANKYOU:cry:

I agree that subtool grouping is something I’d like to see. I still remember Zbrush from before the ability to separate into subtools even existed though, so as ever it’s an ongoing evolution.

As for your problems with visibility management, I’ll point you to a couple things. “Solo” mode, located on the bottom right side of the default viewport and in the transform menu, will make it so that only the active subtool is ever visible. This is much more convenient than toggling subtool visibility.

Also, make sure you have committed the following visibility shortcuts to muscle memory. It greatly speeds mesh navigation in Zbrush. If you have a number of mesh objects in the same subtool that are separated into different polygroups, isolating one while hiding the rest is as easy as Shift+ctrl clicking on the target polygroup.

Yes, I agree, a grouping option into a ‘folder’ like Photoshop would be a great advantage for organising.

Perhaps this will appear in later versions or upgrades.

Foresure! I’d also like to request where we can hold SHIFT then click on another subtool below to highlight a group of subtools for deleting, or hold CTRL to add subtools to a selection for deleting (like Photoshop folders).

Currently I have to hit delete over and over for every subtool I want to delete, or I can click ’ delete all other ’ or try to pull subtools out by appending them out one at a time…

Subtool navigation has been roughly the same since R2, definitely time for some upgrades. :slight_smile:

Hello,

I have developed a new plugin for ZBrush (“ZSceneManager”) which allows to organize your SubTools in folders/groups in a separate windows (always accessible).
It also provides other operations based on multi-subtool selections (rename, incremental rename, VisibilityConfigs, partial GoZ, partial export obj/fbx,…).

More information (download link, video…) in this post:
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?198711-ZSceneManager-plugin

Do not hesitate to post your comments, feedback and requests in this thread.

in the subtool madness that is a Ztool mesh

comes the ZSceneManager helping to fix this mess

ohhh he has a part that needs painting, but isolate it how?

ole Regnan’s sculpting a handle… but his mesh it won’t stop growing… no easy way to hide stuff now

yeahhhhhh no easy way to hide stuff now.

he sees the eyeballs and clicks them one by one…

but he’d rather catch his woman and his best friend in bed and having fun.

ohhhhh he crawls over to the forums on his hands and knees

“God i love this program, but a group by subtool is what we need…yeah it’s what we need!”.