ZBrushCentral

Subtools folder - collapse and hide

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

I and others here at Gentle Giant Studios are in dire need of something that ‘seems’ to have gone to deaf ears, but I hope I am wrong. Coming from a traditional sculpting background (as opposed to gaming) we appreciate the subtools list. We’ve learned that when it comes to digital sculpting and using the 3D printer, making a large number of subtools that intersect helps in many ways.

Speed. It would take too long to make a single mesh with proper edgeloops, etc, to finish a model. Multiple meshes that intersect is way faster. This goes for guns, tanks, and biological things where they have accessories like belts and bracers. And from what I understand Pixologic wants artists to move intuitively and quickly.

‘Hopefully’ you will understand this conclusion: We need folders in the subtools list. Folders that can collapse and be hidden. For example an arm with all of its accessories - weapon, bracer, armor. In this way we can then sculpt on the body without all the ‘arm area’ subtools getting in the way.

Here are issues that we have precisely because we do not have folders:
In the subtools list we will have 40 or 100 subtools … organizing them is essential. At the bottom of the subtool list you will see the arrows that allow you to move the subtools up and down within the list - well guess what? A delete button is right below it … we are OFTEN moving subtool position 98 to position 3, that means hitting the up arrow a 95 times, which in turn means the hand gets tired and BAM we hit the delete button, or worse yet hitting the delete button three times. And of course that we have to hide ten subtools that are on the arm, this takes too long. If the arm subtools were in a folder we could just collapse and hide the folder.

Lastly, for gamers, an entire scene with multiple characters could be in one ztool - each in its individual folder, ready to be hidden and collapsible! Could you imagine … folders within folders … extrapolate! When computers are strong enough entire cities could be in a hierarchy of collapsible folders. Full character folders within full scene folders within full town folders.

Well anyway, we just need it now for a single character, or two :wink:

EDIT After talking about this post with a friend we came to this thought: Maybe Pixologic will read this and think ‘Does Brandon think he’s an ant on the forearm of some scifi character looking at the perfection of subtool intersection? We can’t … an artist can’t, be so tied to molecular perfection. Practical reasons ‘not’ to create folders: Create the arm and arm accessories, merge subtools, make each ‘former’ subtool one polygroup. The subtool itself will act as a folder, the polygroups allow enough control of meshes with the subtool. Wah Lah - this issue is resolved.’ Hmm, yeah maybe.

Thanks

#2

Brandon,

Great ideas. :slight_smile: I’d just like to remind you of a feature of SubTool Master - nothing close to what you suggest but perhaps useful for avoiding the delete button - the ‘Shift Up’ option. This will move all the visible subtools to the top of the list. For example:

  1. Select the 98th subtool. Click on the ‘eye’ icon so that all the subtools are hidden (the selected subtool is always treated as visible by SubTool Master).
  2. Press SubTool Master>Shift Up. The 98th subtool is moved to position 2.
  3. Press the Move Down button to move the subtool to position 3.

HTH,

#3

Thanks, yep. I tried that a few times in 3.1 on the PC, back when subtool master first came out. Once or twice it crashed zbrush. I stopped using it. But I’m better with posting issues, and I’ll get back into using that, and post if I have problems.

#4

We were working on a project for Disney, sculpting one of the newer princess figures. The ztool had many subtools, and at some point one of the subtools was deleted. Noone caught it. We went to print, molded and cast three or so copies, cleaned those up, went to paint. Then someone caught the missing detail.

AAARRGH.

Looking back, I can only think that during the process of organization of the subtool list the ‘delete’ subtool button was hit on accident - when shifting the positions of the subtools in the list with the buttons RIGHT NEXT TO the delete button.

Can we please have folders for organization, or at least move the delete button away from the reposition buttons? Ugh.

#5

Brandon,

Why don’t you use the hotkey when moving subtools? Holding Ctrl and then using the Up or Down arrows will move subtools up and down much more quickly (you can just hold down the keys to move all the way up). Or assign a different hotkey if you prefer.

#6

Thanks. I’m using mac 3.12b, I’m holding down the control key, hitting the up arrow on the keyboard, nothing happens. Down arrow too, nothing.
I’m going to try to assign a hotkey.

EDIT - ah, in my version its the command key and arrows, not control. I’ll tell the artist that did the disney princess.

#7

On my MacBook holding Cmd and pressing the arrows simply changes which subtool is selected, so make sure that the subtool is actually being shifted.

Ctrl didn’t work for me either but assigning Ctrl+arrow as hotkeys worked as advertised.

#8

You have to tap on a subtool to activate it, then hold command+arrowUP, then it will move up - ONCE. Then you have to re-tap it. Yep, we found a little bug. I’ll assign a hotkey.