ZBrushCentral

Text on the canvas..

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hello to all

I am very new to the whole concept of ZBrush and its a little daunting at the moment I can tell you lol :slight_smile:

I am slowly finding my way around the application, though its workflow and structure is really alien to me and highly different to other applications I have used.

Any ways what I would like to know is if there is an easy way to get some text onto the screen, either normal or 3d text without having to do it the following way.

I mean I know I can just write in a brush using freeform with Zadd on, but it never looks anything other than funny writing lol - nvr looks professional is what I mean - I think lol

Say I want to make 3d letter “H”

I create a small cube3d and scale it down till it looks like a tall thin square 3d pole, then I make another one, scale that down to a smaller length, rotate it and place it in the middle of the other pole, then I make another pole exactly the same size of the 1st one, and place that at the other end of the small pole, making a 3d “H” shape.

Is there any easier method that this?

Thanks in advance for any help given it’s always appreciated :slight_smile:

Hyperion

#2

There are several ways.

For 2D text, use ZAppLink to send your canvas to Photoshop. Add the text, save the document, and return to ZBrush.

For 2D (or 2.5D) text that conforms to curvature of the canvas surface, create the text in black and white with Photoshop then import it into ZBrush via the Alpha palette. Use the Alpha palette to make it into a stencil, and then activate Stencil>Wrap mode to allow it to conform to the pixols. Position it wherever you want and paint through it.

For 3D text, you can use an imported alpha and skin that using the Alpha>Make3D feature (also known as Alpha Skinning).

Finally, you can create the text with Elefont and import it as geometry using the Tool palette.

#3

Wow!! quite a number of ways there for me to be getting on with :slight_smile:

Many thanks for that…

Hyperion

#4

Welp - after taking in what you said, I decided to try and make a stencil.

So I got a text prog I use sometimes to get text into ps [Xara3d 6], and I created a few text strings in with it, some with their backfaces off and some with them on, the ones with them off obviously look more like a stencil because they’re empty inside the body of the letters.

I saved these to jpeg format, then opened ZBrush2 and imported via the ALPHA menu, but from then on trying to get it onto the canvas has been a touch of a nightmare lol.

Sometimes it works, but not the way I expected so I cant paint inside the stencil using a 2.5 brush, and others it just turns the canvas a brighter shade of grey but doesn’t place the stencil/alpha on the canvas heh.

I was just hoping really that I could get some txt on there in 3d style and just either paint on it, or use the txt as a stencil and paint in the stencil to get the txt to the canvas that way.

Guess its going to take some more work and experimentation lol.

A couple of times ZBrush has just upped and crashed on me while trying this txt stuff - weird.

Hyperion

#5

Using elefont for importing the txt as a tool worked like a charm though bud thanks for that 1 :slight_smile:

Just wish I could rig a stencil up so I could use a 2.5 pixol brush and spray/draw/paint inside the stencil to make some txt that way.

Still, I will probably come across, or rather figure out, how to do it soon enough :slight_smile:

Thanks again for the assist though - it gave me some starting points.

Hyperion