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ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

The great Z3 quirks thread

So what is this thread? It’s a list of any workflow quirks, major bugs, or minor issues you’ve seen in Z3. It’s purpose is for people looking to confirm oddities (or avoid them), and it’s also for Pixologic, just in case they’re looking to fix things (I sure hope so). This is not a new features thread. So, no “I want x function from my favourite program!” please. Please try and keep things to point form, if you can.

This thread is now also open to any major bugs. If you find a bug and would like to submit it, please provide a working explanation of how to produce it.

This post will slowly compile all known quirks and bugs, workarounds, and report those that are resolved. For more information on the quirk, bug or workaround, please see the original submitter. If you’d like to contribute to confirming things (things written in yellow) please quote from this post and reply. I’ll update this post with your confirmation or info.

Thanks!

Known Quirks
Filling a layer with CTRL-F can cause rotation oddities with Zspheres (issue is with clicking on the background image, which doesn’t properly deselect zshperes for camera movement)

Can’t disable UV while areas on a model are hidden.

Canvas has refresh issues (both the outer border indicating edit mode, and on models).

Poly painting refresh issue with Quick3D off (painting doesn’t display properly until model is moved).

Pure square alpha has faded, rounded edges for poly painting, when using a texture and DragRect.

Freehand brush doesn’t work with brush WrapMode (on a plane).

If a plane isn’t perfectly flat, a WrapMode brush will trail off.

Normalmap Function is not working (Displacementmap generation seems to work properly.

When shortkey “[” or “]” is used to increase/decrease the size on a single press the circle of brush disappears from canvas untill you click somewhere or you press the key again.

Resolved Stencil menu is there, button not working, infact the stencil is still effactive in precise placement, scale and orientation of a mask. The updated alpha is not exactely the same so stencil should work. Pick the alpha you want to use first, then click Make St in (alpha > make St.) Only then you can switch stencil on.

Left side bar (under Rapid UI) doesn’t scroll 1024 or less sized screen.

Welcome screen items overlap when on screen w/800 (also 1024) pix. in the y axis.
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=45054

Sometimes when clicking slowly twice on a side menu flyout (such as Alpha, or Stroke) the menu will stay open. This prevents top pulldown menus from opening, until the side one is closed.

Some preferences are not saved (known by Pix I believe). Needs examples

Holding shift to snap object to axis will sometimes snap to the wrong one (since Zbrush 2).

Resolved Using Deformation -> Offset to move a zsphere object away from a filled canvas will often offset the object’s center, meaning x symmetry can no longer be used. This is normal behaviour (and good to avoid when using zspheres)
[COLOR=Orange]Tip: Use Marcus Civis’ Image Plane 3 plugin, or switch off Edit mode and switch on Rotate or Move mode so that the Gyro appears, then drag downwards outside the gyro to bring the model forwards. Switch Edit mode back on to continue sculpting.

Creating a zsphere on another sets the drawing size to the added sphere’s size. Resizing the zsphere doesn’t set the drawing size to that new size, however.

Resolved When having 2 or more tools or subtools, converting one of them into a PolyMesh3d will delete the others. Marcus Civis says-

Actually, it may appear to do that but it’s not. What happens is that the mesh-with-subtools is swapped for the new polymesh object. All you have to do is go to the Tool palette popup (click the large ‘Current Tool’ thumbnail), then select the other version of the subtool you were working with. You’ll see that it is exactly as it was, with all its subtools intact. Delete the parametric subtool and append the polymesh version that will be in the Append popup. Not very satisfactory, I agree, but it’s not a bug.

If you hide a 3D Layer and then unhide it and then press “CTRL Z” (or undo), it simply undoes the hiding of the 3D layer which is in my opinion very pointless and has even lead to me drawing on a hidden layer because of it - i.e the main mesh.

If you accidentally delete a Subtool you can not undo it.

On some tablet, after working on a mesh for some time, if you zoom in (alt+click+drag on the canvas) and it hits the zoom limit and starts zooming in on the canvas, sometimes when you brush (even the tweak brush) it will edit only one poly point at a time, like when you have your brush to set to the smallest size and brush at that size. Regardless how big you set the brush. If you zoom out to actual canvas size, it works normally, but it does that again if you zoom in too close again.

There appears to be a limit to how many child zsphere a parent zsphere can have. (http://www.pixolator.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=46094) Follow the hair tutorial at zbrush.info and do the add hair strand part. You can’t have too many hair strands at the same time from one zsphere parent.

If you click drag on the canvas, rotate the object and then snapping it, it will sometimes snap from the original position of the object. It depends on how far you rotated the object before you press shift.

Undos are not available on many occasions when they would normally be expected to be available. Needs examples

I’ve noticed some symmetry issues, i.e with X symmetry on, it doesn’t always paint exactly the same on both sides.

and

Zbrush with symmetry on, both sides won’t match up due to small tolerance that builds up during editing. Smart resym then shifts the model quite a bit.
Both need confirmation

3DCopy crashes Z3. (see post: http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=46121)

Resolved Filling a layer with texture or colour drops the current tool. This makes changing a background for ZProjection much slower than it would be if a tool remained selected (if the tool has been moved away from the canvas backdrop, it must drawn once more and moved away once again) Marcus Civis’ Image Plane 3 plugin adds this functionality

Tip: ZProject can’t be done from another layer

Projection master painting seems to be broken. I’ve tried painting a 4096 image texture but when I pick the model up again the textures gets completely messed up.
Example threads:
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=45357&highlight=projection+master+broken
http://zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=44523&highlight=projection+master
Fizzy says in regard to this:

I’ve been using GUV tiles. It’s nothing to do with seams or anything like that. I’ve painted my textures and when I’ve picked up I’ve found a load of the texture has either shifted off from where they where in Projection Master or they’ve become completely stretched and distorted. This has nothing to do with painting polys that are almost perpendicular to the view, these are polys that are almost completely front on to the view.

Alt-rotation function missing (where you hold alt, or control, and it changes the rotation axis to rotate perpendicular to the screen) Needs additional confirmation

Zscript tutorial issues related to rigging or topology (see post: http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=46221)

At times topology points can’t be deleted.

Resolved Topology selection tools will sometimes mask instead of creating a new start point. (posted by rhinomax1) Pajonate says deleting points with ALT click works fine except it’s sometimes hard to “catch” the pixol.

CTRL tooltips lacking for many tools. Can we create a list of these?

Show actions will only highlight the main pallette but won’t show the individual tool or slider being used.

The multi-marker tool doesn’t work. Needs additional information, plus confirmation

Using the Z displace slider to displace a Layer backwards [positive Z direction] will eventually hide the Layer behind the clipping plane. The clipping plane depth varies with canvas size and there’s no warning that it’s been reached. The difference in ZBrush 2 was that by displacing the other way you could get back your Layer contents. In ZBrush 3, it is gone for ever. Disputed, needs confirmation

Tip: You can find out the clipping plane depth by dragging from the Z slider in the Picker palette to the empty canvas. That will at least tell you what figure you need to keep in mind. But don’t forget that the displace sliders are accumulative rather than absolute. -Marcus Civis

Leave Z3 idle for a long time with quite a bit of a mesh loaded. And I mean a long time, leave it on overnight and don’t touch anything. Most of the time, you will have a memory error, and either you can work with the mesh, but it’ll blow up after going up and down the subDs or the memory error will pop up everytime you have your pointer moving above any menu option. Partially disputed- search for confirmation is continuing

The “Initialize Zbrush” function in the preferences doesn’t seem to be resetting the menu items…or at least not as many as it should be. Some unstored preference settings and the brush settings do not revert. More information on which items? Problem since Z2, I believe.

If you try to import a low resolution mesh that has been saved from an external program (like max or maya) into a Ztool that has multiple subdivision levels, ZBrush will crash without any type of indication of why.

Gradient sliders in the document tab cause Z3 to crash. Calum5ZB, I can’t get this to happen. Can someone provide confirmation?

Flat surfaces render with artifacts when perspective is on.
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=45333

Creating Edge loops destroys geometry when there are higher subd levels.
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=45289

ZAdd makes alphas flip horizontally.
See:
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showpost.php?p=363198&postcount=49
…for images and examples.

If you import an OBJ with a single lone vertice in the mesh (to be clear, this is a good mesh, but it just has 1 vertice sitting somewhere by itself, with no edges), when you apply a mask and then cntrl click the mask to smooth it, you will immediately crash to desktop.

Meshes with layers not saving subtools. Needs examples, plus confirmation.

Missing or Errored Docs

This section contains areas of Zbrush 3 or the wiki that need adjusting, documentation wise. If I’ve doubled anything up, please let me know.

The description about new starting point with Ctrl+click was not described properly in the online manuals. Can someone update the online manual?
Topology Tip: (by pajonate) Ctrl+click makes an exsisting zsphere in your topology as a starting point for the new zspheres you want to add, not to start a new part of your topolgy. So if you end up making some zspheres on your base, the last zsphere drawn will be a starting point to which the next one will be connected. Sometimes you don’t wan’t that, and by using Ctrl+click, you’ll choose some other zsphere to be the next connector.
On the other hand, if you want to start a completelly new topology in addition to the existing one (but not conected to each other) Ctl+click will not work (shows mask icon). What I do is I click aside in the empty area and start drawing the new mesh topology.

Blob brush description: note “orgainic” should be “organic”.

Elastic brush description: note “but for some model types, >it< is more accurate”. Add “it”. I agree with zerodean- very picky :wink:

Layer brush description: second paragraph, “before you start sculpting iwth”. Should be “with”.

Smooth edit brush: note add a space after the sentence ending in “will be retained.” and before the start of the next sentence. Also add a space after “achieve the same affect.” and the next sentence.

“Inflat” edit brush should probably be “Inflate” edit brush. Though under deformations, it is also called “Inflat”, but it is referred to in that description as “Inflate” with a “e” at the end. Every other brush is a real word, other than Std & ZProject.

Brush: Edit Density: notes incomplete

AccuCurve: no notes

Edit Curve: no notes

Morph Brush: ‘beck’ instead of ‘back’

Document: Range: ‘though’ instead of ‘thought’

Tool: DelHidden: generic tool notes instead of specific notes

InsertMesh: as DelHidden … this option really needs specific notes.

Brush: Mesh insert preview-- Accu curve-- Alt Brush Size-- Auto Smooth Strength–

Macro: All the buttons are missing Help pop ups. in Macro palette.

Material: the third box in material palette containing MatCap button has no help avaiable for any of its sliders.

Preferences: not all but these sub palettes dont have popup info, for one or more items. these are>>
config-- custom UI-- Zsphere-- Draw-- tablet-- performance-- File-- transform-- transpose.

Render: Preview shadows-- no info.

stroke: Lazy mouse box doesnt have help info.

Tool: in Morph target sub palette>>Project Morph-- and some negligible buttons.

Transform: following buttons need popup discription>>
L.Sym (local system)-- Rotation Axis Constraints-- Lasso-- Transp(Transpose)…

Zplugin: the sub palettes of >>zbrush help-- Misc Utilities-- dont have popup info for their items.

Zscripts: >> Zcast-- sub palette has no info.

The Unlock button on top right (default area with the help button ) has no pop up info. Fairly obvious this one though

#2

-Normalmap Function is not working (Displacementmap generation seems to work properly)

#3

>>>>wen shortkey “[” or “]” is used to increase/decrease the size on a single press the circle of brush disappears from canvas untill u click somewhere or u press the key again.

>>>> stencil menu is there, button not working, infact the stencil is still effactive in precise placement,scale and orientation of a mask. the updated alpha is not exactely the same so stencil shud work.

#4

-Left side bar (under Rapid UI) doesn’t scroll, and welcome screen text overlaps on 1024 screen
-Sometimes when clicking slowly twice on a side menu flyout (such as Alpha, or Stroke) the menu will stay open. This prevents top pulldown menus from opening, until the side one is closed
-Some preferences are not saved (known by Pix I believe)
-Holding shift to snap object to axis will sometimes snap to the wrong one (since Zbrush 2)
-Using Deformation -> Offset to move a zsphere object away from a filled canvas will often offset the object’s center, meaning x symmetry can no longer be used
-Creating a zsphere on another sets the drawing size to the added sphere’s size. Resizing the zsphere doesn’t set the drawing size to that new size, however

#5

But that’s what Deformation>Offset does - shift the pivot point. If you need to move an object that is being ‘clipped’ by either a filled canvas or the clipping plane, switch off Edit mode and switch on Rotate or Move mode so that the Gyro appears, then drag downwards outside the gyro to bring the model forwards. Switch Edit mode back on to continue sculpting.

HTH,

#6

When having 2 or more tools or subtools, converting one of them into a PolyMesh3d will delete the others.

#7

Actually, it may appear to do that but it’s not. What happens is that the mesh-with-subtools is swapped for the new polymesh object. All you have to do is go to the Tool palette popup (click the large ‘Current Tool’ thumbnail), then select the other version of the subtool you were working with. You’ll see that it is exactly as it was, with all its subtools intact. Delete the parametric subtool and append the polymesh version that will be in the Append popup.

Not very satisfactory, I agree, but it’s not a bug.

#8

  1. If you hide a 3D Layer and then unhide it and then press “CTRL Z” (or undo), it simply undoes the hiding of the 3D layer which is in my opinion very pointless and has even lead to me drawing on a hidden layer because of it - i.e the main mesh.

  2. If you accidentally delete a Subtool you can not undo it, which has been rather annoying.

  3. I’ve noticed some symmetry issues, i.e with X symmetry on, it doesn’t always paint exactly the same on both sides.

#9

I’d like to add:
-If you’re drawing zspheres, (draw child zsphere) then shift clicking on the canvas, it would add another zsphere exactly in the same position and size of the last one you make. Or after doing something (I can’t remember what, currently) it will add a child zsphere at some distance from the last one.
-On some tablet, after working on a mesh for some time, if you zoom in (alt+click+drag on the canvas) and it hits the zoom limit and starts zooming in on the canvas, sometimes when you brush (even the tweak brush) it will edit only one poly point at a time, like when you have your brush to set to the smallest size and brush at that size. Regardless how big you set the brush. If you zoom out to actual canvas size, it works normally, but it does that again if you zoom in too close again. As illustrated:
Untitled-1.jpg
-Also, there appears to be a limit to how many child zsphere a parent zsphere can have. (here) Follow the hair tutorial at zbrush.info and do the add hair strand part. You can’t have too many hair strands at the same time from one zsphere parent.
-Sometimes, exported OBJ has the normals pointing inside.

To solve some issues:

>>>> stencil menu is there, button not working, infact the stencil is still effactive in precise placement,scale and orientation of a mask. the updated alpha is not exactely the same so stencil shud work.
To use the stencil menu, you have to pick the alpha you want to use first, then click Make St in (alpha > make St.) Only then you can switch stencil on.

-Holding shift to snap object to axis will sometimes snap to the wrong one (since Zbrush 2)
Navigation on Z2 has become somewhat of a second nature to me, but, I feel that this depends on which part of the canvas you click the mesh to. You may need to snap on one axis to snap on another. Also, if you click drag on the canvas, rotate the object and then snapping it, it will sometimes snap from the original position of the object. It depends on how far you rotated the object before you press shift.

  1. I’ve noticed some symmetry issues, i.e with X symmetry on, it doesn’t always paint exactly the same on both sides.
    This is normal behavior if you have been working on your object for some times. Small changes on the mesh is tolerated on a toleration value. This is enhanced by using symmetry when brushing. This is normal for all 3D apps because if you want exact changes, it’ll take a LOT of computation. Hence, sometimes, your brushing made too many changes and the tolerance stacks up and effects the symmetry.

-Sometimes when clicking slowly twice on a side menu flyout (such as Alpha, or Stroke) the menu will stay open. This prevents top pulldown menus from opening, until the side one is closed
Oh, yeah, this one’s pretty annoying but perhaps useful thing. Sometimes, you’d want to have that side menu flyout stays open while you decide which button you’d want to push. But you only need to move the mouse away from the side menu flyout, and back to close the side one. Sometimes, you have to do it twice.
Another annoying but useful thing, in edit mode, like you would when you detail a mesh, press shift (go to smooth) hold it while you press alt, then hold alt and release the shift. After you release the shift, release alt, and the brush is STUCK ON SMOOTH!!! LOL :smiley: It can be quite annoying if you’re zsubbing with alt and switch back and forth to smoothing. But other times, you’d like to have your left hand free while you smooth the mesh. LOL :smiley:

-Pure square alpha has faded, rounded edges for poly painting, when using a texture and DragRect
This is wanted behavior. You need to make a smaller alpha if you want square alpha. See here and square alpha available here.

Oh, man, they better be paying me for this. LOL :smiley:

#10

But that’s what Deformation>Offset does - shift the pivot point. If you need to move an object that is being ‘clipped’ by either a filled canvas or the clipping plane, switch off Edit mode and switch on Rotate or Move mode so that the Gyro appears, then drag downwards outside the gyro to bring the model forwards. Switch Edit mode back on to continue sculpting.

Thanks Marcus. I was aware of the original way of moving objects along Z, but several tutorials I’ve seen mentioned using deformation, which suggests people don’t realise this the issue that can occur. I can see now also that Unify resolves this issue. The reason to avoid using the original movement method is because it lacks precision- unless it’s seen to be clipping another object, it’s hard to tell how far an object has been moved across Z. Z3 could also use absolute values for positioning objects, other than using the picker when first drawing or offset values. Also, moving via the old style movement tools can not be undone.

#11

You can use absolutely values. While the Gyro is active (i.e. when Edit is off and you are in Move, Scale or Rotate mode) you can enter values in the Transform:Info sliders to position or scale your model on the canvas. These values simply change the look of your model, not its absolute values in the way the Deformation sliders do. I take your point about not being able to Undo but as it’s simply the look of your model on the canvas it’s not critical.

#12

It depends on how far you rotated the object before you press shift.

Exactly, and that’s something worth adjusting. The original rotation value should have no bearing on the axis snapped to.

This is enhanced by using symmetry when brushing. This is normal for all 3D apps because if you want exact changes, it’ll take a LOT of computation. Hence, sometimes, your brushing made too many changes and the tolerance stacks up and effects the symmetry.

I don’t believe that’s true. Transformations to one side of a mesh (assuming both sides of the mesh are the same at the time of editing) should be exact.

#13

On Undos:

I’ve not done tests but I had certainly noticed that undos were not available on many occasions when I thought they would be. I imagine that this is one area where Pix has saved memory in order to keep ZBrush 3 as responsive as possible.

#14

While the Gyro is active (i.e. when Edit is off and you are in Move, Scale or Rotate mode) you can enter values in the Transform:Info sliders to poition or scale your model on the canvas.

Right, thanks Marcus. I had wondered whether those sliders adjusted the model’s view on the canvas, or changed its axis. I hadn’t really looked into it, so that’s nice to know.

After a while I’ll adjust my first post with all confirmed quirks.

#15

I imagine that this is one area where Pix has saved memory in order to keep ZBrush 3 as responsive as possible.

That’s possible, although considering there’s undo available for transpose, it’d make sense that all transforming operations would have it available. The tool that creates the movement should have no bearing on the memory set aside for the operation itself, I would think. My feeling was that the old gizmos were now a thing of the past (aside from the manipulation of brush strokes, etc), which explains why Pix may have left them as are… a little underdone.

#16

3DCopy don’t work on 3D object…It crash always
To reproduce (see the post of GOODRICHM http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=46121):

  • Startup ZB3,
  • Select any default PolyMesh3D tool (or your fav non-2D tool) in the Tool palette,
  • Draw the tool on the workspace,
  • Select “3D Copy” at bottom of Transform palette,
  • Program crashes with ZBrush Executable error.

cameyo

#17

A small followup about working with a filled background…

-Filling a layer with texture or colour drops the current tool. This makes changing a background for ZProjection much slower than it would be if a tool remained selected (if the tool has been moved away from the canvas backdrop, it must drawn once more and moved away once again)
-ZProject can’t be done from another layer (not a quirk exactly, but worth noting)

#18

Time for an update to the image plane script, I think… :wink:

#19

3DCopy don’t work on 3D object…It crash always
To reproduce (see the post of GOODRICHM http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=46121):

  • Startup ZB3,
  • Select any default PolyMesh3D tool (or your fav non-2D tool) in the Tool palette,
  • Draw the tool on the workspace,
  • Select “3D Copy” at bottom of Transform palette,
  • Program crashes with ZBrush Executable error.

cameyo

cameyo u have to turn off “auto intensity” and turn “shaded colors” on, in order to get this button work… kinda funnyy… :slight_smile: but it works. and yeah defenitly a squirk.

#20

It should be. It’s just that I remembered from one of them training DVDs that after a long zbrush with symmetrical on, both sides won’t match up due to small tolerance that builds up during editing. The vid then proceeds to smart resym and the model shifts quite a bit. This happened to me several times and it’s quite annoying to have your mesh don’t re-sym well.

Anyone from pix could comment on this?