ZBrushCentral

Thought on 3.5

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Some thoughts after 15 or so hours of playing around:<O:p</O:p

The increased speed and performance is the most important upgrade for me. I’m astonished at how much more my machine can handle! I love the improved perspective. Far more accurate. Floor grid is great. <O:p

On the other hand, I really dislike the Alt click selection of subtools. Whenever you are switching between two subtools that are close to each other, you can’t help but sculpt the original subtool rather than select the other. Remember, the primary use of the Alt key is to invert the current brush function. The only way around this is to set you brush size to 1 before alt clicking, but this gets VERY annoying VERY fast.<O:p

Most of the other enhancements are really geared towards “designers”. I’m a production artist. I rarely design anything. I create digital models from designs that are given to me. While the 50 or so new planar brushes seem really cool, they are pretty limited to making various types of perfectly flat planes. Very few things I work on have perfectly flat areas. Think about it. Even robots and armor and weapons are made up primarily of smooth curving shapes, not perfectly flat areas. The hardest thing about hard surface modeling in ZBrush has always been smoothing out the surfaces you can so quickly create. Getting them to look machine made without the residue of slight ripples or imperfections. The new brushes don’t really seem to help this. I suspect that most of us who aren’t designers will still do things the same way as before: rough out forms in ZB, then retopologize in another app.<O:p

I’m disappointed to report that the same goes for Z Spheres II. The next time I make a prawn creature, or a multi-tentacled centipede, I’m sure I’ll be happy about them. But for my day to day work of sculpting humans, Zshperes II probably won’t change my life.<O:p

And lastly, I’m pretty bummed about the new navigation. Don’t get me wrong; I love rmb rotation. But alt click panning seems to make the view jump to a distant view every once in a while (maybe once in 5 times) Wow, that’s annoying. But what I’m really, really dissapointed about is this: In 3.1 my view would pivot around the center of any visible subtool (WITHOUT Local Rotate turned on). If two or more subtools were visible, my view would rotate around their combined pivots. If the entire figure was visible, it would rotate around the center of the whole figure. I loved this. In 3.5, the view rotates around the world center, no matter what subtool or subtools are visible. Thus, when only the hand is visible, for example, and I rotate, it flies off screen. Local Rotate is not nearly as handy. It doesn’t rotate around the subtool’s center, but around the point you clicked. As someone who spent 15 years as a traditional sculptor, not being able to rotate a piece around its center feels very unnatural. I’m told I’ll get used to it, but I really wish I didn’t have to. Why would they change this? Why not default to center rotation, with local rotation as an option? When would you EVER want rotation around the world center?<O:p

Oh, well. As soon as Subtool Master and Decimation Master are included, I’ll still have that beautifully enhanced performance. And bring on Go-Z!<O:p

#2

The alt - pan function was always there, I’ve been using it since 2.0. The local view rotation seems to be based around the last thing you touched on the model. I’m retopologising a model I made with the ZSketch spheres right now and it is working perfectly fine for me that way. I do miss having the little button to toggle on and off though.

#3

my thoughts exactly but Im open to being proved wrong. It can make fantastical jewelry and adornments for clothing though.

#4

Just noticed this: when you import an obj. it defaults to the ZExportImport folder. No problem, just navigate to where you want to go, or put in a shortcut. But now when you import a second obj it still goes to the default folder. It doesn’t remember where you just went like it did before. As someone who imports many objs all the time, I hope there is a way around this.

#5

It can make fantastical jewelry and adornments for clothing though.
And hair! I bet we can finally make some really cool long curly hair! Looking forward to that!

#6

omulu01-

My thought EXACTLY. The viewport rotation is annoying and there
are a few other things but that’s not a real problem I guess just annoying.
But u hit the nail right on the head with the hard surface brushes. They seem
to produce unpredictable results and just make random hard lines. I’ve been modeling hard-surfaces for quite a while and I’m doing a ton of it on a big project and I was really anticipating 3.5 to speed up my work-flow…but it looks like its back to the old way.There is alot that is cool…cool but nothing that will drastically change my work-flow.

#7

There is. Go to Preferences>Misc and turn off Use ZFolders

#8

I can understand that when you start from a mesh created elsewhere, ZSpheres2 sketch aren’t for you, but for quick sketches that can be refined ad infinitum, they are great.
Because of your specific use of ZB, this may be the opportunity to tell Pixologic what specifically you would like to see added. There’s still time 'till 4 will be released.

#9

There is. Go to Preferences>Mind turn off Use ZFolders
Wow. Thanks, Teyon! Never noticed that in three years of full time ZBrushing. That is super helpful. That’s why you gotta love ZBC.

#10

As far as Im concerned, the Zsketch, Zsphere 2, planars and other new brushes, significant performance increase, etc are all great…

…but the single greatest upgrade in this program is the ability to zoom in without hassle wherever I want in sculpting and topology modes. It makes things so much nicer compared to 3.1

#11

For controlling the “spin” of a subtool or partially exposed mesh (I use hiding a lot when working on a complex model) I like the set/clear pivot point buttons. (I actually added them to my layout.) It’s an extra click when I focus on just a hand, but it lets me have a more traditional lazy-susan for working on the model. (I trained as a clay sculptor myself.)

I’d love a button that automatically would weight center on visible myself, but I’ve contented myself to those buttons. :slight_smile:

-K

#12

Wow. I haven’t had much time to play in 3.5 yet so I hadn’t even noticed the world axis rotation. Ugh…That has to be the worst thing ever. I really hope they change that. I mean, a button that switches between 3.1 rotation and 3.5 would be nice.

Using S and C pivot would work I suppose…but that seems a bit out of place, more so if you’re using multiple tools.

I like the new zSketch set up, but I find it is taking me much longer to do in Zspheres what I could have done with a clay sculpt in a quarter of the time.

The improvements to performance are astounding though. My max poly per mesh tripled by default. :slight_smile: Now that is nice.

I’d really like to know who thought it would be a good idea to rotate around the world pivot though…smack!

#13

Im not sure what the issue is with the view port rotation people are having. Its the same as in 3.1 with the following exception:

Local Transformation are on by default. It was off by default in 3.1

Local Transform rotates the model around the last “point of contact”, and is very useful when sculpting.

If you turn it off, it simply rotates around the mathematical center of the model, like 3.1 and earlier did by default (until you eventually switched local transform on).

Here is the quirk which may be tripping some of you up:

Local is on by default, but until it receives a “contact” it behaves as before rotating around object center. If you inadvertently give it a “contact” (right clicking anywhere on the model to rotate it will count as one, and trigger localized rotation), it will start rotating around that point, starting that “wobbling” behavior that might be confusing people.

If this bothers you, simply switch it off. The the model will rotate on center. The button is one the right side of the frame. I’m assuming you can then store this config so it is off by default on startup, but I havent checked.

#14

The rotation I’m geting is totally different than 3.1. In 3.1 each subtool rotated around its own center when isolated, as though it were on a lazy susan (as Kerwin said), not around world center, or around the point last clicked (unless local rotate was active, which I almost never needed). Its completely different. If I had two subtools visible, the rotation would be around their combined pivot (not quite as useful, but it makes the difference obvious). For example, if I had an arm visible, made up of a shoulder subtool, a forearm and a hand – I design action figures btw) the rotation would be around a point near the elbow. Now it is near either the hidden head or crotch, depending on how I originally set up the model. This is not a deal-breaker, mind you, I’ll eventually get over it, I was just wondering why they would change it. Its just very annoying. Why would you ever want to rotate the hand around the world center? Have it either be its own center (as in Maya), or the point last touched (local).

On the bright side, I noticed that poles are nearly a non-issue for me now. I can import a sphere from Maya and divide it without spikes shooting out from the poles. The pole area can be sculpted over and smoothed without much noticible difference from the rest of the surface. Even five and six edge poles seem to smooth without the little sphinctering pucker they would always get before. That is VERY cool

#15

P.S. There’s still the more troublesome issue of having to alt click to select a different subtool in 3.5. Just try the demo soldier, for example. Try to select his boot without accidentally sculpting the leg that is underneath it. You can’t unless your draw size is one. That is going to take some serious getting used to.:frowning:

#16

[edit] Alright, thought I was on to something, but something odd is happening. I’ll check back if I figure it out.

I see what you mean though about the global space when subtools are involved. That is unfortunate. It can be addressed with set pivot, but not as intuitive as before. I use local rotation almost exclusively, so I didn't tip to your particular issue before. As for why the switch to global coords, who knows, but it might have had something to do with fixing the sucky zooming in 3.1
#17

Good news! This issue is now fixed in the new ZB 3.5 Release 2

Just checked it out myself. Works for single and combined subtool pivots. Info on the release is here:

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=75220

#18

Downloaded it about an hour ago. Man, those guys are ON IT! WooHoo! Thanks fellas.

#19

I tried and dosent work. Still active when i open zbrush again <img src=“http://www.zbrushcentral.com/upload/atn.gif”>

#20

Local transformations actived by default is killing me :mad:.
Nobody knows how to turn it off at startup? :cry:

I really apreciate it.