ZBrushCentral

Tips for more screen space

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

My monitor isn’t as big as I’d like to and after I put all the tools I use on the side(s) the working area becomes pretty small. I was wondering if somebody might have any tips for how I could increase the active work area, ideally somehow taking advantage of my second monitor.

What i’ve tried so far:

  • smaller buttons and reoganizing interface [WORKS]
  • dragging Zbrush into the second monitor [PROBLEMS]: losing cool fullscreen mode, even after tweaking at every startup I still see distracting white bands at the top and/or bottom of the screen. If I try to store the settings and restart Zbrush the part of the screen on the second monitor is either transparent or white, unresponsive, and I can’t get it to refresh without restoring standard and starting again
  • shortcutting menus [WORKS]: still some elements I’d prefer to see constantly on, and I can’t find a way to shortcut just the list of subtools. If I can’t have it always visible on the second monitor at least it would be nice to just pop it up quickly to.

Any tips or suggestions welcome. Deep inside I’m hoping there’s some scripts or something that can send some tools to a separate window that I can drag to the second monitor but any other ideas would be welcome. Thank you very much in advance! Any tips welcome!

#2

Did you try my UI?

#3
  • The hotkey ‘N’ will show a pop-up with the subtools.
  • Using TAB to hide/show the shelf will give you more screen space. You can also close the trays by clicking on the dividers or you can install this little macro so you can have a single hotkey for it:

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?172391-Useful-small-ZScripts-and-Macros-for-ZBrush-4R6&p=992399&viewfull=1#post992399

*You can assign a hotkey to any of the palettes. Ctrl+Alt+click on the title and then press the key you want to use. Pressing the hotkey will bring up the palette at the cursor. This is especially useful for custom menus.

#4

Also, when using a second monitor:

  • First click the “resize” button in the title bar. ZBrush can’t be moved as long as it’s maximized. Once the window is no longer maximized, you can use the title bar to drag it to your other display. Put it in the upper left corner, then drag its edges to be the size that you want. (DO NOT use the maximize button or ZBrush won’t remember the new location.) Now press Ctrl+Shift+I (or Cmd+Shift+I) to store the new location.

  • You can also try scaling the ZBrush window to exactly fit you second monitor like this:
    ~ Turn of the Document>Pro button
    ~ Set the Document>Height and Document>Width to match you monitor resolution
    ~ Hold Alt and click the Document>Resize button.

If this works you can record a macro so you can repeat easily.

#5

Thank you very much, that worked brilliantly! About the N shortcut, that does nothing on my system. Is there any way I could reasign it?

#6

Yes, the List All button in the Tool>SubTool sub-palette. Of course, it will only work when there are subtools.

#7

Thank you very much! it seems it was there but i had quickly tested it in in a new document with just one subtool. Thank you! That’s very useful!