Useful small ZScripts and Macros for ZBrush 4 & 4R3

[marcus_civis]

Thanks stone3d and Nyx702!

[Nyx702]

Here is something I made recently. Pretty basic compared to some of these guys

It takes your currently masked geometry and duplicates it WITHIN the same Subtool. Similar to 3dsMax duplicate to element. It works with a fully masked element or partially masked geometry.

I made this because I was placing 4-5 different spikes all over a creature. I didn’t want 100 Subtools to manage and wanted to duplicate different ones as I went.

[Gareee]

OOOoooOOO!!! THAT looks handy! Thanks!

[jawa64]

I made this because I was placing 4-5 different spikes all over a creature. I didn’t want 100 Subtools to manage and wanted to duplicate different ones as I went.

So this seems to work with subdivs for single levels or dynamesh people can just use Duplicating_a Mesh with Transpose
unmask what is to be cloned press (W) Move:transpose line and (Ctrl+click) on the Center red circle to pull out another instance of the unmasked polys within the same subtool.

[Francesco_Mai]

This plugin is more a curiosity than anything but perhaps some people will find it useful. It’s designed to scale up a model so that a large image can be made from a series of smaller images. In theory very large images are possible but this will depend on your system as rendering at ZBrush’s maximum document size can be heavy on resources.

The example image, using the Kotelnikoff Earthquake.ZPR included with ZBrush 4R3, is 53 x 40 inches at 300ppi (16040 x 11829 pixels) and was stitched together from 16 separate images. The close-up shows size as actual pixels.

Full instructions in the zip:

Dear Marcus,
this plug-in seem very interesting for each digital artist that need to print at quite high size.Is is a pity for some limits but I hope
than in future could be as a classical BPR…

A question.

I love 2.5 pixol images as you can see here

I find that the best method to achieve decent hi-resolution working canvas for printing is to zoom out in discrete step,I mean 0,5 or 0.25 or 0,125 so I can work at the whole images.Of course I know the importance of AA button to have a nice antialiasing but I have also a 4 time less density in pixels and condemn myself to have a smaller printed image.

Now,as you know,antialiasing with soft RGB in Zb with classical Best Render"mode in not very good.Can you suggest me a method or invent a plug to achieve very high resolution images with 2.5 pixol as maxresize plug in?Do you think that in future there will be a chanche to have a new 2.5 rendering engines with some more features?.I ask you because I am a digital artist that exhibit my works worldwide and my dream is have big Lambda print of the fantastic world of 2.5 D.For now I can show my Zbrush works onlu on monitor
With classical rendering and polygons 3d packet is easy to chose the desired resolution and here you are you fantastic high res images.But wit canvas of Zbrush and 2.5 D tools how can I do?

Thank you for your help

Francesco Mai

[Roland_Kaiser]

XYZ Tool Postion Zscript, ZBrush 4R2 version works fine.(Operate normally)

XYZ Tool Postion / ZBrush 3.1
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?49729-XYZ-Tool-Postion-ZBrush-3.1-Update&pp=15
.

use this version made for ZB4 R2, with any bugs fixed

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?161588-quot-Axis-quot-Plugin-for-ZBrush-4r2
Roland

[Nyx702]

So this seems to work with subdivs for single levels or dynamesh people can just use Duplicating_a Mesh with Transpose
unmask what is to be cloned press (W) Move:transpose line and (Ctrl+click) on the Center red circle to pull out another instance of the unmasked polys within the same subtool.

Yeap. That is correct. I love that feature and wish I could use it all the time. This macro is for the many many times your mesh isn’t one of the above options.

[marcus_civis]

Dear Francesco,

The problem with 2.5D images is that they are linked to the resolution of the document. A pixol is no different from a pixel in that respect. So the best way to get a large image is to set the document size to as large as possible. The ZBrush maximum of 8192x8192 is enough to give you an image of 69 cm square (27 inches) at 300 ppi. You can work on this at any zoom and then export at the full size. There’s no need to use AAHalf as print resolution will effectively create its own anti-aliasing.

So, to answer your question, it is not directly possible to write a plugin like the MaxResize one for 2.5D.

[Francesco_Mai]

Dear Francesco,

The problem with 2.5D images is that they are linked to the resolution of the document. A pixol is no different from a pixel in that respect. So the best way to get a large image is to set the document size to as large as possible. The ZBrush maximum of 8192x8192 is enough to give you an image of 69 cm square (27 inches) at 300 ppi. You can work on this at any zoom and then export at the full size. There’s no need to use AAHalf as print resolution will effectively create its own anti-aliasing.

So, to answer your question, it is not directly possible to write a plugin like the MaxResize one for 2.5D.

Hello Marcus,
thank you so much for your suggestion about the natural antialiasing of printing a 8k images…Your help was precious!

[Seavannah]

I was wondering is there anyway to render out the BPR Render Passes not just for the turntable but for the timeline movie/animation? Would really love to render out an animation I made using the timeline but not to have to export all the Render Passes Manually frame by frame to composite the passes in Photoshop like we can with your wonderful Turntable Plus. Thank you for all the great cool stuff that has made ZB even easier to use.

I was also wondering is there a script that can make subtitles in ZB for tutorial movies where we could type the things we are saying for the hard of hearing or those that just want to be able to read what is being done?

A big big thank you for your time and all your hard work over the years!

[system]

Hi Marcus,

I am a new ZBrush user and I have a simple question about the sequence I should use to save the info into the macro.
Sorry, it is a basic question but I hope you can help me.

After I select my first brush, I click on BrushToggle button and the message says: Primary Brush stored. Should I click the button again when I select the second brush? If u don’t mind I would like to ask the correct sequence for that. Thanks for your time and for the script.

This macro allows you to set two brushes so that a single hotkey will toggle between them.

Save the file to the ZStartup/Macros/Misc folder and either restart ZBrush or press Macro>Reload all Macros. There will be a new ‘BrushToggle’ button in the Macro>Misc menu.

You need to assign a hotkey to the button in order for it to work. It’s best to choose a single key rather than using a modifier like ‘Alt’ as in that case both keys would need to be released each time.

Click the button any time to store a brush. The macro stores a ‘primary’ brush and a ‘secondary’ brush. All this means is that if you select a different brush and then press the hotkey the primary brush will be selected. Brushes are stored between ZBrush sessions.

[marcus_civis]

Seavannah,

Thanks for your kind words and I’m sorry for the delay in replying to your question. I’m afraid that there’s no way to automatically export single frames from the Timeline. (You can’t actually advance the Timeline a single frame at a time; if you could, zscripting this would be easy.)

On your other question, I don’t think that there’s an efficient way to do this. There are ZScript Notes, and it might be possible to write a plugin to allow you to type these directly from within ZBrush (I actually wrote a zscript that did this a very long time ago!), but they have limitations now, would get in the way of whatever was being demonstrated and I don’t think they would be easy to read in a movie.

lins.monte,

Yes, just select your second brush and press the button. After you see the ‘Secondary brush stored’ message, the next time you press the button a new primary brush will be stored. So if you change your mind just select a different brush and press the button.

[system]

Thanks! Great work.

Hi Marcus,

I am a new ZBrush user and I have a simple question about the sequence I should use to save the info into the macro.
Sorry, it is a basic question but I hope you can help me.

After I select my first brush, I click on BrushToggle button and the message says: Primary Brush stored. Should I click the button again when I select the second brush? If u don’t mind I would like to ask the correct sequence for that. Thanks for your time and for the script.

[boozy_floozie]

It’s a veritable Aladdin’s cave in here hosted by a true Genie.

Best wishes Marcus and thank you.

[marcus_civis]

lins.monte and boozy floozie,

Many thanks for your kind words.

I’ve updated the Materials to Texture plugin to make it a little more useful. It will now embed all polypainted materials in an existing texture map. To embed a single material you can use the Tool>Texture Map>Fill Mat button (new to 4R3).

[cgmystic]

I had actually done that already (which is why I thought it would be good to start this repository!):

The little plugin in the zip will give you the old Lasso button behaviour. Unzip and put the file in you ZStartup/ZPlugs. Restart ZBrush and you will have a Marcus Tools menu in the ZPlugin palette. In that will be a switch named Lasso.

The switch will toggle the Lasso and Paint mask/selection brushes. With the Paint mask selected you will be able to drag a rectangle from outside the model, just as in 3.5. You can assign a hotkey to the switch if you wish.

The first time you use the switch in a session you may have to press it twice, depending on your setup. You may also get the message about selecting the mask option, which you can get rid of for the rest of the session.

MARCUS:
Thanks for the the old Lasso button behaviour …

[pabgo]

lins.monte and boozy floozie,

Many thanks for your kind words.

I’ve updated the Materials to Texture plugin to make it a little more useful. It will now embed all polypainted materials in an existing texture map. To embed a single material you can use the Tool>Texture Map>Fill Mat button (new to 4R3).

im having trouble embeding a material to my model’s texture map. when you say embed do you mean ‘bake to texture’? i cant seem to find any info on the fill mat button.

EDIT: nvm, i figured it out, thanks a lot marcus, very useful

[marcus_civis]

im having trouble embeding a material to my model’s texture map. when you say embed do you mean ‘bake to texture’? i cant seem to find any info on the fill mat button.

No, it’s not baking to texture. It simply means that when your model has a texture map applied to it it will display the material your have embedded using ‘Fill Mat’. (Normally a model with a texture map will show the selected material.) This is only good within ZBrush, and will not do anything in other programs.

[marcus_civis]

This little plugin will rotate a model in Edit mode, like a turntable (but no movie is recorded). It’s fairly basic and won’t work so well on heavy or scaled-up meshes.

Unzip the file and put the spin.zsc in the ZStartup/ZPlugs folder. Restart ZBrush and in the Transform palette there will be a new button ‘Spin’ and a new slider ‘Speed’.

You need to assign a hotkey to the button for the spinner to work. Don’t use a modifier key (such as Ctrl, Shift or Alt) as this won’t work.

Set the speed using the slider then press and hold the hotkey; the model will turn around the Y axis.

[marcus_civis]

This macro will reload a texture onto a model. This is useful if you are working on a texture in a program like Photoshop and want to see the progress in ZBrush. Loading directly onto the model the texture map does not appear in the main Texture palette, saving resources.

Save the file to your ZStartup/Macros/Misc folder. Press Macro>Reload All Macros or restart ZBrush and there will be a new macro button called Load Txtr in the Macro palette.

• Press the button to load a new texture onto the current subtool.
• To refresh the texture, assign a hotkey to the macro button. Pressing the hotkey will then reload the texture on to the model.
• To load a different texture just press the macro button and choose a different file.