ZBrushCentral

Zbrush 3.5 First Impression anyone?

ZBrush Usage Questions
#81

personally i’m hugely disappointed with this release. it appears next to nothing has been done to improve zb’s pathetic and imbecile object / palette / tool management. yet another iteration of the app gone by without any apparent concern for the most simple and basic functionalities that would refine its use :

where’s the ’ subtool master ’ operations embedded into the core ui ?

where’s the ability to interactively and selectively remove tools from an ever expanding and cluttered tool palette ?

where’s the ability to click and drag to reorganize subtools in that palette ? to interactively lengthen and shorten that sub window ? to do something as simple as hit enter to commit an entry in a text field ?

.

the list goes on. zbrush has always been and sadly still remains the programmer art of workflows

#82

I’m going back to 3.1 for now too. But hey, Pixologic gave us 3.5 for free! We should be thankful. Besides, there’s 4.0 to look forward to. I do hope that the nice guys at Pixologic will focus more on less bugs, even if it means less features.

#83

Zmapper is retired (for now.)

To make normal maps, use the Normal Map Subpallet of the Tool Pallet. Use “CloneNM” to send the normal map to the texture pallet for saving. Sizes for all maps can be set in the UVmap subpallet.

If you need to the normal map to be flipped, Preferences -> ImportExport has a few things you can set vis-a-vis Normal Maps.

-K

#84

One nice thing is that it appears the Marcotronic/ScottSpencer seam fix mel script is no longer needed. i did a displacement map using a 3.1 file and the results are seamless-and sharper thanks to no seam script.

I leave adaptive off and click everything else and get a decent map(off 6 subdivision levels–previously I would delete level 6–as it took a couple of hours to generate). It only took about 10 minutes for an 8 mil model.

I was using zmapper for normal maps though. I click on tangent-but havent figured out the other settings yet.

#85

One thing I will say, is seeing that R2 is out so soon is a great indication that the guys are realy wanting to get this right.

I still have v3.1 along side 3.5. I can just have a play with it when I feel I mite get some use from the new features. For me like any app, features are second to fixing and refining whats always there. Unfortunatly it seems part of the business model to keep craming in more, even when what we have isnt 100% complete.

Fixes keep customers, features get more cutomers. Now try and ballance that out when giving these upgrades for free.

#86

just feels like an absolute bloody dud to me. waited 2 or so years for an update which has only fixed : perspective popping ( which should never have been there in the first place ). and zoom / scale locking ( which again should never have been there in the first place )

these are the only aspects of this release that have made the app ’ feel ’ any different. what a massive let down

:td: :td: :td: :td: :td:

#87

I have to go back to 3.1 as well.
It’s a shame because several issues seem to be fixed and I’d like to use some of the new features, but the changed transparency handling makes it totally useless for me. How am I supposed to see a subtool that’s sticking inside the active one when I can’t make the active tool transparent!?

#88

Hmm. First impressions … after only a couple of hours admittedly.

It’s got some ‘cool’ stuff to play with. Potentially useful are the planar
brushes (when I finally work out what they are doing).

ZSpheres2? - Meh. I’ll still be using blender for my base meshes. (I’ve
done that since I frst tried using ZSpheres to create a human base mesh).

The 3.1 retopo’ (and potentially rigging) tools had potential, IMHO Pixo’
should have done more work on them instead of the ‘zsketch’ stuff. The
3.5 topo’ is basically the same as 3.1 and just as buggy (I crashed
3.5R2 about 30-seconds into my first test).

Some serious problems have been added (e.g. symmetry centerline).

Some vital tools are missing (ZMapper) - and I mean vital.

G

#89

looks like it’s back to 3.1 for me as well.

it was a cool update, nice new tools, and i love it…

but there are a few things…
a) DragRect no longer goes as big as you want to - it stops at a certain point and modify’s the geometry - masking with dragrect is also limited in size.
b) I cannot merge subtools since subtool master doesn’t work, and the merge + seam subtools don’t work for me - it does just nothing
c) make polymesh3d button also does nothing.

this is useless - especially with problem B.

Zmapper is also missing - big problem IMO.

PS i cant believe they STILL havent fixed the bug where stroke is selected but a dragrect icon is displayed :confused:

#90

The Merge Visible button in the SubTool palette replaces the Merge function in SubTool Master. Note that with Merge Visible a new ztool is created in the Tool palette.

#91

The brushes engine seems improved in quality.
Trying to work on poles(5,6,3 edges on a point)gives better results than 3.1.
I have tried also on a mesh with only triangles,it seems working better.

But the freehand mode seems not working as well as 3.1,as you still have dots(I do fast strokes,doing slowly gives good results but I don’t like much doing slow strokes,I’m not accustomed)

#92

You can turn up brush samples in preferences -> performance -> mouse and tablet Samples to 200/ second which will help some. I’ve opened a ticket asking the sampling rate be increased because the dots Still show up with Smaller brushes and fast strokes.
-K

#93

Posing with zspheres2 and zsketch is simply a dream.
Is there any way to pose sculpted meshes with them?

#94

I would LOVE to have a photoshop style spacing control over this. As is, the spacing is controlled by velocity, which is fine for slow or medium sculpting. I often find myself slowing down to prevent the “dots” though, which isn’t good for production deadlines or a lot of artist’s drawing/sculpting styles. Every little bit counts. The velocity control is to prevent lag I think, but surely we would all love an option here.

#95

This is a reflection of your hardware ability, not a spacing control. More powerful CPUs can keep strokes unbroken at faster speeds on denser meshes, but Zbrush can handle very high polygon counts, and eventually there’s a limit for every machine.

#96

Thanks Kerwin,I have tried it,it’s a bit better but not so much.
I agree jamespthornton.
I don’t think is an hardware problem,3.1 handles much better fast strokes.
it seems that the only way to avoid the problem is to use lazy mouse.
Btw,the smooth brush on poles it’s really better.

#97

That is not the case here. You get dots with fast stroke even with 20k mesh here (quad core cpu). There is some hardcoded internal spacing for brushes that is way too low, at best its half of what it used to be in Zbrush 3.1 if not less. I am talking here with 200 mouse samples in preferences. With default 100 samples its a disaster.

Open Dog.ztl subdivide it once so its 20k, select standard brush, set focal lenght to -50 and do a fast stroke in both 3.1 and 3.5. There is huge difference.

Interesting fact is, that if I subidivide it some more and turn on lazy mouse I find 3.5 actually faster. So its not the performance, its some terrible default setting of spacing.

On top of that with flatten brush that got changed for worse I am currently also in the crowd of “no thanks, back to 3.1”.

#98

I don’t think it is either. :slight_smile: The software controlled sample rate was introduced in 3.5, it seems to be too low IMHO . . . a max around 1000/sec would be better I think.
-K

#99

I actually use ZBrush OSX 3.2. I just noticed that comment on 3.5 and thought I’d chime in. Trust me though, this isn’t a hardware thing. It’s a built-in brush spacing based on velocity. It can’t be modified to the point of lightning fast strokes with 0 spacing. I prefer photoshop’s approach, where you can visually see the spacing as you adjust the slider so you can find a good balance between spacing and keeping lag down.

It’s also not a big deal, ZBrush is still silky smooth. It’s just one of those little feature requests that has my vote. :+1: :+1: :+1:

#100

For me unfortunatelly it is a very big deal. I need several times lower spacing than the current one. Every single stroke I do is just a bunch of dots, sometimes they don’t even overlap thats how bad it is. I use very fast strokes, its my work style and I don’t feel like switching myself to slowmode. So for me personally, this is top priority currently.