ZBrush Manual
ZBrush Manual
ZBrush Manual
23
Reference Manual rev A
Legal Notice
Trademarks
1997 - 2001 Pixologic, Inc. All rights reserved, Pixologic and the Pixologic logo, ZBrush and the ZBrush logo are trademarks of Pixologic, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Copyright
This manual, as well as the software described in it, is furnished under license and may only be used or copied in accordance with the terms of the license. Program 1999 Pixologic, Inc., including the look and feel of the product. Pixologics ZBrush Reference Manual 2001 Pixologic, Inc. No part of this guide may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of Pixologic, Inc.
Notice
Before using this software or reading this Reference Manual, make sure you have read, understood, and agreed to the license contained in this manual.
Credits
ZBrush was created and engineered by Ofer Alon. The ZBrush Reference Manual was produced by Gary Nelson and David Duberman. Images on pages 120, 121, 162, and 178 courtesy of Glenn Southern (www.southerngfx.co.uk.) Images and illustrations were created using ZBrush.
ZBrush 1.23
Overview
ZBrush's interface is how you work with the program. It's composed of a variety of elements that give you access to all of the program's functionality. This chapter covers the various interface elements; you'll find descriptions of the actual tools in other parts of this manual.
The Title bar is perhaps the simplest part of the ZBrush interface. At the very top of the screen is a horizontal bar containing a line of text giving the program name, version, copyright info, and, most importantly, memory usage in megabytes. At the right end of this bar are standard icons for minimizing the window, restoring it to its previous size, and closing, or quitting the program. If the window isn't maximized, you can move it around the screen by dragging the title bar. ZBrush 1.23 The ZBrush Interface 5
Drag the scroll bars to move to different parts of a zoomed-in view With two views, you can work on the same document at different zoom levels, using one for an overall view and the second for detail work. When the window is split, you can move the divider vertically by dragging it, and make either view active by clicking in it. When you zoom a view in so that not all of it is visible, you can move to different parts of the view by dragging the scroll bars at the bottom and right side (outlined in red in the above illustration). Or you can use the Zoom Palette to zoom and pan. Click the Alt-Document view button to alternate between the divider's last position and the top. To return to a single document view, drag it all the way to the top. ZBrush 1.23 The ZBrush Interface 7
Click the ZScript Window bar once to minimize it. Click again to restore. Click and drag to resize it. See The ZScript Window on page 278.
Click the side panel dividers to show and hide the palettes
Complete Image
Current Image
Use the Zoom palette to zoom and pan within the active window. The grey square represents the complete image. The smaller, lighter rectangle represents the area you are currently viewing. Click and drag in the window to pan within the document. In Click to zoom in. Each click zooms in one level. Out Click to zoom out. Each click zooms out one level. Actual Returns image to actual size. Zoom Slider Click and drag to increase or decrease zoom factor or click once to turn red, then enter a numeric value with the keyboard. Range= 0.1 to 32. Default= 1.
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You can save time while painting with ZBrush by using these keyboard shortcuts. Note that the Zoom shortcuts use the standard keys, not those on the keypad: = key: Zoom in (centered on mouse cursor). 0 key: Set default zoom level and center view - key or Insert: Zoom out
ZBrush Palettes
When you first run ZBrush, a default selection of palettes appears on vertical panels to the left and right of the document window. Each palette contains one or more groups of related ZBrush functions. Additional groups within a palette are available from sub-palettes. For example, every palette has a Modifiers sub-palette, and most also have an Inventory sub-palette. Additional palettes are available from a row of icons immediately above the document window. If you click an icon, its palette opens at the top of the left or right side of the interface, while any other open palettes on that side move down and/ or collapse to make room. Each palette is preset to open on a particular side. For example, the Light palette normally opens on the right side. However, you can force it to open on the left side by dragging the palette icon to that side. To move an open palette to the other side, drag it by the dot in the upper-right corner. Drag a palette or icon on top of an open palette to place it above that palette. In this way you can position the palettes any way you like. For information about saving and restoring a custom configuration, See Saving a Custom Configuration on page 19.
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Using Palettes
Palette controls take the form of text or icon buttons that you click to activate, and sliders that you drag across to change a numeric setting. If you click a slider or press its keyboard shortcut, it turns red, which means that it's active, and you can enter a new value from the keyboard. Once a control is active, you can toggle forward among nearby visible controls by repeatedly pressing the Tab key, or backward with Shift+Tab. When editing a value from the keyboard, press Enter to implement the new value, or press Esc to cancel the change. In the Alpha, Stroke, Material, Tool, and Texture palettes, the buttons containing the primary functions take the form of thumbnails (see illustration of Material palette, below). The large thumbnail in the upper-left corner shows the item currently in use, and the smaller thumbnails near it show some of the other available items. If you click a small, unselected thumbnail, its image is placed in the large thumbnail area, and it becomes active. Additional indicators that a small thumbnail is active are that the triangle in the button's upper-left corner turns red, and the button background color changes from gray to teal. If you click the large thumbnail or a small, active thumbnail, a pop-up menu of all available choices appears. Choose a new option, or, to close the pop-up menu, simply move the mouse cursor away from the menu. At the top of each of these five palettes, there is a description of the item currently active. Drag this label sideways to choose another item, or click and enter a different number from the keyboard. When many modifications to items are made or items are added, the list of items on the main palette can become very long. Clicking the R (Restore Default Configuration) button causes the main palette to resize to its default number of choices. Any modifications you added are still available from the pop-up window.
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The pop-up menu shows all available choices In the above illustration, the pop-up menu was opened from a small thumbnail, so the only highlighted icon (red triangle in corner) in the pop-up menu is the one used to open it. If you open the pop-up menu from the large thumbnail in the palette (not on a clone of the large thumbnail in the workspace), colored triangles appear for all elements currently available directly from the palette. If you choose an item that's not currently on the palette, it's added to the main palette, and it then appears with the colored triangle when you open the pop-up menu from the large icon.
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To remove a small thumbnail from a palette, open the pop-up menu from the large icon, and then click its thumbnail. If the item also appears in a custom palette, it's removed from there as well. For more on custom palettes, See Customizing the Interface on page 15. To open or close a palette manually, click its title bar. You can also open and close a palette's sub-palette, such as Document > Modifiers, by clicking its title bar. If you close or iconify a palette (see following paragraph) that has any subpalettes open, those sub-palettes remain open and appear expanded when you next open the palette. To return a palette to iconized status, click the dot in the upper-right corner, or use the dot to drag it to the icon bar. You can also use the dot to drag it to the opposite side of the screen. Note that each palette's title bar contains a bracketed letter. Pressing the Alt key plus this letter toggles the corresponding palette's iconized state. If there's no empty space on a side panel when you add or open a palette, currently open palettes close (that is, they collapse to show only the palette title bar) to make room. They close in reverse order of usage; that is, ZBrush tries to keep open the most recently used palettes, while closing those you haven't used lately. You can give a palette priority for staying open, whether you've used it lately or not, by clicking the dot in the upper-left corner. The dot turns orange to indicate this priority, and ZBrush tries to keep the palette open as long as possible.
The Document palette has priority to stay open, but the Color palette does not
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Online Help
All icons and other palette elements in ZBrush have tool tips that display the tool name when you hold the mouse cursor over the item for a few moments. In addition, you can get an expanded explanation of the item by pressing the Ctrl key after the tool tip appears.
custom palette. For example, the custom palette in the following illustration contains six groups: five across, plus the single-element group containing the Draw Size setting. If you change a custom palette's element's icon (e.g., a material) using the pop-up menu, the icon also changes in the palette from which the element was originally taken, and vice-versa.
You can move palette groups around in the workspace by dragging the handle (the blank, colored border above the element(s)).
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Each separate palette group's handle has its own distinctive color, to help distinguish between groups. To change a handle color, select the palette group (click on the handle), then choose a new color from the Color Selector, then click Preferences palette > Config > Colorize. The handle color changes to the one you selected. You can eliminate a custom palette element from the workspace by Ctrl+clicking inside the element. To toggle the palette from which an element was originally taken, Alt+click the element. Use this to quickly access the palette if you need to add another item from it to your custom palette.
NOTE: You can toggle the visibility of all custom palettes with the Tab key.
The Tablet palette contains controls for using ZBrush with a pressure sensitive tablet. Use Tablet When a pressure sensitive tablet and the proper driver are installed, the Tablet palette controls become available. Use Tablet is on by default. Turn it off when you wish to disable tablet input. ZBrush 1.23 The ZBrush Interface 17
X Size Sets the percent change of X size from maximum to minimum pressure. Full pressure= size set in Draw palette. Default= 0.75 See Width on page 81. Y Size Sets the percent change of Y size from maximum to minimum pressure. Full pressure= size set in Draw palette. Default= 0.75 See Height on page 81. Z Size Sets the percent change of Z size from maximum to minimum pressure. Full pressure= size set in Draw palette. Default= 0.75 See Depth on page 82. Imbed Sets the percent change of imbedding from maximum to minimum pressure. Full pressure= imbed value set in Draw palette. Default= 0.75 See Imbed on page 82. Intensity Sets the percent change of intensity from maximum to minimum pressure. Full pressure= intensity set in Draw palette. Default= 0.75 See RGB Intensity on page 86. Color Sets the stroke color from maximum to minimum pressure. Full pressure= Main color. Minimum pressure= Secondary color. See Main and Secondary colors on page 25.
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NOTE: After using Restore Config, quit and then restart the program
Click OK to continue. ZBrush saves your custom configuration in a file named ZCfgxxx.cfg (the values of x depend on the version number), in the ZBrush program folder (at the same level as the ZBrush.exe program file). To archive your custom configuration, or to use the configuration on a different computer, make a copy of this file. For example, if you use Windows Explorer to copy and then paste the file, it names the new file Copy of ZCfgxxx.cfg, and ZBrush ignores it. At any time thereafter, you can return to the configuration defined in that file by renaming it ZCfgxxx.cfg.
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ZBrush 1.23
The document palette contains buttons that allow you to load or save ZBrush documents, import background images, export output images, resize the canvas, and set the background color. Open Opens previously saved ZBrush documents. If a document is open with unsaved changes, a warning will appear.
Save Saves ZBrush document as a .zbr scene file with the currently assigned name. Revert Reloads the last saved version of the open document. Save As Saves the current ZBrush document as a .zbr scene file with a new file name. If you click OK, the current document will be closed without saving changes and the new file can be selected. To save the current document and open a new one, click Cancel, then Save, then Open again. Import Imports .bmp (Windows Bitmap), .psd (Photoshop), or PICT (Mac) as a background image. ZBrush will resize the image to fit the current canvas size. The currently selected Material will be applied to the image and if there are objects or paint strokes with depth present, they will be shaded with the imported image. Export Exports .bmp (Windows Bitmap), .psd (Photoshop), or PICT (Mac) as a RGB bitmap output to be published or used in another application. Undo Click on this button (or use Ctrl + Z) to undo the most recent change. The number next to the button indicates how many undos are available. Redo Click on this button (or use Ctrl +Shift + Z) to redo the most recent change. The number next to the button indicates how many redos are available.
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Modifiers
Half Resizes the canvas size to exactly one half of its present dimensions Double Resizes the canvas size to exactly double its present dimensions. Width Shows the current width and can set a new width for the canvas. Height Shows the current height and can set a new height for the canvas. Pro(portional) Causes width and height to stay in proportion. When you change one, the other automatically adjusts proportionally. Resize Resizes the canvas to newly set values. Background color Sets the background color. Set the Color picker to the desired color, then click in the background color swatch. Or, click and drag from the background color swatch to the color picker and release when over the desired color.
NOTE: It is best to select the background color before painting or adding objects because the object color can blend with the background color at its edges.
New Document Opens a new document with default settings.
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ZBrush 1.23
Click and drag from the color window to the screen. A Pick icon appears and the color under it will be automatically selected in the color palette. See Pre and Post Shaded Colors on page 26. You can also use the RGB sliders or type values directly into them. Other color picker models are available, and are described later in this chapter.
Main Active
A stroke of the Simple Brush with Main= green and Secondary= blue
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Best Render
Flat Render
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Fill Object
The Fill Object button is active only when you have a 3D object in a transform mode. When pressed, it fills all the polygons of the object with the selected color. You are then able to paint with other colors on the object. See Vertex coloring and Texture Maps on page 29.
Modifiers
Two additional color picker systems are available in the Modifiers sub-palette. All three pickers may be open and active at the same time.
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ZBrush 1.23
The texture palette allows creation, import, and export of textures. Textures can be used when drawing or as texture maps for 3D objects. Textures can be created and used within ZBrush or exported for use in other 3D or image processing programs.
Texture information is saved in the .zbr scene file and the scene can be published in .bmp and .psd formats. On the Macintosh, it can also be saved in the PICT format. See Export on page 21.
Using vertex coloring produces small file sizes, but the level of detail is low unless the mesh is very fine. The optimum solution is to make the object mesh only as fine as needed to produce the level of detail necessary for the object and to use a texture map for surface coloring. A texture map is a bitmap that is applied to the object. In ZBrush the texture map can be as large as 6000 x 6000 pixels, allowing an incredible level of detail. Be sure to read about the 3D Copy function, an innovative method for producing high-definition texture maps using ZBrush paint and 3D tools. See 3D Copy on page 118.
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Selecting Textures
The active texture is shown in the large thumbnail at the top of the palette, which reflects any changes you make to the texture while editing it. Several other textures are shown in smaller thumbnails in the rest of the main palette; you can switch the active texture to one of these by clicking its thumbnail. You can see the full selection of available textures by clicking the active texture; either its large or small thumbnail in the main palette. NOTE: If you start by clicking the large thumbnail, the new texture will be added to the list of smaller thumbnails. If you start by clicking the small thumbnail the new texture will replace it in the list. This opens the above pop-up icon menu, which works the same as others in ZBrush, such as those in the Tool and Material palettes. In this menu, the active texture is grayed out to indicate that you can't select it (again). Textures that 30 ZBrush 1.23 The Texture Palette
appear in the main palette have a cyan triangle in the upper-left corner of the thumbnail, and textures that aren't displayed in the main palette have a gray triangle. To see the name of a texture, hold the mouse cursor over its thumbnail for a moment until the label appears. To choose a texture, click its thumbnail. When you choose a texture that doesn't appear in the main palette, it's made the active texture, and its thumbnail is added to the main palette. When you choose a texture that appears in the main palette (excepting the active texture), it's removed from the main palette. The main palette expands or shrinks as necessary to accommodate the displayed thumbnails. When the list becomes too long, you can reduce it to its default size by pressing the R button at the top of the palette. See Using Palettes on page 12. NOTE: You can fill the screen with the selected texture by pressing Ctrl + F.
Transparent
When active, portions of the texture that are pure black (rgb 0,0,0) are rendered as transparent. NOTE: For best results, turn off the Grd (gradient) button in the Tool > Modifiers > Texture sub- panel.
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Applying Textures
The ZBrush paint tools will apply the currently selected texture. Just select the texture you wish to use and paint. Each tool remembers its texture, so if you switch tools and want to use the same texture, you need to choose the texture again. When applying textures to an object, the currently selected texture will be applied when the object is created. When an object is still floating (transform or edit active), simply click on a different texture to apply it.
FlipH Flips the texture left-to-right. FlipV Flips the texture top-to-bottom. Rotate Rotates the texture 90 degrees per click. Negative Causes inverse coloring. Clear Clears the texture to the currently selected main color. Make Alpha Adds a grayscale version of the current texture to the Alpha palette as the active alpha. See The Alpha Palette on page 38.
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Inventory
Import Imports .bmp, .psd and PICT (on Mac). You can select multiple texture images and load them all at one time. Export Exports .bmp, .psd and PICT (on Mac). New You can create a new texture at any time by selecting a base color with the color picker, inputting the desired height and width and clicking New. Clone To create a copy of the current texture at a different size, set the new width and height and click Clone. Width Displayed when the cursor is over the slider. Move the slider to the new value or click to turn red and then type in the new value. The current value is also shown when holding the cursor over the small thumbnail previews. Height Displayed when the cursor is over the slider. Move the slider to the new value or click to turn red and then type in the new value. The current value is also shown when holding the cursor over the small thumbnail previews. Remove Removes the currently selected texture from the list (not the hard drive.)
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When working with 3D objects, additional texture controls are available in the Tool Palette. The sub-palette contains controls for: Colorize Fills every polygon with the selected color. Automatically turned on by pressing Color Palette > Fill Object.See Vertex coloring and Texture Maps on page 29. Grd Gradient blends colors between adjacent polygons. TXR >Col Uses the existing texture to colorize the mesh directly (vertex coloring.) No texture map is needed with a mesh of this type. Each polygon is assigned a color. Col > Txr Creates a texture map based on the current vertex coloring of the object. HRepeat/VRepeat Sets the number of times that the texture will be repeated on the object in the horizontal or vertical direction. Range= 1 to 32. Default= 1.
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Seamless Textures
When repeating textures over a 3D object it is important that the right edge matches the left edge and that the top edge matches the bottom edge. If they do not, a seam will be visible where they meet when tiled over the object.
A texture repeated 4 times vertically and 4 times horizontally with visible seams.
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Here is a simple method for creating seamless textures in ZBrush: 1 Use any brushes or objects to create the texture. Important: do not draw to the edge of the screen. 2 Hold down the Tilde (~) key and click and drag on the canvas to offset the image. 3 Fill in the blank areas, being careful not to go to the edges again. 4 Repeat steps 2 and 3 until the image is completely filled in. 5 Grab the completed texture with the MRGBZ grabber. See MRGBZ Grabber on page 148. 6 Choose the grabbed texture in the Texture Palette and tile it onto a 3D object by setting Tool > Modifiers > Texture > HRepeat and VRepeat to values greater than 1 and then creating the object.
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
Step 5
Step 6
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ZBrush 1.23
In ZBrush, 8-bit grayscale images used for masking are referred to as alphas. They are used to control the shape of paint brushes and for other masking operations. See Selection Sub-palette on page 191. One unique use of alpha is with the MRGZB grabber. When you grab an object, ZBrush calculates a 16-bit alpha that represents depth and adds it to the Alpha Palette. The larger bit depth is necessary to represent 3D objects with the alpha. See MRGBZ Grabber on page 148. You can use the grabber to create alphas from any object on the canvas.
Selecting Alphas
The active alpha is shown in the large thumbnail at the top left of the palette. Several other alphas are shown in smaller thumbnails in the rest of the main palette; you can switch the active alpha to one of these by clicking its thumbnail. You can see the full selection of available alphas by clicking the active alpha; either its large or small thumbnail in the main palette.
NOTE: If you click the large thumbnail and then choose a new alpha, the new alpha will be added to the list of smaller thumbnails. If you click the small active thumbnail instead, the new alpha will replace it in the list.
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This opens the above pop-up icon menu, which works the same as others in ZBrush, such as those in the Tool and Material palettes. In this menu, the active alpha is grayed out to indicate that you can't select it (again). Alphas that appear in the main palette have a green triangle in the upper-left corner of the thumbnail, and alphas that aren't displayed in the main palette have a gray triangle. To see the name of an alpha, hold the mouse cursor over its thumbnail for a moment until the label appears. To choose an alpha, click its thumbnail. When you choose an alpha that doesn't appear in the main palette, it's made the active alpha, and its thumbnail is added to the main palette. When you choose an alpha that appears in the main palette (excepting the active alpha), it's removed from the main palette. The main palette expands or shrinks as necessary to accommodate the displayed thumbnails. When the list becomes too long, you can reduce it to its default size by pressing the R button at the top of the palette. See Using Palettes on page 12.
Applying Alphas
The ZBrush paint tools will utilize the currently selected alpha. Just select the alpha and brush you wish to use and paint.
NOTE: With most brushes,to see a 3D representation of the selected alpha, open the Draw palette and reposition the prewiew.
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Modifiers
Blur Blurs the alpha image to smooth it. Negative values will sharpen. Range= -15 to +15. Default= 2 Noise Adds noise to the alpha image. Range= 0 to 100 Default= 0. Max Maximizes tonal range of the current alpha. Like an auto-level setting, it adjusts the lightest part of the existing alpha to pure white and the darkest part to pure black. FlipH Flips the alpha left-to-right. FlipV Flips the alpha top-to-bottom. Rotate Rotates the alpha 90 degrees per click. Negative Produces an inverse image of the alpha. Make Tx Creates a texture from the currently selected alpha and adds it as the active texture to the texture palette. Make St Creates a stencil from the currently selected alpha and adds it to the stencil palette. See The Stencil Palette on page 232.
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Import Imports .bmp (Windows Bitmap), .psd (Photoshop), or PICT (Mac). You can select multiple alpha images and load them all at one time. If you import color images, they will automatically be converted to grayscale. Export Exports 8- bit .bmp (Windows Bitmap), .psd (Photoshop), or PICT (Mac).
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ZBrush 1.23
In ZBrush, the way a surface looks is the result of a combination of factors, including its base coloring or texture, the lighting, and its material. The ZBrush Material palette gives you a great deal of control over the appearance of object surfaces by letting you specify various surface properties such as shininess, transparency, and reflectivity, using numeric settings as well as interactive graphs. You can use materials with any tool that adds pixols to the document, including the 3D brush, the Sphere brush, and the 3D objects. The most important thing to remember about materials in ZBrush is that they're always live. In other words, if you use a particular material to create pixols, and then modify that material later, any pixols that use that material will change in appearance to reflect the modified material. With certain materials, you might need to use the Render palette > Best Renderer mode to see changes.
NOTE: Although this is not a tutorial, to best understand the concepts discussed in this section, have the ZBrush program open and try out the various functions as you read about them. NOTE: ZBrush has a special feature that lets you combine the appearance of materials on a surface. The Bake function, found in the Layers palette, "bakes" any material effects on all surfaces into the document as the Flat material (material 00).
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The Material button By default, the Material palette opens when you start ZBrush. To close it, click the Close button in the upper-right corner. To reopen it if it's closed, click the Material button in the row of icons above the document window.
The Material palette, default view Like many other palettes in ZBrush, the Material palette shows only some of the available materials. The active material is shown in the large thumbnail in the upper-left, which reflects any changes you make to the material while editing it. Several other useful materials are shown in smaller thumbnails in the rest of the main palette; you can switch the active material to one of these by clicking its thumbnail.
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View all materials by clicking the large thumbnail You can see the full selection of available materials by clicking the active material; either its large or small thumbnail in the main palette. This opens the above pop-up icon menu, which works the same as others in ZBrush, such as those in the Tool and Texture palettes. In this menu, the active material is grayed out to indicate that you can't select it (again). Materials that appear in the main palette have a red triangle in the upper-left corner of the thumbnail, and materials that aren't displayed in the main palette have a gray triangle. To see the name of a material, hold the mouse cursor over its thumbnail for a moment until the label appears. To choose a material, click its thumbnail. When you choose a material that doesn't appear in the main palette, it's made the active material, and its thumbnail is added to the main palette. When you choose a material that appears in the main palette (excepting the active material), it's removed from the main palette. The main palette expands or shrinks as necessary to accommodate the displayed thumbnails.
NOTE: To remove the active material from the main palette, first make a different material active by choosing it from the main palette or the pop-up material menu.
Show Used Click the Show Used button to remove all thumbnails from the main palette except for those currently used on surfaces in the document. This is a convenient way to determine whether you've used a particular material. ZBrush 1.23 The Material Palettte 47
NOTE: If you work in Best Renderer mode on a floating object, changing the material properties updates the bounding box of the floating object rather than the entire document. NOTE: For even faster rendering, use the Fast Renderer mode in the Render palette. The only surface properties displayed in this mode are a global, predefined ambient and diffuse (specified in Render panel > Modifiers > Fast Render), so be sure to activate Preview Render mode to see all surface properties (such as Specular, Noise and Bump).
Cursor Alternatively, to best-render only part of the document (a 128x128-pixol square), click on and drag the Cursor button to the document area you want to render. Thereafter, when you click the Cursor button, the same area is best-rendered. Or, to render a different area, drag the Cursor button to the new area. Load Click the Load button to load a new material from a disk file into the active material slot. A number of material files are included with ZBrush, and you can create and save your own with the Save function.
NOTE: Loading a material from disk completely replaces the active material, not only in the palette but on any pixols that use that material. If you haven't saved the material, you can get it back by quitting and restarting ZBrush.
48 ZBrush 1.23 The Material Palettte
Save Click the Save button to store the active material to disk in the ZMaterial (.zmt) format. Thereafter you can replace the active material with the saved material with the Load function.
NOTE: Another good way to see the results of material editing is to have a floating object that uses the material being modified; parameter changes are reflected immediately in the object.
You modify a material by editing its shader components. In this document we'll describe the most common shader components, and present examples of some of the other component
A number of the basic shader settings use two components: a numeric parameter that determines the overall strength of the setting, plus a curve parameter that lets you use a graph to specify and to vary the strength according to the direction of each affected pixol's surface normal (except for Noise). When a setting has an available curve component, such as Diffuse, the graph appears below the numeric component in a vertically compressed format, as in the above illustration. To open the full graph, click the Curve component slot. For example, click DiffuseCurve to open the Diffuse graph. Clicking a different graph component closes the previously opened graph. To view the current value for a numeric setting, such as Diffuse, position the cursor over the setting.
Hold the cursor over the number component to see its current value
When you do so, the mouse cursor turns into a horizontal, double-headed arrow to indicate how to edit the value. To change the value with the mouse, click the setting and drag left or right. As you drag, the horizontal bar at the bottom of the setting slot updates in real time, as does the material thumbnail in the mail palette. When you release the mouse button, ZBrush redraws the document to show the change's effect. Alternatively, click the setting with the mouse, whereupon the numeric setting is highlighted in red. This means you can edit it from the keyboard by typing a new value and pressing Enter.
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All material component graphs in ZBrush, except Noise, work like this: The right end of the graph indicates the center of the effect. In the case of the Diffuse component, it's the part facing the light, and with Specular, it's the part halfway between the light and the front. With positive values of Transparency and Reflectivity, it's the part facing front, and with negative values, the curve determines how the underlying colors affect the properties. The left end indicates the farthest extents of the surface; the parts facing the side. The top of the graph indicates the current numeric setting of the respective component (the highest available value), while the bottom indicates the value 0. In the case of Noise,
Each graph contains two control points, one at either end, plus any number of additional intermediate control points in between, with line segments connecting them. The control points are visible only when the cursor is over the graph.
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You can insert additional intermediate control points by clicking on a line segment. Intermediate points appear initially as small squares. To remove an intermediate point, drag it off the graph. You cannot remove curve endpoints. You can move the curve endpoints vertically to raise or lower the corresponding setting. For example, with the Diffuse component, lowering the control point at the right end of the graph makes the hot spot dimmer, as well as all in-between shades, while raising the left-hand control point makes the darkest area brighter, as well as all in-between shades. This is shown in the following illustrations:
Lowering the right side of the curve decreases the highlight intensity
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Raising the left side of the curve brightens the shadows You can move an intermediate control point in any direction by dragging it. By default, the line segments connecting a control point to its neighbors are spline curves, which help to create smooth transitions between shading levels. To change the curvature of the curves adjacent to a control point, first click the point to select it it turns yellow to show that it's active, and a yellow circle appears around it. Click anywhere on the yellow circle, and drag toward the control point to reduce the curvature, or away from the control point to increase the curvature.
NOTE: If a circle around the control point is not at its default radius, it turns orange to show that the curvature has been changed. To return to the default curvature, drag the circle until it turns yellow again.
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You can zoom in on a selected control point for finer control by clicking it. It zooms to show only the line segments between the point and its immediate neighbors. To zoom back out, Alt-click again, or simply move the mouse cursor out of the graph. You can create more abrupt transitions by changing the line segments between control points to straight lines. To do so, drag the point off the graph and then back on without releasing the mouse button. The control point's color changes from white to black when using straight-line connecting segments. To change the point type back, repeat the operation.
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The ability to apply detailed modifications to material components by adding and moving control points and changing how they connect with neighboring points gives you a great deal of control over your materials' appearances. For instance, as shown above, by creating a "stair-step" DiffuseCurve graph, you can create a cartoon-style shader with discrete levels of shading instead of a continuous ramp.
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Ambient
Most materials in ZBrush contain an Ambient component. Ambient refers to a uniform shading, representing light illuminating the scene from every direction. The easiest way to think of the Ambient setting is as a percentage of the base color without regard for lighting. In the following illustrations, a white sphere was drawn on a colored background. The sphere uses the default FastShader material, which contains only two components: Ambient and Diffuse.
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Diffuse
The Diffuse material component is what you use to add three-dimensional shading to your ZBrush images. Diffuse shading is always brightest where the surface faces the light source, and becomes darker as the angle between the surface and the light source increases. The Diffuse component uses the color of the object as well as the light color.
NOTE: The diffuse color is multiplied by the light color. With a white light, the diffuse is the same as the base color. Each of the RGB components of the base color is multiplied by the corresponding component in the light color. For example: A white sphere with 0 ambient and 100 diffuse lit by a single light source will look blue if the light source is blue. A red sphere with 0 ambient and 100 diffuse will look red if the light is red.
In most materials, Diffuse uses two settings: a numeric setting and a graph. The numeric setting determines the intensity of the "hot spot" the brightest part of the diffuse shading. Specifically, the Diffuse numeric setting is the reflected percentage of the amount of light striking the surface facing the light source. And because the adjacent areas' illumination is a proportion of the hot spot, these decrease as well.
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In the illustrations below, Diffuse is set to 100, 75, and 50, from left to right. The light is from the upper right, and the Ambient and Specular components are set to 0.
The Diffuse graph, found below the numeric setting, displays and lets you edit the illumination falloff from the "hot spot" (the right side of the graph) to the area of least illumination (the left side). By default this is a straight line.
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Specular
The Specular material component adds a shiny look to surfaces in ZBrush by displaying a specular highlight, which looks like a reflection of the light source. It uses two settings: a numeric setting and a graph. The numeric setting determines the intensity of the highlight. The graph lets you vary the highlight falloff using the controls described in the Using the Graph section, above. By default, the Specular component respects the color of the light, and disregards the object color. Thus, for example, if you have a red sphere illuminated by a white light source, the specular reflection will normally be white, as shown in the following illustration.
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NOTE: You can change this with the Metalicity property, which lets you obtain a more metallic look by coloring the specular highlight with the surface's base color or texture. See Metalicity on page 69.
Another difference between the Specular and the Diffuse component is that, while Diffuse is always brightest where the surface is closest to the light source, the specular reflection bisects the angle between the viewer, the surface, and the light source. For example, in the above illustration, the sphere uses the shiny ToyPlastic material. The single light source is in the upper right, as indicated by the brightest part of the diffuse illumination. However, the bright, white specular highlight, which gives the material its shiny appearance, is halfway between the brightest part of the diffuse hot spot and the front of the sphere, where the viewer is located.
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Transparency
The Transparency component determines the amount of light that passes through a surface. Transparency in ZBrush requires the use of multiple layers. To be able to see through a transparent surface, it must be in a different layer from the surfaces "below" it.
NOTE: In order to see transparency, you must turn off the Flatten Layers option in the Render palette > Modifiers sub-palette. This feature is on by default, and speeds rendering of multiple layers, but prevents transparency from being displayed.
To create transparent pixols, follow this procedure: 1 In Render palette > Modifiers, turn off Flatten Layers (it's the only option on by default). This is necessary to see transparency between layers. 2 Create the background pixols in one layer. 3 Add a layer (Layers palette > Inventory > Create). This automatically activates the new layer. 4 Use a transparent material to create pixols in front of the background pixols. The background pixols show through the transparent material. You can make any material except Flat Color and FastShader transparent by setting Transparency to a value other than 0.
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Using two layers to produce transparency In the above illustration, the checkered plane is in Layer 1, while the red, transparent sphere is in Layer 2. However, the order of the layers doesn't matter; what's important is that the transparent pixols should be in front of the background image.
NOTE: For best results with transparency, make sure that checkered plane pixols fill the entire area behind the transparent surface. Any blank areas in the document will not show through the transparent pixols. For instance, in the following image, the document background color was set to blue, and then the red, transparent sphere was drawn half over the checkered plane and half over the blank background. The sphere looks opaque where only the blank background appears behind it.
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For a glass-like effect with your transparent objects, as in the above images, use the default graph, or a close variation thereof. This causes edges to appear less transparent than the center, which replicates the way a real-world glass object bends light more at the edges than at the center. For an even more realistic glass effect, add reflectivity, or simply use ZBrush's built-in ReflectedMap material, which uses a special shader that reflects an environment map. This gives the illusion of reflecting an environment map without incurring the computation penalty of ray tracing. For more information, See Reflectivity on page 66. Conversely, for a foggy effect, set the transparency to be greatest at the edges, and least at the center. In the following illustration, the Transparency graph on the left was used in the sphere's material.
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The Transparency setting can be positive or negative. When positive, the curve works normally, with the right side affecting the pixols facing the viewer, and the left side affecting the pixols facing sideways. With negative Transparency settings, the degree of transparency is based on the value (or brightness) of the underlying surface coloration. The left side of the graph determines the transparency of the darkest pixols, while the right side determines the transparency of the brightest pixols. Say, for example, you have an object whose pixols are colored with a black-and-white texture, and Reflectivity is set to -100. If you use a curve that's high on the left side and low on the right side, only the black pixols will be transparent, and if you use a curve that's high on the right side but low on the left side, then only the white pixols will be transparent. In the following illustration, the spheres are colored with a black-and-white checkerboard texture. The materials on both spheres have Transparency set to -100. But the material for the left-hand sphere uses the left-hand Transparency curve 64 ZBrush 1.23 The Material Palettte
shown below, so only the checkerboard texture's white pixels are transparent, while the right-hand sphere's material uses the right-hand Transparency curve, so only the black pixels are transparent.
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Reflectivity
The Reflectivity component in ZBrush materials offers a variety of methods of letting surfaces reflect their surroundings, or some other aspect of the environment. This works hand in hand with the settings in the Render palette > Environment sub-palette. A reflective surface can reflect an environment texture, specified in the Texture slot to the left of the Render and Cursor buttons. To change this texture, click the Texture slot and choose a new texture from the pop-up menu.
NOTE: If you choose Texture Off, ZBrush uses the default texture.)
A reflective surface can also use ray tracing to reflect the actual scene around it. To see scene reflections, you must turn on Render palette > Environment > Scene, and use the Best Renderer. 66 ZBrush 1.23 The Material Palettte
The Reflectivity setting can be positive or negative. When positive, the curve works normally, with the right side affecting the pixols facing the viewer, and the left side affecting the pixols facing sideways. With negative Reflectivity settings, the intensity of the reflection is based on the value (or brightness) of the underlying surface coloration. The left side of the graph determines the reflectivity of the darkest pixols, while the right side determines the reflectivity of the brightest pixols. Say, for example, you have an object whose pixols are colored with a black-and-white texture, and Reflectivity is set to -100. If you use a curve that's high on the left side and low on the right side, only the black pixols will be reflective, and if you use a curve that's high on the right side but low on the left side, then only the white pixols will be reflective. In the following illustration, the spheres are colored with a black-and-white checkerboard texture. The materials on both spheres have Reflectivity set to -100. But the material for the left-hand sphere uses the left-hand Reflect curve shown below, so only the checkerboard texture's white pixels are reflective, while the right-hand sphere's material uses the righthand Reflect curve, so only the black pixels are reflective.
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Add/Sub Reflection
The Add Reflection and Sub(tract) Reflection controls let you reflect brighter and darker colors by different amounts. Add Reflection controls the reflection of pixels brighter than underlying pixols, while Subtract Reflection controls the reflection of pixels darker than underlying pixols. For instance, if Add Reflection is higher than 0, and Subtract Reflection is 0, it means that the S1 reflection can only make the surface brighter, never darker. An example of this would be a shiny metallic surface, like a car. Further, the two controls work on a differentiated RGB basis; that is, the software compares the brightness values individually for the red, green, and blue components of each pixel/pixol pair.The curve works normally, with the right side affecting the pixols facing the viewer, and the left side affecting the pixols facing sideways.
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Spherical
This setting determines the extent to which ZBrush uses surface curvature to warp a reflection. In the real world, a reflection in a curved surface is distorted, and by default ZBrush reproduces this distortion accurately. To reduce the amount of distortion, lower the Spherical setting.
Metalicity
One of the differences between the properties of plastic and metallic surfaces is that plastic surfaces' specular highlights are the color of the light source or sources, while metallic surfaces' specular highlights take on the color of the metal. When a material uses the Specular property, you can specify that the highlights should be colored the same as the surface's basic color or texture by increasing the Metalicity setting.
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Noise
The Noise component adds an uneven appearance to surface coloring by varying the color intensity in random patterns. There are two types of noise in the basic shader: Positive values of the Noise setting give standard noise, created using fractal math. Negative values give recursive noise, often resulting in more complex patterns.
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Using the default curve, both types look the same, but you can vary them by changing the curve. In the following illustration, both materials use the same settings, including the curve (see below), but the one on the left uses recursive noise (Noise= -1), while the one on the right uses standard noise(Noise= 1).
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The Noise setting ranges from -1 to 1. Increasing the absolute value of the Noise setting provides a greater dynamic range to the noise effect. The Noise Curve lets you specify which parts of the noise pattern use the surface color and which parts use black. The default curve, going from the lower-left corner to the upper-right corner of the graph, gives the greatest variation in the noise pattern. You can reverse the shading of the pattern by making the graph go from upper-left to lower-right. Countless other variations are available by editing the curve. The Noise Radius setting, which ranges from 0 to 500, determines the resolution of the noise effect. Lower settings provide finer-grained noise, while larger values result in broader, cloud-like noise patterns.
Noise Radius= 173 (left), Noise Radius= 11 (right) The noise pattern exists in "world space" rather than locally on surfaces to which it's applied. Thus, if you rotate an object with noise applied, the noise pattern does not change. But if you move the object the pattern will change, because it's then occupying a different part of the global noise effect. The best way to alter the noise pattern without moving the object is to change the Noise Radius setting by a small amount, say 1 or 2. 72 ZBrush 1.23 The Material Palettte
Color Bump
The Color Bump setting uses variations in the surface coloration to create a bump-map effect. The value ranges from -20 to 20. With negative values of Color Bump, the lighter parts of the surface are higher than the darker parts. With positive values, the effect is reversed. The Bump effect takes into account any surface coloration, whether produced by painting the surface, applying a texture, applying Noise, or any combination thereof.
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Gel Shading
The Gel Shading value can be 0, 1, or 2. The effects are: 0 - Normal 1 - Jelly Bean, emulates a transparent effect 2 - Gel, emulates a different transparent effect
ZBrush comes with several Gel-based materials that provide a useful starting point for experimenting with this effect. Add an object, go to Edit Object mode, and apply one of the materials: GelShaderA, GelShaderB, or ReflectionGelShader. Then change the Gel Shading setting to see the differences.
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Colorize Diffuse
Normally, the diffuse reflection of light on a surface is based on the surface color. The Colorize Diffuse property lets you specify an arbitrary color for diffuse reflection. To use it, set the numeric value of Colorize Diffuse and the diffuse color in the Dif slot. Examples of usage include simulating a colored light source, and surfaces with translucent outer layers such as skin, so that shining a light on them reveals a differently colored inner surface.
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Environmental Reflections
The source images for enviornmental reflections are created in the Render palette. See Environment on page 273. The amount that the image created there is reflected on current material is set here. Range= 0 to 100%. Default= 0.
Special Shaders
A number of materials in ZBrush use one or more special shaders in addition to the basic shader. In general, these are found in the lower-numbered shader slots (S1, and possibly S2 and S3). In most cases, their functionality is self-evident. For example, the GradientSky shader, shown in the following illustrations, lets the material simulate a reflected sky gradient and ground plane. The HorizonSharpness setting appears only in the rendered image.
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Certain materials apply their affects cumulatively. For example, in the Dots0metal 1 material, the first shader, S1, lets you specify a dot pattern, which the Color Bump control in S2 can then act upon.
... which are acted upon by the Color Bump setting in the S2 shader
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Conclusion
ZBrush's Material palette gives you a wealth of options for applying different looks to the surfaces in your image. As with all aspects of this program, the more you explore the possibilities, the more powerful your artwork will become.
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ZBrush 1.23
The Draw palette contains controls for modifying the current drawing tool. You can change a tool's size, shape, opacity, how new strokes interact with existing objects and strokes, and other functions.
Width
Sets the width of the brush. By default, Width is set to 100%; reducing it produces a brush that's higher than it is wide. Range= 0% to 100%.
Height
Sets the height of the brush. By default, Height is set to 100%; reducing it produces a brush that's wider than it is high. Range= 0% to 100%.
NOTE: When adding a 3D object, you can control its width and height interactively. First drag in one direction to set the object's overall size, and then, without releasing the mouse button, drag in the opposite direction to decrease the width and height simultaneously.
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Depth
Sets the size of the brush on the in-out axis. By default, Depth is set to 1.00. Reducing it gives a shallow brush, while increasing it produces a relatively tall or deep brush. Range= 0.00 to 10.00.
NOTE: To best see the results of changing the Depth setting, first drag the mouse a short distance in the preview window so that you're viewing it from a slight angle
Imbed
Sets the position of the brush or object relative to the surface being drawn on. By default, Imbed is set to .80. Reducing the Imbed setting moves the brush farther above the drawing surface, while increasing it moves the brush lower in relation to the drawing surface. The position at which the brush intersects the plane in the preview window indicates where the brush will intersect the drawing surface. Range= -2.00 to 2.00.
NOTE: To best see the results of changing the Imbed setting, first drag the mouse a short distance in the preview window so that you're viewing it from a slight angle. Also, make sure the plane is visible in the preview window; if not, click the + icon in the window's upper-right corner. The plane represents the position of the drawing surface. For example, a Cylinder 3D object is set by default so that its center intersects the object it's drawn on, as shown in this image:
82 ZBrush 1.23 The Draw Palette
If you want to draw a cylinder sitting on the surface of another object, you need to set Imbed to -1.00, so that its end is above the plane: The following illustration shows two cylinders with different Imbed settings drawn onto a cube. The cylinder on the cube's top was drawn with Imbed set to .00 (the default), and the cylinder on the cube's side was drawn with Imbed set to -1.00.
NOTE: By default, a 3D object's pivot point is at its center, and the Imbed setting adds an offset from the center. You can, however, change the location of a 3D object's pivot point using Tool > Modifiers > Image (move the red crosshairs), thus altering the location from which Imbed defines its offset.
ZBrush 1.23 The Draw Palette 83
You can rotate the view around the window contents by dragging the mouse inside the window. For example, if you drag a short distance toward the upper right, the window changes to a view from an angle.
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In the upper-left corner is a small curved-arrow icon. Clicking this icon toggles continuous rotation of the window view. While the continuous rotation option is active, you can change the direction and speed of the rotation by dragging inside the window. Also, you can temporarily halt the rotation by clicking in the window. At any time, click the curved-arrow icon to return to the default, head-on view of the tool. In the upper-right corner is a small + icon. Clicking this icon toggles display of the plane used to show the position of the drawing tool relative to the surface; that is, the effect of the Imbed setting.
Draw Size
Sets the overall size of the brush, scaling it in all three dimensions simultaneously. The current brush size is reflected by the white-outline square attached to the mouse/tablet cursor in the image area. Default= 64. Range= 1 to 128.
NOTE: After you change the Draw Size setting, ZBrush automatically zooms the view in the preview window so that the brush fits in the window. This doesn't affect the brush size.
Lock RGBZ
Locks the RGB Opacity and Z Opacity settings together. To adjust each separately, turn Lock RGBZ off.
NOTE: Some brushes, such as the Simple brush, don't let you turn this off.
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RGB Intensity
Sets the intensity of the color applied with the brush or in the current object. Default= 100%. Range= 0% to 100%. In the illustration above, a 3D cube primitive was added with a high RGB Intensity at the top of the sphere, and a low RGB Intensity at the bottom.
Z Intensity
Sets the intensity of the depth information applied with the brush or in the current object. The lower the Z Intensity setting, the less the existing depth information is impacted by added strokes and objects. Thus, setting Z Intensity to 0% has the same effect as turning off the Z options (see ZAdd / ZSub / ZCut, below). Default= 100%. Range= 0% to 100%. In the following illustration, a 3D cube primitive was added with a high Z Intensity at the top of the sphere, and a low Z Intensity at the bottom.
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Per(spective) Distort(ion)
Lets you apply perspective distortion on a per-object basis. Although ZBrush's screen presents an orthogonal view, you can add a degree of perspective distortion (in which closer surfaces appear larger than those farther away) to "live" 3D objects. Immediately after drawing an object, or while editing it, click the PER button, and then drag the Distort slider to change the perspective. Default= 50%. Range= 0% to 100%.
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NOTE: Perspective Distortion works only when in an object transform mode (not in the edit mode). To see how it works, follow this example:
1 Add a 3D cube object. 2 You can see the distortion best when viewing the cube at an angle. To rotate it, choose Transform panel > Edit Object, and drag in the workspace away from the object. 3 Click Edit Object again to turn it off, and then click a transform tool (Move Object, Scale, or Rotate). 4 Click Draw panel > Per, and then drag the Distort slider to the right to increase distortion, or to the left to decrease distortion.
NOTE: You won't see the result of changing the perspective distortion until you release the mouse button.
MRGB / RGB / M
Sets whether you're drawing with the material and color (MRGB), just the color (RGB), or just the material channel (M). Only one channel option can be active at a time. If you want to affect only the depth information, turn all three options off (click the active item) and use one of the Z options (see next item).
NOTE: Some materials have color built in, so will change the object color even if you're using the M option.
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NOTE: When painting, think of ZAdd and ZSub simply as add and subtract operations; you don't need to use the more compute-intensive ZCut at all. However, when working with 3D objects, you should generally use ZCut for subtraction operations. Read on for further explanation of the differences between ZSub and ZCut. Alternatively, with no Z option on (click the active button to turn it off ), you can paint without impacting the depth information at all.
Sphere painted with ZAdd (left side), ZCut (right ), and Z options off (bottom)
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The effects of this setting vary depending on whether you're using a standard brush, such as the Simple brush, or working with a 3D object. If using a standard brush, the Z setting affects brush strokes you make after you change the setting. If working with an active 3D object, the Z setting affects how the object interacts with the rest of the image. This is primarily where ZSub and ZCut differ: With ZSub, any existing pixels in front of the rearmost pixels placed by the 3D object are removed. With ZCut, however, only pixels within the volume of the 3D object are removed. This is best illustrated graphically: The following three images show the interaction of an active 3D object (the red cylinder) with existing pixels (the yellow sphere) using the various Z modes:
ZAdd
ZSub
ZCut
Channels
The controls in the Channels sub-palette provide additional painting, masking, and 3D options, but are not normally used. 90 ZBrush 1.23 The Draw Palette
There are four possible combinations of INFRONT and BEHIND: Either on, both on, or neither on. These masking options can take effect when creating an object or in a Edit/Transform mode (Edit, Move, Scale, Rotate). The next three items cover all four combinations of INFRONT and BEHIND.
NOTE: In the following illustrations, the cone was drawn first, and the cube was drawn second. Thus, the different options determine how the cone's pixels mask the cube's.
INFRONT
This option is also called Near Masking, and is automatically turned on when you use ZAdd mode. When INFRONT is on and BEHIND is off, existing pixels can mask newly drawn pixels. When both are off, no masking takes place and new pixels always appear in front of others.
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BEHIND
This option is also called Far Masking, and is automatically turned on when you use ZSub mode. When BEHIND is on and INFRONT is off, only the farthest pixels appear when strokes or objects are added to existing pixels.
INFRONT+BEHIND
Both INFRONT and BEHIND are automatically turned on when you use ZCut mode. With both on, added strokes and objects are "cut into" existing pixels, removing parts of the drawing only where new depth information coincides with existing depth information.
R/G/B
These buttons let you turn the red, green, and blue channels on and off. 92 ZBrush 1.23 The Draw Palette
Z Tolerance
Sets the range of depth that a tool can affect, based on where you click to begin drawing. Pixels whose Z-axis distance from the pixel at the starting point is less than or equal to the Z Tolerance setting are affected, while those outside that range are not. The effect also depends on the type of tool being used. Default= 1.00. Range= 0.00 to 10.00. When Z Tolerance is set to .00 (the lowest setting), it's effectively turned off, so all pixels in the image are equally affected by the drawing tool.
Mat(erial) Overwrite
Specifies the degree to which the current brush's alpha image (used to control the brush's shape) determines how much of the current material is applied along with the depth information. At lower settings, the material is applied to all of the depth information. At higher settings, however, the material is applied only to the brightest pixels in the alpha image. Default= 0.02. Range= 0.00 to .50. For example, in the following image, the Simple Brush with Alpha Brush 30 was applied to the sphere with three different Material Overwrite settings: .02 (top), .07 (lower left), and .17 (lower right). As the Material Overwrite setting increases, the material is applied to successively fewer of the "lower" pixels produced by the brush. Creative use of this feature can produce endless combinations of bump mapping with materials.
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ZBrush 1.23
The ZBrush Transform palette provides tools for moving, rotating, and scaling 3D objects, as well as powerful facilities for editing object shapes. It also gives you access to ZBrush's special Marker and 3D Copy functions.
The Transform icon When you first open the Transform palette, the only active control in the upper two rows of buttons is the Draw Pointer button in the upper-left corner:
After drawing
This means that dragging in the document window produces new paint strokes or objects using the current tool, stroke, and other program settings. After you draw something, other Transform palette controls may or may not become available, depending on the current combination of settings. In the most typical case, immediately after you add a 3D object such as a sphere or cube, all but two of the controls become available:
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Less typically, when you use certain combinations of tools and stroke types, ZBrush makes available all or some of the Transform tools. For example, if you use the Eraser tool in conjunction with the Drag Rectangle stroke type, you then have access to two Transform functions: Move and Scale. With these, you can change the position and size of the erasure.
The Drag Rectangle stroke creates a 3D object that can be moved and scaled
Whichever brush and stroke type you use, the way you apply the Transform functions is the same.
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Basic Transforms
By default, the Draw pointer is active, which means that dragging in the workspace draws with the current tool. Draw
After drawing a 3D object, you can use the Transform palette functions to move it around the workspace, rotate it around its pivot point, and scale it with respect to the pivot point. To start, click the respective icon. Move
Scale
Rotate
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When you activate a transform mode, the most obvious thing that happens is that the Gyro tool appears superimposed on the object in the document window.
The Gyro is a three-dimensional transform assistant that consists of three multicolor rings that move and rotate along with the object, plus a fourth, gray ring that moves with the object, but always stays parallel to the view plane. The colored rings let you perform transformations with respect to any local axis or plane of the object. The gray ring lets you perform move and rotate transforms with respect to the view plane, no matter what the orientation of the Gyro is. When you draw an object on a blank background, its Z axis is perpendicular to the view plane. If you then activate a transform mode, you can see the Gyro's blue ring, which allows rotation about the Z axis, but because you're viewing the green and red rings edge-on, they appear to be lines. Note that other colors mark the ring intersections; for example, the intersection of the red and green rings is yellow. We'll cover the reason for these different colors shortly.
NOTE: The Gyro's size remains constant throughout any transforms. Sometimes it's smaller than the object it's attached to, but sometimes it's larger. NOTE: In the current version of ZBrush, you cannot undo transforms. Thus, it's a good idea to save a version of the current document before experimenting with the transform tools. However, when you save a .zbr file (Document palette > Save/SaveAs uses the ZBrush format), the object is stamped. You can save the object as a .ztl file (Tool palette > Inventory > Save As) and re-create it if necessary.
98 ZBrush 1.23 The Transform Palettte
Rotating Objects
When you first draw a 3D object in ZBrush against a blank background, you can move it only in the screen/viewing plane. But if you rotate it first, you can then move it on any axis. That's why this section begins with object rotation. (Drawing a 3D object on top of an existing pixol automatically orients the object with respect to the pixol's normal, which can effectively provide an initial rotation. Immediately after adding a 3D object on a blank background or a surface that's parallel to the viewing plane, selecting the Rotate icon or press the R key presents you with two initial choices for rotation using the mouse or tablet: To rotate the object on its Z (in/out) axis, drag the ring around the outside of the Gyro. At this point, the gray ring coincides with the blue ring, so you can drag either the gray or blue part of the outside ring to achieve the same rotation. To rotate the object freely, drag anywhere inside the Gyro except on the other rings. To move the object in and out, drag vertically outside the Gyro. Once you've rotated the object so that the blue ring is not coincident with the gray ring, as shown in the illustration below, you can then rotate the object around any local axis by dragging one of the colored rings. When you drag a ring, you're rotating the object around an imaginary axis that goes through the center of the ring, perpendicular to the plane of the ring.
NOTE: To rotate in 10-degree increments, press and hold the Shift key as you drag. Dragging the ring intersections (colored cyan, magenta, and yellow) has no effect with the Rotate tool.
As before, you can still drag the gray ring to rotate the object around the screen in-out axis, and inside the Gyro, away from the other rings, to rotate the object freely.
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Moving Objects
As you saw in the previous section, Rotate uses the colored rings for rotation around an object's local axis, but not the ring intersections. Move, on the other hand, uses the axis intersections for single-axis local translation, and the rings for planar translation. But there are several other modes as well: You can move the object parallel or perpendicular to the screen, or with respect to the drawing, so that it constantly reorients itself depending on the surface normal of the existing pixols. After adding a 3D object, to enter Move mode, click the Move icon or press the W key. If you've added the object on a blank background or on a surface that's parallel to the screen, it uses the default orientation, as shown in the illustration below.
A cube at the default orientation At this point, you have several alternatives for moving the object, depending on where you click when you start to drag: To move the object parallel to the screen, drag the gray/blue circle, away from the ring intersections. To move the object along the line between the intersections of the blue and green axes, drag either of the cyan intersections. To move the object along the line between the intersections of the blue and red axes, drag either of the magenta intersections. To move the object perpendicular to the screen, that is, on the screen in-out axis, drag outside the Gyro in a vertical direction. Dragging upward moves the object away from you, and downward moves it toward you.
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NOTE: Because ZBrush's window presents an orthogonal view it doesn't use perspective an object doesn't seem to change in size as it moves closer and farther. It simply changes position with relation to other parts of the drawing. NOTE: If you move an object very far back, it first becomes partly covered by the back clipping plane, and if you keep moving it back, it becomes fully hidden.
To move the object along the drawing, so that it reorients itself to align with the pixols immediately under it, click inside the ring on the object surface, and then drag in any direction.
NOTE: This reorientation always overrides any existing rotation you've made to the object. If you want to keep an existing orientation as you move an object, drag using the rings.
Also, if you move an object over the background using this method, it automatically snaps to the back clipping plane. If you then rotate it, parts of the object may move behind the clipping plane and become hidden by it. In such cases, move the object forward by positioning the cursor outside the Gyro and dragging downward.
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Two additional move modes become available after the cube has been rotated, whether explicitly with the Rotate function, or implicitly with the last function. To move the object along the line between the intersection of the red and green axes, drag either of the yellow intersections. To move the object along the plane formed by any two of its local axes by dragging the corresponding circle, between the intersection of the red and green axes by dragging either of the yellow intersections. In the following illustration, the sphere was added first. The cube was then added on the background, and then converted to pixols (via Snapshot) and moved several times. The green cube (#1), on the sphere's upper left, was dragged by the gray/blue circle. The magenta cube (#2), on the sphere's upper right, was dragged first by the gray/blue circle, and then was moved closer to the viewer by dragging downward outside the circle. The blue cube (#3), at the bottom of the sphere, was dragged by the cube surface, inside the circle, so that it automatically aligned itself to the sphere surface. Finally, the blue cube (#4), in the center, was dragged by the cube surface inside the circle, and then moved closer to the sphere's center by dragging the yellow intersection upward.
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Scaling Objects
Scaling objects in ZBrush is fairly straightforward. As with Move, Scale uses the rings to resize objects in two dimensions, and the ring intersections to resize in one dimension, although you can't scale on the yellow (in/out) axis until you've rotated the object slightly. Once the object is rotated, and the blue ring is no longer concentric with the gray ring, you can't scale using the gray ring; that would distort the object's shape. To scale in three dimensions, drag anywhere away from the rings. The following illustrations show several different types of scaling, using a rotated object.
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The Info sub-palette is a useful utility in ZBrush that shows current transform information, and lets you input numeric settings for precise transforms. To access it, click the Info header in the Transform palette. The Info sub-palette shows data for the X, Y, and Z axes, from top to bottom, relevant to the current transform mode: When the Draw Pointer is active, the Info sub-palette displays the current cursor position in pixels. The Zaxis value becomes higher the farther away the cursor is. That is, negative values indicate closer distances, while positive ones indicate farther distances. When you're just moving the cursor around the workspace, the Z-axis display shows the default cursor position when over the background. But when the cursor is over a drawn surface, the Z-axis display shows that surface's position. When drawing with most tools, the default Z-axis position is at the rear clipping plane, which puts strokes drawn on the background at a suitable distance away from the "front" of the workspace. When drawing 3D objects, the default Z-axis position is 0, which places the objects drawn over the background in the center of the workspace depth. In this mode, you cannot change the Info settings. In Move mode, the Info sub-palette displays the position of active object's pivot point. To set a precise position for the object, click a field and drag horizontally to move the slider, or enter new data from the keyboard. When using the keyboard, press Enter to input the new data, and press Tab and Shift+Tab to move forward and backward between the fields. In Scale mode, the Info sub-palette shows the active object's scaling factors as multipliers. For example, if you draw a medium-size sphere, its scaling factors might be 90, 90, and 90. To make it egg-shaped, change the 104 ZBrush 1.23 The Transform Palettte
second factor to 140 by clicking a field and dragging horizontally to move the slider, or entering new data from the keyboard. When using the keyboard, press Enter to input the new data, and press Tab and Shift+Tab to move forward and backward between the fields. In Rotate mode, the Info sub-palette shows the active object's orientation in degrees. To set a precise orientation for the object, click a field and drag horizontally to move the slider, or enter new data from the keyboard. When using the keyboard, press Enter to input the new data, and press Tab and Shift+Tab to move forward and backward between the fields. Range= -180 to 180. The Info sub-palette shows the h and v values within a button or palette when the cursor is over the interface. This information will be useful when manually writing ZScripts.
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Three copies of a sphere with color added (center), and then material (right)
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Editing Objects
The first icon in the second row of the Transform palette is the Edit Object tool. After activating Edit Object, you can use a special customizable brush to sculpt objects and/or paint them, adding physical detail as well as color wherever you like. You can also move and scale parts of the object using editing functions.
To begin editing an object using the default settings, simply click Edit Object or press the T key, and then drag the mouse/tablet cursor over the object surface. As you drag, you'll see the raised-surface effects immediately.
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While you're editing, the object remains three dimensional, and you can rotate it to draw on other sides. In fact, you don't even need to switch modes simply drag on the background to rotate the object freely. To rotate on the in-out (Z) axis only, press and hold the Shift key, click and hold outside the object, release the Shift key, and then drag the mouse.
NOTE: Using the Draw pointer, you can pull and push convex and concave areas on your object at the same time as you add color. However, in order to do both simultaneously, you must first turn on the Tool palette > Image subpalette > Colorize switch. If you don't do this first, changing the current color simply applies that color to the entire object. NOTE: When you turn on Colorize, the base object turns the default gray color thereafter, editing applies the current color.
Another method, which lets you set the base color and then begin editing with color, is this: First choose a color for the base object, and then set the color opacity for the new base color with the Transform palette > Color slider. (To completely repaint an object, set Color to 100%.) Next, in the Color palette, click Fill under the color picker. Then set any other color and it will be used to paint the object as you edit.
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Editing Controls
During editing, the following Draw palette controls are available:
Draw Size: Sets the size of the brush used for drawing as well as for transforms. This setting is reflected by the size of the circular cursor ZBrush uses when editing. Default= 64. Range= 0 to 128. ZAdd/ZSub: Determines whether the brush pushes or pulls geometry. ZSUB causes concave editing; ZADD causes convex editing. In the illustration above, the red lines used a ZADD setting, while the green lines used a ZSUB setting . RGB Intensity: Sets the opacity of the color applied when drawing. Use lower settings to blend with existing color, or higher settings to override existing color. Default= 100%. Range= 0% to 100%. Z Intensity: Controls the amount of push or pull applied by the brush. Default= 25%. Range= 0% to 100%. ZBrush 1.23 The Transform Palettte 109
Move Object
If you turn this on in Edit mode, dragging on an object moves a part of it whose size is determined by the Draw Size setting.
The top and bottom areas of a sphere moved in opposite directions in Edit > Move mode
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Scale Object
If you turn this on in Edit mode, dragging on an object scales a part of it whose size is determined by the Draw Size setting, with the center of the scaling determined by where you click before dragging. In the picture of the edited cube, below, two corners were scaled up during editing, and a third corner was scaled down.
A cubes corners scaled larger and smaller in Edit > Scale mode
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Snapshot
While using the Transform tools, it's useful to be able to convert the visible part of a 3D object into pixols, thus placing it into the drawing, and then go on and manipulate the original 3D object some more. To convert a geometric object into pixols, first apply any transforms and/or editing, position it where you want it, and then use the Snapshot tool. The easiest way to do this is by pressing and holding the Ctrl key, and then clicking anywhere in the workspace. For example, by combining Move, Scale, and Snapshot with a simple cylinder, you can make a geometric composition like the illustration below.
Snapshot was used to copy the cylinder after each transform Note that, when an object is copied, the copy is no longer an independent 3D object; it simply becomes part of the drawing. Only one 3D object at a time can exist as a transformable entity in ZBrush.
NOTE: You may have encountered the term "stamp" in earlier versions of the ZBrush documentation. This function is now called Snapshot.
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Modifiers
The Transform palette's Modifiers sub-palette offers switches for editing using specific axes and combinations of axes, as well as controls for modifying the shape of the brush used in Edit Object mode.
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Axis Selector
The first row of buttons in the Modifiers sub-palette lets you specify any combination of the three axes for deformation using the Edit Object brush. In the previous illustration, a cube was edited using the three different single-axis modes as well as all three combined. Using the X axis, the deformation occurred from left to right. Using the Y axis, the deformation occurred along the vertical axis. Using the Z axis, the deformation took place on the cube's in-out axis. And using the XYZ setting, the cube was indented perpendicular to its surface.
NOTE: You can combine any two of the single axes for deformation along both.
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You can reshape the brush in one or more of several different ways:
Graph with endpoints and intermediate points connecting spline curves Each graph contains two control points, one at either end, plus any number of additional intermediate control points in between, with line segments connecting them. The control points are visible only when the cursor is over the graph. You can insert additional intermediate control points by clicking on a line segment. Intermediate points appear initially as small squares. To remove an intermediate point, drag it off the graph. You cannot remove curve endpoints. You can move the curve endpoints vertically to raise or lower the corresponding setting. You can move an intermediate control point in any direction by dragging it. By default, the line segments connecting a control point to its neighbors are spline curves, which help to create a smooth brush shape. To change the curvature of the curves adjacent to a control point, first click the point to select it it turns yellow to show that it's active, and a yellow circle appears around it. Click anywhere on the yellow circle, and drag toward the control point to reduce the curvature, or away from the control point to increase the curvature.
NOTE: If a circle around the control point is not at its default radius, it turns orange to show that the curvature has been changed. To return to the default curvature, drag the circle until it turns yellow again.
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The control points' curvatures were edited by dragging the circles You can zoom in on a selected control point for finer control by clicking it. It zooms to show only the line segments between the point and its immediate neighbors. To zoom back out, Alt-click again, or simply move the mouse cursor out of the graph. You can create more abrupt transitions by changing the line segments between control points to straight lines. To do so, drag the point off the graph and then back on without releasing the mouse button. The control point's color changes from white to black when using straight-line connecting segments. To change the point type back, repeat the operation.
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Noise:
When modeling organic objects, adding noise to the brush profile quickly produces realistic 3D texturing. You can make the brush surface rougher by changing the N (noise) setting. Default= 0. Range= 0 to1.0
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3D Copy
ZBrush contains an innovative tool that gives you powerful control over your texturing process. If you do texturing, you owe it to yourself to learn the 3D copy function. In ZBrush, you can paint directly on 3D objects, but the resolution of the texture is dependent on the mesh of the object. To show fine details, you must use a very high resolution mesh or a texture map. Using a texture map is preferable, since a high resolution mesh uses many more resources. The best solution is to use a high resolution texture map with a low resolution mesh. To produce the very highest quality details, use the 3D copy tool. The fundamental action of the tool is to copy the texture on the canvas to an object in front of it.The 3D copy does all the distortion of the texture needed, based on the uv co-ordinates of the texture and the object.
The texture is generated and is automatically distorted to map correctly to the sphere
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The real power of the 3D Copy tool is shown when you are modifying an existing texture or creating one from scratch. Although this is not a tutorial, here is a simplified procedure for creating a new texture: 1 Turn on the Texture option in the Marker > Modifiers sub-palette. See Texture on page 243. 2 Import or model an object. Create a new texture by going to Texture pallete>Inventory, setting width and height and pressing new. 3 Orient the object so that the area you wish to texture is facing you and add a marker. 4 Choose a brush. When you do, the texture is stamped on the canvas. 5 Paint on the texture (remember to turn off Zadd in the Draw palette) See ZAdd / ZSub / ZCut on page 89. 6 Select the original object from the tool pallete and click on the marker you placed in step 3. ZBrush will recreate the object directly in front of the texture you just created in step 5. 7 Enter the transform>edit mode and press 3D Copy to copy the texture from the canvas into the existing texture on the object. The texture appears on the object and in the texture preview of the Texture palette. 8 The texture you created in step 5 is still on the canvas directly behind the object. Clear the canvas by typing Ctrl + N. 9 Rotate the object to a new position and modify or create a new texture again. By rotating the object and using 3D Copy, you can create a seamless texture for the entire object.
NOTE: Tutorials are available on http://www.ZBrushCentral.com for this topic and many others.
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In the this example, the texture map for a face is created with a degree of detail that could not be achieved by drawing directly on the object.
A photograph from a digital camera is the basis of the texture. Painting around the face stretches the image that will be 3D Copied onto the head model. Using Symmetry, a head is modeled to match the shape of the face. The image is placed in the background ready to 3D Copy
The head is placed over the texture using the Gyro to fine tune the location. The 3D Copy button is used to apply the texture onto the model. Then the simple brush is used to detail the skin and hair line.
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3D Copy Controls:
S= Shaded: By default, this is off, and when you grab a texture, ZBrush uses only the base colors of the area you grab. (To see the base colors, turn on Render palette > Flatrender.) When you turn on shaded, ZBrush grabs the colors as they are shaded by the lighting in the scene. Autoint: Enables the Autointensity function below. Autointensity curve: Controls the extent to which the copied object's color overrides or blends with that of the object it is applied to. By using a low value of intensity at the edges and rotating the object between applications, you can produce a seamless texture over the entire 3D object.
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Conclusion
As you can see, ZBrush's Transform palette offers much of the modeling power of a full-fledged 3D graphics program, and some features not found in most 3D programs. When you use the Transform options in conjunction with other ZBrush features, such as the Symmetry option in the Tools palette, you'll find even more ways to express your artistic vision in 3D.
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ZBrush 1.23
The ZBrush Tool palette is probably the most complex aspect of ZBrush for a number of reasons. First and foremost, tool usage is affected by many other parts of the program, so you should always be aware of other palettes' settings in order to understand what a particular brush is doing. Also, most tools have one or more modifiers that affect how they work, especially the 3D object tools. The Tool palette is dynamic: Whenever you change a tool's Modifiers setting, the modified tool is added to the thumbnail area of the palette. The same thing happens when you edit a 3D object tool. See The Transform Palette on page 94. In addition, when you choose a tool that doesn't currently appear on the palette by clicking on the large thumbnail in the upper-left corner and then clicking a tool in the pop-up menu it's added to the palette. ZBrush adds rows as necessary to accommodate the additional thumbnails.
NOTE: To use a modified tool again in another session, you must save it using the Inventory sub-palette > Save As command, and then reload it in the future session.
By default, the Tool palette doesn't open when you start ZBrush. To open it, press Alt+T or click the Tool button in the row of icons above the document window: By default, only 12 of ZBrush's 36 tools appear on the Tool palette. To access the rest, click the large thumbnail in the upper-left corner of the Tool palette. When you do so, an icon menu of all the tools appears. To close this menu, move the mouse away from it. Any tools on the pop-up menu that also appear on the Tool palette are highlighted with teal backgrounds and yellow upper-left corners, as shown in the illustration. (This is not the case, however, if you invoke the pop-up menu from a custom palette.) With the exception of the active tool, which is grayed out in the pop-up menu, if you click a highlighted icon from the pop-up menu, the tool is removed from the Tool palette.
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NOTE: Most of ZBrush's tools, including the 3D objects, can be used to apply any combination of depth, color, and material to the document. You prevent the tool from applying depth by going to the Draw palette and turning off whichever of these three options is on: ZAdd, ZSub, or ZCut. When you do so, and then draw on the background, you're still applying the current color and/or material, assuming Draw palette > MRGB, RGB, or M is on. However, you might not be able to see the results, because the colored pixols actually appear behind the clipping plane. To see the effects of applying only color and/or material, turn on the Render palette Flat Renderer mode. Or, you can draw with a tool that moves the pixols closer, such as the Sphere tool don't forget to turn on ZAdd first.
Here are some more important points about ZBrush's tools: You can use tools to change only the color and/or material of existing pixols in the document. You do this by first turning off the Draw palette > Zadd/Zsub/Zcut buttons. Then, also in the Draw palette, you use the default MRGB option to apply color and material; the RGB option to apply only color; or the M option to apply only material information. The sphere to the right was painted with different colors and materials. When you edit or modify a tool, a new copy of the changed tool is added to the Tool palette, so you can use it later on during the current session. ZBrush doesn't automatically save this tool. Use the Tool palette > Inventory sub-palette > Save As function to store the tool in a disk file. Then, to use it in a future session, use the Load function to place it back in the Tool palette.
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Pixol-based Tools
Pixol-based tools let you create or modify pixols in the document. With these tools, you can transform pixols in the document by changing their depth and/or X/Y position. At the same time, or alternatively, you can use these tools to change pixols' color and/or material. You can combine tools with different permutations of settings in various other ZBrush palettes for a practically infinite variety of effects. Palettes that effect how most of the pixol-based tools work include: The Draw palette controls affect the tool size, aspect ratio, depth, and the intensity with which (or whether) it interacts with existing pixols' depth, color, and material information. The Alpha palette settings effect the tool's basic shape, except for the Sphere brush and a few others. The Color palette settings determine the tool's basic color. The Material palette settings determine the basic shaders used by the tool, including pattern, diffuse and specular reflectivity, and more. The Picker palette can effect the tool's orientation, color, material, and other aspects. The Stroke palette settings affect, among other things, whether the tool is applied continuously, repeatedly or one time only when you drag in the document. The Texture palette settings can be used to apply images and patterns to the brush strokes and 3D objects. If you're drawing with a digitizing tablet, the Tablet palette effects how tools interact with the document. Each pixol-based tool is covered in its own section, following:
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Simple Brush
The Simple brush is the default tool, active when you first start ZBrush. While it can be used for adding pixols to the document, it's best used for modifying depth and/or color and/or material information in an existing drawing. If you turn off the Z options in the Draw palette, the Simple brush acts very much like a standard brush in other painting software. The best way to think of the Simple brush is as a tool that adds to and blends with existing depth information in the drawing. For example, in the illustration below, the Simple brush was used to draw a gold stroke on top of the existing gray ring. Note that the depth information already present in the drawing was not erased, but simply added to. Following are several additional important points about Simple brush functionality: It's not sensitive to abrupt changes in depth in the drawing, so the Z Tolerance setting has no effect. In other words, it affects all pixols equally, regardless of depth. For an example of this, See Sphere Brush on page 131. There, the Simple brush is compared with the Sphere brush. It requires that the Draw palette > RGB Opacity and Z Opacity settings be the same. Thus, when using the Simple brush, you cannot turn off the Draw palette > Lock RGBZ toggle.
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Sphere Brush
The Sphere brush lets you draw with a mathematically calculated hemisphere, so that its edge is always perfectly round, no matter how big you make it. This brush is ideal for building up smooth-edged volumes in the drawing. For best results, move the mouse or tablet stylus in small circles as you draw. As with the Simple brush, RGB Opacity and Z Opacity sliders are always locked together with the Sphere brush. Also, the hemisphere it uses is always perpendicular to the background. The Alpha brush is the exact same brush, but it lets you use any Alpha image. Unlike the Simple brush, the Sphere brush respects the depth information in the document, and uses it for auto-masking. For example, in the illustration below, we started with two spheres on a purple background. On the right-hand side, we drew with the Simple brush on the background and intersected the sphere. On the left-hand side, we drew the same stroke with the Sphere brush. Note that the Simple brush stroke partially covers the sphere, even though it started in back of it. However, the Sphere brush takes the depth priority into account, thus allowing the sphere to mask the brush stroke.
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Alpha Brush
The Alpha brush is, like the Sphere brush, useful for building up volumes in the drawing. The primary difference is that the Alpha brush can use any Alpha image for its shape. As with the Simple brush, the RGB Opacity and Z Opacity sliders are always locked together when you use the Alpha brush. Also, the Alpha image it uses is always parallel to the background. Lastly, the Alpha brush respects the depth information in existing pixols, so that it doesn't draw over pixols that are in front of where you're drawing. For instance, in the drawing below, the Alpha brush was used with two different Alpha images to draw from the big sphere along two of the mushroom stems. As you can see, the mushroom caps weren't covered by the Alpha brush pixols.
Use the Alpha brush tool to build up volumes using any shape of brush
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3D Brush
The 3D brush uses an alpha bitmap to create an elevation field. It uses the orientation of the surface you draw on. You would typically use the 3D brush with the default Dots stroke type to draw continuous copies of the elevation field, or with the Drag Rectangle Stroke type to draw one at a time. In the former case, the size is set by the Draw palette settings, but with Drag Rectangle, you set the overall size by dragging. You can still alter the Drag Rectangle depth and aspect ratio with the Draw palette settings and further modify the size and orientation by using the TRANSFORM palette.
NOTE: In addition, the Depth brush can use differing settings for RGB Opacity and Z Opacity, if you turn off the Lock RGBZ toggle in the Draw palette.
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Modifiers:
DoubleSided This option effectively places the alpha bitmap back to back. If you use a Depth brush set to DoubleSided on a thin object, the brush may protrude through the back side of the object. This effect is shown in the illustration below; the two brush strokes on the right side are set to DoubleSided, while the two on the left are not. Also, when you turn DoubleSided on, the tool is solidified, so that the RGB opacity and Z opacity are distributed evenly over the brush surface. When DoubleSided is off, relative opacity is based on the alpha mask. This is also shown in the illustration below.
The Depth brush applied with DoubleSided off (left) and on (right)
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Bump Brush
The Bump brush is similar to the Simple and Single Layer brushes, except that it uses the surface normal of any pixols you draw on with it. This is true whether you simply click to draw with it, or drag to draw a longer stroke. In the image below, the Bump brush was used to add details to the right-hand ring, with the each new pixol raised or subtracted perpendicular to the surface it was drawn on.
You can also use the Bump brush in ZCut mode to subtract portions of objects realistically, because the default behavior works with respect to the surface normals. It is possible to use the picker to specify other orientations. In the below illustration, the egg was cut Into with the Bump brush on the left side, and with the Simple brush on the right side. The latter doesn't look quite right, because it always cuts perpendicular to the picture plane, whereas Bump cuts perpendicular to the surface it's applied to.
The Bump brush (left) adds/Sub depth perpendicular to the drawing surface ZBrush 1.23 The Tool Palette 135
Modifiers:
Constant When this is turned on, the Bump brush moves pixols in the same direction for the duration of each stroke. The direction is determined by the surface normal of the pixol on which you begin the stroke.
In the image above, four brush strokes applied to the golden pipe. Each stroke started in a similar corresponding point (1) and dragged down to a similar endpoint (2). Stroke setting (from left to right) ZAdd with Constant turned Off. The pipe has increased its thickness. ZSub with Constant turned Off. The pipe has decreased its thickness. ZAdd with Constant turned On. The pipe has been pushed up. ZSub with Constant turned On. The pipe has been pushed down.
NOTE: In order to correctly produce the strokes on the right, the auto-depth masking was disabled by selecting ZAdd or ZSub and then turning off the Draw palette > Channels > Infront and Draw palette > Channels > Behind.
Sample Size The Bump brush samples pixols in the vicinity of the cursor to determine the surface orientation. The Sample Size setting controls the size of the area sampled to determine orientation. When drawing on an uneven surface, use a high setting to smooth out the results, or a low setting to reflect the unevenness. Default= 1. Range= 0 to 8. 136 ZBrush 1.23 The Tool Palette
Smudge Tool
The Smudge brush moves pixols around on the screen, like pushing wet clay with your thumb. It doesn't add color (unless the Control key is pressed), but it does respect pixol depth information. In the illustration below, blobs of pure color were placed on the canvas, then the Smudge tool was used to move pixols.
NOTE: If you hold down the Control key while using the smudge tool, the tool becomes the simple brush and will apply color and depth.
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In the above image the smudge tool was used to smudge the red sphere into the white sphere. The setting of active channels and masking mode affect the behavior of the smudge brush. 1 The two spheres before applying the smudge stroke. 2 ZAdd and MRGB are on. INFRONT masking is active. 3 ZAdd and MRGB are on. Masking is disabled. 4 ZAdd and MRGB are on. BEHIND masking is active. 5 ZAdd is disabled. Only MRGB is enabled. 6 ZAdd is enabled while MRGB is disabled.
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This image started as a single orange Sphere that was drawn in the bottom portion of the image. The Modifier Color Blend was set to a high value and colors were changed for different areas of the plant.
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Modifiers:
Color Blend This setting determines how the current Main Color (in the Color palette), or the currently selected Texture Colors interact with the existing pixol color. The lower the value, the more existing pixols retain their original coloring, and the higher the value, the more they take on the Main Color coloring. Default= 50%. Range= 0% to 100%.
Main Color= Red. Color Blend= 0% (left), 50% (center), 100% (right)
Resolution ZBrush automatically sets the resolution of the brush. This setting is a multiplier that increases the sub-division of polygons at higher values, resulting in smoother surfaces with slower rendering speeds. Default= 0. Range= 0 to 3.
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Eraser Brush
The Eraser Brush paints with the background color and the background depth using the selected alpha shape and the RGBZ intensity setting.
NOTE: For a more gradual erasure, set RGBZ opacity to a low value.
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Hook Brush
The Hook brush, like the Snake Hook brush, lets you pull pixols out of the image toward the viewer, but it interprets your hand motion differently.
The basic technique is to drag in one direction to in order to set the length of the extrusion in order to set the length of the extrusion, and then, without releasing the mouse button, drag in a reverse direction to set the angle of the extrusion. If the second drag is in the opposite direction of the first, and the same distance, the extrusion ends up pointing straight out at the viewer. In the image below, the left-hand extrusion (1) was produced by applying the Hook brush in one direction only, while the right-hand one (2) was the result of dragging right and then left.
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The Hook brush has a special scaling capability that you can apply by moving the cursor in a circular direction at the end of the stroke. If you move the cursor clockwise, an expansion or increased separation occurs (depending on the Alpha image); if you move the cursor counter-clockwise, a shrinking or moving together occurs. The longer you move the cursor, the greater the effect. In the below image, using Alpha image 07, the Hook brush was used to pull perpendicular to the sphere (1), then reversed direction to point the spikes toward the viewer (2), then with clockwise rotation to scale (3). Scaling the Hook extrusion up by moving the cursor in circles
Modifiers:
Color Blend This setting determines how the current Main Color or Texture interacts with the existing pixol color. The lower the value, the more existing pixols retain their original coloring, and the higher the value, the more they take on the Main Color coloring. Default= 50%. Range= 0% to 100%. (See Snake Hook Brush on page 139.) Resolution ZBrush automatically sets the resolution of the brush. This setting is a multiplier that increases the sub-division of polygons at higher values, resulting in smoother surfaces with slower rendering speeds. Default= 0. Range= 0 to 3.
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Fiber Brush
The Fiber brush lets you add 3D hair-like strands to the image. It respects the surface normals of pixols you draw on, and, by default, draws the hairs perpendicular to the surface. You can use the orientation picker to change to another mode. The Draw Size setting controls the size of the brush and the length of the fibers is controlled by the Depth setting.
NOTE: The RGBZ Opacity settings default to 50% when you choose the Fiber brush. Set them higher for coarser fibers, or lower for finer fibers. Also, adjust the fiber length with the Draw palette > Depth setting.
Modifiers:
Density Controls the amount of fibers produced. Default= 19%. Range= 0% to 100%.
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Gravity This setting lets you apply gravity or anti-gravity to the fibers. With Gravity set to a negative amount, the fibers curve upward. With Gravity set positive, they curve downward. Set the 0%, Gravity has no effect, and fibers stick straight out from the surface they're drawn on. Default= 19%. Range= -100% to 100%.
Gravity set to: -100% (left), 0% (center), and 100% (right) Grooming This setting lets you comb the hair that is, you control the fiber angle by the direction you draw in. The higher the setting, the more the angle is influenced by drawing direction. Default= 0%. Range= 0% to 100%. In the illustration below, Grooming was set to 100%, and then the fibers were drawn in a circular motion.
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Turbulence You can add randomness to the direction of each fiber by increasing the Turbulence setting. Default= 0%. Range= 0% to 100%. Back Color When Back Color is on, the fibers are colored with a gradient, starting with the secondary color at the bottom and going to the main color at the top (the end of the fibers). When Back Color is off, the fibers are colored only with the main color. Default= on.
NOTE: You can obtain interesting effects with the fiber brush when drawing on a multicolor surface by turning on Picker palette > Continuous Color. For best results, also turn off Back Color. Each fiber uses the color of the pixol it's drawn on, so you get multicolored hair that matches the surface it's drawn on.
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Source Color When Source Color is on, the fibers are colored with a gradient, starting with the color of the object at the bottom and going to the main color at the top (the end of the fibers). Default= off. RGB Antialiasing When turned on, produces fibers with antialiased edges. Thickness Controls the overall thickness of the fibers. Range= 1 to 16. Default= 1 Shape Controls whether the fiber is equilateral or rectangular. Range= -100 to +100. Default= 0. When set to zero, the fibers are equilateral. Negative values produce fibers that are rectangular with a larger h value. Positive values produce fibers that are rectangular with a larger v value.
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MRGBZ Grabber
This tool lets you grab part of the image as a texture and as a gray scale depth image. Drag a rectangle over the area you wish to grab, starting at the center. When you release the mouse button, the color (and optionally, shading) of the area inside the rectangle is added to the Texture palette. At the same time, the depth image is added to the Alpha palette. You can then use the texture and alpha image with most other tools. It is possible to export an alpha channel with intensity values that correspond to the depth of each pixel. This alpha channel can later be used in Photoshop (or any other program that can read Photoshop format) for depth enhancedediting (such as depth-cueing, fog, and such).
Grabbed Object
Depth Image
Unshaded Texure
Shaded Texture
Modifiers
Shaded RGB By default, this is off, and when you grab a texture, ZBrush uses only the base colors of the area you grab. (To see the base colors, turn on Render palette > Flat Render.) When you turn on Shaded RGB, ZBrush grabs the shaded colors. Autocrop When autocrop is enabled (lit), the dragged rectangle will automatically resize to the object being grabbed. 148 ZBrush 1.23 The Tool Palette
NOTE: The action of most color correction brushes can be reversed by holding down the Alt key. Thus the Blur will become Sharpen, Intensity becomes subtract Intensity, etc.
Blur
The Blur brush is basically similar to a Blur filter in a paint program, with the added capability to blur depth; it simply blurs pixols that you draw over. Use it to smooth out sharp edges or abrupt color transitions.
Sharpen
The Sharpen brush is basically similar to a Sharpen filter in a paint program, with the added capability of sharpening depth; it simply sharpens pixols that you draw over. Use it to bring out details in an image.
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Noise
The Noise brush is basically similar to a Noise filter in a paint program, with the added capability of applying noise to the depth channel; it simply adds random variation to pixols that you draw over. Use the RGBZ Opacity setting to determine the extent of the noise effect. The Noise Brush was used in the image below to apply noise to a sphere and then the Blur Brush was used in order to soften the rough surface.
Base sphere
Noise applied
Blur applied
Highlight
The Highlight brush adds color to the color already present. The method used is dependent on the Modifier setting.
Modifiers:
Auto Color Samples the existing color and adds the same color to itself, White Adds white to the existing color. Main Adds the color selected in the color palette to the existing color. 150 ZBrush 1.23 The Tool Palette
Intensity Brush
The Intensity brush increases the intensity of the color it is applied to.
Glow Brush
The Glow brush spreads color from the highest intensity color to the pixels around it.
NOTE: The Glow brush can be used for smoothing depth when only Z is enabled and is a better choice than the Blur brush to smooth near edges.
Colorize Brush
The Colorize brush applies the selected color or texture.
Modifiers:
Max Intensity When on, uses the maximum intensity of the color selected so that successive applications do not build up darkness. When off, uses the unmodified color. Default= on.
Saturation Brush
The Saturation brush increases the saturation of the color it is applied to.
Modifiers:
Shift Rate Adjusts the amount and direction of shift Alpha Shift Shifts hue by an amount determined by the applied alpha channel.
Modifiers:
Intensity Amount of effect. Range= -100 to +100. Default= 50. Negative values subtract shine.
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Cloner Brush
The Cloner brush lets you copy part of the document within a layer, or from one layer to another. Use of the Cloner brush is a two-step process: 1 Ctrl-click the center of the area that you want to copy. 2 Click again in a different part of the document to set the offset distance. The second click actually draws the first stroke of the copy. To continue copying, drag without releasing the second click. Each time you click and drag again, using the Cloner brush, you make an additional copy of the original area at a distance that's a multiple of the original offset. You can use any Alpha image with ZBrush's Cloner brush. This lets you copy the image while controlling the intensity and shape of the clone with a gray scale Alpha image. In the image below, the third copy used ZBrush's Brush 30 Alpha image.
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You can fundamentally change how the Cloner brush works with its modifiers; be sure to see the Modifiers section, below.
NOTE: ZBrush remembers the last offset you set and uses it throughout the current session until you set a different one. So, after setting an offset, you can clear the screen, start a new drawing, and then use the Cloner brush with the same offset.
You can achieve the same effect as multiple-click cloning with a single click-and-drag by turning on the Picker palette > Dynamic option. This lets you make multiple copies at an equal distance from each other.
Modifiers:
Layers Mode When this is turned on, the Cloner brush copies pixols from all visible layers to the active layer, ignoring any pixols in the active layer. In the illustration below, the clown assemblage is in layer 1, the yellow sphere is in layer 2, and the red cylinder is in layer 3. Layer 2 was active when we used the Cloner brush and Layers Mode turned on, so only the pixols from layers 1 and 3 were copied. The copied pixols were added to layer 2.
Use Layers Mode to copy pixols from other layers to the active layer For more information about ZBrush's Layers feature, See The Layers Palette on page 244..
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Shaded Embeds the shading into the cloned image's base color. In order to understand how Shaded works, it's necessary to know that a tool in ZBrush can derive its coloring simultaneously from two different sources: The base color, which can be a solid color or a bit mapped texture The material, which is made up of one to four shaders. The shaders modify the base color with properties such as specularity, diffuse reflection, and optionally a reflection-map image. When the Shaded switch is active, the Cloner brush copies the shaded color rather than the base color. You can see this most easily by turning on the Render palette > Flat Renderer switch, which prevents display of any shading in the document, showing only base colors. If you clone an area repeatedly which, incidentally, you can do in a single stroke by turning on the Picker palette > Dynamic switch the shading is reapplied to each successive copy, becoming increasingly intense. For example, in the illustration below, the sphere, which used the BasicMaterial 02 shader, was cloned using the Dynamic option with Shaded turned off on the top, and then with Shaded enabled on the bottom. Each successive clone in the lower row uses the shading from the previous one, so the shading is increasingly pronounced in the later clone generations.
Use the Shaded switch to clone the shaded color ZBrush 1.23 The Tool Palette 155
RetainCenter By default, the Cloner brush remembers the offset you indicate with the first click after you Ctrl-click to set the center of cloning. But you can override this and set a new angle and offset with each successive click by turning on the RetainCenter switch. With RetainCenter on, the original center of cloning is copied to any location you click. In the illustration below, the original sphere was in the center of the document. It was then set to be the cloned area. Thereafter, clicking anywhere in the document copied that area to the location clicked on.
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ZOffset When on, places cloned pixols at the pixol depth of the clone destination point. Normally, pixols are cloned at the same depth as the source pixols. Turn on ZOffset to have ZBrush use the depth of pixols at the destination, potentially resulting in a different depth for each clone. In the illustration below, the chess piece on the left was cloned six times on the tilted chess board. ZOffset was turned on, so each clone was positioned at the correct depth relative to the part of the board it was drawn on.
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3D Tools
3D objects are tools, such as 3D Sphere and 3D Cube, whose primary function is to let you add pixols to a ZBrush document. These tools produce true three-dimensional objects that you can move, scale, rotate, and edit to change their shape. You can also save them as tools for later use in ZBrush, as well as export them in 3D format for use in other programs. The most important thing to remember when using a 3D object is that, once you choose another tool, the object no longer floats it has been added to the image as pixols. That's why it's important, when you've customized a 3D object and think that you might want to use it again in another session, to use the Save As function to store the object as a disk file in the .ztl (ZBrush TooL) format. You can find Save As in the Tool palette > Inventory sub-palette. Once you've saved the file, you can load it into any ZBrush document for further manipulation and/or adding pixols.
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Here are some more important points about ZBrush's 3D objects: Once you've drawn a 3D object, you can use the Transform palette controls to move, rotate, and scale it, as well as apply custom deformation with the Draw functions. When you draw a 3D object and then change the current color and/or material, the changes aren't applied to the object unless you are in transform or edit mode. Using Tool palette > Image sub-palette > Colorize command, you can apply color at the same time as you deform the object. Using the Fill command in the Color picker will apply color to the object and automatically turn on the Colorize switch. ZBrush's 3D objects use the Drag Rectangle stroke by default. To draw a 3D object using the default stroke type, drag in any direction in the document. If you release at this point, the object is drawn at its default proportions. Optionally, before releasing, drag in the opposite direction to reduce the object's width and height, while retaining the original depth. Using this method, you can, for example, easily create an ovoid with the Sphere 3D tool.
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List of 3D Objects
Following is a list of all of the basic 3D objects in ZBrush. You can create variations on these tools by changing Modifiers settings (See 3D Object-Specific Modifiers on page 186.); the modified tool is added to the palette for the current session. Each entry in the list includes the object's tool icon and an image showing the tool used several times in a drawing, with different transforms and modifiers applied. Whenever a 3D object tool is active, a number of sub-palettes appear in the Tool palette; these are the same for all 3D objects, and are covered in the next section: 3D Object-Specific Sub-palettes.
NOTE: The best way to see the result of sub-palette setting changes, including Initialize parameters, is to observe the rotatable preview in the Image sub-palette.
Each 3D object has its own set of Initialize sub-palette parameters, which can profoundly alter the object's appearance. The following parameters are common to many of the objects, thus are not listed in the individual entries: X Size: Relative size on the X axis, or width. Default= 100%. Range= 0% to 100%. Y Size: Relative size on the Y axis, or height. Default= 100%. Range= 0% to 100%. Z Size: Relative size on the Z axis, or depth. Default= 100%. Range= 0% to 100%. HDivide: Horizontal subdivision count, or number of polygons used to create the object across its width. Default and range vary per object. VDivide: Vertical subdivision count, or number of polygons used to create the object across its height. Default and range vary per object.
NOTE: Higher settings for HDivide and VDivide produce higher-resolution objects. This is particularly helpful when applying deformations and editing, but requires more memory and processing power. If you want faceted objects, reduce the HDivide and VDivide settings and, in the Image sub-palette, turn off SH and SV. Sphere 3D
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Sphere 3D
Initialize Parameters:
Coverage The extent of the sweep used to produce the sphere, in degrees. Use lower settings to take a slice out of the sphere. Use 180 to produce a hemisphere. Default= 360. Range= 0 to 360.
Sphere 3D
Default Sphere
Coverage 180
Coverage 90
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Sphereinder 3D
Initialize Parameters:
Coverage The extent of the sweep used to produce the sphereinder, in degrees. Use lower settings to take a slice out of the sphereinder. Default= 360. Range= 0 to 360. TRadius Radius of end spheres. Range 0 to 100. Default= 25 TCurve Curvature of end spheres. Range 0 to 100. Default= 50
Sphereinder 3D
Default Sphereinder
Coverage 180
Coverage 90
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Cube 3D
Initialize Parameters:
Sides The number of sides of the cube. Use 3 to produce a prism, and higher settings to produce an increasingly cylindrical object. Default= 4. Range= 3 to 32. Twist Produces a twisted cube, with spiral sides. Default= 0. Range= 0 to 4.
Cube 3D
Default Cube
Sides= 6
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Cylinder 3D
Initialize Parameters:
Inner Radius Controls the relative size of the cylinder's inner radius; any value other than 0 produces a tube. Default= 0%. Range= 0% to 100%. Taper Top Controls the relative size of the cylinder's upper (closer) end; any value other than 0 produces a conic shape. Default= 0%. Range= 0% to 100%.
Cylinder 3D
Default Cylinder
IRadius= 50
Taper= 50
IRadius= 50 Taper= 50
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Ring 3D
Initialize Parameters:
SRadius (Small Radius) The size of the ring's inner radius relative to its outer radius. Use this setting to change the ring's thickness. Default= 38%. Range= 0% to 100%. Coverage The extent of the sweep used to produce the ring, in degrees. Use lower settings to take a slice out of the ring. Default= 360. Range= 0 to 360.
Ring 3D
Default Ring
Coverage 270
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Scale The size of the end of the sweep relative to its start. The lower this setting, the greater the change in thickness of the ring around its circumference. Default= 1. Range= 0 to 1. Initial Twist Not in my version Twist Produces a twist effect around the ring by successively rotating the circular cross-sections by increasing amounts. This is most visible when you use low SDivide and LDivide settings and turn off smoothing (Image sub-palette > SH and SV switches). Default= 0. Range= 0 to 1440. SDivide The number of subdivisions in the circular cross-section of the ring. Use 3 or 4 for a triangular or square cross-section, respectively. Default= 16. Range= 3 to 128. LDivide The number of subdivisions along the length of the ring. Use 3 or 4 for a triangular or square shape, respectively. Default= 32. Range= 3 to 128.
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Sweep Profile 3D
Creates a 3D sweep of customizable curves.
Initialize Parameters:
The upper part of the Sweep Profile 3D tool's Initialize sub-palette consists of two graphs that show curves for profile and thickness. To create the object, these curves are swept 360 degrees about a vertical axis at the left edge of the graphs. You modify the swept curve, and thus the shape of the object, simply by modifying the graphs. For directions for graph modification, See The Brush Shape on page 114. The following illustration shows the default graphs together with the resultant preview.
Initialize sub-palette
Modify the graphs to modify the swept curve ZBrush 1.23 The Tool Palette 167
Terrain 3D
Creates a 3D terrain object.
Initialize Parameters:
The bottom of the Terrain tool's Initialize sub-palette consists of two graphs that show profile curves used to create the tool. You modify the extruded curves, and thus the shape of the terrain, simply by modifying the graphs. For directions for graph modification, See The Brush Shape on page 114. To create the terrain, the two curves are positioned at right angles to each other, and extruded to form a common surface. The following illustration shows the default profiles together with the resultant preview.
Arrow 3D
Creates a 3D arrow.
Initialize Parameters:
TipR(adius) Sets the radius of the arrow tip. Increase this to create an umbrella-like object, or set it to 0 to remove the tip. Default= 30%. Range= 0 to 100%. TipH(eight) Sets the height of the tip relative to the overall height of the arrow, which also affects the angle of the tip. Lower values produce short, flatter tips, while larger values produce longer, steeper tips. Default= 60%. Range= 0 to 100%.
Arrow 3D
Default Arrow
Tip H= 80
Tip H= 80 Double= on
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InnerR(adius) Sets the relative width of the arrow shaft where it meets the tip. Changing the setting results in a tapered shaft. Default= 11%. Range= 0 to 100%. InnerI(nset) Sets the relative distance from the bottom of the tip to where the tip's inner surface meets the shaft. At 0, the distance is the same, resulting in a right angle between the bottom of the tip and the shaft. At higher values, the inside edge of the inner surface moves up toward the tip end, resulting in a concave inner-tip surface. Default= 19%. Range= 0 to 100%. BaseR(adius) Sets the relative width of the arrow shaft at its base; the end opposite the tip. Changing the setting results in a tapered shaft. Default= 11%. Range= 0 to 100%. BaseI(nset) Produces a concave base. At the default setting, the base is flat; increasing the setting increases the concavity. Default= 0%. Range= 0 to 100%. Double (Sided) When on, produces a double-headed arrow. The length stays the same, so the tips and shaft become smaller than with a single-headed arrow, all other settings being equal.
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Cone 3D
Creates a 3D cone.
Cone 3D
Default Cone
Z Size= 50
Plane 3D
Creates a 3D planar square. Although flat, the square is double-sided so it's visible from both sides.
Initialize Parameters:
H Radius/V Radius These are equivalent to the X Size and Y Size settings for other 3D objects, in that they set a relative horizontal and vertical size.
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Circle 3D
Creates a 3D disk by sweeping a line through an arc; by default the arc is 360 degrees. Although flat, the disk is double-sided so it's visible from both sides.
Initialize Parameters:
ORadius/ORadius (Outer Radius Start/End) To create a circle, ZBrush sweeps a radial line through an arc, starting at 6 o'clock and rotating counter-clockwise. By default, this line stays the same size throughout the sweep. By using different ORadius settings, you can cause the radius to change its length progressively during the sweep. If Outer Radius Start is smaller than Outer Radius End, the radius increases in length during the sweep, and vice versa. Default= 100%. Range= 0% to 100%. IRadius/IRadius (Inner Radius Start/End) These settings let you create a hole in the center of the circle object. As with the ORadius settings, they define the length of the hole radius at the beginning and end of the sweep. If both settings are the same, the hole is circular. If the settings are different, the hole radius varies throughout the arc, creating an irregular-shaped opening. Default= 0%. Range= 0% to 100%. Coverage The extent of the sweep used to produce the circle, in degrees. Use lower settings to take a slice out of the circle. Default= 360. Range= 0 to 360.
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Polymesh 3D
The Polymesh 3D tool, also known as the Star tool, can create a six-pointed 3D star, but its main purpose is to import geometry. All 3D tools can export objects in the .obj and .dxf format. The only way to import objects into ZBrush is with the Polymesh tool. Import objects to use in a scene or to modify and export back to their source application. ZBrush will retain the number of polygons, vertices, and their order, so it is ideal for generating morph targets for animation programs.
To see the object in the colored wireframe mode, go to the Preferences palette and turn on Dots. When the object is in the edit mode and acted upon typically rotated, the display will change to a color coded wireframe with three colors: White= Quad (four-sided) polygons. Quads are preferred by ZBrush Red= Triangles Green Line= Polygons enclosed by a green line are not connected to the polygons around them.
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If the imported file is composed of groups of objects, turn on Grpc in the Preferences palette to see the color-coded groups...
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Modifiers:
Smooth Controls the amount of polygon sub-division when rendering. Range= 0 to 1. Default= 0. Divide Controls how many polygons will be rendered for each smoothed polygon. Range= 1 to 32. Default= 3. Double If some polygons appear to be missing, some may be facing in and some out. Choosing Double will force all polygons to be double sided, so that all can be seen. Use only when needed, since the memory requirements for the mesh will double. Flip If the object imports with the polygons facing inward, Flip can be used to turn them all outward. Deformation The same deformation controls are available for all 3D objects. Symmetry The same symmetry controls are available for all 3D objects.
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Selection The same selection controls are available for all 3D objects. With Polymesh objects, you can sub-divide the polygons in an area that you wish to add more surface detail to. Hold down the Control key and draw on the object in the area to be sub-divided to produe a mask. Invert the mask using Tool > Modifiers > Selection > Inv. Sub-divide the selected area by pressing Tool > Modifiers > Deformation > Divide as many times as needed. With a finer mesh, you can model finer details.
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Texture Object textures must be loaded separately. After the object has been imported, go to the Texture palette and choose Inventory > Import and navigate to the texture associated with the object. Depending on the file format, some texture maps may import upside down. Simply press Flip V in the Texture palette to invert them. Remember, when creating your own textures or modifying existing ones, the 3D Copy function is far superior to painting directly on the object.
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Import options:
ZBrush will import objects composed of quads and/or triangles. If the imported object has polygons with more than four sides, ZBrush will display an alert message and then convert the polygons to three and four sided. Mrg Merges points that occupy the same space. Add Allows multiple meshes to be imported. Import the first mesh, then press Add and import the next. Tri2qua Converts adjacent triangles to quads when importing. Maximum angle between adjacent triangles to be converted to quads is set by the slider. Range= 0 to 90 degrees. Default= 45
NOTE: Tri2qua must be set to zero if the imported geometry is to be used as a morph target.
Weld If two points less than the distance apart set here, they are combined into a single point. Range= 0 to .01. Default= 0
NOTE: Weld must be set to zero if the imported geometry is to be used as a morph target.
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Export Options:
Obj Exports the object in the .obj format and automatically chooses quad polygons. Dxf Exports the object in the .dxf format and automatically chooses triangular polygons. Qud Sets the object polygons to quads, regardless of the export format. Tri Sets the object polygons to triangles, regardless of the export format. . Txr Includes uv co-ordinates in exported .obj output. Flp Flips the exported texture top to bottom for target applications that require it. Mrg Merges points that occupy the same space. Grp Includes grouping information in the exported output. Scale Scales the exported object size. Range= 0.1 to 100. Default= 1
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MultiMarker
Use the MultiMarker tool to manage multiple objects in ZBrush. You can mark objects as you create them, clear the screen, and then use the Multi Marker tool to draw an object that is the combination all of the marked objects. You can reposition individual objects in the group and you can save as a polymesh at any time.
The MultiMarker tool gives you complete control of 3D objects. Heres how to use it: 1 Turn on Texture and Material options in the Marker Modifiers. See Introducing Markers on page 238. 2 Place a marker in every piece of your complex object as you build it. See Mark Object Position on page 113. The object above contains four Markers, one for each piece. 3 When the object is complete, clear the canvas by pressing Ctrl + N 4 Choose the MultiMarker tool from the Tool palette and click and drag on the canvas. Be careful not to begin on one of the existing markers. The complex object is re-created, using the information contained in each marker. 5 Reposition parts. See Repositioning Parts on page 183. If no repositioning is needed you can convert to a polymesh. See Conversion to Polymesh on page 184.
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Repositioning Parts
Each part can be moved independently After the object is re-created with the MultiMarker, you can move each part independently with the Transform > Edit tool. Click and drag on a part to move it. Click and drag outside the parts to move the whole group.
NOTE: You can make all the parts of a complex object without positioning them, and after conversion to a multimarker object, position each part independently.
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Conversion to Polymesh
When the Multimarker object is converted to a polymesh, it can be deformed and edited like any other Polymesh tool. See Polymesh 3D on page 174. To convert to polymesh: 1 Press Make Polymesh in the Modifier section. The MagicMesh will be added to the Tool menu. 2 Turn off Transform > Edit and clear the canvas by pressing Ctrl + N 3 Choose the MagicMesh tool from the Tool menu and click and drag to create the polymesh object. Be careful again not to begin on one of the existing markers. 4 Turn on Transform > Edit and turn off MRGB, RGB and M in the Draw Palette. 5 Deform, edit and save or export.
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The conversion to Polymesh generates a composite bit map of the textures on each part and assigns UV co-ordinates for correct mapping.
Modifiers
Make Polymesh Creates a polymesh tool from the MultiMarker and adds it to the Tool palette. Texture Size Sets the size of the texture map that will be generated when making a polymesh. Reposition Moves the markers to a new position if you have moved any parts.
Inventory
Load Tool Loads any previously saved .ztl tool. Clone Duplicates the currently selected tool. Save As Saves the currently selected tool as a .ztl file.
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3D Object-Specific Modifiers
The following sub-palettes appear under Modifiers in the Tool palette whenever a 3D object tool is active. The commands included in these sub-palettes offer a wide range of functionality, including masking, deformation, changing the center of rotation, and much more. Most changes that you make to a basic tool in the Modifiers sub-palettes add a new tool with the modified characteristics to the Tool palette. If you make changes to a modified tool, they are applied directly to that tool; ZBrush does not create another new version.
Object Preview
This window works similarly to the preview window in the Draw palette. The main difference is that it contains a red cross, which you can drag around in the window to set the object's center of rotation. Also, dragging the cross pans the window when you drop the cross, setting the new center at the cross location. Dragging elsewhere in the preview window rotates the contents.
NOTE: Any changes that you make to the Tool > Modifier settings that alter the tool's appearance are reflected immediately in the preview. They are also reflected in the active object in the document if the Transform palette > Move/Scale/Rotate/Edit Object mode is turned on. Otherwise, the changes appear the next time you add a copy of the tool to the document.
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Store (Orientation) After rotating the object in the preview window, click this button to set the current orientation as the default orientation for the object. This is convenient if you're always rotating objects after you add them; just set the default orientation here first. Restore (Orientation) Restores the default orientation for the preview window. If you've changed the default orientation. SH (Smooth Horizontal) Smooths horizontally across the polygon edges. Default= on. SV (Smooth Vertical Smooths vertically across the polygon edges. Default= on. 3D objects in ZBrush are composed of rectangular polygons. By default, all edges are automatically smoothed so that the individual polygons aren't apparent. But you can turn off smoothing horizontally, vertically, or both. The illustration below uses all four possible combinations of SH and SV settings with a low-resolution (16 x 16) sphere, as follows:
SH,SV= on
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BH (Horizontal Corner) Bevels horizontally across edges. Default= 0. Range= 0 to 100. Only active when SH (Smooth Horizontal) is off. BV (Vertical Corner) Bevels vertically across edges. Default= 0. Range= 0 to 100. Only active when SV (Smooth Horizontal) is off. Depending on the object type, you can subdivide polygons or bevel edges to different degrees using the BH and BV settings. In the illustration to the right, the cylinder object was given a vertical bevel (BV) in order to eliminate the sharp corner and give the object a more realistic/pleasing finish. The degree of bevel is dependent on the resolution (HDivide & VDivide) of the object and is more pronounced in a lower-resolution object. Divide Controls sub-division of the mesh while drawing an object. Increasing the sub-division will result in a finer mesh and will increase the draw time. Active only while drawing. Range= +32 to -32. Default= 0. Double Sets all polygons to render as double-sided. To avoid unnecessary processing overhead, turn this on only with objects that have holes, so you can see the inside surface. Object with holes is shown in the image to the right with Double off (left) and on (right) Flip Reverses the direction that the polygons are facing.
BV= 0%
BV= 100%
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Symmetry Sub-palette
You normally use the Symmetry settings when editing an object with the Transform palette > Edit command. Using symmetry, you can modify two or more areas of an object the same way; the software makes additional copies of any edits you apply. Moreover, you can mirror symmetrical edits, so that they go in opposite directions, or not, so they go in the same direction. Radial symmetry is a powerful way to make multiple edits simultaneously, all the way around an object's perimeter.
NOTE: When you turn on symmetry and then position the cursor over the active object, red dots appear on its surface where the additional edits will be applied. Large dots indicate edit locations on surfaces facing you, while small dots indicate edit locations on surfaces facing away from you.
M(irror) When on, the symmetry is mirrored, so that if you make an edit on the side of an object, an edit is made on the opposite side, in the opposite direction. When off, a symmetrical edit on the side of an object causes a push-out effect on one side and a push-in effect on the other side. Mirror is available only when X, Y, and/or Z is on. Default= on.
Z-axis radial symmetry with Mirror on (Middle) and Mirror off (right) ZBrush 1.23 The Tool Palette 189
X/Y/Z Sets the axis or axes of symmetry. You can use just one of these, or combine them in any way you like.R(adial): Standard symmetry makes a single extra copy of each edit per axis. With Radial symmetry, you can specify any number of copies of each edit to be distributed evenly about any axis or combination of axes. Radial is available only when X, Y, and/or Z is on. Default= off. Radial Count Sets the number of symmetry points about the specified axis or axes. Default= 8. Range= 2 to 100.
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Selection Sub-palette
ZBrush lets you select or mask parts of a 3D object so that when you apply operations such as deformation functions, editing, and painting (also part of editing), the operation affects only part of the object. Masking can be applied with variable intensity up to 256 levels so that the strength of applied effects varies according to the intensity of the mask. You apply masking manually while editing an object simply by holding down the Ctrl key as you drag over the object. This automatically turns on the Selection sub-palette's View Mask option; the mask appears as a dark gray shading. The darker the mask, the less effect operations applied to it will have. You can also apply masking algorithmically or with an alpha bitmap. The following lists the masking options available in the Selection sub-palette. View Mask Causes masking to be visible; the mask appears as a dark gray shading. The darker the mask, the less effect operations applied to it will have. This is automatically turned on when you apply masking when editing an object. In the illustration below, a mask was applied to the upper part of a cylinder, and then the SBend deformation was applied to the cylinder. Only the unmasked lower area was affected by the bending.
Cylinder with masking applied to upper area, and then SBend applied
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NOTE: If you convert a 3D object that contains visible masking into pixols using any standard method such as Snapshot, the masking becomes part of the affected pixols' coloring.
Inv Inverts the masking. In the following illustration, the masking on the above cylinder was inverted, and then SBend was applied again.
Cylinder with masking inverted Clear Removes any masking. MaskAll Masks the entire object. Use MaskAll or any other method to apply a mask before using Row, Col, or Grd, which act only on masked areas. Row Deselects alternating rows of a masked object, based on the Sel and Skp settings. Col(umn) Deselects alternating columns of a masked object, based on the Sel and Skp settings. 192 ZBrush 1.23 The Tool Palette
Grd (Grid) Deselects alternating rows and columns of a masked object, based on the Sel and Skp settings.
In the following illustration, a sphere was masked with Row, Col, and Grd from left to right across the top, and then the Inflate deformation was applied to the same object across the bottom.
A sphere inflated with row, column, and grid masking (left to right) Sel(ect) The width of rows and columns affected by the Row/Col/Grd commands, measured in polygons. For example, if you use this on a completely masked cylinder that has the default VDivid amount of 32 (that is, it's 32 polygons high) and use the default Sel setting of 8, the result is four bands: two of selected (masked) polygons and two of unselected polygons. (Actually, one of the latter bands is split between the top and bottom of the cylinder, so in fact there are 1/2+3+1/2 bands.) Default= 8. Range= 1 to 32.
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Skp (Skip) The width of rows and columns skipped by the Row/Col/Grd commands, measured in polygons. If Skp is set to 0, ZBrush uses the Sel setting to determine the skip width. Default= 0. Range= 0 to 32. Int(ensity): The strength by which masking is removed by the Row/Col/Grd commands. Use different Sel/Skp settings with different Int amounts to vary masking strength on different parts of the object. Default= 100%. Range= 0% to 100%. Bln (Blend) The degree to which a new masking operation mixes with an existing mask. This lets you, for instance, combine a Row/ Col/Grd mask with an Alpha mask. To use, create a mask, then set the Blend amount, and then apply a second mask, and so on.
NOTE: The next three settings Int, Hue, and Sat let you derive a mask from a texture applied to an object. They are available only when a texture is applied to an object. To apply a texture, make sure the object is in Edit or Transform mode, and then simply select the texture from the Texture palette. For more information on texture usage, see The Texture Palette on page 28.To use Int, Hue, and Sat, first apply a texture, then click the appropriate button to apply the masking. Then, to best see the result, turn off texturing by clicking the TXTR OFF button in the Texture palette.
Int(ensity) Derives a mask from the intensity values in an applied texture. Darker areas receive higher masking values than do lighter areas. Hue Derives a mask from the colors in an applied texture. Masking values of different colors are arbitrarily assigned based on the order of colors in the Color Selector, with the masking value at 100% at the left edge, decreasing to 0% at the right edge. Sat(uration) Derives a mask from the saturation values in an applied texture. Highly saturated areas receive higher masking values than do less-saturated areas. Alp(ha) Derives a mask from the current alpha bitmap, selected in the Alpha palette. 194 ZBrush 1.23 The Tool Palette
NOTE: The bitmap is applied on a per-polygon basis, so be sure the object has a high enough mesh resolution to support the alpha bitmap resolution; otherwise, the result will be blocky.
Create Alpha Creates an alpha image from the current masking and adds it to the Alpha palette as the current selection. See The Alpha Palette on page 38. In the illustration to the right, a cylinder was set to 128 HDivid x 128 VDivid, and while in Edit Mode, Color > Fill as applied with the base brown color (1). The appropriate alpha was selected and applied as masking to the cylinder. Note that the darker shades of brown represent the higher levels of masking. (2). Deformation > Inflate was used in order to inflate the cylinder based on the current masking (3). A light brown color was selected and Color > Fill was used again to colorize the cylinder based on the current masking(4).
NOTE: You can use a mask from any part of the current document by first creating an alpha bitmap from it with the Tool MRGBZGrabber.
ZBrush 1.23 The Tool Palette 195
HidePt Hides any completely or partially non-masked parts of an object. This effectively lets you cut away part of an object, leaving only the masked areas. HidePt leaves only parts of an object on which the masking is 50% or greater.
In the above example a default Cone 3D (left image) was masked by using the Row option with Sel= 2 (see above for info about Row). Note that the dark region of the cone (middle image) represents a masked area and therefore is not modified by the next step. HidePt was used to hide all the unmasked polygons (right image). This operation automatically turns on the Double property of the object, which lets you see both the outside and the inside of the cone. Similar procedures used to create the following objects
NOTE: If you change a masked object's Initialize settings, any masking is automatically removed. If you try to use a Selection command and nothing happens, chances are you're not in an edit or transform mode.
ShowPt Restores visibility of any parts of an object hidden with HidePt. 196 ZBrush 1.23 The Tool Palette
Deformation Sub-palette
Page turn arrows There are two pages of controls in the Deformation Sub-palette. Click on the orange arrows in the upper right corner to toggle the pages. Choose the axis of deformation by clicking on the x, y, and z letters. When a letter is orange, that axis will be deformed by the amount set. You can choose any combination of x, y, and z. These controls are applied to the current 3D object tool, as reflected in the view of the tool in the Image sub-palette's Object Preview window. Normally, changes appear in the document when you next draw an object with that tool. But if a Transform palette function Move, Scale, Rotate, or Edit is active, changes occur to the current object immediately. If you've made changes to an object in the document that weren't reflected in the tool preview for example, scaling on one or two axes you may get unexpected results from applying a deformation to the object.
Deformation axis selectors For best results, follow this procedure: 1 Select the tool.
2 Open the Image sub-palette and set the object up in the preview according to how you want the deformation(s) to affect it. For example, if you want to bend a cylinder into a C shape, rotate it so its long axis is vertical. 3 Apply the deformation(s). 4 Add the modified tool to the document. ZBrush 1.23 The Tool Palette 197
Most of the numeric settings in this sub-palette default to 0%, and return to 0% after you change the setting. Thus, they can be applied repeatedly, with cumulative effects. Also, most sliders can be dragged left or right, with opposite results depending on which direction you drag. Because of the way the deformations are applied, dragging in one direction and then an equal distance in the opposite direction doesn't always return the object to its previous shape. In such cases, you can use Undo (Ctrl+Z) to abandon changes.
NOTE: you can apply all deformations on selected parts of an object by using masking for an unlimited range of effects.See Selection Sub-palette on page 191.
Unify While editing an object it is possible for the overall dimensions of the object to change, causing it to become too big or small to display properly within the preview window. By applying Unify, ZBrush uniformly scales the object to maintain an optimal size.
Sphere deformed 100% with SizeX (left) and then with Unify (righ
Mirror Flips the object horizontally. Use this to make a horizontally symmetrical image with a 3D object; use Snapshot to paste one side, and then use Mirror to create the opposite image.
Cylinder deformed with SBend (left) and then flipped with Mirror (right)
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MovX/MovY/MovZ Moves the object along the X, Y, or Z axis with respect to the center of rotation. This is the opposite of moving the center of rotation in the preview window, but has the same net result. Default= 0%. Range= -100% to 100%.
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RotX/RotY/RotZ Rotates the object about the X, Y, or Z axis, using the center of rotation. Default= 0. Range= -180 to 180.
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Size XYZ Scales the object up or down uniformly on all three axes. Default= 0%. Range= -100% to 100%.
SizeX/SizeXY Scales the object along the X axis only, or in the XY plane, respectively. Default= 0%. Range= -100% to 100%.
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Bend Bends the object around the in-out axis, creating a sharp corner. Uses the pivot point as the center of the bend. Default= 0%. Range= -100% to 100%.
Bend (original left, bent right) SBend Bends the object around the in-out axis, creating a smooth corner. Uses the pivot point as the center of the bend. Default= 0%. Range= -100% to 100%.
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Skew Adds a slant to the object about the in-out axis, creating a sharp corner. Uses the pivot point as the center of the skew. Default= 0%. Range= -100% to 100%.
Skew (original left, skewed right) SSkew Adds a slant to the object about the in-out axis, creating a smooth corner. Uses the pivot point as the center of the skew. Default= 0%. Range= -100% to 100%.
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Flatten Flattens the object from the left or right edge to the center as viewed in the Image Preview window. The direction of flattening depends on which way you drag the slider. Default= 0%. Range= -100% to 100%.
Twist Applies a twist along the in-out axis as viewed in the Image Preview window. The direction of the twist depends on which way you drag the slider. Default= 0%. Range= -100% to 100%.
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TaperX/TaperXZ Tapers the object by scaling it successively smaller or larger from the top to the bottom, as viewed in the Image Preview window. TaperX tapers width only; TaperXZ tapers width and depth simultaneously. Default= 0%. Range= -100% to 100%.
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SquizX/SquizXZ Squeezes or expands the object about the pivot point, depending on the direction you drag the slider. SquizX squeezes width only; SquizXZ squeezes width and depth simultaneously. Default= 0%. Range= -100% to 100%.
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Noise Applies a noise effect to an object, giving it an uneven surface. Default= 0%. Range= -100% to 100%.
Noise (original left, Noise applied right) Smooth Smooths an object, making the surface more even. Default= 0%. Range= -100% to 100%.
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Inflate Makes an object larger or smaller on all axes by pushing polygons out or in along their surface normals. This tends to produce smoother edges than simply scaling an object. Default= 0%. Range= -100% to 100%.
Inflate (original left, inflated right) Spherize Moves an object's polygons into a spherical shape when dragged to the right. When dragged to the left, can have a deflating effect. Default= 0%. Range= -100% to 100%.
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Gravity Adds a gravity (or anti-gravity) effect by moving polygons successively downward or upward, depending on their distance from the pivot point. Default= 0%. Range= -100% to 100%.
Gravity (original left, gravity applied right) Perspective Adds a perspective effect by scaling farther polygons larger and closer polygons smaller. Dragging to the left has the opposite effect. Default= 0%. Range= -100% to 100%.
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Optimize Intelligently reduces the number of polygons in an object while attempting to retain its shape. The more you optimize an object, the more detail it loses.
Successive optimizations, from left to right: 0, 100%, 200%, and 300% Divid(e) Increases an object's resolution by subdividing its polygons. Use this to enable the addition of detail to an object.
NOTE: You can use masking to better control the Divide operation; the Divide operation is applied to the unmasked area. Typically, parts of the masked area will be subdivided as well, but not as much as without masking. Here's the procedure:
1 Draw a 3D object in the canvas.This example uses the Plane 3D tool. 2 Press T to enter Edit mode, and then Ctrl-drag on the object to paint a mask on the area or areas you want to subdivide. To change the size of the Edit brush, use the Draw palette > Draw Size slider.
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3 In the Tool palette, under Modifiers > Selection, click the Inv button to invert the selection. This unmasks what you painted in step 2, and masks everything else. Masked areas won't be subdivided, for the most part.
Mask Inverted
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4 In the Tool palette, under Modifiers > Deformation, set Divid to about 50%. This adds resolution to the unmasked area(s) as well as all connecting polygons. Thus, these areas can support more highly detailed sculptural and painting operations.
Initialize Sub-palette
The Initialize sub-palette settings vary with each 3D object. You can find definitions of the Initialize settings common to most 3D objects in the introductory topic to this section List of 3D Objects and of settings unique to each tool in the respective tool's section, above. 212 ZBrush 1.23 The Tool Palette
Inventory Sub-palette
Load Tool Loads a tool in ZBrush's ZTool (.ztl) format, and adds it to the Tool palette. Clone Creates a copy of the current tool and adds it to the Tool palette. Save As Saves the current object in ZBrush's ZTool (.ztl) format, for use in later sessions.
Export Options
Set all the options in this group before exporting. Obj Sets the .obj format for export. Dxf Sets the .dxf format for export. Qud Uses Quad (four sided) polygons for export. The preferred method for .obj Tri Uses triangular polygons for export. The preferred method for .dxf Txr Includes the applied texture with the exported output Flp Flips the texture top to bottom at export for applications that require it.
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Mrg Merges points that are in the same location at export. Grp Includes grouping information in export. Scale Scales the entire export. Range= 0.1 to 100. Default= 1. Export Exports the object using the settings above.
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Conclusion
In ZBrush's Tool palette resides the heart of the program. The breadth and depth of functionality to be found here is such that you can spend weeks just learning the ropes, and it could conceivably require months to learn to fully exploit the toolset, especially in conjunction with the practically endless combinations of settings available in the other ZBrush palettes. We encourage you to take as much time as possible to explore and use these tools, so you can make the most of them for expressing your artistic inspiration. As powerful as these tools are, they are only a glimpse of the possibilities inherent in ZBrush. We at Pixologic are committed to continue the addition of innovative new tools and to improve the functionality of the existing tools. This will allow you the artist - to enhance your creativity and your enjoyment of the art creation process.
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ZBrush 1.23
The Picker palette controls how a new brush stroke will interact with the existing orientation, depth, color, and material values of the pixols on the canvas. Like the Stroke types, choosing different picker combinations will change the behavior of each tool dramatically, effectivly giving you hundreds of tools to use.
Orientation
Pencil Tool The orientation section of the picker determines how new brush strokes and objects align themselves to the existing pixols on the canvas. Default= Continuous.
Once
Continuous
Constant
Once
Orients the new stroke perpendicular to the surface at mouse down and keeps that orientation throughout the stroke.
Continuous
Evaluates the pixols under the cursor and orients the stroke perpendicular to them continuously .
Constant
Orientation is determined by the pencil tool and stays constant throughout the stroke. All objects and strokes will be created at this orientation. Click and drag on the pencil tool to turn on Constant orientation and set the angle.
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Depth
The Depth section of the picker determines how new brush strokes and objects position themselves relative to the existing pixols depth. Default= Continuous.
Once
Continuous
Constant
Once
Aligns to the surface depth at mouse down and keeps that depth throughout the stroke.
Continuous
Continuously evaluates the pixols under the cursor and adjusts to their depth.
Constant
Depth is determined by the Z slider. You can enter a value numerically or click and drag to the canvas and pick depth values from it. All objects and strokes will be created at this depth. 218 ZBrush 1.23 The Picker Palette
Color
The Color section of the picker determines how new brush strokes and objects are colored relative to the existing pixols color. Default= Constant.
Once
Continuous
Constant
Once
Evaluates the surface color at mouse down and keeps that color throughout the stroke.
Continuous
Continuously evaluates the pixols under the cursor and takes on their color.
Constant
Color is determined by the main color set in the Color palette. ZBrush 1.23 The Picker Palette 219
Material
The Material section of the picker determines how new brush strokes and objects are assigned material properties relative to the existing pixols material. Default= Static.
Once
Continuous
Constant
Once
Evaluates the surface material at mouse down and keeps that material throughout the stroke.
Continuous
Continuously evaluates the pixols under the cursor and assigns that material to the current tool.
Constant
Material is determined by the active material in the Materials palette.
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Layer
The Layer section of the picker determines how new brush strokes and objects are assigned properties relative to the existing pixols in multiple layers. A control is also available for dynamic build-up. Default= All.
Active
Other
All
Active
When active, only the active layer is evaluated when assigning values to a stroke.
Other
When active, all other layers (not the active layer) are evaluated when assigning values to a stroke.
All
When active, all layers are evaluated when assigning values to a stroke. ZBrush 1.23 The Picker Palette 221
Dynamic
When making a stroke, ZBrush can evaluate one of two images to assign values to the stroke. ZBrush retains an image before the stroke and an image as the stroke is being made. When Dynamic is on, information is taken from the image as it is being made, allowing for build-up effects.
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ZBrush 1.23
The stroke type determines how ZBrush will interpret mouse down, mouse movement, and mouse up actions with the selected tool. You can change the behavior of each tool by using different stroke types. One tool using four different stroke types is the equivalent of having four tools. Even with the hundreds of combinations already available, more stroke types are being created and will be included in future versions of ZBrush.
Stroke Types
The action of the stroke type depends on which tool is selected, so experimentation is the key to learning all the combinations. Each brush has different capabilities and will react in a unique way. All of the 3D object tools react to stroke type in the same way.
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A 3D sphere tool is used for all the following examples: Dots Mouse down will determine the starting point of the stroke, mouse movement draws spheres with a diameter determined by the Draw Size setting See Draw Size on page 85. Spacing is determined by the speed of mouse movement. Mouse up will end the stroke.
Mouse down
Mouse up
Drag Rectangle Mouse down will determine placement of the object, mouse movement will determine its size, and mouse up will create the object. This is the default stroke type for 3D objects.
Mouse down
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Freehand Mouse down will determine starting point of the objects, mouse move draws spheres with size determined by the Draw Size setting. Spacing is determined by the spacing slider. Mouse up will end the stroke.
Mouse down
Mouse up
Line Mouse down will determine starting point of the objects, mouse move draws spheres with size determined by the Draw Size setting. Spacing is determined by the spacing slider. Mouse up will end the stroke in a straight line from the starting point.
Mouse down
Mouse up
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Drag Dot Mouse down will create one instance of the sphere with size determined by the Draw Size setting. Mouse move will position the sphere and mouse up will place the instance at that position.
Mouse down
Mouse up
Drag to new position and release Conic Mouse down will determine starting point and direction of the objects, mouse move draws spheres with size determined by the Draw Size setting and spacing determined by the spacing slider. The initial direction of the stroke is aligned to the surface that the stroke begins on. If the stroke returns to the starting point, its direction will be aligned again. Mouse up will end the stroke.
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Planar Dots Mouse down will determine starting point and direction of the objects, mouse move draws spheres with size determined by the Draw Size setting and spacing determined by the spacing slider. The direction of the stroke is aligned tangentially to the surface that the stroke begins on. Mouse up will end the stroke
Line 90 Mouse down will determine the starting point and direction of the line object, mouse move draws a line with diameter determined by the Draw Size setting. The direction of the stroke is aligned perpendicular to the surface that the stroke begins on. Mouse up will end the stroke
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Ray 90 Very similar to Line 90, Ray 90 allows build-up of material by moving the mouse back and forth before release.
Spacing The spacing slider controls the spacing between the instances in the stroke. A spacing of 0.5 will place the instances one-half of their diameter apart. A spacing of 2 will place the instances two times their diameter apart. Range= 0 to 2. Default= 0.75
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Replay Last Replays the last stroke. You can play back the stroke using different tools, colors, and sizes. Replay All Replays all recorded strokes. You can play back the strokes using different tools, colors, and sizes. Record Press to begin recording strokes. Press again to end recording strokes. Only the stroke is recorded. Add When pressed, strokes that are recorded will be added to the current recording. If not enabled, recording will overwrite the current recording. Strokes Count Indicates the number of strokes in the current recording.
Inventory
Export Last Exports the last stroke as a ZScript text file. Export All Exports all recorded strokes as a ZScript text file. ZBrush 1.23 The Stroke Palette 231
ZBrush 1.23
Palette controls
Stencil
Activates the stencil feature.
Inverse
Inverts the properties of the stencil. Open areas become closed. Closed areas become open.
Interactive
Enables the StencilCoinController. See The StencilCoinController on page 236.
Stretch
Scales the stencil to fir thecanvas area
Actual
Returns the stencil to actual size.
Horiz
Proportionally scaled to fit the horizontal size of the canvas.
Vert
Proportionally scaled to fit the vertical size of the canvas.
Wrap Mode
Fits the stencil to the underlying object topography.
Res
Higher values produce a more accurate wrap with a slower interaction speed. Range= 8 to 256. Default= 64. 234 ZBrush 1.23 The Stencil Palette
Smooth
Higher values produce a smoother wrap. Range= 0 to 32. Default= 4.
Show
Shows/hides the stencil.
R
Stencil color control. When used alone, stencil will be red. Can be used in combination with G and B.
G
Stencil color control. When used alone, stencil will be green. Can be used in combination with R and B.
B
Stencil color control. When used alone, stencil will be blue. Can be used in combination with R and G.
E
Elevation mode. Turns off the usual stencil display and shows it as a tonal variation on the surface of the object.
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The StencilCoinController
Place your cursor in an open area of your canvas. Hold down the Space bar. The StencilCoinController will appear at your cursor position. Still holding down the space bar, click and drag on a command on the control coin to position or resize the stencil. Move absolute Moves stencil relative to the object. The stencil is oriented tangent to the surface of the object. Scale horizontal Scales the stencil horizontally Uniform scaling Scales horizontally and vertically. Scale vertical Scales the stencil vertically Move relative Moves stencil relative to the screen. Rotate S Rotates the stencil on the Z axis of the screen. Free rotation Rotates the stencil in any direction. Rotate Z Rotates the stencil on its Z axis. Rotate S Move relative Scale vertical Free rotation Uniform scaling Rotate Z Move absolute Scale horizontal
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ZBrush 1.23
Markers are placed from the Transform palette and their properties are set from the Marker palette. If any markers exist in the current document, you can tell by a small yellow square that appears at the marker position when the cursor is in its vicinity.
Placing Markers
To mark the active 3D object's position, click the Mark Object Position button. You'll see a marker move from the palette to the object, indicating that the marker has been set. Then, when you position the cursor near the marker, a square appears, indicating a marker position. See Marker Radius on page 292.When you position the cursor over the marker position, an arrow appears that indicates that the marker will be used as the center of a 3D object, if you draw one. Choose the marker color by setting the main color in the Color palette before placing the marker. See Main and Secondary colors on page 25.By default, an object that you draw using a marker also uses the orientation of the object you originally used to place the marker, at the time you placed the marker. That is, the marker remembers any rotations that you made to the object before placing the marker, and can apply that orientation to new objects that you draw using the marker.
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For example, in the illustration below, the sphere was drawn first, then a marker was added, and then the marker position was used to draw the torus and cylinder concentrically with the sphere.
A single marker was used to create several objects with the same center position
Here are several additional facts about markers: If you use a marker to draw with the Dot stroke type (use a single click), the tool also remembers any scaling you've applied to the object you used to place the marker. If you've created a drawing using scaled and rotated 3D objects, placing markers for each object, you can then re-create the drawing using differentcolored objects by undoing all the objects and using the Dot stroke type with the markers, changing colors as you go. You can set up to 64 markers in a document. Markers are saved with the document. 240 ZBrush 1.23 The Markers Palettte
Objects are not saved with the document, but you can take advantage of markers and ZBrush's Layers feature to replace custom objects after you've saved a document. For example, say you create a person's head and a hat, save each as a separate .ztl file, and then place the two objects on separate layers, applying markers to each. Later, you might decide you want to modify the hat. You can go back and delete the layer containing the hat, reload the object into that layer, place it at the original position using the marker, and then apply any transforms and/or editing you like. The Edit palette > Clear function (Ctrl+N) does not remove markers from the document. Use the Unmark Object Position button to remove a marker from the document. If the document contains only one marker, clicking the icon will remove that marker. If the document contains more than one marker, follow this procedure: Determine which marker you want to remove. Use that marker to draw any 3D object. This tells ZBrush that this is the marker to remove. Click Unmark Object Position to delete the marker. If you like, use Undo (Ctrl+Z) to remove the object you drew in step 2.
NOTE: The maximum distance that your cursor can be from the marker before its yellow square disappears is set in Preferences>Marker Radius.
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The default Marker Palette The Marker Palette contains controls for turning markers on and off and for enabling recall of various properties. On/Off Turns all markers on and off without deleting them. Reorder Reverses creation order of markers. When two markers occupy the same positon, the most recently created will be selected when you click on the position. Reorder markers to select the older marker.
Modifiers:
Show When Show is off, there is no indication that you are near a marker, but when directly over it, the red arrow appears.
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Each Marker remembers all of the properties below, but only the items selected will be recalled: Tool Enables recall of the tool used to create the marked object. Click once on the marker to shift to the marked tool, then a second time to re-create the marked object. Draw Enables recall of the drawing mode used to create the marked object; for example ZAdd, ZCut. Position Enables recall of the position of the marked object. Normal Enables recall of the orientation of the marked object. Color Enables recall of the color of the marked object. Material Enables recall of the material of the marked object. Texture Enables recall of the texture of the marked object.
Inventory
Delete All Deletes all markers in the file.
Conclusion
ZBrush marker technology is a powerful way to align and edit objects. In addition to the uses mentioned here, markers are used with the MultiMarker tool. See MultiMarker on page 182. All markers will be saved with the ZBrush (.zbr) file. ZBrush 1.23 The Markers Palettte 243
ZBrush 1.23
The Layer palette, with Modifiers and Inventory sub-palettes expanded ZBrush lets you work in a number of different layers in a single document. Each layer is a bit mapped image the full size of your canvas. It essentially serves as a separate document, but its contents can interact with the other layers.
Layer interaction in ZBrush is different from that found in other software you might be familiar with. In most 2D graphics programs, a pixel is visible only if it's in the uppermost layer, or if it's in a lower layer but all pixels above it (that is, in higher layers) are transparent. In ZBrush, the visibility of any given pixol depends only on its height, or Z-axis position. For instance, you can move a layer containing a sphere in front of a layer containing a cube, partially hiding the cube. By default, ZBrush starts with a single layer. You can add and delete layers, work in any existing layer, move layers in three dimensions, and combine and hide layers. As documented in the Materials chapter, you must use layers for transparency to be visible in the document.
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You can continue adding layers, up to a total of as many layers as there are slots in the Layer palette. However, only one layer can be active at a time. The thumbnail for the active layer is outlined with a gold line. This is the layer that you'll be working in if you draw in or edit the document. To activate a different layer, click it. 246 ZBrush 1.23 The Layers Palettte
NOTE: If you have a floating object in the current layer and then activate or create another layer, the software makes a snapshot of the floating object, so it can no longer be manipulated independently of the rest of the layer.
ZBrush automatically zooms the thumbnails of inactive, visible layers so that their pixols fill the thumbnail. For example, in the following illustration, Layer 1 contains a white sphere, while Layer 2 contains a yellow sphere. Because Layer 1 is active, the yellow sphere in Layer 2 fills the thumbnail.
The inactive Layer 2 thumbnail zooms in on the yellow sphere To hide a layer, activate it, and then click its thumbnail. The thumbnail's teal background turns gray to indicate that it is now hidden. But as long as the layer is active, its contents remain visible. The layer becomes hidden only when you activate a different layer. To unhide a hidden layer, activate it, and then click it again so that the background becomes teal.
NOTE: To toggle the visibility of all layers, Shift+click the active layer.
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NOTE: After activating a layer with Auto Select, release the Tilde key before you start to draw. If you drag the mouse in the active layer with the Tilde key held down, you scroll the layer instead of drawing.
Modifiers Sub-palette:
Clear Deletes all pixols from the current layer. Fill Fills the current layer with the current color. Or, if a texture is active, Fill uses that texture instead, resizing it as necessary to fill the canvas. Bake Converts all pixols in the active layer into base colors. The pixols retain color and position information, including any color changes introduced by shading, but lose material information. All pixols are converted to the Flat Color material. 248 ZBrush 1.23 The Layers Palettte
You can see how this works by starting ZBrush, and then following this procedure: 1 Add a sphere. 2 In the Render palette, click the rightmost icon (Flat Renderer). The sphere's shading is no longer visible. 3 Return to the Preview Renderer to make the shading visible again. 4 Open the Light palette and move a light source (the gray square over the large sphere) while observing how the shading changes. 5 Bake the layer. 6 Move the light source again. The shading no longer changes, because the default FastShader pixols have been converted into base colors in the Flat Color material, which doesn't respond to lighting changes. 7 Activate the Flat Renderer again. The shading remains, because it has been "baked" into the document's base colors. B Blend (Bake Blend Amount) Sets the amount of blending between shaded and unshaded pixols when Bake is performed. This numeric setting determines the percentage of each shaded pixol to be used, and the setting subtracted from 100 determines the percentage of each unshaded pixol to be used. Take, for example, one pixol of a shaded white sphere. The pixol has a shaded pixol grayscale value of 90, and an unshaded pixol value of 255. If you bake the image at 80% B Blend, the software multiplies 0.8 times 90, and adds it to 0.2 times 255, ending up with a pixol grayscale value of 123.
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In the following illustration, a sphere is shown with shading (left) and without (center). After baking the layer at 80%, the resulting unshaded image (right) is darker than before, but not quite as dark as the original shaded image.
B Blend lets you control the degree of shading added to the baked image
NOTE: Baking a layer at any percentage less than 100 leaves the original shaded pixols (materials, etc.) as they were, and this is combined with the baked image, so the rendered image is usually darker than before. This way, you can set a certain lighting setup, material, etc., bake a percentage of that into the base colors, and then continue modifying lighting, materials, and so on and have that combined with the original setup.
Flip H/Flip V Reverses the layer contents horizontally or vertically. Displace H/Displace V Lets you move the layer contents horizontally or vertically using the mouse slider, or numerically from the keyboard. If you use the mouse slider, you must release the mouse button to complete the displacement. 250 ZBrush 1.23 The Layers Palettte
You can also move the layer contents horizontally and vertically by holding the Tilde (~) key and dragging in the document window. W (Wrap Mode) When on, Wrap Mode causes the pixols in a layer moved horizontally or vertically to "wrap around" to the other side. For instance, if a layer contains a sphere and you move the layer so the sphere moves past the right side of the document, it reappears on the left side. When off, pixols moved past the edge of document are lost. Default= on. Displace Z Lets you move the layer contents in and out (in the 3rd dimension) using the mouse slider, or numerically from the keyboard. You can also move the layer contents on the Z axis by holding the Tilde (~) and Alt keys and dragging vertically in the document window. Dragging upward moves the layer away from you, and downward moves it toward you
Inventory Sub-palette
Delete Deletes the active layer from the document. This operation cannot be undone. If the document contains only one layer, Delete has no effect. Create Adds a new layer to the document above the active layer. The new layer is automatically activated. Dup (Clone) Adds a duplicate of the active layer to the document. The new layer appears above the active layer. Clone is available only if there is at least one empty slot in the Layer palette.
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<< (Move Layer Up)/>> (Move Layer Down) Moves the active layer up or down one slot, switching positions with the layer in the adjacent slot. Use this function to position layers next to one another in preparation for merging them. Mrg (Merge) Combines the active layer with the one below it. In the following illustration, the first layer contains two red spheres, and the second layer contains a blue and a white sphere. After combining the two layers with Merge, the first layer contains all four spheres.
Using Merge on the second layer combines it with the first layer
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ZBrush 1.23
Because a ZBrush scene has depth and material properties, virtual lights are required to illuminate the canvas. ZBrush calculates shading based on the number, type, strength, and position of the lights in the scene.
Select a light by clicking on its icon. A white square will surround the icon indicating that it has been selected and the properties of that light will be shown in the rest of the palette. Clicking on the icon again will toggle the light on and off. When the light is on its icon will have a teal background. The preview sphere in the upper left of the palette shows the combined effect of all the lights in a scene. The small grey square indicates the relative position of the selected light. Click and drag the square to re-position the light or use the Position sub-palette.
NOTE: If you click on the grey square without moving the mouse, the light moves to the back side of the sphere and becomes a back light. Click again to return it to the front.
All of the properties that follow (except Global Ambient) are set for each selected light. ZBrush 1.23 The Lights Palette 255
Color
Set by selecting a color with any of the color pickers and clicking on the color patch. You can also click and drag from the patch to the canvas to pick a color. Light color is visible on the preview sphere, but you must be in Best Render mode to see its effect in the scene.
Intensity
Sets the strength of the selected light. Range= 0 to 2.0. Default= 0.85.
Intensity Curve
The intensity curve controls the intensity fall-off from the center of the light to the edge of its effect.
Edge
Center
Edge
Center
Intensity
Global Ambient
Sets the amount of non-directional background light. Range= 0 to 100. Default= 15.
NOTE: The amount of ambient light is also set locally for each material in the scene.See Ambient on page 56.
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Global light mapping is a very efficient way to reduce the amount of system resources needed to light and render a scene. One global light map can replace many lights or free them for other tasks. You can use global light mapping alone or in addition to normal lighting. The Global Light Mapping Interface The interface consists of diffuse and specular map previews and their associated intensity sliders. Load a bitmap in either by clicking the preview window and choosing an image from the expanded texture palette that appears. Global Diffuse Intensity Range= 0 to 100%. Default= 0. Global Specular Intensity Range= 0 to 100%. Default= 0.
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Using Global Light mapping To make maps that replace existing lights, create diffuse and specular bit map images: 1 Light your scene with as many lights as needed. 2 Make a new layer. See The Layers Palette on page 244. 3 Hide the first layer and draw a white sphere with basic material applied. See Using the Material Palette on page 49. 4 Reduce the material Ambient value to zero. See Ambient on page 56. 5 Reduce Global Ambient to zero. See Global Ambient on page 256. 6 Reduce Specular Intensity of the Basic Material to zero. See Specular on page 59. 7 This white sphere, lit by your unique lighting setup, provides all the information needed for diffuse light mapping. Capture the scene with the MRGBZ grabber. See MRGBZ Grabber on page 148. The bit map will be added to your Texture palette. 8 Load the diffuse map by clicking on the Diffuse Map Preview and choosing the map you just created. 9 Reduce the diffuse intensity of the basic material to zero and return the specular intensity back to its previous value. 10 This white sphere, lit by your unique lighting setup, provides all the information needed for specular light mapping. Capture the scene with the MRGBZ grabber. See MRGBZ Grabber on page 148. The bit map will be added to your Texture palette. 11 Load the specular map by clicking on the Specular Map Preview and choosing the map you just created. 12 Hide the current layer and activate the original layer. 13 Turn off all lights. See Adding and adjusting lights on page 255. Increase Global Diffuse and Global Specular intensity sliders until you duplicate the effect of normal lighting.
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Using Global Light Mapping with existing lights You can create interesting effects by adding to your existing lighting.
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Modifiers
Type
Sun Infinitely far away, the Sun light illuminates the entire scene with parallel rays. The intensity of the light does not diminish with distance, so all objects in the scene receive an equal amount of light. Point The point light has a position in the scene and its intensity falls off with distance, so objects further away from the light are illuminated less. Omnidirectional, it casts rays in all directions
Sun Light
Point Light
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Spot Illuminates in the same manner as the point light, except that it has direction. Use the placement square in the preview window to control direction.
Placement Preview
Spot Light
Glow Illuminates all objects within the radius of the light equally, regardless of what direction they are facing.
Glow Light
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Radial Usual light behavior is to light the areas facing the light brighter than areas facing away from the light. The Radial light illuminates the areas facing away from the light. This makes it a perfect fill light when placed at the same position as the main light.
Radial light
Placement
P patch Click and drag from the position patch to the canvas and release to place a light. You can also enter the position of the light numerically: X Pos Use the slider or click and type in the X Position here. Range= +1.0 to -1.0. Default= 0.
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Y Pos Use the slider or click and type in the Y Position here. Range= +1.0 to -1.0. Default= -1. Z Pos Use the slider or click and type in the Z Position here. Range= +4.0 to -4.0. Default= 1. Radius Use the slider or click and type in the radius of the illumination. Range= 0.01 to 4. Default= 0.05.
Shadows
Shadow Enable shadow casting for the selected light here. Global shadow casting must also be turned on to render shadows. See Render Shadows on page 267. Intensity Controls the opacity of the shadow. Range= +4.0 to -4.0. Default= 1. Length Since ZBrush scenes are 2 and one-half D, there is no information about the back sides of objects. The shadow renderer treats all objects as if they had infinite depth and the length of the shadow is set here. Range= 0.01 to 4. Default= 0.05. ZMode A shadow casting mode that does take object depth into account and produces superior results in some cases. If an object is only partially visible, it may not produce complete shadows. Blur Range 1 to 8. Default= 4. ZBrush 1.23 The Lights Palette 263
ZBrush 1.23
The render palette controls which methods will be used to calculate the shading of scenes. Lighting, color, and material properties must be evaluated and render level special effects such as fog and depth cueing are included.
Cursor
When you drag the Cursor button to the canvas, a sample area centered around the mouse release position is rendered using the Best Renderer. To re-render the same location after making changes, press Ctrl-R.
Render
Causes ZBrush to render the entire document with the current settings.
Best Renderer
Used for the final render, the Best Renderer uses the best (and slowest) methods to produce the highest quality image. Shadows must be rendered using this renderer. If you try to work in the Best Renderer mode, ZBrush will automatically switch to the Preview Renderer. There's one exception to this: if you have a floating object in the scene, you can make changes to its material properties and the Best Renderer will re-render only the object and its bounding box.
Preview Renderer
The default renderer, used when composing a scene. It will show all properties of the scene except shadows. It does show transparency, but the Best renderer is significantly better in most situations.
Fast Renderer
Designed to be used when modeling, the fast renderer does not render materials, only basic shading. This makes it ideal for modeling, since it is very fast and shows surface details due to geometry, not materials. See Fast Render on page 272
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Flat Renderer
Allows you to see the scene with no shading, just basic color. See Pre and Post Shaded Colors on page 26
Modifiers
3D Shading
Controls the amount of shading in the render. 0%= flat shading, 100%= fully shaded. Default= 100%
Render Fog
Click to enable the fog effect. The properties of the fog are adjusted in the Fog sub-palette. Used only by the Preview and Best Render mode.
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Flatten Layers
When active, all document layers are rendered as one layer. Default= on.
Render Shadows
Click to enable shadow rendering. At least one light in the scene must have shadow casting enabled also. Used only by the Best Render mode.
Depth Adjustments
Evaluates which material is assigned to each pixel. Activating Depth Adjustments can clean up intersections between multiple objects in your final render. Enable only when needed. Used only by the Best Render mode.
Color Adjustments
Blurs the image to improve anti-aliasing. See Antialiasing, below. Used only by the Best Render mode.
Antialiasing
Blur Sets the intensity of the blur. Range= 0 to 100%. Default= 100%. Edge Using the depth information in each pixol, ZBrush can blur only the edges in an image. Aliasing is most apparent at the edges of objects. Range 0 to 100%. Default= 25%. A setting of 0% will blur only edges, 100% will blur the entire image. Size The number of pixols evaluated when producing the blur. Larger sample sizes produce more blur. Range= 1 to 8. Default= 1.
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Super Sample Causes ZBrush to render the same image several times and then average the results for better final quality. Range= 1 to 4. Default= 1. A setting of 2 causes four renders, 3 causes eight renders, and 4 causes 16 renders.
NOTE: The best possible anti-aliasing is produced by working on a canvas that is 2x or even 4x larger than the final size. After rendering, re-size the image to the final size.
Depth Cue
Depth Cue Alpha Depth Cue Curve Depth Cue Alpha You can modify the depth cue effect by using Depth Cue Alpha. Click the Depth Cue Alpha patch to access the texture sub-palette and choose a texture. It will be converted to grayscale and stretched over the entire canvas area. Each pixel of the alpha will determine the intensity of the depth cue at that location. When the alpha is white, there is no effect on the depth cue. When the alpha is black, there is no depth cue effect. Useful for restricting the depth cue effect to a selected area of the canvas. Intensity Sets the intensity of the blur at its far point. Range= 0 to 100%. Default= 100%. Softness The number of pixels averaged to produce the blur. Higher numbers produce more blur. Range= 1 to 8. Default= 4 Depth 1 Depth 1 is the near point of the depth cue effect. There is no blurring at this distance. The blurring begins as depth increases. Type in the Z depth directly or click and drag from the slider to the canvas to set the value. Pick an object at the depth where you want the depth cue to begin and release. 268 ZBrush 1.23 The Render Palette
Depth 2 Depth 2 is the far point of the depth cue effect. There is full blurring at this distance. Type in the Z depth directly or click and drag from the slider to the canvas to set the value. Pick an object at the depth where you want the full depth cue effect and release.
A ZBrush fish with Depth 1 set on its nose and Depth 2 set on its tail.
Intensity
Depth 1
Depth 2
Clicking on the collapsed Depth Cue Curve area of the sub-palette expands the Depth Cue Curve to its full size. You can adjust the intensity of the depth cue between the near point (Depth 1) and far point (Depth 2) by adjusting the graph. See Using the Graph on page 51
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Fog
Fog Color 1
Fog Color 2
Fog Texure
Fog Curve
Fog Alpha
Intensity Sets the intensity of the fog at its far point. Range= 0 to 100%. Default= 100%. Depth 1 Depth 1 is the near point of the fog effect. There is no obscuration at this distance. The fog begins as depth increases. Type in the Z depth directly or click and drag from the slider to the canvas to set the value. Pick an object at the depth where you want the fog to begin and release. Depth 2 Depth 2 is the far point of the fog effect. There is full fog at this distance. Type in the Z depth directly or click and drag from the slider to the canvas to set the value. Pick an object at the depth where you want the full fog effect and release. Fog Color 1 Fog Color 1 is the color of the fog at the near point of the fog effect. Set by selecting a color with any of the color pickers and clicking on the Color 1 patch. You can also click and drag from the patch to the canvas to pick a color. Fog Texture You can also colorize the fog by using a bitmap texture. You can produce other environmental effects, such as smoke, by using a fog texture. Click and hold on the Fog Texture patch to access the texture sub-palette and choose a texture. It will be stretched over the entire canvas area. Each pixel of the texture will determine the color of the fog at that location.
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NOTE: A Fog Texture will override Fog Color 1 and Fog Color 2 settings.
Fog Alpha You can further modify the fog effect by using Fog Alpha. Click and hold on the Fog Alpha patch to access the texture sub-palette and choose a texture. It will be converted to grayscale and stretched over the entire canvas area. Each pixel of the alpha will determine the intensity of the fog at that location. When the alpha is white, there is no effect on the fog. When the alpha is black, there is no fog effect. Fog Color 2 Fog Color 2 is the color of the fog at the far point of the fog effect. Set by selecting a color with any of the color pickers and clicking on the Color 2 patch. You can also click and drag from the patch to the canvas to pick a color.
A ZBrush fish with Depth 1 set on its nose, Depth 2 set on its tail and a light blue Fog color 1 and 2.
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Fog Curve
Intensity
Depth 1
Depth 2
Clicking on the collapsed Fog Curve area of the sub-palette expands the Fog Curve to its full size. You can adjust the intensity of the fog between the near point (Depth 1) and far point (Depth 2) by adjusting the graph. See Using the Graph on page 51
Fast Render
Since the Fast Renderer does not take materials into account, an ambient and diffuse setting for the entire scene is set here. Ambient Range= 0 to 1. Default= 0.3. Diffuse Range= 0 to 1. Default= 0.8.
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Environment
The ZBrush Environment palette allows you to globally reflect a single image or color on all the objects in the scene with reflective surfaces. The amount of environmental reflection is set in the Materials palette for each material. See Environmental Reflections on page 76 Off Turns off Color, Texure, or Scene reflections. Default= off. Color Lets you use a single color for global reflections. Pressing the Color button enables the Environment Color patch. Txtr Allows a texture to be used for global reflections. Pressing the Texture button enables the Environment Texture patch. Scene Uses the current scene as a source image for global reflections. Environment Color patch When enabled, set by selecting a color with any of the color pickers and clicking on the Environment Color patch. You can also click and drag from the patch to the canvas to pick a color. Environment Texture patch When enabled, click and hold on the Environment Texture patch to access the texture sub-palette and choose a texture.
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Trace D The trace distance is how far ZBrush will look to find a local object to reflect. Range= 0 to 100% of the current image size. Default= 50%. Repeat Controls how many times a reflective surface can reflect another reflective surface. The effect can be visualized by facing two mirrors at each other. Range= 1 to 5. Default= 1. Field of View Sets the field of view for environmental mapping and lights. A setting of zero degrees causes the point of view to be infinitely far away. A setting of 180 degrees places the point of view right above the canvas. Range= 0 to 180 degrees. Default= 0.
FOV= 0
FOV= 120
FOV= 180
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Adjustments
Adjustments allow you to make color corrections to the final render without permanently altering it. Adjust Enables the adjustment variables. After the values are changed, the adjustments can be turned on and off with the Adjust button. All adjustment values are saved with the ZBrush scene file. Clr Clears all adjustments to their default values. Contrast Varies the contrast of the entire image. Range= -100 to 100. Default= 0. Brightness Varies the brightness of the entire image. Range= -100 to 100. Default= 0.
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Level Curves Clicking on the collapsed curve area of the sub-palette expands the adjustment curve to its full size. You can adjust the intensity of the colors between their minimum and maximum values by adjusting the shape of their curves. See Using the Graph on page 51
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ZBrush 1.23
Click and drag the handle upwards to open the ZScript Window completely
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Load
Loads a new ZScript. Several sample ZScripts are included in the ZScripts folder of the ZBrush application. After you load a script, follow the instructions in the window to execute it. Recorded scripts will place a Play button in the window. Press Play to run the script. To halt execution before a script finishes, press Esc.
Reload
Reloads the currently loaded ZScript. Useful for checking changes as you work on a script.
Hide ZScript
Hides the ZScript window. You can also toggle the window on and off with the H key.
Show Actions
Each interface action executed by the ZScript will be pointed out during playback.
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Modifiers
CMD
Shows the complete command set in the ZBrush window. Use the up/down arrow keys or click and drag within the ZScript window to scroll up and down.
TXT
Displays the currently loaded ZScript as color coded text.
Run
Enables the currently loaded ZScript and shows its interface.
Minimal Stroke
Only essential strokes will be fully replayed. Allows faster playback.
Minimal Update
The screen is updated only at the end of strokes during replay. Allows faster playback.
Export Commands
Exports the entire ZScript command set as a text file.
Record
Begins recording your actions in ZBrush as a ZScript.
End Rec
Stops recording, requests a location to save the ZScript, and places a Play button in the ZScript window.
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Color Coding
Scripts shown when the TXT modifier is pressed are color coded to make the embedding hierarchy easier to see. For example:
The command list shown when the CMD modifier is pressed is color coded to show different types of command variables. For example:
Yellow= Name of command. White= Essential Input variable. A value must be written. Light Grey= Non-essential input variable. If no value is written, a default value will be used. Teal= Return value. Red= Definition of command. TOP, SUB, or T/S (T/S= Top/Sub.) Indicates the position of the command in the ZScript hierarchy. Sub commands must be placed within [IButton...] or [RoutineDef...] definitions; Top commands cannot be; and Top/Sub commands can be placed anywhere. A complete command is enclosed in red brackets.
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Using the default ZScript, the last command shown above, IButton, was changed to zButton. When the script was reloaded, the text mode appeared with the words ZScript Error Unrecognized command in red and yellow. The arrow points to the offending command and the remainder of the script is greyed out.
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ZBrush 1.23
The Movie palette allows you to view movies created by Pixologic or other users. You can create your own movies to send to other users or use them for Web animations.
Player Controls
Reverse
Stop
Record
NOTE: When recording, if you start at frame 1, your recorded session will replace the current movie. If you start recording when the current movie is not at frame 1, your recorded session will be added to the existing movie.
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Modifiers
The controls in the modifiers section are used for authoring your own interactive ZMovies and will be documented elsewhere.
Inventory
Load Loads a .zmv ZBrush movie file. A default movie is loaded when you start the program and there is a ZBrush Tutorial movie in the ZMovies folder. Save As Saves the current movie as a .zmv movie with a new file name. Insert Inserts a .zmv ZBrush movie at the current time in the movie. Export Exports the current frame as a .bmp (Windows Bitmap), .psd (Photoshop), or PICT (Mac) bitmap file. Mexport Exports all the frames in the current movie as sequentially numbered .bmp (Windows Bitmap), .psd (Photoshop), or PICT (Mac) bitmap files.
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Iimport Imports a .psd (Photoshop) image at the current time in the movie. KB Current memory usage in Kilobytes.
NOTE: You can float a player window and control buttons on the main screen. See Customizing the Interface on page 15.
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Preferences
ZBrush 1.23
The ZBrush Preferences Palette contains controls that set overall application behavior. They are used less often than the controls on the other individual palettes. All the settings in the Preferences Palette (except for the top row), are saved with the ZBrush Config file.
Preferences
Auto
Switches to Dots mode automatically when drawing or transforming large objects if the width or height of the active 3D object exceeds the amount set. This improves performance. Range= 1 to 10,000 pixels. Default= 800 pixels.
GRPC
When pressed and Dots mode is active, the 3D wireframe is shown with colors assigned to each group. See Polymesh 3D on page 174.
Dots
Displays wireframe of 3D object when moved. See Polymesh 3D on page 174.
Quick 3D Edit
When a 3D object is in Edit mode, it is shown in preview mode for faster interaction.
Mouse Avg
Controls how many position points are averaged when moving the Mouse or Pen. If your Cursor is jittery, increasing the Mouse Averaging will smooth its action. Range= 1 to 8. Default= 1.
Compact Mem
When System (RAM) memory usage exceeds the amount set here, ZBrush will reduce the memory required by moving some of the data to virtual (Disk) memory. After 5 seconds of inactivity or when switching to another application, ZBrush will automatically compact memory. Range= 32 to 1024 MB. Default= 80 MB. ZBrush 1.23 The Preferences Palette 289
Doc Undo
Sets the minimum number of undos saved for document changes. If more undos are possible with the current amount of System memory, ZBrush will save them. If the minimum number is set high enough to use more than the available System memory, ZBrush will compact the memory and save the undos. Range= 1 to 64. Default= 1.
Tool Undo
Sets the minimum number of undos saved for tool changes. If more undos are possible with the current amount of System memory, ZBrush will save them. If the minimum number is set high enough to use more than the available System memory, ZBrush will compact the memory and save the undos. Range= 1 to 64. Default= 1.
I Reset
Complete interface reset. Also deletes all layers and removes custom tools.
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Config
Colorize
Used to change the handle color of the custom floating palette. See Customizing the Interface on page 15.
Store Config
Saves all the current preferences (except the top line) in the Config file. See Saving a Custom Configuration on page 19.
NOTE: If you press Store Config, ZBrush will store the current configuration, with the Preferences Palette open. If you wish to store the current configuration with the Preferences Palette closed, close the palette and use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Shift + I to store the configuration.
Restore Config
Restores ZBrush to its default configuration.
Picker
Sample Size
The size of the volume that is used to evaluate the picker result. At a size of 5, a cube 5 pixels on each side is used for evaluation. Use a high setting to smooth out results. Range= 1 to 10. Default= 2.
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Auto Front
When creating a 3D object, ZBrush automatically places the object center at z= 0 when Auto Front is on. If Auto Front is off, the object is created on the back clipping plane, and if turned, will be clipped. Any objects placed behind it will also be clipped. Default= on.
NOTE: The back clipping plane is set at two times the width of the canvas, so with a 640 x 480 canvas, the clipping plane will be at a z value of -1280.
Marker
Marker Radius
The maximum distance that your cursor can be from the marker before its indicator square disappears. See Placing Markers on page 239.
Interface
Pop Up Info
When on, holding the cursor over buttons and sliders in the ZBrush interface causes a short description of their function to appear. If you hold down the Ctrl key at the same time, more detailed information appears. Default= on.
Iconized
When on, inactive palettes will be shown as icons across the top of the workspace. When off, the palettes will be represented by text, which takes up less space. Default= on
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Float Menu
When on, the ZBrush custom floating menu is shown. Default= on
ZScript
Auto Record
Automatically initiates a ZScript recording session when ZBrush is launched.
Utilities
Timing Info
When on, a window appears at the bottom of the screen that shows timing and other internal information. This information is useful to Technical Support when evaluating your installation. Default= off.
Tablet Pressure
Shows current tablet pressure.
Keyboard Status
Shows numeric code for each keyboard key. ZBrush 1.23 The Preferences Palette 293
Mouse H
Shows current horizontal position of mouse.
Mouse V
Shows current vertical position of mouse.
View Window ID
Shows numeric ID code of the interface window under the cursor.
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License Agreement
SOFTWARE PRODUCT END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT
IMPORTANT: THIS IS A CONTRACT BETWEEN PIXOLOGIC, INC., A CALIFORNIA CORPORATION (THE COMPANY), AND YOU AND ANY INDIVIDUAL OR BUSINESS ENTITY ON BEHALF OF WHOM (OR WHICH) YOU INSTALL AND/OR USE THE SOFTWARE (COLLECTIVELY, "YOU"). READ THIS CAREFULLY BEFORE OPENING THIS SEALED SOFTWARE PACKAGE OR INSTALLING AND/OR USING THE COMPANY SOFTWARE AND INFORMATION (COLLECTIVELY, THE "SOFTWARE") THAT ACCOMPANY THIS END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT (THIS "AGREEMENT"). The Software includes certain computer programs, documentation and other proprietary material, including any upgrades, modified versions, updates, additions and copies thereof, the use of which is subject to this Agreement.
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Your license is effective upon payment for and the opening of the package containing the Software and is being granted for a thirty (30) day evaluation period commencing upon the activation of the Software pursuant to a temporary serial number issued by the Company. At any time prior to the end of such thirty (30) day period, You may return the Software to the Company for a refund. After the expiration of such thirty (30) day period, the Software shall be non-refundable and will become inoperable unless you notify the Company and You obtain a permanent serial number from the Company. You may terminate this license at any time by destroying the Software together with all copies. It will also terminate upon conditions set forth elsewhere in this Agreement or if You fail to comply with any term or condition of this Agreement. You agree upon such termination to destroy all copies of the Software in any form in Your possession or under Your control.
5. LIMITED WARRANTY.
The Company warrants that the tangible media on which the Software is distributed shall be free from defects for a period of thirty (30) days from the date on which it is activated. THE COMPANY DOES NOT WARRANT THAT THE SOFTWARE WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS, THAT OPERATION OF THE SOFTWARE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, OR THAT THE SOFTWARE WILL BE ERROR-FREE. THE WARRANTY SET FORTH IN THIS SECTION 5 IS EXCLUSIVE AND IN LIEU OF ALL OTHER WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THE SOFTWARE AND ALL ACCOMPANYING MATERIALS, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO, ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. THE WARRANTY SET FORTH IN THIS SECTION 5 GIVES YOU SPECIFIC LEGAL RIGHTS. SOME STATES OR JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OF IMPLIED WARRANTIES OR LIMITATIONS ON HOW LONG AN IMPLIED WARRANTY MAY LAST. YOU MAY HAVE CERTAIN ADDITIONAL RIGHTS UNDER THE LAWS OF A PARTICULAR STATE OR JURISDICTION.
7. DAMAGES DISCLAIMER.
You assume responsibility for, among other things, (1) the selection of the Software to achieve Your intended results, (2) the acquisition of other software (including any programming or operating system software) and/or equipment compatible with the Software, and (3) the installation, use and results obtained from the Software. Further, inasmuch as the price paid for the license rights granted to You to use the Software may be substantially disproportionate to the value of products to be used in conjunction with the Software, and for the express purpose of limiting the liability against the Company to an extent which is reasonably proportionate to the commercial value of this transaction, You agree that, to the maximum extent permitted by law, REGARDLESS OF WHETHER ANY REMEDY SET FORTH HEREIN FAILS OF ITS ESSENTIAL PURPOSE, IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COMPANY BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, INDIRECT, PUNITIVE, OR SIMILAR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY LOST PROFITS OR DAMAGES ARISING FROM LOST DATA OR THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE SOFTWARE, EVEN IF THE COMPANY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES OR FOR ANY CLAIM BY ANY THIRD PARTY. SOME STATES DO NOT ALLOW THE LIMITATION OR EXCLUSION OF LIABILITY FOR INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, SO THE ABOVE LIMITATION OR EXCLUSION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.
9. SOFTWARE EXPORT.
The Software contains encryption technology which is subject to United States government export restrictions, including the Export Administration Regulations (15 CFR Parts 730-774). By installing, downloading, and/or using the Software You represent and warrant to the Company that: (a) You are not presently in a country to which export of retail encryption software is prohibited; (b) You understand that the Software is subject to U.S. government export restrictions, including the Export Administration Regulations, and may be subject to foreign government regulations. You agree that You are responsible for complying with all such restrictions and regulations; (c) You will not export or re-export the Software unless such export or re-export fully complies with all applicable U.S. government laws and regulations; and (d) You are not on the U.S. governments Denied Party List (15 CFR Part 764, Supp. 2), Specially Designated Nationals List (15 CFR Part 764, Supp. 3), Entity List (15 CFR Part 744, Supp. 4), or any other list of persons or entities to which export of retail encryption software is restricted by the U.S. government.
11. TERMINATION.
If you materially breach any term or condition of this Agreement, including, but not limited to, the license granted under Section 1 above, this license shall terminate immediately and automatically, except that the restrictions set forth in Section 3, the warranty limitations set forth in Section 5, Sections 6, 7, 8, and 9 and such provisions of this Section 11 and Section 12 as are necessary to give meaning and effect to the foregoing shall survive the termination of this Agreement. Upon the termination of this Agreement, your right to use the Software or any component or part thereof shall end immediately, and you shall either return to the Company or destroy all media containing the Software or any such component or part and delete all copies of the Software or such component or part from each computer and computer network on which you have installed the Software at any time.
12. GENERAL
This license is personal between You and the Company. It is not transferable and any attempt to rent, lease, sublicense, assign or transfer any of the rights, duties or obligations hereunder is void. This Agreement and the conduct of the parties hereto shall be governed by the laws of the State of California applicable to contracts made, and entirely to be performed, within California, without regard to its choice of law provisions. The Company's delay or omission in the exercise of any power or remedy available to it under this Agreement shall not impair or affect the Company's right to the exercise thereof. If any provision of this Agreement is found invalid or unenforceable under any judicial decree, the remainder of this Agreement shall, to the maximum extent possible, remain valid and enforceable according to its terms. Except as expressly provided in this Agreement, the Company has made no representations, warranties, or agreements, oral or written, express or implied, to or with you. This Agreement contains the entire agreement between you and the Company with respect to the licensing, use, and warranty of the Software and related subject matter covered by this Agreement and supersedes and cancels any and all prior and contemporaneous oral and written understandings and agreements between you and the Company or the Company's agent(s) with respect hereto. This Agreement may only be modified (including, but not limited to, by any reference to usage of trade or other regular practice or method of dealing within the computer industry) by a written amendment signed by both you and the Company. Should you have any questions concerning this Agreement, or if you desire to contact the Company for any reason, please contact: Pixologic, Inc., 320 W. 31st St., Los Angeles, CA 90007, Attn: Customer Support. Telephone: (888) 748-5967 E-mail: support@pixologic.com.