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ZBrush For Beginners- Notes And Assistance

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  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited October 2014

    Creating A Custom Configuration


    I want the ZSphere brushes readily available (the sketch, the smooth) so here's how the video says to do a custom setup. This can be used for any customization you'd like to do.

    Preferences>Config>Enable Customize
    Now ZBrush knows you're going to move things around.

    (1)
    First, it would not let me move brushes from the left "shelf." (side menu.) I had to go to the top> Brushes.

    (2)
    If your brush isn't showing, use the slider, which has the brushes alphabetically, and just scroll to it. It will appear in the selection below. (You don't click or do anything, just slide the slider to the name and that's it!)

    Click on the brush. THEN hold Ctrl+Alt

    (3)
    Move it to an area that will form a white box around the perimeter when you mouse to it. Release.

    Continued next post.

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  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited October 2014

    Custom Configuration Continued
    Creating A Menu


    TIP: If you are having trouble putting things next to each other (It tends to "snap" into a location) then raise the icon slightly above the desired spot and lower it down.

    To undo the location of a placed object, simply hold Ctrl+Alt and drag it onto the canvas. (workspace.)

    To save your new menu: (make sure you still have the Preferences>Config>Enable Customize turned on)
    Preferences>Custom UI>New Menu and name it. It appears at the top with your other menu items. Neat! I named mine ZSphere Menu.

    Also in Preferences, you can "Store Configuration" which means whatever state your UI is in, it will save it and it will be the one shown whenever you exit and re-enter Zbrush.

    Although I named this ZSphere Menu, I know I have a few other commonly used items such as the drawrect rectangle tool, the standard brush, etc.

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  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited October 2014

    Docking A Menu
    Sketch Brushes- Embedding

    To dock a menu, be sure you select the little semi circle with an arrow that will appear in a corner of the menu when it is open. Then just drag it to the desired location (that will accept it.)

    To dock the Brush Palette, you need to use the one in the Menu list that goes vertically across the top of the workspace/canvas. Don't use the Brush section in the shelf (side menu.)

    Once you dock the Brush Palette onto the right or left shelf (sidemenu) go to Depth and you will be able to move the slider and determine how much the Sketch Brush is embedding into the ZSphere.

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  • ToyenToyen Posts: 1,888
    edited December 1969

    Zbrush looks just amazing. I hope to get it one day. Definitely on my 3D wishlist : )

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited December 1969

    Optimize Your Polygon Count

    Again, these are notes from the ZClassroom videos.

    Once you start embedding a lot of strands of ZSpheres, the ones that are completely hidden can be removed.
    Tools >ZSketch>Optimize.

    You'll see your active point count drop. (It's listed above the workspace (canvas.)


    Binding
    http://pixologic.com/zclassroom/homeroom/lesson/zspheres-getting-started/

    Okay, will someone tell the newbies what the heck he is doing? This is THE WORST training video I have ever seen. (and keep in mind, training was my profession.) I have absolutely no idea what he clicked on to get started, I see Draw and Edit are selected, what are those bone triangle things that appears when he draws? In other words, from scratch, what do we do to follow this person as he cruises merrily along?

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited December 1969

    dave.evert said:
    Zbrush looks just amazing. I hope to get it one day. Definitely on my 3D wishlist : )

    Dave-
    I would honestly say it's the one program that I have purchased that is powerful but not intimidating. If you start watching the ZClassroom videos before you get it, it would be well worth your time. It can do so many things- you are right, it is amazing. I am kicking myself for not getting it a few years ago. Glad you found the thread and thanks for posting. :) Anytime you have questions, just ask. The pros are very willing to help out. I've only owned it now about a week and always look forward to opening the program and putzing around.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited December 1969

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR3b1JfE0qc

    Creating the base for a figure.

    Excellent video. One tip: you don't have to go to the top (solid red) to draw the next Zsphere, it's hard to do and get it centered. Just do it from the front view.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited December 1969

    Wheeee! Success. Not fine tuned, but showing you that you CAN do it!! ('cause I did!)

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  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited October 2014

    Notes for that video:
    When you are creating the fingers, I put the ZSpheres across the hand and compared the rings/lined them up- so I could more easily compare their sizes. Then in the video when he creates the pullout for the fingers, click the sphere first, THEN shift, then make a slight movement so it forms the sphere. It's misleading- when you hit Shift, the sphere will appear, but it is NOT formed until you make a teeny slight movement to pull it.

    TIP: Zoom in when you are doing your Shift+ZSphere part, then pull it out to be sure it is centered. DON'T do all 5 then start pulling. If you have it crooked, you have to undo all that. (There's probably a way to undo/delete one thing, but I don't know that yet. Anyone who knows how, feel free to mention it. ) :) This is just what I am encountering as a newbie trying to follow along, and anything I can do to save you time, I'm mentioning. I've had to undo a couple times because I didn't check individual fingers.

    EDIT: Also notice he said to turn down the draw size to 1 when you begin pulling out the fingers!

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  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited October 2014

    Geez, he really skipped through when he went to a finished model in that video. Note he added ZSpheres in the legs (and I think it was to bulge out those areas, aka the calves. You click on the line where you want the sphere. Then use Scale and pull to enlarge, making a calf.) One thing I wanted to mention is to put one up by the hips so you can bulge them out.

    EDIT: And the ankles.

    LOL- Kinda defeating the entire purpose to cut to the finished armature that he is SUPPOSEDLY teaching us to do.
    "Okay, let me show you how to do this...cut to the chase and here it is done. Hope you figure it out!"

    The brush he selects after he does the Adaptive Skin is the Move brush, it's in the sixth row or so, about 4 from the end. Put your Z Intensity to 61 and your Draw Size to about 305. Turn it down when you are near the arms so you don't accidentally do those when you are pulling in your sides.

    And don't forget to turn back on Symmetry (X) when you begin to Move your mesh.

    Post edited by Novica on
  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited December 1969

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO--0h8XHiw

    This is a good starting tutorial too, with emphasis on the sculpting brushes.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited October 2016

    Links removed because they changed them to commercial, paid courses. 

    Post edited by Novica on
  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited October 2014

    Masking / Inverting Masking

    Although that video has a LOT of good info, here's something I am doing differently (and as a brand new user, this will be easier for the rest of you first timers) I am on the second video of making the head and doing things more my way than his (because in the second video, things just don't work right for him, which is part of doing things live.)

    To create the ears, I masked the area, inverted the mask, used move, then cleared the mask.
    To mask: hold down Ctrl and draw on your clay. It turns dark. Easy!

    To invert (so the part you just colored in can be changed, and everything else then becomes masked) just click Ctrl in the viewport/canvas area. Do NOT click your item.

    Use move and make the brush a very large size (like 166) and pull out, and voila, there's your ears.

    Then go to the masking palette and hit Clear and the mask goes poof. (Or hold Ctrl and drag on the canvas-not the item)

    Post edited by Novica on
  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited December 1969

    How do you get Transpose brush turned off when Move (at the top) is selected? Whenever I go to reset the brushes in the brush palette, ZBrush crashes every time. I do NOT want transpose brush every time I use Move. How do I get it off of that? Clicking other brushes while I have Move selected doesn't do anything, it immediately resets to Transpose brush.

  • Cris PalominoCris Palomino Posts: 11,400
    edited October 2014

    Novica said:
    How do you get Transpose brush turned off when Move (at the top) is selected? Whenever I go to reset the brushes in the brush palette, ZBrush crashes every time. I do NOT want transpose brush every time I use Move. How do I get it off of that? Clicking other brushes while I have Move selected doesn't do anything, it immediately resets to Transpose brush.

    When you say you don't want the Transpose brush when you select move, are you talking about enabling the Move tool that is found alongside Scale and Rotate? Those tools work with transpose, so you will always get that tool. How were you expecting it to work? If you want to go back to drawing, you simply press the Draw button.

    Shortcuts:

    Transpose tools: Move (W), Scale (E), Rotate (R)
    Draw (Q)
    Edit (T)

    The transpose tools have many great uses. It's a very powerful set of tools in Zbrush.

    I reread. The Transpose brush standard is what's being turned on when you press Move. The transpose brush standard is what is enabled when you used W,E, or R, plus there is an additional one for masking which has specific tasks which you can read about here.

    (I said the last paragraph wrong and edited to reword properly.)

    Hope this helps.
    Cris

    Post edited by Cris Palomino on
  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited December 1969

    Hey Cris-
    When I first used Move (yes, up there with Draw/Edit) the Transpose (those circles with connected lines) weren't showing up- or I don't THINK they were. I may be confusing it with when I used the Move Brush. I thought Transpose started appearing when I used the mask (like it did in that video, don't worry about it. It's in the second head video, about minute 28.)

    It's going on 3am my time and I am too tired to fiddle. :) Thanks- if I have anymore questions I'll post.

  • Cris PalominoCris Palomino Posts: 11,400
    edited December 1969

    Hi, Novica,

    I tried watching the second video starting at around 25:00 and continued through 35:00 but still nothing on Move. When you get time, maybe you could do a screen shot?

    Thanks,
    Cris

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited December 1969

    Cris- you're a sweetheart for doing that- certainly didn't expect anyone to do it :)
    I went back through and it's the first video, around 18:43, but you don't need to go look. When he hit W for move, the transpose thingie was already activated with it- so must just be that I didn't notice it.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRzSE4_Xipw

  • Cris PalominoCris Palomino Posts: 11,400
    edited December 1969

    NP, Novica. Here's a good video on further uses of the Transpose Tool. It is really a tool worth taking the time to learn.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvPt_xPxhhg

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited December 1969

    Thanks btw Cris :)

    This is an interesting blog and a lot of good information. Good visuals too.
    http://www.creativebloq.com/3d-tips/monster-size-sculpting-tips-123707

  • Cris PalominoCris Palomino Posts: 11,400
    edited December 1969

    Cool, added it to the list of blogs I follow. Thanks.

    This is a course by Shane Olsen. Great designer and the course is not expensive and really geared to an artist and gives you lots of tips and tricks.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited December 1969

    Cris Palomino said:
    Cool, added it to the list of blogs I follow. Thanks.

    This is a course by Shane Olsen. Great designer and the course is not expensive and really geared to an artist and gives you lots of tips and tricks.

    I've got about 4 ZBrush books to get through first, including a Creature Creation one- but I'll probably do that too after I get done. Repetition is so good!

    Right now (at 2am in the morning!) I am making a vase with this one: (can't get a shorter URL)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6vjnzDm-hY&index=4&list=PL35F0CE7CF36A008E

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited November 2014

    I only got through the 2nd video so far, went off on my own tangent so will have to start over and do what he does, but here's my tangent. :) My very first try at a vase. So that should answer the question of "how hard is it?" for people who are thinking about buying ZBrush. If you watch videos and follow along, you can do it! There will always be more than you can possibly learn, but picking up the basics is NOT hard. I am showing it in two materials, you can change those to work in different ones so you can see which shows the details suited for your preferences. It's not a permanent thing- think of it as a view- you can change them with a click and select other materials.

    Use that video link I provided in the other post if you want to see how it's done. :)

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  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited November 2014

    This video:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYrQxnCC2Z8&index=3&list=PL2F6C53CA17A104A2

    I'm running into a snag. I'm following a sword tutorial. I have the handle, the guard, and the blade. I was able to mask out a design in the handle. In the video he starts doing the materials and color: (it starts at 1:06, and it's video 3. That page is whacky, the videos go backwards, you have to start at the end and go up!)

    1. I turned off Z Add.
    2. Turned on MRGB so the materials would take the color
    3. In SubTools, I am making sure there is a dark rim around the item so it's indeed selected. Let's say I choose the handle.
    4. If I turn on the paintbrush for handle, then the Guard and Sword are taking the color and the materials. Isn't this backwards?

    The video doesn't even mention Colorize, that's in my book. And doing the going up to Color and Fill Object, isn't making any sense. It's still misbehaving.

    I've spent a couple hours on this, doing it step by step with the video, and of course, he doesn't even mention selecting the items in the SubTool section so I'm pretty ticked at this point that what I select isn't being affected. Any ideas?

    Post edited by Novica on
  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited December 1969

    Anybody home? Need an answer. WHY would the other items be taking the color and the material when they are NOT selected, the draw brush isn't selected.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited December 1969

    View this thread if you are trying to use ZBrush (the GoZ) and DAZ. This post in particular. If you don't have the Applications path for ZBrush, it wont show up in Studio. It was nice to see Jaderail's posts. Even though he didn't have ZBrush, of course there he was, trying to assist.

    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/39032/#573307

    http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/read_me/index/13173/start is how to use the GoZ.

  • Cris PalominoCris Palomino Posts: 11,400
    edited December 1969

    Novica said:
    Anybody home? Need an answer. WHY would the other items be taking the color and the material when they are NOT selected, the draw brush isn't selected.

    I missed this when you were asking, Novica.

    If you have different subtools, any subtool where you have baked in color and/or materials (rgb or mrgb) will retain the baked in information. If you have subtools where this information is not baked in, any color and/or materials you choose will affect those unbaked subtools.

    Just think of it as temporary and permanent. Anything baked is permanent, anything unbaked is temporary and will be affected by colors/materials you choose. It's an important thing to understand in order to not mess up your work. :)

  • anikadanikad Posts: 1,919
    edited December 1969

    There are a couple of zbrush tutorials over on RDNA. One is on sculpting a character and is included in the sale. The other is sculpting clothing.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,887
    edited December 1969

    Hi Cris- we figured out a couple days ago about the eye being the same as Colorize, etc, the fill object, baking the materials vs RGB, so we're all set. :)

    I'm finding a couple really good threads on problems with GoZ installation, so posting them here collectively as I cruise through.

    One thing (really dumb) that Kerya helped me with, was finding which version of DS I had, because if you do GoZ then make sure your last two digits of that match your last two digits of your DAZ Studio version number. Its Help>About DAZ Studio, then up near the top across the gold bar it will show you the version number. I couldn't remember how to find it! (Thanks Kerya!!!!) So right now I am putting all my current version files on external before I install a new version. My GoZ wasn't showing up so I knew I had to do some research.

    And Jaderail had a really good tip- make sure you put each version of GoZ in an external drive so you can use it with your versions of studio that you kept archived. As with the Studio, only the latest versions of GoZ are in Product Library. (Go to DAZ Studio 4.6, all plug ins are individually listed under there.)

    So I had 4.6.2.118 and the latest GoZ is 1.3.3.52 This thread is a good one!
    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/24860/

    https://helpdaz.zendesk.com/entries/21995281-Help-with-GoZ-Plugin

  • PendraiaPendraia Posts: 3,598
    edited December 1969

    Damn...I lost the subscription to this thread and stopped getting notifications.

    Wow...haven't you worked hard on learning about it.

    First I can highly recommond the cloth tutorial at RDNA as it also includes brushes.

    Second if you're still working on transpose try this

    http://pixologic.com/zclassroom/homeroom/lesson/helmet-design-with-joseph-drust/

    and scroll to down to Sculpting-Transpose tutorial by Joseph Drust. Transpose drives me absolutely crazy and watching that for the first time the other day it began to make more sense.

    Also if you are a pinterest member search for zbrush there are some amazing links on there including references for drapery in Zbrush. Also if you haven't checked out Vimeo there are some tutorials on there also. I tend to fixate on youtube when looking for tutorials but vimeo had a couple of nice ones.

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