Ztrol - a new plugin for ZBrush
polycounter lvl 17
Hey everyone.
I'm developing a plugin for ZBrush, called Ztrol. (I'm going to be needing testers for April, details at the bottom of this post.) The plugin is focused on speeding up your workflow. It provides two main features, quick brush selection and brush organization.
[ame="
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AVHdzH6MeU"]90 second demo video from February[/ame]
Selection
Testing
I'll be needing a handful of artists for the first wave. In return for your participation and feedback, you will receive a full complimentary license of Ztrol. Sorry in advance to the Apple crowd, it's Windows only. For consideration please post, PM, or email me the following information:
Thanks!
I'm developing a plugin for ZBrush, called Ztrol. (I'm going to be needing testers for April, details at the bottom of this post.) The plugin is focused on speeding up your workflow. It provides two main features, quick brush selection and brush organization.
[ame="
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AVHdzH6MeU"]90 second demo video from February[/ame]Selection
The menu appears under your cursor while you hold down the menu key. The highlighted brush is selected and the menu closes when you release the key. I prefer stud mode though. It's a gestural selection method that doesn't wait for pretty menus to appear. You just press, gesture, and release to select a new brush. It's fast and removes a layer of distraction from the creative process.
Organization
All those brushes crowding your start up folders can finally be organized into menus and sub menus - nested as deep as you'd like. You add and delete menus and brushes right there on the canvas, no need to open an editor or spreadsheet. The brushes don't need hot keys assigned to be available either, all of them are accessible.
(Another useful thing is being able to assign a key to fire when alt + the menu key is pressed. It's very convenient on tablets without many hardware/express keys available - I love assigning KeuPon's badass zAdjustor plugin to it.)
(Another useful thing is being able to assign a key to fire when alt + the menu key is pressed. It's very convenient on tablets without many hardware/express keys available - I love assigning KeuPon's badass zAdjustor plugin to it.)
Testing
I'll be needing a handful of artists for the first wave. In return for your participation and feedback, you will receive a full complimentary license of Ztrol. Sorry in advance to the Apple crowd, it's Windows only. For consideration please post, PM, or email me the following information:
Name
Job Title
Company
Portfolio URL
Email Address
Tablet and System info + OS version
Any suggestions, questions, or feedback is always welcomed.Job Title
Company
Portfolio URL
Email Address
Tablet and System info + OS version
Thanks!
Replies
hehe
Its not fair.:(
It exists, we can talk about it further on April 2nd if that would help. :]
A hand in frame makes it believable, right?
[ame="
If you place a PNG into the folder that matches the name of a brush, it's automatically hooked up. Just double click the menu to refresh and you're good to go.
Or by separate do you mean having the "select" menu open with it's own assigned hotkey? If so, I had that originally but disabled it. That was after finding the speed of access versus brush capacity didn't seem to suffer without multiple hotkeys. For example, 8 brushes on main with a sub menu of 12 items each, would give you immediate access to 104 brushes with a single key and swipe.
That being said, I'm certainly open to feedback. The current road map is allowing for separate menus to open in response to modifier keys. Like Ctrl + the menu key could directly open a menu of masking options, Ctrl + Shift + menu key could open up selection options...
Yes, extra hot keys will be available for testing purposes at least.
I just hooked up the modifier key specific menus and those feel pretty good. It's nice to be painting a mask with the pen, then gesture into the lasso or marquee mode without ever letting go of the ctrl key.
Also, I appreciate the continued patience of everyone who contacted me regarding testing - I hope to pick testers this weekend. I've been holding off due to working on the licensing system. Modifications are being made to allow for user controlled automatic migration of their license to any computer. I wouldn't feel right about forcing testers to ZBrush at work without Ztrol, not after sampling the speed and convenience at home. ;]
I love when I can easily take a piece of software with me between work and the office.
As it currently stands you're given a license key. If you want to transfer the software to another machine you enter your key into the website. That sends a hyperlink to your registered email address which will activate a new machine.
The downside is an internet connection is required to launch the plugin. The benefits are you can easily share a copy between machines, or reactivate after a hardware change. You can also share your license to allow a friend or coworker to test drive it - while still retaining complete ownership and usage of the license.
Regarding price, I'm going to ask for feedback on that from those testing it out. You're welcome to spark some discussion by naming your price! Speaking of testing, I am aiming to send out some copies next week to those who PM'ed me way back when. I have a couple days free next week before a new project begins, so I'm dedicating that time to getting this together.
[ame="
You can assign a different top level menu dependent on which modifier key/keys are held down. This was added to allow quicker access to changing masking and selection/clipping modes, while maintaining consistency. For example, if you have MaskLasso and SelectLasso each in the top position of their respective menus, Ctrl + gesture up will change your masking mode to lasso, Ctrl + Shift + gesture up will change your selection mode to lasso.