Making Zbrush 4 more...Mudboxish.
polycounter lvl 17
I recently switched from Mudbox 2009 to Zbrush 4. Mainly because of the Autodesk upgrade policies and features for Environment Art.
I have the bad feeling that Zbrush and me won't get best friends so soon.
I've read myself through the manuals a bit but have a hard time with the UI. Can I reduce the complexity of elemtns, reduce some unneded features and rarely used brushes?
I also could use some nice video tutorials about how to use layers like Mudbox does? Just add a new layer and sculpt away. Delete if not needed.
Finally about texture painting with layers - called Polypainting or so.
I think this must be all and help me the first time.
I use it for Env-Art and not for characters. So I would aprreciate some links there.
I have the bad feeling that Zbrush and me won't get best friends so soon.
I've read myself through the manuals a bit but have a hard time with the UI. Can I reduce the complexity of elemtns, reduce some unneded features and rarely used brushes?
I also could use some nice video tutorials about how to use layers like Mudbox does? Just add a new layer and sculpt away. Delete if not needed.
Finally about texture painting with layers - called Polypainting or so.
I think this must be all and help me the first time.
I use it for Env-Art and not for characters. So I would aprreciate some links there.
Replies
This is going to be your number one friend I think for now. As for layer sculpting, look into the Tools menu. You'll find you can subdivide a mesh just like in Mudbox as well as add layers in the layer submenu. Now keep in mind if you delete a layer and it's visible I believe it permanently places it into your sculpt, whereas if you hide it then delete it it will permanently remove it. Check out that site and read up on Aaron Sims. Also there is this DVD http://eat3d.com/zbrush35_intro that is pretty useful for learning. Granted most the tutorials you may find will be aimed at character art, polys are polys and the knowledge should transfer over to anything you make.
Ctrl+D to subdivide,
D to step up a level
Shift+D to step down
Shift for smooth
Ctrl for masking
Alt for navigation and reversing zadd/zsub
B for brushes (they all have quick shortcuts assigned, though you can set your own)
That said, it's pretty easy to customize the UI and you can quickly remove elements or give them a permenant home where ever you chose. Here's a video showing how to do this, and my current UI where I've removed many of the things I don't commonly use.
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Layers should work similar to Mudbox already (I haven't used Mudbox since v1 though). Just keep an eye on the record button, which is new in z4 (and I think required to save any changes made to a layer).
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Layers don't have blend modes for poly painting though, just opacity.
Also regarding polypainting, it's using the vertex colors instead of UVs. So if you want to polypaint, you'll have to make sure it's subdivided enough to support the detail you're looking for.
I might try to recreate it.
cheers for the UI stuff, I love nosing at other people's UI.
How do I install this, do I just replace the Z-Startup folder? Thats not really working for me. Or do I do something with the RTF file thats packed in with the zip on youtube. Looks sweet.
There is a way to change how we navigate in the 3d view (I know, it's just a 2D plane with a 3d object
can you just upload that UI? it's awesome
Once you get it working, you can store it as the default UI if you want. See http://www.pixologic.com/docs/index.php/Configurations
I will try that...
But I just get a new processor, and now I can use 80 millions of tri in mudbox ! :poly124:
I can't find it!
Only "Rotate on Y Axis" and such buttons. But no matter what I press it's still rotating like before...
Otherwise use the right-mouse button for camera controls and have perspective turned on, and it should feel like you're orbiting around the object as in any other sculpting program. Turn on the floor grid and it feels even more so.
One negative thing i faced is that I have to swith through all the UI's and colors after every restart to get to my favorite UI.
Which file can I overwrite to have it loaded automatically?
Personally I just modified my \UserInterfaceLayouts & \UserInterfaceColors folders so that they only have the default ui + colors, and mine. It makes switching between the default and my preferred much faster as they are the only options to cycle between.
If you want to load your custom UI every time you start up Z without having to switch through all the UI what you can do is Preference:Config:Store Config...But there is some bug in Z when you do this, if you have custom stack of the menu in the left/ right (the one that you can hide and expand) the stack will reverse the list every time you Store Config, so what you can do is..well, Store Config again, and it should be correct the way that you want.
cryrid's solution is for you to save the actual file to your hard drive so you can back up and share it elsewhere. Or if for some reason you lazy to do that (which I can't name any reason..lol) you can always go to ZBrush root folder/ ZStartup and copy the CustomUserInterface35.cfg file for back up.
_Revel