From ZBrush Info

Learn to Use ZBrush

WIKI

www.zbrush.info is your best collection of learning, references and other resources for ZBrush. This WIKI is basically an encyclopedia of ZBrush knowledge that is compiled by both Pixologic and active ZBrush users. Much of the PDF documentation from the Education Center (see below) is also available for download from the WIKI.

EDUCATION CENTER

A ZBrush 2 Education Center has been created, with access to the Welcome Guide, Quick Reference Guide, Practical Guide, and a great many tutorials or other resources. It is strongly recommended that you visit the Education Center and take advantage of the many items that are available there. (You will need the most current Flash player to view the content of these pages.)

http://www.pixologic.com/zbrush/education/education-main.php

DOCUMENTATION

The ZBrush 2 Welcome Guide Introduces you to the many ways in which you can find help as you seek to learn ZBrush, including ZBrushCentral. Also shows ways to control ZScript playback (very helpful when running tutorials). (PDF Format)

The ZBrush Quick Reference Guide Twelve pages of condensed information, ready for printing. This guide covers keyboard shortcuts, the basics of working with ZBrush and the 2.5D format, ZSphere and modeling references, and more. It is highly recommend for all new users. (PDF Format)

Quickstart Guides A series of short (4-6 page) tutorials that each focuses on a specific area of ZBrush usage. It is recommended to use them in the order in which they are listed. (PDF Format)

The ZBrush 2 Practical Guide Over 500 pages of tutorials written specifically for ZBrush 2. The tutorials begin with basic concepts and advance to sophisticated techniques such as displacement and normal map creation, box modeling, and ways to incorporate ZBrush into a production pipeline. (PDF Format)

...and much more.

ZCLASSROOM

A series of Quicktime movies that deal with more advanced techniques for modeling and texture. Please be sure that you have installed the most current Quicktime and Flash players on your computer.

ZBRUSHCENTRAL

The official ZBrush users' forum. The FAQ answers all of the most commonly asked questions about ZBrush, while the QuickLinks section contains many tutorials, tips and tricks for your perusal. In addition, it is a great place to get to know, and ask questions of, other ZBrush users. Browse individual users' galleries, and be inspired by the works of ZBrush masters. www.ZBrushCentral.com

SAMPLE MODELS

Imported Mesh Objects Since model imports are disabled in the demo, we have provided an alternate method for you to be able to test this feature. We have imported a few models by acclaimed artist Anh Nguyen and then simply saved them for you in ZBrush's native format so that you can load them. All imported meshes will respond to ZBrush in the same way that these model do, so this is a very accurate way to learn how ZBrush works for texturing, creating morph targets, or displacement and normal map creation.

Exported Model & Texture Since exporting is disabled in the demo, we have provided a way for you to be able to test a ZBrush-created and textured mesh in your other applications. This model was created using ZSpheres, textured using AdaptiveUVTiles, and then exported as an OBJ and BMP.

Exported Meshes with Displacement Maps We have also provided two OBJ format models that were created in ZBrush, along with their displacement maps. You are welcome to download these files and use them in your rendering engine of choice to see the incredible amounts of detail that can be created via this technology. Artists throughout the thread have shared their settings and techniques for most of the rendering engines that currently support displacement mapping.

DOWNLOAD ALL of these files at the bottom of http://www.pixologic.com/zbrush/download-center/download-center.php

ZSPHERE MODELS

Sometimes seeing someone else's work is the best way to learn. Here are several places where you can find ZSphere models, ready for you to download and examine or modify:

Spaceship:

http://206.145.80.239/zbc/showthread.php?t=4047

Sea Creature:

http://206.145.80.239/zbc/showthread.php?t=13928 (also, there is a picture of many of the things that can be created with ZSpheres at the bottom of the page)

Frog and another Sea Creature:

http://206.145.80.239/zbc/showthread.php?t=6769

ZSCRIPT LIBRARY

You can find a variety of ZScripts in the ZScript Utilities Forum at ZBrushCentral: http://206.145.80.239/zbc/forumdisplay.php?f=70 Not all of these utilities will function due to the demo restrictions, but all will show the great versatility of ZBrush's robust ZScripting system.

Many of the best of these ZScripts and plugins, as well as those created by Pixologic can be found at http://www.pixologic.com/zbrush/download-center/download-center.php (Please note that due to demo restrictions, not all ZScripts will function in the demo.)

Sculpting a Head

Sculpting General Proportions

We'll start by working in the Transform submode of Edit mode. Here's the process. First, we'll get a copy of the sphere onto the screen.

1. Create a good sized document to work in. Go to the Document palette and press Double. (A shorthand we'll use for controls in palettes or subpalettes is something like Document:Double.)
2. Select a 3D Primitive, Tool:Sphere3D.
3. Click and and drag on the canvas to draw a copy of the sphere model.
4. Click the Edit button or press t to enter Edit mode.

Let’s look briefly at navigating your model in ZBrush. On the right side of the canvas are a series of buttons for moving, rotating and scaling your model. Use these to position your model the way you want to work on it. Note that these controls don't actually alter the model--for example, using the Scale control won't cause the model to be scaled in an absolute sense. It simply scales your view of the model.

To view your model in a front or side view, rotate the model as close as possible to that view and then press shift to snap it to a 90 degree angle. Let’s continue by using the Move brush to adjust the shape of the model.

1. Click the Frame button in the upper shelf to make it easier to see how the model is rotating. Rotate the model to the top view.
2. Turn symmetry on by clicking Transform:X and Transform:M (they must be orange).
3. Click the Move button in the upper shelf to enter Move submode of the edit mode. Note, that this is not the Move button to the right of the canvas.
4. Adjust the brush size by adjusting the Draw Size slider in the shelf.
5. Use the brush to adjust the shape of the top of the head.
6. Left click and drag on the canvas to rotate the model to the front view. Remember to press shift when close to the front view to snap it into view.
7. Adjust the shape of the model
8. Continue snapping to the different views and sculpting the model till you have the general proportions established. You only want to concern yourself with the general proportion of the face. That is all.
9. You may want to turn Frame off for a better look at the model.

Sculpting Internal Forms

Once you have established the general proportion of the face it is time to switch to Draw mode to begin sculpting the internal forms such as the jaw muscle.

In Draw mode we have access to several brushes. You access these brushes from the Transform palette. However, 95% of our sculpting will be done with only three brushes: Standard, Inflate and Smooth.

1. Click the Draw button on the shelf.
2. Pick the Standard brush to begin to sculpt with; click Transform:Std.
3. Adjust Z intensity to around 10 for most sculpting. You will find Z intensity in the Shelf. You may have to set this number to something else depending on your model.
4. Choose whether you want to pull volume out of your model or carve into it. To pull volume out of your model make sure Zadd is clicked on. To carve into the model, click Zsub. Pressing and holding the ALT key will invert the current selection.
5. Begin to sculpt the jaw, the nasal labial folds, more clearly defining the orbits of the eye, the cheek bones and whatever else the geometry will hold.
6. As you sculpt, use the shift key to toggle to the smooth brush. To adjust the intensity of the smooth brush click Transform:Smooth and adjust the Z intensity from the slider on the shelf.
   
7. As you push and pull the model you push and pull at its poly faces, some of which can become very large. This is a good thing. Use the faceting of the geometry as a guide to tell you when you need to divide the model more. In general it is best to sculpt the model all over until it needs additional resolution in more than one place.
   When you decide the model needs to be divided to increase the polygon count, click Tool:Geometry:Divide. You can do this several times if needed, though each additional division quadruples the memory needed by the model. For this exercise, there's no need to go over about 500,000 polygons.

ZPlugins

About ZPlugins

ZPlugins use ZBrush's native scripting language called, ZScript. ZScript is a powerful and intuitive scripting language. To learn more about the language visit ZScript Basics or the Developer's Corner on the front page of this wiki.

ZPlugins are used to automate repeative task, to combine complex workflow and when used in conjunction with c++ code to add functionality that does not exist within ZBrush itself. An important and often overlooked command of ZScripting is the FileExecute command.

Installation

1. Extract the zip file. Place the .ZSC file and the folder, if one comes with the plugin, to your C:/Program Files/Pixologic/ZBrush2/ZStartup/ZPlugs directory. If there is no ZPlugs folder, create one.
2. Launch ZBrush
3. Look in the ZPlugs palette for your new plugin.

 Note: Some plugins put their controls in different palettes.  For example, Marcus Civis's Image Plane ZPlugin puts its controls in your Texture Palette.

What is the difference between a ZPlugin and a ZScript?

List of plugins

• ZSketchpad

• Please feel free to add more.

Circularity

Introduction

ZBrush's interface is based on a principle of circularity. By using different palettes in combination with each other artists can build more robust workflows and discover new and exciting ways to use ZBrush.

For example, an artist can import a picture of cobblestone, convert that into an Alpha by pressing Texture:Make Alpha, convert that Alpha into a 3D model by pressing Alpha:Crop and Fill, use ZBrush's 2.5D tools to modify it and paint it, then convert back this into a texture and a bump map by using the MRGBZ tool.

In this example, an image makes it's way from the Texture palette to the Alpha palette to the Canvas and then back to both the Texture palette and the Alpha palette.

The canvas often acts as the conduit for the circularity of the palettes.

The Quick Palettes to the left of the canvas (shown on the right) also give us a glimpse into the circularity of ZBrush's interface. Every action we do winds its way through these Quick Palettes and the shelf to give us what we see on the canvas. You apply a texture to a 3D model here. You set the material you want to paint with here. You select the alpha you want to sculpt with here.

Circularity of Alphas, Textures, Tools

The principle of circularity manifests itself particulary well in the area of alphas, textures, and 3D models. In the list below you can see how each of the three palettes can inter-relate and be used to do the same function, such as using an alpha to either texture or sculpt.

Alphas:

• You can use an Alpha. to texture paint a 3D model.

• You can use an Alpha. to sculpt a 3D model.

• You can use an Alpha. to make a 3D model.

Textures:

• You can use a Texture to texture paint a 3D model.

• You can use a Texture to sculpt a 3D model.

• You can use a Texture to make an Alpha..

3D Models:

• You can use a 3D model to make a texture or to texture paint a 3D model.

• You can use a 3D model to sculpt another or the same 3D model.

• You can use a 3D model to make an Alpha.

An Example

In the above lists we see how alphas become textures, textures become alphas and so on. By combining our Texture palette and Alpha palette we develop faster and more robust workflows. To see this principle in action watch the following tutorials:

• Texturing With Photoreference Tutorial

• Modeling With Your Texture Tutorial

Starting with Texturing With Photoreference Tutorial,

• The base head was modeled in XSI and then brought into ZBrush to redefine using ZBrush's advanced sculpting tools.

• A 3D model is used to apply the photoreference to the model's texture.

Then in Modeling With Your Texture,

• The model's texture is converted to an Alpha

• The Alpha is converted into sculpting on the canvas to remove .JPG noise and augment details with ZBrush's 2.5D tools.

• The canvas is then converted back into an Alpha by using Alpha:Grab Doc.

• The new Alpha is converted in sculpting on the 3D model by applying it at a mask and Inflating the model.

If we look closely at this process we see that we have four elements that we used to make this workflow possible: Alphas, Textures, Tools - the 3D model and a 3D plane - and ZBrush's Canvas. We work our way through the palettes in a circular fashion and, in the above example, are able to collapse a workflow that would traditionally take half a day or more to a matter of minutes.

In essence, we used a texture to sculpt our model but we did it by using the circular relationship of Alphas, Textures and Tools in ZBrush.

Happy Pixoling!

Polypainting and Texture Maps

PolyPainting works directly on the surface of your model.

The ZBrush approach for working with a texture map is as follows:

1. Bake texture map into PolyPainting
2. Paint using ZBrush's 3D sculpting and painting tools
3. Bake PolyPainting back to a texture map.

Note: If you want to paint on a texture map in ZBrush you must use Projection Master.

Baking a Texture Map to PolyPainting

1. Load the Model
2. Load the Texture
3. Divide the model so that its polygon count is close to your texture's pixel count. If you don't want to learn the math behind this just divide it as far as you can. If you want to learn the math, here is some info: a 2k texture map has 4 million pixels in it. Your UVs only use 70% or less of that space so the pixel count is close to 3 million.
4. Press Tool: Texture: Txr>Clr

Your done.

Baking PolyPainting into a Texture Map

1. Create a texture at the size you want for your final map. If its 2048 by 2048, follow the steps below:
   1. Set Texture: Width to 2048
   2. Set Texture: Height to 2048
   3. Press Texture New Texture
2. At this point the texture map will override your polypainting. Don't worry. Its still there.  :)
3. Do you have UVs? If yes, skip this step. If not, you have two options.
   1. Create UVs outside of ZBrush
      1. Set Tool: Geometry: SDiv to 1
      2. Export mesh by pressing Tool: Export.
      3. Layout UVs in your other application.
      4. Back in ZBrush, store a Morph Target by pressing Tool: Morph Target: Store MT.
      5. Set your model's SDiv level to 1.
      6. Import your model by pressing Tool: Import.
      7. If you have sculpted moree since you laid out your UVs your mesh, at SDiv level 1, will be different. You will only want to import your UVs and not your mesh. To do this, simply restore the Morph Target, Tool: Morph Target: Switch.
   2. Create UVs inside of ZBrush
      1. Press Tool: Texture: GUV or Tool: Texture: AUV
4. Press Tool: Texture: Clr>Txr

Done!

Object Scaling

Often times artists need to bring parts of a model into ZBrush and line them up exactly how they align in, say, XSI. There is one hurdle to this. ZBrush automatically scales all models into one ZBrush unit mulitplied by the Unify Scale setting in Preferences:Importexport sub-menu. If this number is 4, then ZBrush automatically scales a model to 4 ZBrush units.

What are ZBrush units? They are part of the magic behind ZBrush and like all good magic, it doesn't like to be explained.

If I import into ZBrush a model that is 10 centimeters tall in XSI and then import another model that is 2 centimeters tall both of those models will be scaled to the exact same size in ZBrush. By using a marker you can see this.

ZBrush also automatically centers your pivot to the center of your model's volume which further throws off your ability to line up parts of a model in ZBrush.

Fortunately, there is an easy way to transfer both the scale factor and the pivot center to other models. We do this by importing a mesh into another mesh. Provided there are not subdivision levels then ZBrush will simply transfer the scale factor and translation from one model to another. If there are subdivision levels you may get an error saying that your polygon count must be the same. Simply delete the levels of resolution and repeat. Below are the exact steps.

1. Import any OBJ part from the model
2. Clone that OBJ - Tool:Clone
3. Import another part of your model directly into the selected OBJ
4. Clone
5. repeat for each new part of the model

This will make it so that each part of the model will line up with the other!

Bump Viewer Material

Introduction

At times, you can not get all the detail that you want into your sculpture. Two years ago, it may have sounded odd that 4 million polygons would not be enough to get all the detail that you may want into a character. Today, after the ZBrush revolution, 4 million polygons is not always enough for a full character. In ZBrush 2, to get pore-level detail all over your character you may have to use a bump map.

Poly vs Pixel Dilema

When we work on a high rez digital model in ZBrush we often work upwards of 5 million polygons in ZBrush 2. That can get you an incredible amount of detail. More detail than any sculpting application before its time. However, it is occassionly not enough. Occassionaly, artists will want to make a character that could be composed of double or even triple that amount of detail. For this, you must break your model up into sections or use a bump map.

The advantages of using a bump map is that you can do all your work on one model and don't have to worry about seams. To put this in perspective, one 4k bump map contains 16 million pixols of information. At around 80% uv area usage that means with one 4k bump map you can get 12 million pixols of information or simulate the effect of 12 million polys!

4 million real-time polys or 12 million simulated polys. The best approach is to utilize both a high poly count and a large bump map. Keep your model at around 2 million polys and use a bump map for more detail than that.

Loading the Bump Viewer Material into ZBrush

There are 76 material slots in ZBrush's Material Palette. Each of these slots is occupied by a preset material. In the Material palette, you can load materials as well as copy and paste materials into and out of the various slots.

To copy a material,

1. Select the material.
2. Press CopyMat in the Material palette.

To paste a material into a new slot

1. Select the material that currently occupies that slot
2. Press PasteMat

If you load a material into ZBrush it will replace the currently selected material with the one that you are loading. An interesting note to this is that since all materials in ZBrush are "live" until you Bake a layer this will alter the material that is currently on any 2.5D painting that you may have done. See 2.5D Basics to learn more about painting with materials.

To load a material into ZBrush

1. Select a material slot.
2. Press Load in the Material palette, navigate to C:\Program Files\Pixologic\ZBrush2\ZMaterials and choose Bump Viewer Material.

Note, ZBrush comes with several FastShader Materials.  These materials serve the same function as ensigns in Star Trek away teams.  They are there for you to overwrite them. :)

Using the Bump Viewer Material

Using the Bump Viewer Material is the same as texture painting your model. The Bump Viewer Material converts all color values into height information. The key to the Bump Viewer Material is the Color Bump attribute in the Material palette.

With your model in Edit mode,

1. Select a fast shader
2. Press Material:Load and navigate to C:\Program Files\Pixologic\ZBrush2\ZMaterials
3. Select the Bump Viewer Material and press OK.
4. Set your model's color to 50% grey in the Color palette (RGB each set to 128)
5. In the Texture palette, set the width and height of your texture and press New.
6. To enable fade for texture painting you have to first go the Tool:Display Properties sub-menu and set DSmooth above 0. Could be anything above 0.
7. Position your model on the canvas
8. Press the Projection Master button or "G" on the keyboard.
9. Select Texture, make sure Deformation is off and Fade is on.
10. Press Drop Now
11. Now that you are in Projection Master select, say, the Direction brush. In the shelf turn off ZAdd and make sure RGB is on. Set your RGB Opacity to whatever you need
12. In the Alpha palette, select the alpha you want
13. Set the color to either white or black depending on if you want to push in or pull out.
14. When you are done, press "G" on the keyboard to exit Projecion Master.

The result is the application of a bump map in real-time. You can continue to sculpt from there on. Just make sure you have RGB off in the shelf so you don't paint over your bump map.  :)

Resources

• Gnomon's Alpha LIbrary with Aaron Sims
• ZBrushCentral

Poly Painting Workflow

Workflow

Remember three points when using polypainting:

With this in mind, polypainting a model and producing a texture map is a simple process.

1. First, get a model. For this description, we'll assume that you don't need your UVs and can add them at the end of the process.
2. Set your subdivision level to 1.
3. Press Tool:Texture:Disable Uvs. This will delete your UVs. Make sure to have a back up OBJ file if you wish to use those UVs again.
4. Subdivide the mesh to get the number of polygons needed to match the map resolution you have in mind.
5. Paint the model, using alphas, masking, etc. Of course, you can sculpt at the same time you paint. Remember to turn on Tool:Texture:Colorize before starting to paint.
6. Once painting is complete, create new UVs by pressing Tool:Texture:Auv or Guv. If you want to bring in UVs you made outside of Zbrush see Remapping UV Coordinates above.
7. Set the resolution of your desired texture map with Texture:Width and Texture:Height.
8. Create a new texture map at that size by pressing Texture:New.
9. Press MRGBZ in the shelf and set RGB Intensity to 100.
10. Press Tool:Texture:ColTxr. ZBrush will create the texture map, put it into the texture palette, and select it. You will now be viewing the model with the texture map applied.
11. If you wish to continue Poly Painting the model, set the texture back to Texture Off. If you don't do this, the new texture will be used to render the surface of the model, and you won't see any effect from your painting.

ZBrush's standard behavior is to create a new texture map every time ColTxr is pressed and no texture is selected. If you want to preview the result of the final texture map as you work, without creating multiple copies of the map, then select your texture map (if it has been created) immediately before pressing ColTxr. The new map will replace the selected one.

Baking PolyPainting To A Texture Map

1. Once painting is complete, create new UVs by pressing Tool:Texture:Auv or Guv or import UVs.
2. Set the resolution of your desired texture map with Texture:Width and Texture:Height.
3. Create a new texture map at that size by pressing Texture:New.
4. Press MRGBZ in the shelf and set RGB Intensity to 100.
5. Press Tool:Texture:ColTxr. ZBrush will create the texture map, put it into the texture palette, and select it. You will now be viewing the model with the texture map applied.
6. If you wish to continue Poly Painting the model, set the texture back to Texture Off. If you don't do this, the new texture will be used to render the surface of the model, and you won't see any effect from your painting.

Deco Brush

Image:Deco brush.jpg The Deco brush is just another tool in the ZBrush Tool Palette, but is one of the most flexible and powerful of the ZBrush painting tools, once you understand all that it can do. This page will introduce you to the Deco brush, explain its principles of operation, explain the various settings that can be used to affect its operations, and show some examples of how to use it.

What it Does

Basically, the Deco brush allows you to drag an alpha, and a texture or color, along a path. The alpha affects the pattern in which the texture and color show up and (if depth painting is enable), the depth of the canvas pixols.

Mesh Projection

Mesh Projection

Mesh Projection allows you to project one mesh into another mesh. This feature allows you to retopologize models without losing any of the details that you sculpted. You will have already sculpted a mesh that has all your details. We will call this the design sculpt. Now, you want to transfer the sculpting from your reference mesh into a new mesh we will call the animation sculpt.

Step By Step

1. First, draw a ZSphere on the canvas go into Edit mode.
2. Press Rigging:Select. In the popup window, select the design sculpt that you want to project the details from. If it is not loaded you can press the Load button at this time.
   Note: Note: ZBrush will project the details from the current level of resolution. To get all the detail from your model, make sure the model you are selecting is at its highest resolution level. If it is not then select it from the tool palette, increase its level of resolution, switch back to the ZSphere you are using, delete the mesh from the Rigging sub menu, and finally select it again using Select.
3. If you have imported your new topology from outside of ZBrush, go to Tool:Topology:Select and select the mesh with your new topology.
4. If you have already created your topology using the steps above continue to the next step, otherwise create some new topology now.
5. Press Tool:Rigging:Projection button.
6. Set the Tool:Adaptive Skin:Density slider high enough to capture all the detail from the design sculpt. If your design sculpt has 4 million polygons you will want your animation sculpt to have an equal number of polygons.
7. Press A on the keyboard or Tool:Adaptive Skin:Preview to see the new mesh.
8. When you are done, press Tool:Adaptive Skin:Make Adaptive Skin to make a new ZBrush tool with all the level of resolution that you set in the Density slider.
   Note: If you mesh is exploding you may want to go in and connect a few more vertices in your topology. That often helps. You may also want to move as many of the topology lines outside of the design sculpt's surface as possible. The algorithm works best by shrink wrapping inwards as opposed to projecting outwards.

Image Planes

Sources

• http://www.suurland.com/
• http://www.the-blueprints.com/
• http://www.the-blueprints.com/index.php?blueprints/motorcycles/
• http://www.mek-schuetzen.de/Sites/navi_links_handguns.htm
• http://www.airwar.ru/other/drawe.html
• http://www.ducati.com/bikes/manuals.jhtml
• http://www.ducati.com/bikes/catalogs.jhtml

Immersive Environment

ZBrush 3 provides an immersive digital sculpting environment. This environment creates the sensation of 'real' sculpting by using real-time shadows and MatCap materials that recreate real-world materials inside of the computers 'virtual' world.

Real-Time shadows add that extra level of realism and are very important during the sculpting process to aid an artist in judging the depth of hollows or the protrusion of parts.

MatCap Materials utilize an advanced system to recreate real-world materials in 3D from photographs. ZBrush 3 ships with several MatCap materials to get the artist sculpting in a 'real' environment as fast as possible. These materials include: Red Wax, Green Roma, Green Clay, Sculpey and many others.

Also, ZBrush 3, full 3D sculpting with alphas and strokes further re-inforces the 'real' aspect of working inside of ZBrush. However, ZBrush is not content to emulate nature. The computer and its virtual world are a powerful asset to artists everywhere. By creating inside of a 'virtual world' artists can take advantage of many features unique to computers: Undo, Mirror and Establish Symmetry to name a few.

Turntable

Media:HeadSpin1.mov

Quick Guide

1. Resize the ZBrush canvas to the required size (or double the required size).
2. Load the 3D mesh, draw in canvas and enter edit mode.
3. Press Transform ZSpinner SpinIt to execute a test Spin. Press Esc to abort
4. Adjust the Transform ZSpinner Speed
5. Adjust any required rendering, lights and materials settings.
6. Import initial frame with a customized width and height into the movie recorder.
7. Press Transform ZSpinner SpinIt to record the spin frames
8. Export the recorded frames by pressing the Movie Inventroty MExport button
9. Launch external moviemaking program, import frames and compose the movie.

More detailed walk-through

Step 1: For this test, I wanted to create a spin-animation at size of 200x200 pixels (You may choose larger size, for this post I opted to keep the movie file size smaller). We start by resizing ZBrush canvas to the desired size (I have resized the canvas to 400x400 which allowed me to reduce the size of the final movie by 50% and get better antialiasing).

Step 2: Load the 3D mesh , draw mesh in canvas and adjust its position, size and orientation to have the mesh fit nicely within the boundary of the canvas.

Step 3: While in edit mode, press the Transform ZSpinner SpinIt button. This allows you to view a test-spin of the mesh. if the mesh spins around the wrong axis, you can adjust the mesh orientation by using the Tool Preview icon to modify and store a new base orientation.

Step 4: Adjust spin-speed as needed. By default, the SpinIt will rotate the mesh in 10 degrees increments which will produce 36 frames for a full 360 degrees spin, if you need smoother rotation you may reduce this value, example: for the above movie, the value was set to 5 resulting in 5 degrees increments between frames totaling at 72 frames for a full cycle.

Step 5: Adjust rendering properties. Modify the material, lights and rendering properties as needed.

Step 6: By default, the SpinIt function will spin the mesh in the canvas without recording any frames, but if you have one (or more) frames already recorded in the movie controller then SpinIt will switch to recordable-spin. Note: the default (non-recording) spin will continue to spin until you press the Esc button but when the spin-recording mode is activated, the Spin zscript will automatically stop at the end of the 360 degrees cycle.

When recording a movie, the movie recorded will record frames in its default size. In order to customize the size of the recorded frames we need to import an image with the required width and height into the movie recorder. To do so, I simply exported an image of the current canvas by pressing the Doc Export button and then imported this image into the movie recorded by pressing the Movie Inventroy Iimport. If done correctly, you'll be presented with a dialog box asking you to confirm the new size.

This step accomplishes two things, first it customizes the size of the recorded frames and -- because the movie recorded now contains a frame -- activates the spin-recording mode. Note: Customizing the size of the movie recorded can only be done when the movie recorder does not contain any frames. If you do have recorded frames then delete all frames before executing this step.

Step 7: Pressing the Tansform:ZSpinner SpinIt button will initiate the recording sequence. The script will automatically stop when full cycle is recorded.

Step 8: Export the recorded frames as sequentially numbered images by pressing the Movie:Inventriy:Mexport.

Step 9: Launch the external moviemaking program, import the exported images and compose your movie.

Tips

• In order to use perspective-distortion while the object is spinning you need to activate the perspective mode (in the draw palette) while in transform-mode (not edit mode). The SpinIt function will automatically hide the Gyro while recording.

• You may utilize a 2nd layer in order to place background image or any 3D objects which will remain static throughout the recording process (such as a floor or a display stand)

• In order to record in BestRender mode you need to activate the best render mode and then press the SpinIt button, when you do so, each frame will be best-rendered before it is recorded.

by Pixolator - 4-12-04 - [fromZBrushCentral.com]

ZProject Tutorial

Introduction

In this tutorial by Sebastien Legrain we will look at how you can use the ZProject brush to transfer sculpting information from one mesh to another mesh.

Learn more about the ZProject Brush click here.

We begin with a base mesh that we want to transfer to another mesh. We will call this the Source Sculpt.

Here is the mesh we want to project our previous head into. He will call this the Target Sculpt.

Make sure your Target Sculpt is selected and in edit mode on the canvas. Press Tool: SubTool: Append and choose your Source Sculpt from the popup.

Press Transform: Transperancy

1. Select the ZProject Brush from the Brush Palette.
2. Set its elevation to 100.
3. Press ZAdd on the Shelf.
4. Hold Alt down while sculpting on the surface of your Target Sculpt. This will, basically, push your Target Sculpt backwards till it encounters the Source Sculpt. Depending on your own setup you may not have to press Alt or toggle Zsub on.

We are nearly finished. The hair is done, the eyes, the nose, the mouth.

Our finished Target Sculpt. The Source Sculpt has been hidden from view.