Digitally signed by Joao Paulo

Joao Paulo DN: cn=Joao Paulo, c=BR,

o=JPCSMSP, ou=JPCS,
email=jpcsmsp@yahoo.com.br
Date: 2007.03.15 16:30:26 -03'00'

ZBRUSH

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Welcome to The QuickStart: Production Series – ZBrush Production Basics Guide.

This series introduces you to ZBrush and guides you through its many possibilities.

The goal of this guide is to introduce you to the concepts behind ZBrush and set the
foundation for using ZBrush in a production environment as effectively as possible.

To begin, we will focus our attention on the pixol, the heart of ZBrush.

1 Pixols
2

ZBrush is not just another modeling package. It can create models with amazingly high
polygon counts. In ZBrush, you can convert and export this high resolution geometry into
the maps, textures and low resolution geometry that you want to use with other programs.
ZBrush changes the modeling process. Instead of pushing and pulling points around, you
are sculpting digital clay.

ZBrush is also a powerful depth-enabled paint program. In other programs, points on the
canvas – the pixels – have color. In ZBrush, points on the canvas also have depth, material
and orientation and are called pixols.

Pixols are not drawn just as color on the canvas. They are rendered using their distance,
orientation and material information. A change in position of the scene lights will affect
their shading on the canvas. Paint strokes can be given the appearance of metal, or wood, or
concrete, or mirrors, or of many, many other things.

Pixols combines the simplicity of a 2D painting environment with the power of a 3D

application.

2 Creating Pixols
3

In ZBrush, the Draw palette controls the show. This palette lets you instruct ZBrush how
you want it to apply the effects created by the various channels. The MRGB, RGB and M
buttons let you tell ZBrush whether to paint with material, color, or both. ZADD, ZSUB
and ZCUT tell ZBrush how to apply depth. The Intensity sliders let you specify how much
color and depth to apply. Other sliders let you modify the size and shape of your brush, add
perspective effects, and even simulate refraction. You can also get at these options in the
upper part of the shelf.

To help us understand the interaction of depth, color and material in ZBrush, let’s look at
an example.
4
To paint a 2.5D stroke in ZBrush, select the simple brush from the Tool palette. Make sure
that Zadd is on, that MRGB is on, set our Draw Size and then paint a stroke on the canvas.
ZBrush’s real-time render engine looks at our settings in the Light palette and the material
that we painted with then renders the stroke on the canvas for us.

Now let’s say we want to paint a flat 2D stroke without any depth. We could turn Zadd off
by clicking the Zadd button. Then, in the Tool palette, select the simple brush (hover the
mouse over any tool for a popup name of the tool) and draw a new stroke on the canvas.
However, if we did this then the pixols that we painted would be missing something
ZBrush’s real-time render engine requires to render them; depth. In this case, we would not
see the pixols that we painted on the canvas though they may show up later if we paint
depth onto them.

So, how do you paint a flat 2D stroke on the canvas?

The solution is to “prime the canvas”. Create one flat layer of depth by going to the Layer
palette and clicking Fill. This will fill the layer with the material and the color you have
selected. Set your color in the Color Selector and using the simple brush or single layer
brush paint on the canvas.

It’s as easy as that!

Now, let’s look at the functionality of other palettes.

1 Subdivision Modeling
5
Subdivision is probably familiar to most users of modeling programs; it increases the
polygon count of a model by replacing each polygon with multiple polygons. The most
commonly used subdivision scheme is the Catmull-Clark method, which also moves
vertices as it subdivides, so that a low-resolution cage can give a high-resolution smooth
surface.

ZBrush offers an additional powerful feature when using subdivision with polymeshes; a
polymesh retains a subdivision history. To put it another way, each time a polymesh is
subdivided, the geometry from the previous polymesh is remembered, all the way back to
the original polymesh. So a subdivided mesh can have multiple levels of subdivision, equal
to the number of times it was subdivided plus one for the original level.

You can move back and forth between these subdivision levels as you model; if you need to
make 'large-scale' changes to an object, such as raising a significant portion of the surface,
you can do it at a lower subdivision level where the model's polygons are relatively large
(more of a 'cage') while fine details can be sculpted at a high subdivision level. In either
cases, changes will be propagated across all levels, so sculpting geometry at one level does
not lose the work you've done at another level.

To understand the power of this ability, consider the following example. At a low
subdivision level, you sculpt a polymesh plane so it appears as rolling hills. Then, at a high
subdivision level, you add a "bumpiness" that gives the appearance of rocks, dirt, etc. But it
then turns out that instead of rolling hills, you need a flat plain. What to do? Well, you go
back to the low subdivision level and use the sculpting tools of ZBrush to smooth out the
hills. Finally, when you return to the high subdivision level, you'll find that all of the fine
"bumpiness" detail is still there. That work wasn't wasted!

Subdivision levels are also used to generate bump, displacement, and normal maps. Detail
is added to an object at a very high subdivision level (possibly with many millions of
polygons). That detail can then be compared against a lower subdivision version of the
same model to generate a displacement or similar map. Once generated, that map can be
taken to an external program and applied to the lower-poly-count model to give a detail
effect almost indistinguishable from the high-level sculpting in ZBrush.

An example workflow is as follows:

1. Import a low-resolution base mesh.

2. Subdivide it several times, possible taking the polygon count into the millions.
6
3. Sculpt in fine details at the highest level of subdivision.
4. You may then decide that some of the base geometry is unsatisfactory; for example,
your hero's muscles should be larger than they are.
5. So, switch to the lowest level of subdivision, and sculpt in those bulging biceps.
6. Now, when you go back to higher levels of subdivision, the throbbing veins and
almost invisible muscle striations will still be visible!
7. Now, go back to your lowest subdivision level, generate a normal, displacement, or
bump map, based on your highest-resolution version of the model.
8. Export the modified lowest-resolution model to preserve the sculpts you've made on
it.
9. Use the modified model and the new maps in your external program.

1.1 Stencils

Stencils are great for building up complex forms fast. They originate as alphas and work by
projecting an alpha through the canvas. Areas of the alpha that were black will remain
unaffected by your sculpting. Areas of the alpha that were white will be affected.

Let’s look at a few of the settings for Stencils. Because a Stencil is projected through the
canvas and not from a tool, it has its own palette along the top row.

• Stencil On: Click to turn the Stencil on or off

7
• Actual: This will place the Stencil in the canvas at its actual pixel resolution
• Wrap Mode: This button will wrap the Stencil around the model.
• Show: Click to toggle the Stencil’s visibility
• Elv: Displays the Stencil as a topological height map. This is a really great way to
see both your Stencil and your model in the viewport

Environment Sculpting Using Stencils with Pete Zoppi (Quicktime Required)

2 Output Your Sculpt

Most 3D software packages can not support the high-resolution sculpt you create in
ZBrush. To transfer all the high-resolution sculpting you do in ZBrush you export it as
either displacement maps or normal maps. See below for more information.

Check out the ZPipeline guides for step-by-step instruction to output your ZBrush sculpting
to most major 3D packages.

Texture Painting

From ZBrushInfo

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1 Introduction
8

There are 3 ways to paint your texture in ZBrush.

• In the viewport
• In Projection Master
• On your 2D texture

We will look at each with a specific example as well as provide links to valuable learning
resoures.

2 Painting in the viewport

After we have drawn our model onto the canvas and entered edit mode we can either begin
sculpting the model, texturing the model or both. Within the shelf are two buttons that
concern us: Zadd and Rgb.
9

If we have Zadd on then we will be sculpting the model. If we have Rgb on then we will be
painting the model. If we have both Zadd and Rgb on then we are both painting and
modeling at the same time.

Note: Painting in the viewport paints polygons, not a texture. This can give good results if
you are painting a high-resolution model in ZBrush, but will give poor results if you are
painting a lower-resolution model. In the latter case, use a method that operates directly on
the texture map, such as Projection Master detailed below.

1. Import your ZTL or OBJ

2. Draw it onto the canvas
3. Press T to enter edit mode
4. Position it on the canvas
5. Transform:Standard brush
6. set the Color to base color of model
7. set the texture resolution to desired size
8. Press Texture:New to create a new texture
9. Turn off Zadd
10
10. Turn on RGB
11. Set RGB Intensity to
the desired opacity of
your stroke
12. RGB intensity =
opacity of brush
13. Paint onto your model,
rotate it to paint other
side
14. To apply this painting
onto your texture map
go to Tool:Texture:Fix
Seam

3 Painting in Projection Master

Within Projection Master we get a host of tools, alphas, strokes and textures that we can
use. Projection Master combines the 2.5D capabilities of ZBrush with its 3D abilities.

1. Draw your model onto the canvas and enter Edit mode
2. Create new texture, if you do not already have one
1. set the Color to base color of model
2. set the Texture resolution to the desired size
3. Press Texture:New to create a new texure
11
3. Position the model so the area you want to paint faces the camera
4. To enable Fade, set the DSmooth to .01 or higher; Tool:Display
Properties:DSmooth
5. Press the Projection Master button
6. Choose Color and Fade
7. Press Drop To Canvas
8. Now you can use any tool you want to paint onto your model

For fast realistic skin,

1. Select the Simple

Brush; Tool:Simple
Brush
2. Set to RGB, turn off
Zadd or Zsub
3. Set Color
4. Set Stroke to Colorized
Spray Stroke
5. Set Stroke’s color
variation value to .05;
Stroke:Color
6. Paint on model
7. Click Projection
Master and pick up
your model when done

Or use 3d Geometry to paint with,

12

1. Select Ring3D
2. Set to RGB, turn off
Zadd or Zsub
3. Draw the Ring3D onto
your model
4. Press T to enter Edit
mode
5. Sculpt into shape
6. Click Projection
Master and pick up
your model when done

4 Painting directly on your maps in ZBrush

While painting in Projection Master and in the View port as described above are good ways
to paint textures onto your model, sometimes you will want to paint directly onto your
texture map. This can easily be done in ZBrush.

We will assume that you have a model already imported and that it has a texture on it
already.

1. Material:Flat Material
2. Texture:select texture map
3. Texture:Crop and Fill – don’t worry if your model is still on the screen. Remember
it always exists in your Tool palette
13
4. Now you can use the 2d tools such as the blur tool, the saturation tool, the intensity
tool, the list goes on. Please experiment with the 2d tools to see what they do
5. Tool:Single Layer Brush or any tool wanted
6. Select an Alpha
7. Select a Color
8. Set RGB intensity and Draw Size, turn off Zadd or Zsub
9. Paint
10. When done, Texture:Grab Doc to save the image to your Texture palette
11. Clear the Layer
12. Draw your model back onto the screen
13. Choose the newly created texture in the texture palette

5 Special mention tools

The following tools deserve a special mention in our texturing basics guide.
14
The clone brush

1. Texture:Import reference image

2. Texture:Select reference image
3. Material:Flat Material
4. Texture:Crop and Fill
5. Layer:Create
6. Tool:Import or Load your model
7. Draw the model onto the canvas
8. Orientate the model to the texture
9. Projection Master:Color and Fade on
10. Tool:Clone
11. Tool:Modifiers: Layers on, RGB on, everything else off
12. Click and paint on the model to clone the texture behind it
13. Press Cntrl and click on the canvas to clone from a different area
14. Click Projection Master and pick up your model when done
15. Repeat for the other sides

The deco brush The deco brush can also be used to paint tileable textures onto your model.
Within Projection Master,

1. Select the Deco Brush; Tool:Deco brush

2. Select Brush 00 from the Alpha palette
3. Select Txtr09 from the Texture palette
4. In the Deco Brush Tool palette under the modifiers sub-menu make sure that Tile
Texture is on
5. Paint on your model

The directional brush The directional brush is excellent for blending photo-reference into a
texture.

1. Select the Directional brush; Tool:Directional brush

Select Brush 01 from 2.5D Basics

15
From ZBrushInfo

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1 A Paint Program with a 3D Rendering Engine

Most paint programs only give you color to work with. This means that any attempt to
duplicate real-world materials or simulate depth and lighting in an image must be
accomplished through meticulous painting or clever use of filters. By comparison, ZBrush
actually gives you three channels to work with. Color can come from either the Color or the
Texture palette. Material is selected and controlled in the Material palette. Depth is possible
with any 3D object, and also with most brushes (which are all selected from the Tool
palette). As the illustration to the right shows, your choices then get processed by the real-
time rendering engine to create a finished result.

2 The Draw Palette Controls the Show

16
Like a conductor orchestrating a performance, the Draw palette controls the ZBrush show.
This palette lets you instruct ZBrush how you want it to apply the effects created by the
various channels. The MRGB, RGB and M buttons let you tell ZBrush whether to paint
with Material, Color, or both. ZADD, ZSUB and ZCUT tell ZBrush how to apply depth.
The Intensity sliders let you specify how much color and depth to apply. Other sliders let
you modify the size and shape of your brush, add perspective effects, and even simulate
refraction. This approach to painting gives you tremendous control! You can, for example,
take a Sphere3D and use the Draw palette to flatten it out, then make it transparent and
refractive -- an instant lens. Or you can use a Spiral3D with depth turned off to paint curley
shapes.

In the example below, the same “Z” was repeatedly drawn with only one thing being
changed in each column. As you can see, the various palettes work together -- all under the
direction of the Draw palette -- to produce a tremendous variety of effects.

3 Baking
17
Many of the 2.5D brushes (such as Hue Shifter and Shading Enhancer) only use the color
Channel and ignore the Depth or Material channels. You can use these brushes to affect the
base color and then allow ZBrush to render the Material and Depth effects. However, there
will be times when you want to affect the Shaded (rendered) colors instead of just the Color
channel. You can do this by Baking the layer. Pressing Ctrl+B allows ZBrush to render the
layer and then convert all rendered color back into the Color channel. To keep these colors
“pure,” the material is converted to Flat Color which is unaffected by the way that lighting
interacts with the Depth channel. This means that it is usually best to set up your scene’s
lighting before Baking the layer. Special Note: The Draw palette’s Refraction effect will
only refract the Color channel. If you want to see rendered colors through a refractive
object, you must bake the layer before drawing the object.

4 The Stroke & Alpha Palettes

Alpha palette
18

Stroke palette

2. the Alpha palette

3. Select Txtr25 from the Texture palette
4. Set the Stroke to Drag Rectangle; Stroke:DragRect
5. Draw out the texture in various places to blend each stroke into each other

Retrieved from "http://www.zbrush.info/site/index.php/Texture_Painting"

Lighting and Rendering

From ZBrushInfo

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1 Introduction
It has been said that lighting and rendering have as much to do with creating a great
finished image as every other aspect put together. While this may be an overstatement, it is
true that poor lighting can wreck an otherwise excellent image and careful lighting can add
tremendous mood — and emotion — to a scene. The Light palette gives all the control that
19
you need to be able to effectively light your images. Meanwhile, the Render palette allows
you to control your render quality and add various special effects to put that finishing touch
on your work.

2 Getting the Best Edges

Although the Antialiasing options in the Render palette are very effective, the single best
way to get crisp edges in your image is to create it at twice the size that you plan to export.
Not only does this give you more room to work (allowing more detail), it also allows you to
take advantage of ZBrush’s special Antialiased Half-Size mode. After your final render,
press the AAHalf button on the right Shelf (or Ctrl+0) to automatically resize your image
view. Even though the document retains its working dimensions, the exported document
will be half the size of your working document. This eliminates the “jaggies” that are
common along curved edges, resulting in a greatly enhanced final image. You can actually
work in AAHalf mode, allowing you to see the final export quality as you work. At any
time, press Actual (or the 0 key) to return to actual size. You will most likely find it useful
to toggle between these views at various points during the creation of your images.

3 The Light Palette

Click above to go to the reference section for the Light palette.

4 The Rendering Palette

Click above to go to the reference section for the Render palette.

Retrieved from "http://www.zbrush.info/site/index.php/Lighting_and_Rendering"

FAQ

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20
Frequently Asked Questions

Get answers to the most commonly asked questions about ZBrush. To learn more check out
[www.zbrushcentral.com ZBrushCentral].

[edit]

1 General
[edit]

1.1 What is ZBrush?

ZBrush is both a modeling and painting program, with unique features not found in other
graphics programs. In particular, ZBrush can work with models that have up to several
million polygons, and its painting features allow not only standard painting operations, but
painting "depth" onto the canvas as well. This can be used to advantage in both scene
composition and in modeling very fine details.

[edit]

1.2 Installation and Activation

[edit]

1.2.1 I wish to upgrade from an earlier version of ZBrush. How do I do this?

Please fill out the form xxx. Turnaround time is normally one to two business days.

[edit]

1.2.2 I purchased ZBrush 2 through a third party reseller. How do I activate it?

Your CD should include a sheet of paper with instructions. If you did not receive such a
paper, please contact your reseller.
21
[edit]

1.2.3 Where’s my serial number?

ZBrush 2 does not use a serial number. Instead, you receive a POP (Proof of Purchase)
code. This is given to you on the website after you have created your Element 5 account
(using the upgrade or CD activation instructions). It will also be sent to you by email. The
POP code will not change for as long as you have ZBrush 2, and is used to activate the
software.

[edit]

1.2.4 How do I install ZBrush 2 once I have my POP code?

Simply download and run the installer, or run it from the CD. You will be asked to agree to
the End User License Agreement, and then will be walked through the installation process.
Important: The installer requires Java in order to run. If it fails to run, please go to
www.java.com and follow the instructions there to install that on your machine. After you
have done this, the installer should run fine.
[edit]

1.2.5 I’ve installed ZBrush 2. Now what?

Have your POP code ready and run the ZBrush program file from within the folder that you
installed it to. The first time that you launch ZBrush, you will need to activate it. The
easiest way is to choose the internet activation method. If your computer is not connected to
the internet, then you will also have an option for activating by phone. For either approach,
please follow the instructions that you will be given on-screen.

[edit]

1.2.6 Can I install ZBrush on more than one machine?

Yes. As per the EULA, you can install ZBrush on up to two of your machines, provided
that both copies are not actually used at the same time. Use the same POP code to activate
both computers.

[edit]
22
1.2.7 The activation screen says that my POP code has already been used. Now what?

If you are installing ZBrush on your second machine, or have upgraded to a new computer,
please contact Element 5 so that they can add another activation to your POP code. For all
other needs, please contact support@pixologic.com

[edit]

1.2.8 Can I reinstall my operating system without having to activate again?

Yes. The email containing your POP code also has instructions for how to back up your
license file.

[edit]

1.2.9 I need to reinstall ZBrush, but I no longer have the installer.

Please contact Element 5. They can send you a new download link.

[edit]

1.2.10 How do I contact Element 5?

In the U.S. and Canada, they can be reached at 800-406-4966 or

http://esd.element5.com/ccc/index.html?publisherid=50448&languageid=1 . For the rest of
the world, they can be reached at +49-221-31088-30 or
http://esd.element5.com/ccc/index.html?publisherid=50448&languageid=1. People are
available at both phone numbers during most hours of the day.

[edit]

1.2.11 I have a question that is not covered here. What should I do?

Please contact support@pixologic.com

[edit]

1.3 ZBrush 2 Performance Tips - Getting the Most from Your System
23
[edit]

1.3.1 Optimal Settings

• Multi-Processing. For systems that are capable of multi-processing or hyper

threading, this feature can significantly enhance performance. It is a good idea to
run the "Test Multithreading" button located in the Preferences>Performance menu.
ZBrush will then tell you whether or not multithreading is recommended for your
system-configuration. If it is, then both the Draw and Render options should be
activated. Note: As of this writing, these settings are not saved with the preferences.
Instructions for what to do are given below.
• Undo/Redo Settings. Setting these values incorrectly is the most common cause of
frequent "Compacting Mem" Messages. This message is displayed whenever
ZBrush has to write to disk rather than being able to use RAM. The way that the
Undo settings work is that they tell ZBrush the minimum number of undo's to keep
available for you. Wherever possible, ZBrush will make more than that available.
However, as your mesh reaches higher numbers of polygons, ZBrush will be forced
to make a decision to either reduce the number of available undo's or start writing to
disk (which is much slower than RAM). The higher this value is set to, the more
often ZBrush will be forced to use your RAM for storing undo information rather
than mesh information, which degrades performance. It is highly recommended to
leave this value at the default and only change it slightly upward if you know that
you absolutely want to have more undos available at all times.
• MaxPolyPerMesh. ZBrush checks to see how much RAM your system has and
determines a recommended mesh density. Exceeding this density (which is shown
in millions of polygons) can be done by increasing the slider setting. It is not
recommended to increase this setting to more than double the recommended value.
• Threshold Settings. There are three sliders in the Performance menu that affect how
ZBrush handles models with multiple subdivision levels while you're working with
them. These settings are optimized to provide most users with the best possible
performance, but you are able to modify them if you need to. As a general rule,
these values should be set to lower values for better performance.

QuickAndDirtyEdit. This preference in the Performance menu is turned on by default and

makes the renderer perform as fast as possible while editing 3D objects. It is
recommended that you leave it active unless you are noticing artifacts that would
affect your work.
24
[edit]

1.3.2 Optimal Workflow

• Quick 3D Mode. Whenever you are editing a model (especially one with high
resolution) the "Quick 3D Mode" button should be pressed. It's located on the top
shelf by default, next to the Polyframe button, and is pressed by default. This mode
allows ZBrush to use faster rendering routines. Only turn this feature off when you
wish render-time smoothing to be applied to the mesh (such as when you're going to
snapshot it to the canvas).
• Partial Mesh Visibility. When working on high resolution meshes, it is very
beneficial to hide a portion of the mesh and only keep visible that part that you are
currently working on. This not only accelerates ZBrush's interactivity, but also
reduces the amount of RAM that is required while editing the mesh.
• Fast Render Mode. The Render palette makes four rendering options available to
you. Preview is selected by default, which renders materials in real time. Of course,
that extra information also means that some system resources are not being devoted
to modeling, and can slow performance down when working with a really dense
mesh. For modeling purposes, you are usually more interested in shape and so don't
need the material rendering routines. Changing to Fast render mode will speed up
interaction with your mesh. It is recommended to use this setting for long modeling
sessions; especially when working with a large document size.
• Fast Shader. This material is partway between the Fast and Preview renderers. Like
any material, it instructs ZBrush's rendering engine for how to deal with light on the
surface of your model. However, it has fewer modifiers than most other materials
and so will render faster in Preview mode. Note that using this material in Fast
Render mode will not make a difference, since that render mode ignores any
material selection, including the Fast Shader. It is recommended to use this material
for long modeling sessions; especially when working with a large document size.
• Sharing System Resources. If other applications are active while you are actually
working with ZBrush, you may experience slower performance because a portion of
your system resources are being reserved for those other applications. Exiting other
applications (including unnecessary items in the system tray) will free the CPU time
and memory to be used by ZBrush.
• Saving the multiprocessing settings.
o As mentioned above, the multiprocessing systems are not currently saved
with the preferences. This will be handled by an updated Test Multithreading script,
25
which will be released in the future. Until then, there are two simple options for
you, if the test shows that multithreading is recommended.
o First would be to simply hold down the Ctrl/Cmd key and drag the
MultiDraw and MultiRender buttons onto your shelf. Save the preferences, and you
will now be able to immediately activate them at any time that you want the extra
performance that they provide.
o The second option is to modify your default ZScript so that the settings are
automatically enabled every time you start ZBrush. To do this, simply open the
DefaultZScript.txt file in any text editor and replace it with the following:

/*===========start===========*/
// Activates MultiThreading at startup

[VarDef,MultiThreadingInited,0]
[If,!MultiThreadingInited,
[VarInc,MultiThreadingInited]
[IPress,Preferences:MultiDraw]
[IPress,Preferences:MultiRender]
]
[pd]

/*===========end===========*/
Note: The default ZScript was deliberately left empty (except for the single [pd], which
must remain) in order to allow for user customization on startup.
[edit]

1.4 What FILE FORMATS does ZBrush 2 support?

• For 2D images, the BMP, PSD, PICT and TIFF formats are supported. When
exported from the Alpha palette, the TIFF format is a 16 bit image ideal for use with
displacement maps. In addition, ZBrush will import the JPG format. Multi-layer
PSD images will be flattened on import since ZBrush's layer system is very
different from Photoshop's.
• For 3D objects, ZBrush supports OBJ and DXF. The OBJ format is the most
common, since it supports UV mapping (ZBrush will use any UV mapping that's
applied to the model, or can assign UV coordinates itself). Additional formats will
be possible in the future through plugins.
26
[edit]

2 Modeling
[edit]

2.1 I've drawn a model on the canvas, but when I try to do something with it,
I just get another copy of the model, or can perform only basic operations
such as rotation and scaling. What do I do?

This results from the dual aspects of ZBrush, painting and drawing. When you first put a
model on the canvas, you are "painting" it. If you then attempt to do something on the
canvas, that counts as another paint stroke, and you will get another copy of your model.
This allows you to rapidly create scenes such as a field of flowers, from a single flower
model.
To sculpt a model after drawing it on the screen, you need to go into 3D Edit mode--the t
key toggles between 3D Edit Mode and paint mode, or use the Edit button that appears
above the canvas.

[edit]

2.2 I forgot to go into 3D Edit mode to sculpt, and now have an extra copy of
my model on the screen. How do I get rid of it?

This is a common question for people who have just started with ZBrush; you'll quickly get
into the habit of immediately going into edit mode after placing your model on the screen.
In the meantime, just hit {{Key:Ctrl+n}} to clear the canvas, and then redraw the model
and go into edit mode, as described above.

[edit]

2.3 I've scaled my model, but when I export it, it is the same size as it was
when I imported it. How do I change the size of my model in ZBrush?

The standard "scaling" operations in ZBrush are really just zoom operations. When ZBrush
imports a model, it internally and invisibly scales it to fit in a 2x2x2 cube. This allows
maximum accuracy when working with very high resolution models. When the model is
27
exported, it is rescaled again, to come out at the same absolute size as the original model.
Normally, you will not need to change the absolute sizes of models in ZBrush. In fact, since
ZBrush has no built-in absolute system of measurement, it is difficult to do so. Such an
operation can be done very quickly and easily in an external program.

[edit]

2.4 I've seen the fine detail that can be achieved with ZBrush, but can't see
how to do it with the sculpting tools. How is this done?

Very fine detailing in ZBrush is normally done with Projection Master, a plugin that ships
with ZBrush. With it, the model is "dropped" to the canvas, where it may be painted with
all of the ZBrush paint brushes. Since these brushes can affect canvas depth in an infinite
number of ways using Alphas, almost any kind of desired detailing can be achieved. Colors
and other properties can also be painted.

[edit]

2.5 How should I SAVE MY MODEL so that I can edit it later?

Save it using the Tool>Save As button. Saves using the Document palette only save a
snapshot of the model rather than the full 3D data that's necessary for continued sculpting.

[edit]

2.6 What can I do to IMPROVE PERFORMANCE when sculpting high

resolution meshes?

First, hide the parts of the mesh that you aren't working on at the moment. Fewer visible
polygons means faster performance. Second, try not to rotate your model at a high
subdivision level. Instead, go down a subdivision level before rotating the mesh and then
go back up in level to continue sculpting. You may also find that it helps to hide and unhide
parts of the mesh when you are at a lower subdivision level. Also, the
Preferences>Performance menu has several sliders for fine tuning ZBrush on your system.
Hold down the Ctrl key and place your pointer over each to learn what they do. (Note: If
28
you adjust QTransThreshold1, QTransThreshold2 and QEditThreshold, be sure that they
become progressively higher. Setting all three to maximum will actually degrade
performance.)

[edit]

2.7 How can I CENTER MY MODEL on the canvas?

Alt+click on any blank part of the canvas. You can also click once on the Move or Scale
buttons that are located on the right shelf in the default configuration.

[edit]

2.8 How can I RESELECT AN OBJECT or have more than one editable
object?

This question is covered in depth in this thread.

[edit]

3 Texturing
[edit]

3.1 My texture wraps okay, but there's a THIN LINE at every UV SEAM.

Before exporting, press Tool>Texture>Fix Seam. This creates a 4 pixel buffer around all of
the UV edges. If necessary, you can change the FSBorder setting to modify the border
width. If you still have seams appearing, even after applying the Fex Seam operation, then
you should make sure that texture antialiasing is turned off in your rendering engine. It
might also be necessary to turn off MIP mapping.
29

[edit]

3.2 Can ZBrush paint BUMP MAPS?

The only difference between a bump map and a displacement map is how it is used by your
rendering engine. To create a bump map, follow the steps to create a displacement map and
export the resulting alpha. ZBrush can also apply the current alpha to a model as a bump
map for rendering in ZBrush. Follow the regular steps for applying a displacement map, but
leave Tool>Displacement>Mode turned off.

[edit]

3.3 My texture is JUMBLED when applied to my model in my other

software.

Different programs use different coordinate systems. Before exporting your texture from
ZBrush, try pressing Texture>Flip V. This will allow the texture to wrap correctly in most
programs. If it doesn't, try Flip H instead, or a combination of the two.

[edit]

3.4 How do I work with MULTIPLE TEXTURES on the same object?

ZBrush currently allows one texture to be wrapped onto a model at a time. If you have a
model that uses multiple maps, then any texture that you apply will wrap correctly onto one
part of the model and incorrectly onto the rest of the model. This doesn't affect your ability
to texture the model, though. Simply paint one map at a time. You can even hide the other
portions of the model so that they aren't distracting you while you work on the current
texture.
30
[edit]

3.5 What do you mean by "UV REGIONS"?

UV Regions are a means of applying multiple maps to the same model without using
material zones and overlapping mapping. The premise is that each region occupies a range
of coordinates. The most common region is the default of 0,0 through 1,1. However, other
regions are possible such as 1,0 through 2,1, 0,1 through 1,2, or even 0,0 through -1,-1. For
rendering engines that support it, a single model can have dozens of textures without any
overlapping coordinates. This kind of mapping has an added benefit in ZBrush in that you
can use it to assign polygroups to make life easier for texturing and sculpting. Press
Tool>Polygroups>Uv Groups, and ZBrush will assign each region to its own mesh group.

[edit]

3.6 How do I ASSIGN AUVTILES OR GUVTILES?

Since these two mapping methods are precision techniques, it is necessary for ZBrush to
know what size the texture will be before the coordinates are assigned. You should begin
by creating a base texture of the desired size. In the Texture palette, enter the width and
height of the texture that you will create, and then press New. For best results, the texture
dimensions should be a power of 2 (256x256, 512x512, 1024x1024, 2048x2048 or
4096x4096). After you have created the base texture, go to Tool>Texture and press the
AUVTiles or GUVTiles button. That's all there is to it! Before setting the mapping, you can
also set the AUV Ratio slider. This causes polygons to be mapped to different sizes on the
texture depending upon their relative sizes in the mesh. If you are going to be displacement
mapping your model, it is recommended that you leave this setting at 1.

[edit]

4 Displacements
[edit]
31
4.1 What is the MULTIDISPLACEMENT PLUGIN?

It is used to create multiple displacement maps for the same model, when that model has
been UV mapped with multiple regions. For example, the head might use coordinates 0,0
through 1,1 and the body coordinates 1,0 through 2,1. This makes it possible to create
several displacement maps for the same model, for rendering engines that support such
mapping.

[edit]

4.2 What is the PURPOSE of a displacement map?

Displacement maps take bump mapping to the next level. The problem with bump mapping
is that it only performs displacements toward the camera. As a result, the profile of your
model is not changed. Displacement mapping can move points or pixels in any direction,
which changes the silhouette of the model and creates a more realistic effect. In addition,
animation packages can't handle the huge numbers of polygons that ZBrush supports.
Displacement maps are the key to overcoming this weakness. You would rig and animate a
low poly version of your model with very little drain on your system resources. At render
time, you would then apply a displacement map to make the finished scene look like you'd
actually animated the ultra high resolution ZBrush version of your model. In short,
displacement maps make it possible to greatly increase the realism of your scenes with
minimal impact on your system resources.

[edit]

4.3 What is the difference between ADAPTIVE mode and DPSUBPIX?

The adaptive mode should be used when you have applied disproportional modifications to
your mesh (such as by extensive use of Pinch brush). If your mesh deformation is fairly
uniform, you'll get faster results with adaptive mode off. Furthermore, you'll be able to use
the DPSubPix option to virtually subdivide the mesh to much higher resolution (even if
your system can not normally handle such resolution). Each DPSubPix level increases the
virtual resolution of the mesh by 4. For example, a 1 million poly mesh with DPSubPix set
32
at 1 is similar to the result that you'll get if the mesh had 4 million sub-polygons, DPSubPix
of 2 will produce results similar to 16 million sub-polygons. DPSubPix of 3 is similar to 64
million sub polygons.

[edit]

4.4 Can I use a NORMAL MAP for the fine details?

Yes. What you would do is sculpt your high resolution model and create a normal map for
it. Save the tool so that you can come back to the high resolution version later if you need
to. Now switch to a medium subdivision level and delete the higher levels. Create a
displacement map. You'll now have a displacement map for medium frequency details and
a normal map for high frequency details.

[edit]

4.5 How do I CREATE a displacement map?

Please see part 3 of the Telephone tutorial in the ZBrush 2 Practical Guide. There is also a
ZScript tutorial available for you to watch, which can be found via ZBrush 2's built-in Help
browser. It's called "Displacement Mapping Tutorial."

[edit]

5 Interface
[edit]

5.1 How do I MOVE THE CAMERA?

[edit]
33
5.1.1 Canvas

You can pan the canvas by holding down the spacebar.

You zoom in and out of the canvas by using the + and - keys on your keyboard.

Pressing 0 will return you to 100% magnification, and Alt+0 will activate ZBrush's special
AA Half antialiasing display mode.

Bear in mind that zooming into the canvas will cause pixelation as the individual pixols are
enlarged. Rather than moving the camera around the model, ZBrush uses a principal of
moving the model in front of the camera.

[edit]

5.1.2 Model

You rotate your model in edit mode by pressing and holding the left mouse button and
clicking and dragging outside of the model. If the model fills the entire canvas just click
and drago outside of the canvas area.

You can move a model in edit mode by holding down the Alt key then click and drag on
the canvas.

To zoom/scale the model, you also use the Alt key. The technique is to hold down the Alt
key, click on the canvas, then release the Alt key without releasing the mouse click. When
you drag up and down, the model will be resized.

To center the model on the canvas (even if it's been moved out of sight by accident),
Alt+click on any part of the canvas or click once on the Scale or Move buttons on the right
shelf.

If any of these methods of rotating your model are difficult just use the Move, Rotate, Scale
buttons on the right hand side of the interface. Also, press CTL while hovering over the
interface item to learn more about and remind yourself of the hotkeys.
34
[edit]

5.2 Can I customize the interface and CREATE MY OWN PALETTE

configurations?

Yes. The shelf is designed for you to be able to place any interface elements on it, including
those that have been created by a plugin. There are four parts to the shelf: above and to
either side of the canvas, as well as at the extreme bottom of the screen beneath the ZScript
window. Many more opportunities are also available for customizing the user interface. The
ZBrush 2 Practical Guide explains in the chapter on customization how to make use of
these powerful features. You will also find more information in this thread.

[edit]

5.3 What CAMERA FORMAT does ZBrush use?

ZBrush's camera is orthographic. While the gyro is active, perspective can be simulated
using the Draw>Persp button and its associated slider. Perspective is not available when the
object is in Edit mode.

[edit]

5.4 Does ZBrush have MORE THAN ONE VIEWPORT?

ZBrush's pixol technology would not work with multiple viewports. For this reason,
ZBrush has the main viewport, only. The fact that your models are only viewable from one
angle also means that ZBrush can focus more resources on polygon manipulation, which
makes it possible to have more detailed models than would be possible in a multiple
viewport system. However, there is a ZScript available called QuadQuick that simulates a
multiple viewport environment within ZBrush. There are plans to update this for Z2 as a
plugin in the near future.
35
[edit]

5.5 Can I set ZBrush to LAUNCH with a DIFFERENT DOCUMENT SIZE?

Yes. Not only that, but you can set it to have any number of layers, lighting configurations,
etc. This is all accomplished through the StartupDocument. The ZBrush 2 Practical Guide
explains in the chapter on customization how to make use of this powerful feature.

[edit]

6 Projection Master
[edit]

6.1 Projection Master doesn't fade the texture when I pick it up even though
I had fade on.

Answer: In the Tool palette, under the Display Properties tab make sure that you set
DSmooth above 0. It can be .01. This will enable fade when you pick your model up from
Projection Master. :)

[edit]

7 What advice can you give for Softimage|XSI, MENTAL

RAY, MAYA, LIGHTWAVE, VRAY, RENDERMAN
and MAYAMAN, POSER, CINEMA 4D, and 3D
STUDIO MAX?
This question is covered in depth in this thread.
36
[edit]

8 Other Apps
[edit]

8.1 Can UV MAPPING be done after the high resolution model has been
sculpted?

Yes. All you need to do is go to subdivision level 1 and import the version of the base mesh
that has the UV's that you want. Do this before you create your displacement or normal
map. Alternatively, you can apply one of ZBrush's mapping methods.

[edit]

8.2 When I import a model into ZBrush its ORIENTATION is different.

ZBrush 2 has the Preferences>Importexport menu, which makes it possible for you to
synchronize ZBrush's coordinate system with your other software. Settings are available for
both importing and exporting. Incidentally, ZBrush also offers several scaling options,
which you can read about in this thread.

Retrieved from "http://www.zbrush.info/site/index.php/FAQ"

Tool Palette

From ZBrushInfo

Jump to: navigation, search

Table of Contents
37

1 Intro

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
38
particular brush is doing. Also, most tools have one or more modifiers that affect how they
work, especially the 3D object tools.

Note: Because the Tool palette is quite large once all of its subpalettes have been included,
those subpalettes have been documented on separate pages, accessible via links below.

Note: Note all subpalettes will appear at any one time; visible subpalettes depend on the
current tool.

2 Types of Tools
• Drawing Tools
• 3D Primitive Tools
• Polymesh Tools
• ZSpheres: ZSpheres can be used to quickly 'sketch out' a complex 3D object. The
sketch can then be turned into a polymesh, in various ways, for further work.
• Multimarkers: These
allow you to combine mutiple 3D objects into a single polymesh.

3 Concepts
The Tool palette contains the following types of elements and controls:

• 2.5D (Pixol) tools, which affect the image pixols. These are the counterparts of the
2D brushes found in any image editing program.
• 3D (Model) tools, which allow you to place models onscreen.
• Inventory controls, with which you load, save, and duplicate custom tools.
• Modifiers, which allow you to customize aspects of tools. These are most
commonly used with models; for example, you can set the number of vertices for a
sphere. many of the pixol tools do not have modifiers at all.
39
• Other controls that directly affect or are related to tools. These are mostly 3D
controls, for things such as controlling the subdivision level of a model, generating
a texture for a model, etc...

3.1 The Tool Inventory

Tools are accessed through the tool inventory, a popup grid of thumbnails graphically
denoting each tool. This can be accessed via the tool palette by clicking on the large
thumbnail; it can be reached more quickly by clicking on the (equivalent) large thumbnail
found near the top left corner of the default ZBrush screen layout.

The tool inventory, accessed by clicking on the large thumbnail under the top left corner of
the inventory

The first three rows of the inventory are ZBrush's built-in tools; these will never change.
Subsequent rows are custom tools, either loaded from an external file, or created by
modifying another tool.

As tools are used, they will be added into slots in the Tool palette; this keeps the most
recently used tools convenient for further application. If this begins to make the size of the
Tool palette too large for your monitor, you can press the Tool:R button to reset these slots.
(All tools will still be accessible through the full tool inventory.)

3.2 Pixol Tools Overview

40
Most paint programs work with images composed of a rectangular grid of colored dots,
pixels. Normally, each pixel can have 256 levels of blue, 256 levels of green, and 256
levels of red, which in combination can produce about 16 million different colors of
different hues and intensities. Some programs also allow you define define an alpha (level
of transparency) for each pixel. The .psd (Photoshop) format that ZBrush uses supports
alpha channels.

Instead of pixels, ZBrush uses pixols, which are pixels augmented with further properties.
The most important of these is depth. A pixol has not just an x and y (horizontal and
vertical) position, but also a position along the z-axis; a distance between the pixol and the
viewer. In addition, pixols can have a material, which defines many aspects of how a pixol
(or surface using that material for its pixols) will appear; for example, pixols may be shiny
or dull, or metallic or nonmetallic, depending on the material.

These properties allow you to define many true 3D effects. Pixols closer to the viewer will
hide pixols (on other layers) farther away from the viewer. Surfaces may go into and come
out of the screen, and their shading will be affected by the positions of lights. It is perfectly
possible--easy, in fact--to draw a curved surface with the standard paintbrush, and then set a
few properties so that it appears as a wildly shaped mirror.

Pixol tools allow you to manipulate all, or any combination, of the color, depth, and
material properties of the canvas. We won't go into details here, but the relevant controls
are in the Draw palette; M, Rgb, Mrgb, and Rgb Intensity control the application of
materials and/or colors; and ZAdd, ZSub, ZCut, and Z Intensity control the application of
depth.

Pixol tools (and pixols) act in ways that are conceptually very similar to paint tools (and
pixels) in other programs, but the extra elements of depth and material allow them to
achieve much more striking effects.

3.3 3D Tools Overview

ZBrush puts 3D models into the tools palette, which may be a somewhat different way of
doing things than you are accustomed to from other 3D software. Doing this allows easy
access to many different models at one time. It also fits the idea of tools as drawing
instruments; in ZBrush, you can use a flower model as a tool to paint a field of flowers.

ZBrush offers several types of 3D tools:

41
• 3D Primitives allow the creation of cubes, spheres, spirals, terrain, etc. These tools
typically offer numerous initialization options; for example, you can control the
shape of the terrain tool, you can make the sweep tool sweep out a vase or a goblet,
and so forth. A 3D primitive may be converted to a general polymesh for further
custom work.
• Polymeshes are general 3D objects. They allow multiple levels of subdivision,
sculpting at different resolutions, edge loop modeling, and many other general mesh
manipulations. All imported meshes (those brought in from other modeling
programs) are imported as polymeshes, and all sculpting, texturing, and mapping
you do on complex, irregularly shaped objects will almost certainly be on
polymeshes.
• ZSpheres provide a fast, easy way sketch the general structure or shape of a
complex model. For example, you can use ZSpheres to define a humanoid or
quadruped shape down to arms and legs, fingers and toes, head or torso including
general features such as cheeks, forehead, and chest, and so forth. Once a model has
been defined with ZSpheres, it can be 'skinned' to create a polymesh, using one of
two skinning methods to give either a dense polymesh model for sculpting, or a
light polymesh model for export or edge-loop type modeling.
• Multimarkers allow the composition of other 3D tools into a single mesh. For
example, you could create bolts, rods, gears, and so forth, and then fuse them to
create a complex piece of machinery as a single model.

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.

When creating a 3D object by clicking and dragging, you can optionally, before releasing
the mouse button, 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.

3.4 Modifiers

A modifier is a property of a tool that affects how that tool is applied on the canvas. These
are most common and most obvious with the 3D primitive tools, where modifiers can be
used to define how many polygons are in an object when it is drawn on the screen, how
many times a spiral spirals, how much a cylinder tapers, and so forth. These properties are
discussed in the sections describing the individual tools. Some pixol tools, such as the filter
brushes, also have modifiers.
42
For pixol tools which have modifiers, these modifiers generally appear in a Modifiers
subpalette that appears when the tool is selected. For 3D tools, the modifiers can appear in
different subpalettes, such as Deformation or Initialize.

Whenever a modifier on a built-in tool is changed, that tool is actually copied to the custom
tools section of the tool inventory, then modified, and then selected. As a result, the settings
for the built-in tools never change, and you can always choose one of them to go back to its
known settings.

3.5 Inventory Management

'Inventory Management' has to do with creation, loading, saving, and duplicating of tools.
Most of the inventory management you'll do will involve 3D tools (models). However, you
can save and load pixol tools as well. All new tools are saved in the tool inventory, the
popup grid that presents tools as small thumbnails. This can be access through the Tool
Palette, or from the shortcut present near the top left of the default ZBrush screen.

It's important to remember that tools (including models) are not saved automatically
when you save a ZBrush document. Tools are separate entities from documents (which
are effectively whatever you've 'painted' in ZBrush). So, tools need to be saved separately
from documents. To save a tool (usually a model), use the Tool:Save As control.

3.5.1 Creating or Loading Tools

There are a number of ways of getting new or custom tools in ZBrush. The most common
ones are described below, and others are described in their own special sections. Many of
these apply only to 3D tools, but the following are valid for all tool types:

• The most obvious way to get a new tool is to use Tool:Load Tool. This will load a
previous saved ZBrush tool, which will appear as a file with a suffix of '.ZTL'.
• You can use Tool:Clone to create an exact copy of the currently selected tool. This
copy can then be modified without changing the original tool.
• As detailed above in the
'Modifiers' section,
changing modifier
settings for a built-in
tool will create a new,
43
modified copy of that
tool.

Note: Modifying a custom tool (one that is not built-in) will not create a new copy of that
tool. If you want to end up with both the original tool and a modified copy, first use the
Clone button described above, then modify the clone.

For 3D tools, the following are the simplest ways to create or load a 3D tool:

• Tool:Import can be used to import 3D tools from various standard 3D formats.

These are imported as polymesh objects, which is the 'general' format for ZBrush
3D tools.
• Tool:Make PolyMesh3D will create a new polymesh tool from an existing 3D tool.
The standard use for this is to create a model from a primitive tool (probably using
various modifiers to get a custom effect), and then to convert that tool to a general
mesh for further sculpting.

In addition, 3D tools can be created by skinning ZSpheres, or using Multimarkers, both of

which are tools in the Tool Palette. These are discussed in their own sections.

Finally, there are other ways to obtain 3D tools (for example, Alpha:Make 3D will
actually make a 3D tool from an intensity map), but the ones above are what you can do
from the Tool palette.

Note: Remember that all of the above simply place a new tool into the Tool palette--they
don't draw anything onscreen. In contrast, drawing onscreen with a tool affects the canvas
(and if you draw a 3D tool and then press 't' then allows you to model), but doesn't create a
new tool.

3.5.2 Saving or Exporting Tools

You can write a tool to disk in one of two ways:

• Use Tool: Save As to save a 2.5D or 3D tool as a .ZTL file. This can later be loaded
and used again. Remember, you must save a tool in this way to be able to load it
again and use it in a future session; saving a document will not suffice.
• Use Tool:Export to export a 3D tool into a standard 3D format.
44
Note: Always save as a .ZTL unless you actually need to export the tool to another
program. ZBrush tool files contain quite a bit more information than exported files. A
standard workflow is to both save and export a model, look at the exported model in an
external program, and then go back to the saved tool to do further work.

3.5.3 Tool Names

All tools in a ZBrush session have a name. When a tool is saved, the name of the save file
becomes the name of that tool, and similarly, if the tool is loaded then the tool name is the
name of the load file.

For newly created tools, the name will generally reflect how the tool was created. For
example, if you select the Spiral tool and then create a polymesh using the Create
PolyMesh3D button, the name of the new tool will be 'PM3D_Spiral3D'.

To see the name of any tool, hold the mouse cursor over its icon for a second-—a text label
appears showing the tool name. At this point, if you press and hold the Ctrl key, further
information on the use of the brush appears on the label.

3.6 Related Palettes

Several of the other ZBrush palettes are of particular importance when using tools. These
are briefly described below; see the documentation on each palette for further information.

• In its role as one of the most underused strengths of ZBrush, the Alpha palette can
be used to affect brush shape and masking. These are major components of drawing
and modeling.
• The Transform Palette is probably the single most important palette for working
with 3D objects. The Texture Palette is also very important when modeling.
• The Stroke Palette, Draw Palette, Material Palette, and (of course) Color Palette
all affect drawing and/or modeling in various ways. You may want to take a look
especially at the Stroke and Draw palettes, as they offer powerful abilities not
generally found in other painting or modeling programs.
• Projection Master is not a palette, but a major plugin that ships as part of ZBrush.
It allows you to use pixol (drawing) tools to model and texture 3D objects; this is
particularly useful when working with the extremely high-polygon count objects
ZBrush can support.
45
• More specialized controls include the Picker (advanced brush controls) and Stencil
(masking using stencils) palettes, and the various subpalettes in the Preferences
palette.

4 Tool Palette
Provides the tools (paintbrushes, models, filters, etc.) that can be used to draw in ZBrush,
and many operations relating to those tools. This is one of the most important palettes in
ZBrush.

4.1 Tool Subpalettes

• Tool:Display Properties Subpalette

• Tool:Geometry Subpalette
• Tool:Preview Subpalette
• Tool:Deformation Subpalette
• Tool:Masking Subpalette
• Tool:Polygroups Subpalette
• Tool:Texture Subpalette
• Tool:Morph Target Subpalette
• Tool:Displacement Subpalette
• Tool:NormalMap Subpalette
• Tool:Unified Skin Subpalette
• Tool:Adaptive Skin Subpalette
• Tool:Initialize Subpalette
• Tool:Import Subpalette
• Tool:Export Subpalette

Retrieved from "http://www.zbrush.info/site/index.php/Tool_Palette"

Alpha Palette

From ZBrushInfo

Jump to: navigation, search

46

In ZBrush, grayscale images used for masking are referred to as alphas. You'll probably be
used to alphas from the notion of an "alpha transparency" in other painting or imaging
programs, but in ZBrush, they can be used for far more than that

1 Selecting Alphas
47
Alphas can be selected from either the Alpha palette, or the large Alpha thumbnail on the
left of the ZBrush canvas. In either case, click on the large thumbnail to bring up the full
selection of alphas. Within the palette, yoiu can also click one of the small thumbnails that
show recently used alphas, to select it.

The Alpha Palette.

The inventory of all alphas, which can be brought up by clicking on the large thumbnail in
the Alpha Palette, or the large Alpha thumbnail to the left of the canvas.
48

The inventory of alphas works the same as others in ZBrush, such as those in the Tool and
Material palettes. The active alpha is grayed out to indicate that it is already selected.

Note: In the Alpha Palette, click one of the small thumbnails and then select an alpha from
the resulting popup of the alpha inventory, to have the selected alpha replace the clicked
thumbnail, rather than be added to the list of recently used alphas.

To see the name, size, and bit depth of an alpha, hover the mouse over its thumbnail.

2 Alpha Palette Controls

Import: Imports .bmp (Windows Bitmap), .psd (Photoshop), .jpg (JPEG), 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).

Note: The following two controls are part of the Alpha Displacement Exporter plugin, and
will be present only when that plugin is installed. Please see The Alpha Displacement
Exporter.
49
DE Options: Brings up options having to do with how the Alpha Displacement Exporter
exports alphas. This includes options concerning TIFF file format, and some modification
options.

DExporter: Exports an alpha using the currently selected options in DE Options. This
differs from Export in that Export does not apply any of the options that can be set using
DE Options.

Ep: If pressed, then any alpha that is exported will include the modifications made to it by
the AlphaAdjust curve. (This is the same as the alpha that appears in the large thumbnail
preview.) If not pressed, then any exported alpha will have its 'original' appearance, without
modification by AlphaAdjust

Brush: Slider that gives an alternative way of selecting alphas.

R: As alphas are selected, they will be added to the "recently used" set of thumbnails that
appears in the Alpha palette. In time, this may cause the palette to become too long for your
preferences. Pressing R resets the recently used section of the palette to display its original
number of thumbnails.

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

50
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.

Rf: Radial Fade. Higher settings cause the alpha to fade out faster as it approaches the edge
from center.

AlphaAdjust: Click to expand this control to an editable curve. Once open, you can add
points and otherwise adjust the curve to cause different radial effects with the same alpha.
For example, below are a simple alpha without AlphaAdjust modified, and the same alpha
with a different AlphaAdjust curve.

Unadjusted alpha (left), and same alpha with adjustment (right).

51

Flh : Flips the alpha left-to-right.

Flv : Flips the alpha top-to-bottom.

Rot : Rotates the alpha 90 degrees per click.

Invr : Produces an inverse image of the alpha.

MRes: Sets the resolution of a mesh created using the Make 3D button. Higher values
result in a greater level of detail at the price of a greater number of polygons and larger file
size. Range = 8 to 256. Default = 64

MDep: Sets the thickness of a mesh created using the Make 3D button. Range = 0 to 100.
Default = 25

MSm: Sets the smoothness of a mesh created using the Make 3D button. If this slider is set
to 0, the mesh is created using Cubical Skinning, wherein the object appears to be
composed of many tiny cubes. Range = 0 to 100. Default = 10.

DblS: When pressed (the default), a 3D object created using Make 3D wll be mirrored
along its Z axis. For example when using a radially faded alpha such as Alpha:Brush 01,
52
setting this to on will produce an object that looks like a sphere or ovoid; with it off, the
result would be an object like a flattened hemisphere with a flat bottom.

Make 3D: Creates a 3D mesh skin from the currently selected alpha. The skin has
symmetry along the Z axis, and is automatically assigned Adaptive UV Tiles coordinates.

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 activates the stencil.

Make Modified Alpha: Creates a new alpha which is derived from the original alpha by
"baking in" the modifications made by AlphaAdjust. In other words, if you start with an
adjusted alpha and do a Make Modified Alpha, the new alpha will look the same when
AlphaAdjust is in its unadjusted (original) state, as the old alpha did with the adjustment
applied.

Cc (Clear Color): This option works in conjunction with the CropAndFill button, and then
only when the current alpha is the same size as the current drawing area. When it is on (the
default), pressing CropAndFill will clear color information from the canvas, meaning that
the resulting canvas will have depth but no color. If it is off, then the resulting canvas will
have the same depth as when it is on, but pixols will assume any colors that were on the
original canvas.

If you CropAndFill a canvas with a differently sized alpha, then colors are always cleared.
53
CropAndFill: When pressed, resizes the drawing area to the size of the currently selected
alpha, and then adjusts the depth of the pixols on the canvas according to the intensity of
the alpha at the corresponding points. If the alpha is the same size as the canvas, you have
the options of preserving canvas colors; see Cc above.

GrabDoc: Creates a new alpha the same size as the current canvas, with intensities
determined by the depth of the pixols on the canvas.

Alpha Depth Factor: This affects the intensity with which the CropAndFill operation is
applied, causing alpha intensities to map to greater or lesser depth displacements according
to this scaling factor. It is also of significant importance when generating displacement and
bump maps using ZBrush, when it gives a number that is used in an external renderer as a
scaling factor. See The Alpha Displacement Exporter for further details.

3 Related Controls in Other Palettes

Below are tools that appear in other palettes, but that relate to alphas in a significant way.

Draw:Current Tool Preview: With the SimpleBrush selected in the Tool palette,you can
view and rotate this preview to get an idea of the depth effect of the alpha.

MRGBZ Grabber: This tool in the Tool Palette allows you to (among other things) grab a
portion of the canvas and turn it into an alpha.

Tool:Masking: The Create Alpha and Alp buttons in this subpalette allow you to create
an alpha from a mask on the current 3D object, or to apply an alpha as a mask.
54

Stroke Palette

From ZBrushInfo

Jump to: navigation, search

The Stroke settings determine how ZBrush will interpret mouse down, mouse movement,
and mouse up actions with the selected tool. Numerous stroke types and options let you
achieve a very complex visual effect with just a single mouse drag. For example, the image
below was produced with a single drag, using the Radial stroke type, a torus as the drawing
tool, and a rainbow texture:
55

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.

1 Types of Strokes
A stroke type determines how elements are drawn; for example, the DragDot stroke type
lets you place a single instance of the drawing tool, while the Grid type lets you draw
multiple instances at once, arranged in a grid.

Most, but not all, stroke types are shown by default in the palette. To see all of them, click
the large thumbnail:

You can select a stroke either by clicking its thumbnail directly in the Stroke palette, or by
clicking the larger thumbnail and selecting from the popup inventory.

To see the name of a stroke, hold the mouse cursor over its thumbnail for a moment until
the label appears.

2 Modifiers for Strokes

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Modifiers further refine the effect of a particular type of stroke. For example, two sliders
determine how many rows and columns of elements are drawn when the Grid stroke is
used.

3 Recording Strokes
You can record, combine, and even save strokes for later use. You can use recorded strokes
to play back the motion of a previous stroke, but with different drawing tools or settings, so
that you can (for example) compose a single shape out of many different "passes" of the
same stroke.

4 Controls
4.1 Stroke Type Descriptions

Note: A red Sphere3D tool is used as the drawing tool for all of the following examples; for
strokes that orient themselves to the surface underneath, a pink sphere is used as that
surface.

Dots: Mouse down determines the starting point of the stroke, mouse movement
draws spheres (or whatever the selected paint tool is) with a diameter determined by the
Draw:Draw Size setting. If using a tablet, pen pressure also affects the size of the spheres.
Spacing is determined by the speed of mouse movement. Mouse up will end the stroke.
57

DragRect: Mouse down will determine placement of the tool, mouse movement will
determine its size, and mouse up will draw the tool. Tools will be rotated about their Z-axis
depending on the direction of the stroke. This is the default stroke type for 3D objects.

Freehand: Draws instances of the current tool spaced equivalently apart, as the
mouse moves. A Mouse down determines starting point of the tools, mouse move draws
them with size determined by the Draw Size setting. Spacing is determined by the spacing
slider; small values will give an effectively continuous stroke.

Line: Mouse down sets starting point of the objects, , drag draws the tool, mouse up
ends. Size is determined by the Draw:Draw Size setting, and density is determined by
Stroke:Spacing; a larger value will give more densely packed elements.
58

LineII: Mouse down sets starting point of the objects, , drag draws the tool, mouse up
ends. Size is determined by the Draw:Draw Size setting, and spacing is determined by
Stroke:Spacing; a larger value will give fewer elements.

DragDot: 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
sphere at that position.

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.

Two conic strokes.

59
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.

Line90: 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

Ray90: Very similar to Line 90, Ray 90 allows build-up of material by moving the

mouse back and forth before release.

Spray: Applies a random pattern of dots in different sizes and color intensities along
the path of the cursor drag. The current primary color is used as the color base.
60

Colorized Spray: Similar to Spray, but applies variations of color rather than color
intensity. The current primary and secondary colors are used as the color bases.

Note: The Spray and Colorized Spray stroke types are extremely useful for texturing.
Nature is chaotic, and these strokes can help easily duplicate that chaos in the creation of
grunge, bumps, or variations of pattern.

Radial: Draws multiple copies of the tool around the mouse click point. Length of the
drag determines radius of drawing, direction of drag sets rotation around local Z-axis.
61

Grid: Draws multiple copies of the tool in a grid. Length of the drag determines grid
size, direction of drag sets orientation around the local Z-axis, M.Repeat and S.Repeat
modifiers control number of elements in the grid, Scale modifier determines relative scale
of drawing elements to stroke length.

4.2 Modifiers

Directional: Specifies that continuous brush strokes are only applied while traveling away
from the point of first click. Default = Off

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

Placement: Used by the two spray stroke types, this determines how far each dot can stray
from the center line of the stroke. Range = 0 to 1. Default = .5

Scale: Used by the two spray stroke types, this determines the maximum variation in dot
size. If set to 0, all dots are the same size. Used by the Grid and Radial strokes, it
determines the size of each element relative to the size of the grid or radius drawn. Range =
0 to 1. Default = 1
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Color: Used by the two spray stroke types, this determines the maximum allowable color
or color intensity variation. If set to 0, all dots will be drawn the same color. Range = 0 to
1. Default = .5

Flow: Used by the two spray stroke types, this determines the density of the dots drawn.
Smaller values result in fewer dots. Range = 0 to 1. Default =.25

M.Repeat: For stroke types that repeat elements, this sets the number of times the element
is repeated in its “main” direction. For example, setting this to 7 would cause a Radial
stroke to draw seven identical instances of an element in a circle.

H.Repeat: For repeating stroke types that use two values to determine the number of
elements, this is the second value. For example, with M.Repeat=3 and S.Repeat=4, you’ll
get a Grid stroke with 4 columns and 3 rows of elements.

Mouse Avg: Smoothes strokes by averaging recent mouse locations. A value of 1 does not
smooth strokes at all; higher values result in more smoothing.

4.3 Inventory

Record: Press to begin recording strokes. Press again to end recording strokes. Only the
stroke is recorded; not the tool, texture, material, or any other properties of the action. This
allows the stroke to be replayed using any other tool or properties.

Add: When pressed, strokes that are recorded will be added to the current recording. If not
enabled, recording will overwrite the previously recorded stroke.
63
Strokes Count: Indicates the number of strokes in the current recording.

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.

Export Last: Exports the last stroke as a text file that can be read by a ZScript.

Export All: Exports all recorded strokes as a text file that can be read by a ZScript.

5 Tips and Tricks

5.1 Sculpting With a Smooth Stroke

When sculpting with a very low draw size your brush stroke may become dotted or patchy.
To resolve this you can increase Mouse Avg in the Stroke palette. You also try zooming in
on the area that you wish to sculpt a fine line in and the increasing your brush size.

For heavy models this may still occur no matter how high the Mouse Avg is set to. To
resolve this just go into Projection Master to create the fine line.

Retrieved from "http://www.zbrush.info/site/index.php/Stroke_Palette"

Material Palette
64
From ZBrushInfo

Jump to: navigation, search

Note: The image of the Material Palette to the right was chosen with a selected material
that has a large number of modifiers. Some materials will have fewer, and other materials
may have more.
65
66
The Material Palette

1 Introduction to Materials
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.

Remember also that the Draw palette allows you to paint with a combination of material
and color (MRGB), color only (RGB) or material only (M).

Always remember that unless Render:Flat Renderer or Render:Fast Renderer are active, the
color you see will not necessarily be the color that you paint! Or to put it another way:

Material + RGB (either color or texture) = Shaded RGB (displayed color)

Also, with certain materials, you might need to use the Render:Best Renderer mode to see
changes.

ZBrush materials are 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. Not only does this allow you to easily change
your mind regarding a material at any time, or to modify it on the fly, but it can allow some
interesting artistic possibilities.

One other aspect of the 'liveness' of ZBrush materials is that if you move an object, or
change the depths of pixols, any materials applied to them will appear to "move" along the
surface. This because materials are 'procedural'—they are calculated on the fly and as a
result of where points of a surface are in 3D space. This gives you the opportunity to adjust
your objects so that materials appear as you would like on the object.

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).
67
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.

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 pop-up icon menu shown
below, which works like 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.

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. The main palette expands as necessary to accommodate the
displayed thumbnails.

If the material list gets too long for your preferences, you can restore the palette’s inventory
to the minimum number of shown materials by clicking the 'R' button.

1.1 Using the Material Palette

The most straightforward way to use the Material palette is to choose a material, choose a
tool that creates pixols, such as the 3D brush or a 3D object tool like Sphere3D, and then
start drawing. Whatever you draw will use the current material. Remember that you must
have either MRGB or M active in the Draw palette for the material to be painted!
68
If you choose a different material, under normal circumstances nothing changes in the
document. Of course, anything you draw after switching materials will use the new
material. If, however, you draw a 3D object such as a sphere, and it's still floating in the
document (that is, you activated Transform or Edit mode immediately after drawing the
object), you can change its material by first activating a transform mode (for example, press
W to enter Move mode), and then choosing another material. Or you can choose a different
material, and then activate a transform mode. The new material is then applied to the
floating object automatically.

In additon, Projection Master allows you to paint materials onto areas of the surface of a 3D
object.

Materials are depicted accurately in the document when you're using the default Preview
renderer, with a few exceptions. For example, you won't see the full effect of the
ColorizeGlow material unless you're using Best Renderer mode, or until you render the
document. You can save time by rendering part of the document in this way: Drag the
Cursor button from the Material or Render palette to the area you want to render.

1.2 Material Quick Palette

The Materials quick palette shows all 76 available materials. The active material is shown
in the large thumbnail, in the Quick Palette, which reflects any changes you make to the
material while editing it.

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 make modifications
69
to this material it is placed in a separate section of the palette to signify that it is no longer a
default material.

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 (located in the ZMaterials folder), and
you can create and save your own with the Save function.

When loading a material from disk it completely replaces the active material, not only in
the palette but in all Pixols that use that material.

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.

1.3 Rendering

When you're manipulating materials in ZBrush, you normally work in Preview Renderer
mode for fast feedback. Some components, such as ray-traced Reflectivity, can be seen
only in Best Renderer mode. But if you use that mode all the time, feedback can be slow,
because every time you change any material component the program pauses while it re-
renders the document. In such cases, stay in Preview mode, and, whenever you want to
view changes that require Best Renderer, click the Render button at the bottom of the
Modifiers sub-palette.

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:Modifiers:Fast Renderer), so be sure to activate Preview Render mode
to see all surface properties (such as Specular, Noise and Bump).

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.
70
Flat render ignores all lighting attributes and displays all items without shading
information - only color and textures are rendered, at full intensity.

Fast Render ignores all material attributes and displays all items using simple shading
(defined in the Fast Render sub-palette).

Preview Render is the default render mode, which displays standard lighting and material
effects. It provides a real-time representation of most painting and sculpting attributes.

Best Render displays all available rendering effects, including environment reflections,
depth cue, shadows, transparency, and more. Each effect must first be enabled using the
adjustment icons and modifiers.

1.4 The Render Equation

What does ZBrush think about when it renders the canvas? The diagram below shows the
elements that are considered when rendering. ZBrush is always rendering. The amount of
information that it considers is determined by your render mode as describe to the left.

The equation goes a little like this:

Material + RGB (color/texture) = Shaded RGB (displayed color)

71

1.5 Types of Materials

When you open the Material palette there are 76 different materials. However, there are
only four basic types of materials. All the other materials are standard variations.

Flat Material The flat material is unaffected by light and so appears incandscent. No
gradations of tone and no material attributes

FastShader Material The fast material contains only a diffuse and an ambient attribute. It
is primarily used for modeling purposes.

Basic Material The basic material is the workhorse material for ZBrush. It includes:

Basic Material
Double Shade material
TriShade materials
QuadShade materials

These materials contain all the same attributes as a Basic material except that they have
either 2, 3 or 4 shader channels.

Fiber Material The fiber material adds 3D hair-like strands to the image. It respects the
surface normals of each Pixol and, by default, draws the hairs perpendicular to the surface
though you can adjust the material settings.

1.6 Modifiers: Editing Materials

First, we need to define what a shader is. Shaders are effectively procedures that tell pixols
or vertices/surfaces how to display 'as they are being rendered'. For example, the
BasicMaterial has a single shader (S1) that allows two different settings, Ambient and
Diffuse. Changing the Ambient setting will change how lightly or darkly the object is
rendered, while changing the Diffuse setting will change the amount of contrast between lit
and unlit portions of the object. These are not changes in lighting; nothing else in the scene
will be affected. You are simply changing the way that the object's surface points respond
to the lighting.
72
A material comprises one or more shaders, available in the Modifiers sub-palette via the
buttons S1 - S4. Each shader is made up of several settings. Most materials in ZBrush use
the "basic" shader, which is made up of the components described below. The basic shader
is always the last one; that is, if a material uses two shaders, then the basic shader is S2.

You modify a material by editing its shader modifiers. In this document we'll describe the
most common shader modifiers, and present examples of some of the other modifiers.

A number of shader settings use two modifiers: 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
(the Noise curve is an exception to this). When a shaders has a curve modifier, such as the
ReflectCurve modifier, compressed version of the curve appears below the numeric
modifier in the palette. In the palette snapshot at the beginning of this section, you can see
several such compressed curves.

To open the full curve, click it. The result will be a larger graph with which you can work,
as shown below:

You modify the sliders and curves as you would any other such control in the ZBrush
interface.

1.7 Using Curves

To understand how modifier curves work, let's first look at an example that uses the
DiffuseCurve to produce two different effects:

The curves indicate how strongly the effect is to modified, from the center of the effect to
its outer edge, with the intial curves being the "standard" effect. The center of the effect is
73
not necessarily the center of the object; for example, the center of a Diffuse effect are those
parts of an object directly facing (and hence most strongly effected by) a light.

In the case of second of the above examples, the Diffuse effect is not modified at the center
of the effect, which means that part of the sphere is lit normally. The effect then rises
through the next 1/4 of the graph, making the area around the center brighter than it
otherwise would be. A fall in the curve below its default value causes a darker 'ring' around
the center of the effect. Finally, a rise in the curve that brings it more closely into alighment
with the default curve makes for a brighter ring, and then finally the edge tapers off into
darkness as the light source no longer affects that part of the sphere.

In the case of Noise, the graph creates a fractal pattern across the entire document, making

an object's surface appear irregular:

Interesting, 'cartoonish' effects can be achieved by using straight line segments in the
DiffuseCurve:

1.8 MaterialPack2
74
The MaterialPack2 plugin, available at www.ZBrushCentral.com, allows easy access to 100
additional materials, as shown below. The button to activate this plugin appears at the
bottom of the Material palette.

2 Controls
2.1 General Controls

General controls are those that appear in the palette no matter which material is selected.
75

Show Used: Remove all thumbnails from the main palette except for those currently used
on surfaces in the document. (All materials will still be accesible through the popup
inventory list.) This is a convenient way to determine whether you've used a particular
material.

Load: Load a new material from a disk file into the active material slot. A number of
material files are included with ZBrush (located in the ZMaterials folder), 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.

Save: Store the active material to disk in the ZMaterial (.zmt) format. This material can be
reloaded using the Load button.

R: Reduces the number of small thumbnails shown in the palette; use it if your palette is
getting unwieldy due to the number of thumbnails. This does not affect the popup (large)
inventory of materials.

CopyMat / PasteMat: Allows you to copy one material and paste it in to replace another.
You can do this if you want to change the replaced material wherever that material is used
in the scene. It's also useful for getting a copy of a starting material, so you can modify the
copy but not affect the original.
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The following controls appear at the end of the the Material palette. Depending on the
selected material, not all of them may be present.

Dif / Spec / Ambi / Cavi: These color pickers choose the colors that affect rendering when
the various ambient, specular, diffuse, and cavity colorization modifiers are nonzero.

Material Texture / Surface Bump: These two thumbnails, to the left of the Render and
Cursor buttons, allow you to choose a texture that will be used in certain modifiers (an
environment map for those effects that use an environment, such as reflectivity is the most
common use) and an alpha that will be used with the Canvas Bump modifier.

Render / Cursor: Both of these perform a Best Render on the scene, allowing you to see
those effects which do not show up at other render levels. Render will render the entire
scene. With Cursor, you click on the Cursor button, and drag to a point in the scene; a
128x128 pixol area around that point will be rendered. This can be much faster than a full
render.

CopySH / PasteSH: These allow you to make a copy of a single shader channel (S1, S2,
S3, or S4), and paste that into another shader channel—either in the same or a different
material. You cannot paste into a nonactive channel, but by copying and pasting a material
with all four channels active, and then pasting into the copy, you can create any
combination of shader channels you like.

2.2 Modifiers
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The most common shader modifiers are described below.

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.

Setting Ambient to 25 gives the sphere a 25% gray color:

And setting Ambient to 65 gives a 65% gray:

78
Diffuse / DiffuseCurve: The Diffuse modifiers add the most basic type of 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.

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, 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).

Specular / SpecularCurve: These modifiers add a shiny look to surfaces in ZBrush by

displaying a specular highlight, which looks like a reflection of the light source. It uses two
79
settings: a numeric setting and a graph. The numeric setting determines the intensity of the
highlight. The graph lets you vary the highlight falloff.

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.

You can change the color of the specular highlight with the Metalicity material modifier,
which lets you obtain a more metallic look by coloring the specular highlight with the
surface's base color or texture. This setting is so named because colored specular highlights
are most often found with metals, e.g. a copper surface will have copper-colored highlights.

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 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.

Transparency / TransCurve: These determine 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.
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Note: In order to see transparency, you must turn off the Flatten Layers option in the
Render: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:Modifiers, turn off Flatten Layers (it's the only option on by default).
This is necessary to see transparency between layers. 1. Create the background
pixols in one layer. 1. Add a layer (Layers palette > Inventory > Create). This
automatically activates the new layer. 1. 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.

Using two layers to produce transparency

In this 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.

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.

The Transparency slider 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
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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 Reverse the Transparency graph slope for a foggy material
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.

Reflectivity / ReflectCurve: These modifiers offer a variety of ways of letting surfaces

reflect their surroundings, or some other aspect of the environment. This works hand in
hand with the settings in the Render :Environment sub-palette.

A reflective surface can reflect an environment texture, specified in the Material:Texture

slot to the left of the Material:Render and Material:Cursor buttons (near the bottom of the
Material palette). To change this texture, click the Texture slot and choose a new texture
from the pop-up selector.
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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:Environment:Scene, and use the Best Renderer.
This can significantly increase render times.

The Reflectivity slider 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 right hand Reflect curve, so only
the black pixels are reflective.
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Add Reflection / Sub Reflection: These are special modifiers found in the S1 channel of
the ReflectedMap material. 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.
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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.

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.

Spherical= 0 (left), 50 (center), 100 (right)

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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.

Metalicity= 0 (left), 50 (center), 100 (right)

Noise / NoiseCurve / NoiseRadius: The noise modifiers add an uneven appearance to a

surface 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.

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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Recursive noise (left), standard noise (right).

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).

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Color Bump: This 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.

Color Bump = -20 (left), 0 (center), 20 (right).

Gel Shading: The Gel Shading value can be 0, 1, or 2. The effects are:

• 0 - Normal
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• 1 - Jelly Bean, emulates a transparent effect
• 2 - Gel, emulates a different transparent effect

The GelShaderA material with Gel Shading = 0 (left), 1 (center), 2 (right)

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.

Env.Reflection: The source images for environmental reflections are created in the
Render:Environment subpalette. The amount that the image created there is reflected on
current material is set here. Range = 0 to 100%. Default = 0.�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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This blue sphere has Colorize Diffuse set to green.

Colorize Specular: Normally, the specular reflection of light on a surface is based on the
light source color (and, if using the Metalicity modifier, the surface color). The Colorize
Specular property lets you specify an arbitrary color for specular reflection. To use it, set
the numeric value of Colorize Specular and the specular color in the Spec slot. Examples of
usage include simulating a colored light source, and metallic surfaces such as brass.

The yellow sphere has Colorize Specular set to orange.

High Dynamic Range: Most art programs use a range of 256 shades between black (0,0,0)
and white (255,255,255). Nature isn’t constrained by those rules, and the high dynamic
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range setting simulates this. Black remains black, but all other colors are intensified. The
closer to white they are, the greater the effect.

This setting is very useful for any image with a visible light source.

In most cases, it is best to turn off the material’s Ambient setting and set Metalicity to 100.

Flat Color (left), Basic Material with High Dynamic Range of 5 (center) and 10 (right)

In the example above, a space scene was imported and used as a background layer. The left
image uses the Flat Color material. The other two use a modified Basic Material 1 with
High Dynamic Range settings of 5 and 10.

Range = 1 to 10. Default = 1.

2.3 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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Gradient Sky settings.

Gradient Sky applied to a sphere and rendered.

Certain materials apply their affects cumulatively. For example, in the Dots0metal1
material, the first shader, S1, lets you specify a dot pattern, which the Color Bump control
in S2 can then act upon.

The Dots0metal1 S1 shader produces dots.....

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...which are acted upon by the Color Bump setting in the S2 shader.

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Texture Palette

From ZBrushInfo

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The Texture palette mananges textures. It can import or export them, manipulate them in
various ways, and convert their intensities into Alpha maps.

There is another subpalette that is often used with textures, the Tool:Texture Subpalette,
and if you wish to make use of textures, you should read the reference for that also.

Also, ZBrush materials (see Material Palette) also affect the surface appearance of ZBrush
objects, but materials cannot be used across programs. However, it is common to use
materials to generate textures. For example, one could create a ZBrush plane, fill the canvas
with it, apply a 'wood' material, and then do a Texture:GrabDoc to end up with a wood
texture. That texture can then be applied and exported.
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1 Painting and Modeling with Textures

When the selected texture is not the TXTR OFF texture, ZBrush paint tools will paint with
the currently selected texture, and ignore the Color palette setting. Each paint tool
remembers which texture was last used with it, so changing the tool may also change the
current texture.

When you create a 3D object, the currently selected texture will be applied to it. If you go
into 3D Edit mode (Transform:Edit) with that object, then selecting a different texture
will apply that to the object, replacing the previous texture. 3D tools remember the last
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texture they were used with, so changing 3D tools may also change the currently selected
texture.

1.1 Creating 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.

Here is a simple method for creating seamless textures in ZBrush:

1. Use any brushes or objects to create the texture. Do not draw to the edge of the
canvas. You will probably want to resize the canvas to a size appropriate for a
single "block" of your repeating texture.

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 Texture:GrabDoc.

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.
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2 Controls
Import: Imports .bmp, .psd, .jpg and PICT (on Mac) images into the Texture Palette. ----

Export: Exports the selected texture as a .bmp, .psd or (on the Mac) a PICT file.� ----

The following four controls are represented graphically in the Texture palette:

Flph: Flips the texture left-to-right.

Flpv: Flips the texture top-to-bottom.

Rot: Rotates the texture 90 degrees per click.

Invr: Causes inverse coloring. (White becomes black, black becomes white.)

Clear: Clears the texture to the currently selected main color.

Grad: (Gradient Colorize): Changes the colors of the current texture by mapping the
primary color to light areas of the image and the secondary color to dark areas of the image,
with intermediate intensities interpolated between the primary and secondary colors.

Transparent: When active, portions of the texture that are pure black (rgb 0,0,0) are
rendered as transparent.
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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.

Clone: To create a copy of the current texture at a different size, set the new width and
height and click Clone.

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.

MakeAlpha: Adds a grayscale version of the current texture to the Alpha palette and
selects it as the active alpha.

Remove: Removes the currently selected texture from the visible palette (but not from the
hard drive.)

Cd: The Clear Depth button affects the way the CropAndFill button behaves. If pressed, all
depth information is cleared from the canvas when it is filled with the current texture. If
this button is unpressed, the texture is drawn on the pixols and depth information is
retained; this has the side effect that blank areas of the canvas will not be filled with the
texture, since there is nothing between the clipping plane and the viewer in those areas.
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The Cd button also affects the Fill button in the Layer palette and the Fill Layer button in
the Color palette.

CropAndFill: Crops the canvas to the size of the current texture, and then fills the canvas
with that texture. This has the effect of erasing whatever else in on the canvas.

GrabDoc: Creates a new texture from the canvas contents and adds it to the Texture
palette. The new texture has the same size as the canvas.

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Palette Reference

From ZBrushInfo

(Redirected from Complete Palette Reference)

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The subjects below give descriptions of the ZBrush palettes (menus) and the controls
within them. Many of these descriptions include conceptual overviews and examples.
Particularly large palettes have been split into sections.

• Alpha Palette: Manages alphas, which are ZBrush intensity maps. This is an
important palette because alphas can be used for many more operations than in
other programs.
• Color Palette: Allows setting or selecting of colors, and also filling the canvas or
an object with a selected color.
• Document Palette: Provides document operations; opening, saving, resizing, etc.
• Draw Palette: Controls and gives information on aspects of the currently selected
tool. For example, Draw sets brush size. This is not an extremely complex palette,
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but it is important, and many of its controls are made available as shortcuts in the
area surrounding the ZBrush canvas.
• Edit Palette: Controls Undo and Redo operations.
• Layer Palette: Layers allow you to organize a complex ZBrush scene into different
layers; each layer contains part of the scene. Since ZBrush brush strokes contain
depth information, layers provide a powerful scene management tool without the
need to consider if elements of one layer might block elements of another. Layers
can be made invisible to more easily work with other parts of a scene.
• Light Palette: Controls scene lighting; this in turn affects rendering, both in
interactive and batch-rendered views.
• Marker Palette: Markers allow you to remember various aspects of onscreen
models or paint strokes, such as colors, position, orientation, etc. You can then later
redraw that model or another, using any of these same properties. Markers are also
used for combining multiple models into a single mesh.
• Material Palette: Materials allow you to apply complex and powerful effects to
your drawings or models, giving them the appearance of fire, glass, metal, rust,
skin, or many other things.
• Movie Palette: Used to make mini-movies about ZBrush, for illustration and
distribution to other users. (However, the same thing can often be accomplished by
recording a ZBrush session; see the ZScript Palette.)
• Picker Palette: Controls how properties (material, color, depth, orientation) of the
pixols underneath the mouse cursor affect the current brush stroke. For example, if
you want to draw across part of a scene in such a manner that the pixols in that
stroke are 'flattened' to the same Z-depth, but retain their original materials, you'd
adjust the settings in this palette.
• Preferences Palette: Allows setting of many, many user preferences. This includes
UI configuration, tablet preferences, and configuration options having to do with
several of the other palettes.
• Render Palette: Controls ZBrush renders, both in the normal interactive mode, and
in batch rendering mode.
• Stencil Palette: Allows masking using 'stencils'. These can be not only stencils in
the standard meaning of the word (the standard stencil is the 'french curve'
drafting/drawing tool), but stencils that include gray scale intensity.
• Stroke Palette: Controls how mouse strokes are applied. This is a powerful but
sometimes overlooked feature of ZBrush, and well worth learning.
• Texture Palette: Provides for texture management.
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• Tool Palette: Provides the tools (paintbrushes, models, filters, etc.) that can be used
to draw in ZBrush, and many operations relating to those tools. This is one of the
most important palettes in ZBrush.
o Types of Tools
ƒ Drawing Tools
ƒ 3D Primitive Tools
ƒ Polymesh Tools
ƒ ZSpheres: ZSpheres can be used to quickly 'sketch out' a complex
3D object. The sketch can then be turned into a polymesh, in various ways, for
further work.
ƒ Multimarkers: These allow you to combine mutiple 3D objects into a
single polymesh.
o Tool Subpalettes
ƒ Tool:Display Properties Subpalette
ƒ Tool:Geometry Subpalette
ƒ Tool:Preview Subpalette
ƒ Tool:Deformation Subpalette
ƒ Tool:Masking Subpalette
ƒ Tool:Polygroups Subpalette
ƒ Tool:Texture Subpalette
ƒ Tool:Morph Target Subpalette
ƒ Tool:Displacement Subpalette
ƒ Tool:NormalMap Subpalette
ƒ Tool:Unified Skin Subpalette
ƒ Tool:Adaptive Skin Subpalette
ƒ Tool:Initialize Subpalette
ƒ Tool:Import Subpalette
ƒ Tool:Export Subpalette
• Transform Palette: Contains operations for transforming 3D objects into different
forms; sculpting, repositioning, snapshoting to canvas, and others.
• Zoom Palette: Allows viewing the canvas at different zoom factors.
• ZPlugin Palette: The default location for commands added by ZScripts. However,
many ZScripts will put their commands in a more appropriate location in the
ZBrush palette structure.
• ZScript Palette: Allows you to load, run, and otherwise work with scripts written
using ZScript, ZBrush's built-in scripting language. This is likely to be used mostly
by users who write their own scripts; if you commonly use a predefined script, it's
usually better to install it so that it loads into ZBrush automatically.
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