Tutorials, Art and Website Design

You may notice that the edges on your 3D model (if you are continuing from tutorial 03 - the star) are aliased (jagged).

When you wish to produce a final image in Zbrush, you can anti-alias in various ways.

>> Leave Edit mode by un-toggling Edit button or pressing the shortcut T key.

>> Clear the canvas by pressing Ctrl+N.

>> Go to Document> menu and click Double button.

You will be presented with an alert dialogue.

>> Answer Yes to this.

The document will now be double its’ previous size of 640 x 480.

>> Draw out the previous Polymesh3D Ztool (which should already be selected), onto the large canvas area, and press T key or the Edit button immediately.

The idea behind this process is to create a workspace that is large, draw out the 3D object and half the viewable size to give the effect of anti-aliasing for final images.

>> Now press the AAHalf button on the right of the interface.

Your workspace should now show the Polymesh3D object with anti-aliased (smoother) edges.

The difference is demonstrated in this next image.

A slight problem with this technique for anti-aliasing your image is that your machine has to work with twice the size of image that is actually being shown on your screen. This makes it memory and CPU intensive.

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The Zbrush 3D navigation techniques are optimized for use with a graphics tablet (eg Wacom Intuos - my personal favorite).

>> Press the pen down and drag on the blank canvas to rotate your mesh.

>> Whilst rotating, try holding down Shift key to snap to the nearest orthographic view (top, side, front etc).

>> Hold Alt key down and drag on the blank canvas to pan your mesh.

>> Hold down Alt key, drag on the blank canvas and let go of alt (whilst still dragging) to zoom in and out.

>> Hold down Alt key and tap once on the blank canvas to frame your mesh.

Recap

Familiarise yourself with the interface, exploring the various menus.

Read as many tool-tips as you can – they are extremely useful!

Do be careful with Memory settings.

Do check out http://www.zbrushcentral.com/ and http://pixologic.com/, they are highly inspirational and great learning resources.

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The next part of customising the interface involves placing buttons in more immediately accessible places within the interface – above the blank canvas.

>> Expand the docked Transform> panel. Hold down Ctrl key and click-drag the Std button to somewhere above the blank canvas, just to the right of the DrawSize and FocalShift sliders.

>> Now, perform the same action: Hold down Ctrl key and click-drag the Inflat, Pinch and Smooth buttons to the right of the newly-placed Std button.

The buttons will auto-snap together, giving you a row of four useful buttons.

>> Next to the row of four buttons, add a SnapshotObject button (the small camera icon-button on the right side of the blank canvas).

>> Expand the Preferences>Config> submenu. Click on StoreConfig to save your current customisations to the default configuration file.

You can also save custom configurations that are not auto-loaded when you start Zbrush, but can be loaded at any time. In Preferences>Config> click on SaveUi and choose a name for your custom configurations, saving them in your “Zbrush_work” folder.

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There are so-called Dividers at the left and right sides of the screen. These can be clicked to expand or contract the panels.

>> Expand the left-hand Divider by clicking on the arrows.

>> Expand the Tool> menu by positioning the cursor over the Tool> tab.

>> Move the cursor over the tiny circle indicated near the top-left of the Tool> menu, and the cursor changes to four arrows.

>> Click and drag from this tiny circle to pull the Tool> menu onto the left-side panel of the Zbrush interface. The menu docks onto the side of the screen.

>> The tiny circle is still visible on the now docked Tool> panel. To remove the docked panel from the side, click the tiny circle at the top-left.

I find it useful to have the Alpha>, Stroke>, Transform>, Texture> and Tool> menus docked into the panel on the left.

>> Try docking these five menus to the sides of the screen as shown. Leave the Tool> menu expanded and contract the other four panels.

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>> Expand the Preferences>Mem> submenu.

The Preferences>Mem> submenu is the most dangerous to tamper with, but can also give you significant increases in speed when dealing with millions of polygons.

>> On a machine with 2GB of RAM, change the CompactMemory slider to 1536MB, leaving a generous 512MB of RAM left for other applications that may be running. Set the undo sliders to the values shown in the screenshot.

If you have difficulty sliding to an exact amount, use keyboard input on the selected slider and press the Enter key to update.

>> Next, expand the Preferences>Interface> submenu. Set the PulldownMenuOpacity slider to 100. Set the DisabledItemsOpacity to 45.

>> Expand the Preferences>Config> submenu. Click on StoreConfig to save your current customisations to the default configuration file.

Your current settings will now be retained next time you open Zbrush.

You can always revert back to the default ‘Factory Settings’ for Zbrush’s interface. To do this, click the Standard small button on the top-right edge of Zbrush’s window.

Most menus, buttons, sliders and panels can be moved around or hidden. This enables the ability to access the tools you need most efficiently.

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>> Click the Standard small button on.

Have a look at the Preferences> menu. There is a fair amount of submenus in here that can have a significant effect on your workflow in Zbrush.

Be careful not to fiddle around with things that you do not understand in this menu. Various submenus have memory and performance options that can potentially crash your machine.

>> Open out the Preferences> menu by positioning the cursor over the Preferences> menu tab.

Most menus and panels have expandable submenus. These submenus look like titles with small orange circles next to them. To expand or contract a submenu, click on its’ title within a menu.

>> Expand the Preferences>Misc> submenu and choose the button titled SkipWelcomeScreen.

>> Next, expand the Preferences>Performance> submenu and choose TestMultithreading. Select Initialize and Continue.

Multi-threading is likely to be recommended on a high-end machine.

>> If multithreading is recommended then turn on the MultiDraw and MultiRender buttons.

By using multithreading, the machine you are using will calculate faster, by more efficiently using the multi-processors.

The Preferences>Performance> submenu is a risky one to ‘play’ with. Only change these options if multithreading is recommended.

There is a Preferences>ImportExport> submenu which is used mainly when importing and exporting geometry from (or to) other 3D applications.

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This tutorial and others freely available on www.PeterMcClory.com have been written for you to easily follow the key processes, from Interface Essentials to 3D modeling, to texturing, to Exporting Displacement Maps in Zbrush.

I would really like to know what you think of the tutorial. Suggestions, corrections, any feedback you can give will be useful for the development of new tutorials.

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I recently had an exhibition titled ‘The Art of Animation’ at the Art of Propaganda Gallery in the Wakefield Media Centre. The exhibition was attended by a wide range of people, running from November 20^th to January 15^th 2007.

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