Zbrush: constraining transformations to Z axis, while still being able to use alphas

zetheros

Wondering if there was a way to make tiling highpoly meshes that are guaranteed straight edges, and without having to do this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IhTQVIZIeg

Because it seems really clunky, and also because the edge deviates anyway if you're not sculpting on the flat surface. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Bal

Not sure what your complaints are about this technique, it's pretty standard by now, and it works quite well, even if it's a bit clunky to setup and work.
What do you mean by "guaranteed straight edges"?

zetheros

ah sorry, just wondering if there was a way to somehow use transform>modifiers>z, in addition to using alphas; that way it constrains the transformations to the z axis (guaranteeing straight edges), while allowing me to spin the model around and really get a good look what what I'm making. The problem is, currently it seems alphas are disabled when anything other than 'Xyz' is selected, but it doesn't seem right to me, since a b&w alpha is essentially a heightmap, which would cause transformations only on the axis that it's being applied to... so theoretically it should work. Either that, or I'm a big noob.

zetheros

and if I layer brushstrokes near the edges, it will warp the edges, which is kind of difficult to watch for... wondering if there was a better way to do this

zetheros

If I have transform>modifiers>z on however, I can sculpt using any camera angle, any document size, not have waste geometry to remove once I'm done, and not worry about warping the edges. However, then I can't use brush alphas, only the default circular one.

zetheros

Looks like I might be out of luck http://polycount.com/discussion/85004/zbrush-restricting-brush-directions