Looking forward to digging into the new ZB. The new Boolean functions are going to be very helpful for 3d print prepping I think! Zbrush UI is fine, it is different, you just have to get used to it. I find it very artist friendly, has a nice flow.
played with 4R8 a bit on the weekend. There are some features in the videos that I cant figure out in the actual app, like how do you get the draw straight lines feature to work? how do you chisel lines without them overlapping and creating big dents in the overlaps? whats the best way to create a subtool out of the liveboolean parts? do you guys just keep all the live parts in folders or something?
really enjoying the new gizmo and the live booleans are a quick way to bash out a concept shape
straight lines: activate lazy mouse with lazy radius set to low number (1 ..10 ). Start a stroke, press shift, drag, release shift. no overlap: lazy mouse + save a morph target subtool from boolean is in the subtool palette - > boolean submenu
Michael Pavlovich made a bunch of videos on youtube explaining new features and how they work.
straight lines: activate lazy mouse with lazy radius set to low number (1 ..10 ). Start a stroke, press shift, drag, release shift. no overlap: lazy mouse + save a morph target subtool from boolean is in the subtool palette - > boolean submenu
Michael Pavlovich made a bunch of videos on youtube explaining new features and how they work.
does anybody know what happened to the spacebar and drag feature? In older versions when the mesh was too dense normal dragging alpha was a bit slow but when space bar is held it was very smooth and fast. However, with the latest version of zbrush this feature no longer works for me =(
musashidan, Transpose line is still there, I think both have their uses (many people complain about Transpose, but it's quite powerful once you've figured it out). A regular gizmo just feels so much simpler for 80% of what I used to do with the Transpose line though.
Yeah thanks, I know Y toggles gismo/transpose. It's more a case of just getting used to the new gismo as with any new tool that replaces one you're so entrenched with. Maybe it's just the dull axis colours and weird screen space movement that's throwing me but,using it for a while last night I began to appreciate the power.
I am not sure if its new to zbrush 4r8 but I think its still might be interesting for someone. So while masking some parts of my mesh I noticed that at some point I accidentally subdivided my masked area. This is what i did: 1.press and hold "ctrl" and start masking some parts of your mesh. 2. while masking press and hold "shift" as well and dont let go of your other buttons 3. now let go of your left mouse button or wacom pen but hold "ctrl" and "shift"
I absolutely cannot get the new live Booleans to bake down. According to documentation and the videos I've watched, all you have to do is go to Tools > Sub-tools > Booleans > Make Bolean Mesh.
I tried doing the simplest thing possible; made two spheres with no subdivisions and set one to cut into the other.
The first time I tried it, it made one of the sub-tools disappear from the list but they were still functionally separate. After hitting the button again ZBrush crashed completely.
I tried doing the same thing again, and this time the button does nothing at all. Is it just extremely buggy?
I absolutely cannot get the new live Booleans to bake down. According to documentation and the videos I've watched, all you have to do is go to Tools > Sub-tools > Booleans > Make Bolean Mesh.
I tried doing the simplest thing possible; made two spheres with no subdivisions and set one to cut into the other.
The first time I tried it, it made one of the sub-tools disappear from the list but they were still functionally separate. After hitting the button again ZBrush crashed completely.
I tried doing the same thing again, and this time the button does nothing at all. Is it just extremely buggy?
Not sure what's going on, do you have a gif or video you can share? I haven't had any crash bugs while playing with it yet. Are you seeing the booleans display correctly when you toggle LiveBoolean on?
@Grimwolf : this is total shot in the dark, but : maybe this is a problem with the way the update got installed ? The built-in autoupdater does see the upgrade as usual, BUT there is a warning on the 4r8 webpage itself stating that the program should not be upgraded that way because of how complex the update is. Therefore I would suspect that attempting to update through the updater could cause bugs similar to what you are getting.
I personally believe it is unacceptable for Pixologic to handle things this way (they should at the very least disable the autoupdater on the server side, and make a link pop up instead). Hopefully you'll be able to fix the issue easily.
The live booleans themselves work perfectly, I just can't get them to bake down into a single mesh.
Also, I didn't use the updater; I did a completely new installation of 4r8. I actually have both 4r8 and 4r7 on my system right now as separate programs.
-Edit- Oh Christ, I figured it out. It doesn't combine the sub-tools, it creates a completely different mesh that you need to go into the list and manually select, just like when using "Make Polymesh3D".
I don't know why the sub-tools got screwed up the first time around, but it's working fine now.
-Edit2- Okay, "fine" was a stretch. While the new mesh is being created, and looks fine, it's actually broken in almost every conceivable way.
If I make any changes to it and then hit undo, 90% of the faces just vanish permanently, it appears to have multiple roots for each combined sub-tool, and using transformations causes everything to go nutters.
That's just what I've tried.
-Edit3- I decided to completely close ZBrush down, open it back up, start a new project, and try it again. Seems to be working fine now, so... I don't even know.
It's been rock solid for me, Make Boolean Mesh does seem to be pretty CPU intensive though.
Here's my "not a hardsurface artists" 5 minute model
I used zmodeler to quickly add nicer edge loops to the master cylinder shape and the rest of the shapes where placed in Max using the array tool.
I'll probably be using it for more organic stuff, like subtracting noisy meshes for damage to stone structures, holes in clothing, etc... the old way of booleans in zbrush was a total pain.
Is pixologic still cagey on whether or not 5 will be a free upgrade? I've considered buying 4 but it would be hella annoying to have to pay for an upgrade after.
Is pixologic still cagey on whether or not 5 will be a free upgrade? I've considered buying 4 but it would be hella annoying to have to pay for an upgrade after.
Either way, it'll be a long time before they release version 5.
I believe it took them two years to release 4r8. Although, I also believe they admitted to that being because they pissed away an entire year working on Core.
ok so I think I accidentally stumbled upon something really handy. I have no idea if it's new, as I did it by accident. For all I know this might be common knowledge, but it sure as hell is new to me:
when using sliders, isn't it annoying as hell when they move so freaking fast? in fact, I feel like 100% of the time im trying to change shit like the Extract thickness that I'm sliding though small ass numbers and they always move too fast and I wind up having to type in. Turns out, if you grab higher on the scroll bar, it moves at much smaller increments -
anyway just wanted to share, hadn't seen it around and I hope it helps someone.
I saw it. Doesnt seem useful to me, too much manual work
If this is not useful, than I guess new booleans are not for you.. AFAIK there are no other ways to make smooth bevels aside from mentioned in that vid by Michael Pavlovich.
If this is not useful, than I guess new booleans are not for you.. AFAIK there are no other ways to make smooth bevels aside from mentioned in that vid by Michael Pavlovich.
How may it be useful? That example is very specific, it wont work for all situations or even most situations. For now there's no other way but to use DynaMesh.
If this is not useful, than I guess new booleans are not for you.. AFAIK there are no other ways to make smooth bevels aside from mentioned in that vid by Michael Pavlovich.
How may it be useful? That example is very specific, it wont work for all situations or even most situations. For now there's no other way but to use DynaMesh.
Please, leave your inner sceptic at home There`s no tool that would work for all situations. This workflow (booleans->dynamesh->polish) was discovered long before 4R8. Here`s the whole thread discussing it with lots of high quality examples. Now you can do all of it within Zbrush. http://polycount.com/discussion/168610/proboolean-dynamesh-hardsurface-workflow-tutorial/p1
If this is not useful, than I guess new booleans are not for you.. AFAIK there are no other ways to make smooth bevels aside from mentioned in that vid by Michael Pavlovich.
How may it be useful? That example is very specific, it wont work for all situations or even most situations. For now there's no other way but to use DynaMesh.
Please, leave your inner sceptic at home There`s no tool that would work for all situations. This workflow (booleans->dynamesh->polish) was discovered long before 4R8. Here`s the whole thread discussing it with lots of high quality examples. Now you can do all of it within Zbrush. http://polycount.com/discussion/168610/proboolean-dynamesh-hardsurface-workflow-tutorial/p1
It was kinda before that ProBooleans + Inset script in 3ds Max + DynaMesh workflow. Zbrush by itself had Boolean operations for Dynameshed subtools, LiveBooleans kinda based on it.
It was kinda before that ProBooleans + Inset script in 3ds Max + DynaMesh workflow. Zbrush by itself had Boolean operations for Dynameshed subtools, LiveBooleans kinda based on it.
Pre 4R8 dynamesh booleans workflow was fully destructive aka you can`t change anything after you make an operation. That`s why 3ds max/maya booleans were used instead.
Anyone find issues with Morph Targets now? I typically like to store morph targets while I work sometimes so I can easily erase anything I don't like, but with the new Morph Target, I can't get past a certain depth or height using Clay or ClayTubes. I realize it's being used for the chisel brushes, but I'm not sure if there's a way to get around it.
Anyone find issues with Morph Targets now? I typically like to store morph targets while I work sometimes so I can easily erase anything I don't like, but with the new Morph Target, I can't get past a certain depth or height using Clay or ClayTubes. I realize it's being used for the chisel brushes, but I'm not sure if there's a way to get around it.
This workflow (booleans->dynamesh->polish) was discovered long before 4R8.
A thread was linked for pics only, as an example that this workflow is not specific and it works great for a lot of things.
BTW, I`ve just discovered a new option in 4R8 Dynamesh - SubProjection. It allows to cut polygon count in a polished dynamesh from 3-5 millions to 100-200k with same visuals and its much faster than decimation master.
Anyone find issues with Morph Targets now? I typically like to store morph targets while I work sometimes so I can easily erase anything I don't like, but with the new Morph Target, I can't get past a certain depth or height using Clay or ClayTubes. I realize it's being used for the chisel brushes, but I'm not sure if there's a way to get around it.
Same here, I think this is a bug. Documentation says non-buildup for overlapping strokes should only work with both Lazy mouse AND morph target enabled. While in reality just making a MT with no Lazy mouse makes it work. A workaround would be to use Layer instead of MT.
played with 4R8 a bit on the weekend. There are some features in the videos that I cant figure out in the actual app, like how do you get the draw straight lines feature to work? how do you chisel lines without them overlapping and creating big dents in the overlaps? whats the best way to create a subtool out of the liveboolean parts? do you guys just keep all the live parts in folders or something?
really enjoying the new gizmo and the live booleans are a quick way to bash out a concept shape
2.5years ago. to be honest I am a little bit diasappointed also because I don't see this huge/must have features.
Really? It's more features than I see in most paid updates in other software. Booleans are going to cut down on the amount of times I have to use dynamesh. Everyone focuses on the subtraction part of booleans, but it does unions too.
Separate arm and hand, welded with live booleans and then the seam was smoothed out. Here's the topology, on the left is the source, middle is booleaned together, and right is the source mesh dynameshed. My model scale is large so that's as low as I could go with dyna, at smaller scales I'd probably have the issue of the fingers melting into a mitten
Another idea I had was doing some photogrammetry scans of a bunch of faces, splitting up eyes, mouths, noses, ears, etc... and using them as a realistic human building block set.
2.5years ago. to be honest I am a little bit diasappointed also because I don't see this huge/must have features.
Really? It's more features than I see in most paid updates in other software. Booleans are going to cut down on the amount of times I have to use dynamesh. Everyone focuses on the subtraction part of booleans, but it does unions too.
Separate arm and hand, welded with live booleans and then the seam was smoothed out.
Here's the topology, on the left is the source, middle is booleaned together, and right is the source mesh dynameshed. My model scale is large so that's as low as I could go with dyna, at smaller scales I'd probably have the issue of the fingers melting into a mitten
Another idea I had was doing some photogrammetry scans of a bunch of faces, splitting up eyes, mouths, noses, ears, etc... and using them as a realistic human building block set.
Isn't it possible to mask off the wrist, and locally dynamesh just that area?
Totally agree with Justin ! I personally don't think that the new booleans and manipulators are that great of an addition for form exploration (using good old booleans and model selection in any regular 3d app is still faster than doing it in Z8), but they are definitely a great addition to the fantastic Zbrush toolset for mesh processing. Reprojection, Dynamesh, Zremesh, and now reliable Booleans ... these are all great things to have in one's toolset.
Pior - have you used the imm primitives brush along with the new gizmo? You can block out forms pretty fast with that. The imm primitives brush isn't that revolutionary, pixologic just did a little bit of house cleaning, combining insert sphere, insert cylinder, etc... all into one imm brush.
Pior - have you used the imm primitives brush along with the new gizmo? You can block out forms pretty fast with that. The imm primitives brush isn't that revolutionary, pixologic just did a little bit of house cleaning, combining insert sphere, insert cylinder, etc... all into one imm brush.
I made my own custom imm primitive brush about a day into using R7.
Yeah, I was actually very impressed by the IMM improvements - the fact they they designed a whole new interface for them really shows that the whoever is in charge of UX is willing to put in the work to make convoluted/previously undiscoverable features more accessible. They still have huge amount of work left to do in that regard but they keep improving things so that's great.
But regarding blocking out forms pretty fast : Fast is relative It is definitely faster than what previously possible in R7, but not faster than any regular 3d app with decent booleans and a curated model library. Because speed also involves viewport navigation responsiveness (Zbrush has never been too great at giving good control on a complex scene since its navigation is subtool and brushstroke centric), the ease at which multiple objects can be selected, and so on. That's why Goz is such a fantastic tool in my opinion.
So all that said, it's really amazing to see these new features coming in. Even though I don't find them very practical for design work, the clean output of the new booleans is really impressive. It makes me wonder if they are using some recent research paper on the topic or if they are coming up with their own clever solution from scratch. Very cool stuff.
FYI: if you want to disable the "Home Page News System" edit the DefaultZScript.txt found in ZBrush 4r8\Zscripts
Mine looks like this: It launches a StartupMacro I made which does convenience stuff like close menus and set certain settings that don't save per session.
IME it's not necessary to edit some file to link to a macro, just try putting a whatever.txt into Zplugs64 containing the commands you want to have triggered and launch that once from the ZScript panel. it'll create a *.zsc and run from now on on every startup.
search term startup script on ZBC should yield some results.
i use it to e.g. set default texture dimensions, perspective settings, lazymouse defaults and so on.
Yes I know, but that's precisely the problem - switching between local and global modes is a workaround, but in turn it makes sculpting/rotating around details near impossible. This goes back to what I was trying to point out earlier : the tool additions are fantastic, but are still heavily hindered by legacy paradigms.
Not that I mind anyways since I use Zbrush for other kind of operations and I have my ground covered elsewhere for lighting fast blockout modeling
Replies
Zbrush UI is fine, it is different, you just have to get used to it. I find it very artist friendly, has a nice flow.
no overlap: lazy mouse + save a morph target
subtool from boolean is in the subtool palette - > boolean submenu
Michael Pavlovich made a bunch of videos on youtube explaining new features and how they work.
thanks a lot
definitely worth a watch.
1.press and hold "ctrl" and start masking some parts of your mesh.
2. while masking press and hold "shift" as well and dont let go of your other buttons
3. now let go of your left mouse button or wacom pen but hold "ctrl" and "shift"
anyway i am not downloading it for now, nothing that I need to upgrade to for my current work
looks cool though
Is it just extremely buggy?
Not sure what's going on, do you have a gif or video you can share? I haven't had any crash bugs while playing with it yet. Are you seeing the booleans display correctly when you toggle LiveBoolean on?
I personally believe it is unacceptable for Pixologic to handle things this way (they should at the very least disable the autoupdater on the server side, and make a link pop up instead). Hopefully you'll be able to fix the issue easily.
-Edit- Oh Christ, I figured it out. It doesn't combine the sub-tools, it creates a completely different mesh that you need to go into the list and manually select, just like when using "Make Polymesh3D".
-Edit2- Okay, "fine" was a stretch. While the new mesh is being created, and looks fine, it's actually broken in almost every conceivable way.
-Edit3- I decided to completely close ZBrush down, open it back up, start a new project, and try it again. Seems to be working fine now, so... I don't even know.
Here's my "not a hardsurface artists" 5 minute model
I used zmodeler to quickly add nicer edge loops to the master cylinder shape and the rest of the shapes where placed in Max using the array tool.
I'll probably be using it for more organic stuff, like subtracting noisy meshes for damage to stone structures, holes in clothing, etc... the old way of booleans in zbrush was a total pain.
when using sliders, isn't it annoying as hell when they move so freaking fast? in fact, I feel like 100% of the time im trying to change shit like the Extract thickness that I'm sliding though small ass numbers and they always move too fast and I wind up having to type in. Turns out, if you grab higher on the scroll bar, it moves at much smaller increments -
anyway just wanted to share, hadn't seen it around and I hope it helps someone.
This workflow (booleans->dynamesh->polish) was discovered long before 4R8.
Here`s the whole thread discussing it with lots of high quality examples. Now you can do all of it within Zbrush.
http://polycount.com/discussion/168610/proboolean-dynamesh-hardsurface-workflow-tutorial/p1
BTW, I`ve just discovered a new option in 4R8 Dynamesh - SubProjection. It allows to cut polygon count in a polished dynamesh from 3-5 millions to 100-200k with same visuals and its much faster than decimation master.
Same here, I think this is a bug. Documentation says non-buildup for overlapping strokes should only work with both Lazy mouse AND morph target enabled. While in reality just making a MT with no Lazy mouse makes it work.
A workaround would be to use Layer instead of MT.
http://docs.pixologic.com/features/whats-new-in-zbrush-4r8/other-additions-changes/
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkzopwqcFevY_yAkRTXflCN5KXYmcUvhi
2.5years ago. to be honest I am a little bit diasappointed also because I don't see this huge/must have features.
Separate arm and hand, welded with live booleans and then the seam was smoothed out.
Here's the topology, on the left is the source, middle is booleaned together, and right is the source mesh dynameshed. My model scale is large so that's as low as I could go with dyna, at smaller scales I'd probably have the issue of the fingers melting into a mitten
Another idea I had was doing some photogrammetry scans of a bunch of faces, splitting up eyes, mouths, noses, ears, etc... and using them as a realistic human building block set.
But regarding blocking out forms pretty fast : Fast is relative
So all that said, it's really amazing to see these new features coming in. Even though I don't find them very practical for design work, the clean output of the new booleans is really impressive. It makes me wonder if they are using some recent research paper on the topic or if they are coming up with their own clever solution from scratch. Very cool stuff.
IME it's not necessary to edit some file to link to a macro, just try putting a whatever.txt into Zplugs64 containing the commands you want to have triggered and launch that once from the ZScript panel. it'll create a *.zsc and run from now on on every startup.
search term startup script on ZBC should yield some results.
i use it to e.g. set default texture dimensions, perspective settings, lazymouse defaults and so on.
unlike macros it will not update the binaries when the application restarts, it'll just keep loading the now outdated *.zsc.
i know because i always forget that when copying my startup over to a new version.
Not that I mind anyways since I use Zbrush for other kind of operations and I have my ground covered elsewhere for lighting fast blockout modeling