Tile Helper Zbrush Plugin
Hello fellow Polycounters!
I have been sitting on this plugin for a while and I finally got a break to clean it up for you guys. It didn't really fit in with my other plugin so I made it into it's own. Huge thanks to Marcus on the ZBC forums for getting me unstuck a few times.
This plugin is basically a very basic array with some other canvas tools to help with making tiling sculpts. It takes a single Subtool and will duplicate then transform along the X,Y based on sliders.
It's still somewhat experimental and beta. Zscript is very very limiting. I am not really an enviro artist so I would love any suggestions on how to make it better for you guys.
I have been sitting on this plugin for a while and I finally got a break to clean it up for you guys. It didn't really fit in with my other plugin so I made it into it's own. Huge thanks to Marcus on the ZBC forums for getting me unstuck a few times.
This plugin is basically a very basic array with some other canvas tools to help with making tiling sculpts. It takes a single Subtool and will duplicate then transform along the X,Y based on sliders.
Main Plugin
- L: Constrains the values of the two neighboring sliders so they move together.
- Rows/Columns: These determine how many duplicates are made.
- X/Y Distance: These determine how far each mesh is offset from each other.
- Clone: If enabled, when "Tile" is clicked the script will be performed on a cloned version. This is recommended because finding the right distance to offset can be somewhat "guess-and-check."
- Random 90 Rotation: This button will randomly choose visible subtools and rotate them either 90 or 180 degrees on the X axis.
- 90: Disable to only rotate 180 when "Random 90 Rotation" is pressed.
- 180: Disable to only rotate 90 when "Random 90 Rotation" is pressed.
- Tile Preset 1-3: CTRL-Click to save settings. Regular click to restore saved settings.
Canvas Tools
- 128-2048: These buttons resizes the canvas to the respective size.
- StartUp Size: Restores document to size when Zbrush launched.
- Tile Preview Size: This slider determines what size the mesh will be previewed at when "Tile Preview" is pressed.
- Tile Preview: When pressed the mesh will be tiled on the canvas so you can see how the mesh repeats.
- L: Constrains the values of the two neighboring sliders so they move together.
- Rows/Columns: These determine how many duplicates are made.
- X/Y Distance: These determine how far each mesh is offset from each other.
- Clone: If enabled, when "Tile" is clicked the script will be performed on a cloned version. This is recommended because finding the right distance to offset can be somewhat "guess-and-check."
- Random 90 Rotation: This button will randomly choose visible subtools and rotate them either 90 or 180 degrees on the X axis.
- 90: Disable to only rotate 180 when "Random 90 Rotation" is pressed.
- 180: Disable to only rotate 90 when "Random 90 Rotation" is pressed.
- Tile Preset 1-3: CTRL-Click to save settings. Regular click to restore saved settings.
Canvas Tools
- 128-2048: These buttons resizes the canvas to the respective size.
- StartUp Size: Restores document to size when Zbrush launched.
- Tile Preview Size: This slider determines what size the mesh will be previewed at when "Tile Preview" is pressed.
- Tile Preview: When pressed the mesh will be tiled on the canvas so you can see how the mesh repeats.
Here is a short video showing off how it works.
[ame="
"]Tile Helper Zbrush Script Preview - YouTube[/ame]
And some examples I made very quickly with it.
Download!
And some examples I made very quickly with it.
Download!
It's still somewhat experimental and beta. Zscript is very very limiting. I am not really an enviro artist so I would love any suggestions on how to make it better for you guys.
Replies
SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! oh wait... its free!!
Haha! Thank you.
My resources page has a Donation button if you are going to MAKE me take your money.
Just donated.
Thank you!
Should be ok now.
Only other thing I can think of if you want to improve it (just an idea, you might've already considered it anyway) is an option to have each clone have a random z position between a max and min value to give the texture some depth variation... Then maybe you could have an input for the amount of frequency of the variation too. Could be good for Stone textures at least.
Appreciated.
i am using it now
Thanks
Thank you everyone for your comments.
@ Mental Radiation: Yea that is a good idea. I started to realize that would be a good feature after making those roof tiles. Should be really easy to implement!
Thanks loads!
Awesome !
I'm gonna try it right now !
[EDIT]
Hmmm, under zBrush 4R4 P2 I got this :
The slider is overlapping some buttons...
All the duplicates are made into unique Subtools. I was using the hotkey to select them before sculpting. If you hold ALT and quickly click a subtool on the canvas it will make that one active so you can sculpt on it.
I can't remember if this is on by default or not but it's located in Preferences> Edit>Auto Select Subtool.
EDIT: OH... I also believe I had colorize on so that the bricks didn't have the "grayed out" look you mentioned.
Interesting... Everything is all messed up! It seems like the width of your menu is smaller than standard. Could this be true? What size is your monitor?
Most of these buttons I force specific pixel widths so they won't auto resize. You can see the button "Random 90 Rotation" button is set to auto and it fits within the menu. The other buttons are forced off of menu or down to the next position.
Hmmm, I didn't touch any options which change the default column width of zBrush (I don't even know if it's possible). Currently my screen resolution is 1680*1050. Screenshot (Not P2, but same resolution) : http://www.froyok.fr/archives/uplo/001/1343412254-ZBrush_2012-07-27_20-02-55.jpg
Yea everything seems normal. I am not really sure. I will post a question on the ZBC forums. Marcus is usually really quick about answering Zscript questions.
I considered adding a feature to offset the rows however, I believe there is something comparable already built in. I still may add something similar in the future just to automate it.
What I did to offset the rows when I made the brick example was this:
- Hide every other row.
- Using Deformation>Offset move one brick the desired amount.
- At the bottom of the Deformation menu there is a button "Repeat to Other." This makes the same offset to all other other visible subtools.
More features coming soon I promise!
Download!
Link is broooooken =[
I swear... Polycount... better stop breaking my links or so help me.... POW right in the kisser!
I teamed up with the guys at Eat3D and made a 4 hour tutorial on scripting in Zbrush. No need to be a smarty-pants-programmer to learn Zscripting. It's very easy to learn. The tutorial starts with an introduction and goes through the process of making a final plugin.
Check it out.
http://eat3d.com/zscripting
Now that the tutorial is done I plan on updating this tool soon-ish.