zbrush 2 nuts and bolts.

Slash

As many others, i find the intuitive workflow of zbrush very appealing. But as many others, who are used to standard 3d packages, i am a little confused by some nuts and bolts in zbrush. Please share your wisdom!


-How do i select and edit an object that has been deselected?

-Is it possible to select a part of the mesh, and make that higher rez than the rest of the mesh? (but still be part of the same mesh.)

-Why does my zsphere sometimes make only half a sphere when adaptive skin is applied? and why is it really distorted sometimes?

//edit: horrible grammar -> less horrible grammar.

Rick Stirling

You can't reselect as far as I know. Once you deleselect, the object is now 2d, projected ontot he canvas. However, in your tools palette you should have a tool that is your 3d object. Clear your canvs and drop that tool on again.

MoP

I'm pretty sure you can reselect objects, I think it's something to do with applying Markers to them, take a look in the help or on the Zbrush forums.

The ZSphere thing will be because the sphere has been rotated 180 degrees through some weird angle, making the adaptive skin twist and go all screwed up. You could either delete that sphere and re-make a new one in it's place, or rotate the existing one around until it's good again (although that might take ages!).

I'm pretty sure you can make different parts of the mesh higher res than others, I think it's something to do with masking selections.
Whoever posted the link to the Zbrush demon tutorial over on CGTalk (I think it might have been you, Rick?) should dig it up again, a process of subdividing different parts was in there, although it required splitting the mesh up, if I remember right (although you should be able to do that from inside ZBrush).

MoP

Cubik

Use Multimarkers or just pick the object from the tool palette, hit CTRL+N to clear the screen and left-click, hold and drag to put a new copy of the tool on the canvas.

Press CTRL+SHIFT and leftclick drag on the area you want to select. Now everything not selected will be hidden. CTRL+SHIFT click anywhere outside the model to unhide.
If you want to hide something, CTRL+SHIFT, leftclick and release the mousebutton. The retangle should turn red and you can now hide whatever you select.