Arsh and scudz: Like Blaizer says, it wasn't a problem in 3.1
Buying a new computer to counteract something they broke in an update isn't exactly high on my list of priorities. I happen to love the new 3.5 tools though, so I'm just learning to live with the dotted strokes, and hoping they've fixed it in 4.
sorry, I didn't mean it was a problem for me, just how to fix it (or at least adjust it). They've adjusted the algorithim for 4 and it's different agian though.
Ruz, that's an interesting technique and a cool sculpt. will definately have to give it a try.
The problem for me, is that i run a Dual Xeon Quadcore 3,2ghz (not i7, but 8 threads), 16 gb of ram aswell (server memory, ECC), and i can't believe it's because i need a better computer. Ok, it has 2+ years, but it's not a machine i can update every couple of years.
In a q9550 quadcore, with 4 gb and gtx 285, more of the same.
With 3.1, i could do fast strokes without the dotted effect. Do i need to buy a new computer with core i7? :S. I think they fucked something in the app.
The unique improvement i noticed, was how Zbrush handles Pentagonal topologies (a pentagon subdivided). With 3.1 there was a huge error smoothing, but with 3.5 it has been fixed.
I customed myself to do very very slow strokes or zooming in. With 4 subdiv itinerations, i start having dotted strokes with a very simple basemesh. I'ts very annoying when i draw very fast, and more when i like to work fast.
I'm really impatient to try out the new Zbrush, not for the new tools, but for the perfomance.
the dotted strokes seem to be quite the famous 3.5 problem indeed.
i've stuck with 3.1 for my work for various reasons and seems i will get to skip 3.5 alltogether. with the experience from previous releases in mind i would not expect 4 a) to really release on that date and b) to be truly usable in the first version.
I've been using it as a beta tester for about 3 months now and for the most part it's been great.
The basic UI has not changed. though there have been some small adjustments.
You can now right-click navigate on the canvas (as well as left-click) regardless of wether the mouse is over the tool or not. It's a small thing but nice.
You can save as a project now instead of just the tool, which allows you to keep settings like selected material, document size and changes to any of the brush/alpha/material settings within those which is pretty huge.
It still uses polypaint, but you can paint in layers now.
Spotlight lets you prjection paint from any image, and even sculpt if it's a good res (low-res comes out blobby).
BPR makes for some sweet renders.
It doesn't use sss they way a normal renderer does (as far as I know) but you can still make some nice stuff with it.
GOZ is very nice
It is 64bit supported (but I only have 4 gigs total so I don't know what kind of difference that makes).
The layers system is handled differnetly from 3.5 so older tools may not switch between layers the way you would expect.
The Timeline/Animation stuff essentially is a blend morph between layers that also stores camera/canvas views. as such if you were to animate an arm moving up and down (for example) with Transpose zb won't understand the movement in between the poses and it'll look weird; but if you use zsphere rigging then it knows that there's actual geomtry movement inbetween and can figure it out properly.
its not a fix, its a workaround - sure you can do it this way but you will take much longer for strokes - especially quick sketching indeed was better in 3.1
@scudz: rightclick navigation was already built in in 3.5
got mine. now if only i was a better artist
GoZ looks like it'll be rocking my sox though.
Side note you may have problems getting your activation code (Web Activation)
support pages say keep retrying.(servers must be overwhelmed)
I know the earlier dumbell raising demo hinted at this but I'm just looking under the hood now with the release.
Remember that Blender point oven animated sculpting demo awhile back? Similar technique (but of course in pixols). I could see bypassing the usual rigging/skinning phase for some future game dev using something similar to the .mdd format or mdd itself. Pixo even included ease in and out which make me think graphs shouldn't be unthinkable in versions 5 or 6.
Gotta be an animator/Z sculptor to appreciate this feature and the possibilities.
There has been a problem while processing your delivery. We are already working on this technical issue and may be waiting for information from the software publisher, which may cause short delay. At the latest, this should be solved within 1-2 workdays, although it is generally much less. We will contact you immediately via e-mail upon resolving the issue and apologize for any inconvenience.
GOSH DAMMIT!
oh well... too busy ATM anyway.... but still.... the notorious dangling of carrots ensues.
Lazymouse brushes and some other custom brushes (Brian Silva's brushes) crash 3.5. That and the stupid scale issues have basically kept me and the rest of my team from using 3.5. Anyone know if those things are fixed? If they aren't I'll have a hard time upgrading.
B
What's the scale bug everyone is talking about? I've never had a problem with scaling when going between 3.5 and Softimage (an obj with local coordinates, would always match up ).
What's the scale bug everyone is talking about? I've never had a problem with scaling when going between 3.5 and Softimage (an obj with local coordinates, would always match up ).
I don't think its a bug, per se, but rather the way zbrush handles objects to center in its 3d space. When a model is imported into zbrush it is scaled. If that scale changes in zbrush then exporting the model the scale is off in the other program. One could have troubles moving parts of the model back and forth.
The key is to pay attention to the scale of the model in Z and if your adding additional subtools make sure to import them correctly into the group to avoid scaling issues.
I, so far, do not see that zbrush has changed how it imports and exports models.
Lazymouse brushes and some other custom brushes (Brian Silva's brushes) crash 3.5. That and the stupid scale issues have basically kept me and the rest of my team from using 3.5. Anyone know if those things are fixed? If they aren't I'll have a hard time upgrading.
B
Got zbrush 4 this morning and have been working in it all day using lazymouse on and off. So far no crashes. That bug fix alone would be worth all the hype.
The rest of the features seem lackluster at best but time may change my mind.
Cyrid: The scale issue seems to be a very common problem. I am not sure why it is so common as like you, I have never experienced it myself, and I am usually using an asspile of subtools and moving back and forth between maya and zbrush and replacing subtools with new ones or using old subtools to project onto new subtools with better topology, etc.
The main issue is importing a base mesh created externally (max, maya, what have you), importing it into zbrush, sculpting, and then exporting the mesh back out for whatever purpose you need it for (reference, retopo, etc.) When you import it back into your external app, the scale is totally off. Tons of people have come up with reasons as to why and work arounds. Ritorian (whom frequents here as well as GA) posted something a while back, and I have agree with him on this one... Saving your Tool with hidden/partially hidden polys will cause the scaling to go buggy. Making sure you have all your meshes fully visible avoids the scale issue all together. This doesn't mean your individual subtools must all be visible in the subtool palette, but rather all subtools must have all their polys fully visible. Maybe I've never experienced this because I don't save my Tools with partially hidden polys, but from what he tested, he said this seems to be the root cause, and my guess is that he is probably right.
I know there used to be a popup window that told you not to save your subtools with partially hidden meshes. This popup disappeared in 3.5 when you went to save, and as a result, people probably forgot about it.
Do they go through the list of users in order of purchase to send the update code and link? Or do you contact them direct? Polypaint having layers is a major score! (And 64bit)
Do they go through the list of users in order of purchase to send the update code and link? Or do you contact them direct? Polypaint having layers is a major score! (And 64bit)
I don't think its 64bit, if it is I got the 32bit version..... The only thing that I read was 64bit was the decimation master plugin.
I'm one of the oddballs that actually loves uvs, so i think i may be a little uncomfortable giving up some control, but it looks like a huge timesaver! I don't think id ever leave the uvs as they are from zbrush, but seems like a super powerful tool, especially with the density painting and seam protection/inclusion masks.
when you get your upgrade e-mail you'll get that message i got from Cleverbridge after you registered online. This happens before any download.
There has been a problem while processing your delivery. We are already working on this technical issue and may be waiting for information from the software publisher, which may cause short delay. At the latest, this should be solved within 1-2 workdays, although it is generally much less. We will contact you immediately via e-mail upon resolving the issue and apologize for any inconvenience.
Working with Zbrush + modo, i don't have problems with scales. But exporting/importing modo-Max i need to config the exporter/importer of Max to match the units. With Zbrush it's the same.
If you want to solve the scale problem, just play with a 1 meter cube and try to figure out what's happening. A cube like this helps a lot but Zbrush won't accept the n-gons :S.
All what i want from Zbrush is perfomance. Let's see if they have solved what they should have to do, because all this seems like a 3.5 with some plugins i won't be using. Damn..
I've encountered a problem with the GoZ for maya plugin, which keep saying me that it doesn't manage to write the plugin file in my maya directory and that I should launch Zbrush in admin mode. But I'm running it in admin mode on an admin session, with UAC set as minimum.
Anyone know what's going on? O.o (btw I'm on windows 7).
NB : and now I don't know why but zbrush ask me to activate it ....again (which is impossible as their servers are down \u,u/ )
the scale issue is not fixed, I just made a zsphere base, brought it to maya through GoZ, and back and it was a quarter the size. by importing the same model and first appending any tool to the subtools menu (and having that selected) it imported in at the correct size. tried the same with the Demo Soldier, GoZ'd the lowest level and made a couple adjustments, brought it back and said no to coppying the high details = tiny tool. tried again saying yes = correct size.
there's definatley workarounds, but it hasn't been fixed at all.
That's surprising, considering how many people had issues with that problem would think it'd have been a no.1 priority to get fixed. Didnt any of the testers bring it up during beta?
Got my email earlier on today, and have been playing around with it this afternoon.
Couple of points polygroups do not seem to get on well with the new clipping tools, lightbox is going to take some getting used to and i cant seem to get the custom UI working (detailed here http://www.pixologic.com/docs/index.php/Custom_UI) doesnt seem to work anymore.
re the scale bug, check out the scales in the export settings in zbrush. I had an issue where all the subtools were set to 25.565 scale but the broken one was set to 1.
Either set them. all to 1 or to 25.565
I think this happened when I retopologised the jacket I was working on
i made two simple scripts that address that ruz, assuming you dont mind resetting the scale of everything to 1(if you do obviously dont use em), and changing all the xyz to 0. it also sets some other things i find handy(mrg on grp off etc). they both do pretty much the same thing, one of the scripts i use for exporting, the other will just go down the list of subtools and reset them when you click it
what's the issue you're having? If you're getting jagged edges or stray polys there's a couple things to try:
Turn persperctive off, the Clip brushes work by pushing the geometry behind the marking line, and sometimes (because of the way zb handles "2.5d") this can cause the edges to kinda explode.
Turn off Symmetry, or be carefull that the clipping line isn't crossing over the mirrored line. Keep Ghostbusters in mind "Don't cross the streams. Dr. Peter Venkman: Why? Dr. Egon Spengler: It would be bad. Dr. Peter Venkman: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, "bad"? Dr. Egon Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
if it's just some pinching or gimped edges you can try using the "relax" function in the deformations pallet.
Replies
sorry, I didn't mean it was a problem for me, just how to fix it (or at least adjust it). They've adjusted the algorithim for 4 and it's different agian though.
Ruz, that's an interesting technique and a cool sculpt. will definately have to give it a try.
In a q9550 quadcore, with 4 gb and gtx 285, more of the same.
With 3.1, i could do fast strokes without the dotted effect. Do i need to buy a new computer with core i7? :S. I think they fucked something in the app.
The unique improvement i noticed, was how Zbrush handles Pentagonal topologies (a pentagon subdivided). With 3.1 there was a huge error smoothing, but with 3.5 it has been fixed.
I customed myself to do very very slow strokes or zooming in. With 4 subdiv itinerations, i start having dotted strokes with a very simple basemesh. I'ts very annoying when i draw very fast, and more when i like to work fast.
I'm really impatient to try out the new Zbrush, not for the new tools, but for the perfomance.
http://spacelunch.pair.com/blog/?p=452
Also, supposedly zb4 is 32bit only, according to what presenters said at Siggraph.
i've stuck with 3.1 for my work for various reasons and seems i will get to skip 3.5 alltogether. with the experience from previous releases in mind i would not expect 4 a) to really release on that date
it doesnt really bug me tbh, I always stick with very slow and carefuly strokes, but still..
OoOoO... he ain't supposed to be showing all that yet.
The images were down when I checked though :[
Seems some people think zb4 might have some form of ptex support based on this thread from last year: http://www.pixolator.com/showthread.php?t=76304
JW? Any feedback on the new release?
and the thread is getting pretty damn hammered
I've been using it as a beta tester for about 3 months now and for the most part it's been great.
The basic UI has not changed. though there have been some small adjustments.
You can now right-click navigate on the canvas (as well as left-click) regardless of wether the mouse is over the tool or not. It's a small thing but nice.
You can save as a project now instead of just the tool, which allows you to keep settings like selected material, document size and changes to any of the brush/alpha/material settings within those which is pretty huge.
It still uses polypaint, but you can paint in layers now.
Spotlight lets you prjection paint from any image, and even sculpt if it's a good res (low-res comes out blobby).
BPR makes for some sweet renders.
It doesn't use sss they way a normal renderer does (as far as I know) but you can still make some nice stuff with it.
GOZ is very nice
It is 64bit supported (but I only have 4 gigs total so I don't know what kind of difference that makes).
The layers system is handled differnetly from 3.5 so older tools may not switch between layers the way you would expect.
The Timeline/Animation stuff essentially is a blend morph between layers that also stores camera/canvas views. as such if you were to animate an arm moving up and down (for example) with Transpose zb won't understand the movement in between the poses and it'll look weird; but if you use zsphere rigging then it knows that there's actual geomtry movement inbetween and can figure it out properly.
Shadowbox is something else entireley:poly142:
This version handles n-gons? With 3.5 i'm forced to subdivide x1 my models, because pentagons are not supported.
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassroom/homeroom/modules/zbrush4/video/animateExpose.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassroom/homeroom/modules/zbrush4/video/timeLine1.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassroom/homeroom/modules/zbrush4/video/animate3Dlayers.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassroom/homeroom/modules/zbrush4/video/mannequins1.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassroom/homeroom/modules/zbrush4/video/mannequins2.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassroom/homeroom/modules/zbrush4/video/introducingClipBrushes.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassroom/homeroom/modules/zbrush4/video/brushRadius.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassroom/homeroom/modules/zbrush4/video/shadowBoxAlphas.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassroom/homeroom/modules/zbrush4/video/shadowBoxReference.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassroom/homeroom/modules/zbrush4/video/rectAndCircleMasks.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassroom/homeroom/modules/zbrush4/video/lassoAndCurveMasks.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassroom/homeroom/modules/zbrush4/video/moveTopological.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassroom/homeroom/modules/zbrush4/video/decoBrushes.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassroom/homeroom/modules/zbrush4/video/alphaRoll.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassroom/homeroom/modules/zbrush4/video/selectAndClipBrush.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassroom/homeroom/modules/zbrush4/video/Zbrush4_GoZ_1.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassroom/homeroom/modules/zbrush4/video/animateExpose.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassroom/homeroom/modules/zbrush4/video/BPR.f4v
http://www.pixologic01.com/zclassroom/homeroom/modules/zbrush4/video/alphaTiling.f4v
For your viewing pleasure in case they aren't loading on the site for you. Use VLC to play them.
guys you can more or less fix the dotted strokes by using lazymouse and lowering the brush step
@scudz: rightclick navigation was already built in in 3.5
damn why are the servers down i wanna play
I was hoping for Vector Displacement but you can have everything eh?
Cant wait to have a go
Thanks for the direct links. Their server has sploded. Looks like I'll just keep checking my email every 5 minutes for the next week.
GoZ looks like it'll be rocking my sox though.
Side note you may have problems getting your activation code (Web Activation)
support pages say keep retrying.(servers must be overwhelmed)
I know the earlier dumbell raising demo hinted at this but I'm just looking under the hood now with the release.
Remember that Blender point oven animated sculpting demo awhile back? Similar technique (but of course in pixols). I could see bypassing the usual rigging/skinning phase for some future game dev using something similar to the .mdd format or mdd itself. Pixo even included ease in and out which make me think graphs shouldn't be unthinkable in versions 5 or 6.
Gotta be an animator/Z sculptor to appreciate this feature and the possibilities.
Paint layers is okay. Mud and 3dCoat are still better (from what I've seen so far in v.4) simply because they have Photoshop style blend layers.
And whatever happened to Zapplink? Was it moved somewhere else in u.i.? Or Adobe didnt want anybody to compete with its own 3d painting?
The animated texture opacity is cool but I'd rather have zapplink back if it's not included.
The plugin has been updated for ZB4 but i haven't got my key yet so i cant help with its location in the program
For those that have got to try it, is the scale bug fixed, and can you drag sub-menus (like subtools pallette) into a custom UI now?
:poly142:
GOSH DAMMIT!
oh well... too busy ATM anyway.... but still.... the notorious dangling of carrots ensues.
B
I don't think its a bug, per se, but rather the way zbrush handles objects to center in its 3d space. When a model is imported into zbrush it is scaled. If that scale changes in zbrush then exporting the model the scale is off in the other program. One could have troubles moving parts of the model back and forth.
The key is to pay attention to the scale of the model in Z and if your adding additional subtools make sure to import them correctly into the group to avoid scaling issues.
I, so far, do not see that zbrush has changed how it imports and exports models.
Got zbrush 4 this morning and have been working in it all day using lazymouse on and off. So far no crashes. That bug fix alone would be worth all the hype.
The rest of the features seem lackluster at best but time may change my mind.
The main issue is importing a base mesh created externally (max, maya, what have you), importing it into zbrush, sculpting, and then exporting the mesh back out for whatever purpose you need it for (reference, retopo, etc.) When you import it back into your external app, the scale is totally off. Tons of people have come up with reasons as to why and work arounds. Ritorian (whom frequents here as well as GA) posted something a while back, and I have agree with him on this one... Saving your Tool with hidden/partially hidden polys will cause the scaling to go buggy. Making sure you have all your meshes fully visible avoids the scale issue all together. This doesn't mean your individual subtools must all be visible in the subtool palette, but rather all subtools must have all their polys fully visible. Maybe I've never experienced this because I don't save my Tools with partially hidden polys, but from what he tested, he said this seems to be the root cause, and my guess is that he is probably right.
I know there used to be a popup window that told you not to save your subtools with partially hidden meshes. This popup disappeared in 3.5 when you went to save, and as a result, people probably forgot about it.
I don't think its 64bit, if it is I got the 32bit version..... The only thing that I read was 64bit was the decimation master plugin.
I'm one of the oddballs that actually loves uvs, so i think i may be a little uncomfortable giving up some control, but it looks like a huge timesaver! I don't think id ever leave the uvs as they are from zbrush, but seems like a super powerful tool, especially with the density painting and seam protection/inclusion masks.
when you get your upgrade e-mail you'll get that message i got from Cleverbridge after you registered online. This happens before any download.
awesome.
If you want to solve the scale problem, just play with a 1 meter cube and try to figure out what's happening. A cube like this helps a lot but Zbrush won't accept the n-gons :S.
Anyone know what's going on? O.o (btw I'm on windows 7).
NB : and now I don't know why but zbrush ask me to activate it ....again (which is impossible as their servers are down \u,u/ )
Saw the same thing on ZB Central. Can anyone confirm this?
there's definatley workarounds, but it hasn't been fixed at all.
Couple of points polygroups do not seem to get on well with the new clipping tools, lightbox is going to take some getting used to and i cant seem to get the custom UI working (detailed here http://www.pixologic.com/docs/index.php/Custom_UI) doesnt seem to work anymore.
Either set them. all to 1 or to 25.565
I think this happened when I retopologised the jacket I was working on
Clipping brushes are how I thought the planar stuff would work when it was shown a while ago. Great free update though!
i made two simple scripts that address that ruz, assuming you dont mind resetting the scale of everything to 1(if you do obviously dont use em), and changing all the xyz to 0. it also sets some other things i find handy(mrg on grp off etc). they both do pretty much the same thing, one of the scripts i use for exporting, the other will just go down the list of subtools and reset them when you click it
export scri[t
reset subtool
I was wrong it isnt a polygroup issue with the clip brushes, any idea's?
Turn persperctive off, the Clip brushes work by pushing the geometry behind the marking line, and sometimes (because of the way zb handles "2.5d") this can cause the edges to kinda explode.
Turn off Symmetry, or be carefull that the clipping line isn't crossing over the mirrored line. Keep Ghostbusters in mind "Don't cross the streams.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Why?
Dr. Egon Spengler: It would be bad.
Dr. Peter Venkman: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, "bad"?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
if it's just some pinching or gimped edges you can try using the "relax" function in the deformations pallet.
if it's something else entirely than let me know