Very important and essential Zbrush question.
node
It's been 2-3 weeks since I started with Zbrush. I watched DOZENS of tutorials. But in none of them...they explain how to fix Edit Mode - T
When I press this thing...everything goes wrong. I watched like 4 tutorials about it to try to learn how to fix it...TO UNDERSTAND IT...I could not find the right answer.
I know you must press ctrl+N and draw again and stuff, but...that doesn't always work because CLEARLY this s...thing, is too complicated to understand for a new user. Even tho few tutorials tried to explain the logic behind it...it was not enough. This...thing...is too much what the F.
Sometimes I even zoom in/out, the resolution goes lower, the white thin lines surrounding the canvas go wrong I can only see part of them. I.cannot.recover...from this.
Usually what happens is...sometimes I work for 30-40 min on something and I'm SO much into it, sweating myself, that I don't realize time is flying away without me saving and I accidentally press T and everything goes "f*ck you" and I have to quit the program and start all over from my last save.
It's amazing. It's so irritating that I hardly contain myself not to hit the wall...WITH MY HEAD.
I tried several times to change the key T to some combination like Ctrl + Alt + Shift + F + U + C + K + U + Z + B + R + U + S + H so I can never....ever...press it by accident again...but what happens is that pressing T still works...+ the other shortcut.
P L E A S E ......... can I remove this function FOREVER. At least remove it from T so I can never press it by accident again...please.
I tried so hard (and got so faaar) to find a solution for this...cuz I did not want to make a useless topic about it here....but man...I'm pretty sure that times I had to go back and redo stuff, combined...are like...maybe a whole day or more. And that's just for 2-3 weeks. Next time this happens I'll probably bite my tongue and jump off the 7th floor where I live.
I don't know about Dante's 9 circles of hell...but I'm 140% sure that the 10th level is Zbrush....GOD....DAYMN.
When I press this thing...everything goes wrong. I watched like 4 tutorials about it to try to learn how to fix it...TO UNDERSTAND IT...I could not find the right answer.
I know you must press ctrl+N and draw again and stuff, but...that doesn't always work because CLEARLY this s...thing, is too complicated to understand for a new user. Even tho few tutorials tried to explain the logic behind it...it was not enough. This...thing...is too much what the F.
Sometimes I even zoom in/out, the resolution goes lower, the white thin lines surrounding the canvas go wrong I can only see part of them. I.cannot.recover...from this.
Usually what happens is...sometimes I work for 30-40 min on something and I'm SO much into it, sweating myself, that I don't realize time is flying away without me saving and I accidentally press T and everything goes "f*ck you" and I have to quit the program and start all over from my last save.
It's amazing. It's so irritating that I hardly contain myself not to hit the wall...WITH MY HEAD.
I tried several times to change the key T to some combination like Ctrl + Alt + Shift + F + U + C + K + U + Z + B + R + U + S + H so I can never....ever...press it by accident again...but what happens is that pressing T still works...+ the other shortcut.
P L E A S E ......... can I remove this function FOREVER. At least remove it from T so I can never press it by accident again...please.
I tried so hard (and got so faaar) to find a solution for this...cuz I did not want to make a useless topic about it here....but man...I'm pretty sure that times I had to go back and redo stuff, combined...are like...maybe a whole day or more. And that's just for 2-3 weeks. Next time this happens I'll probably bite my tongue and jump off the 7th floor where I live.
I don't know about Dante's 9 circles of hell...but I'm 140% sure that the 10th level is Zbrush....GOD....DAYMN.
Replies
I'm not sure how you keep pressing T by accident whilst working. But anyway, to change hotkeys go to preferences /config/enable customise. Now hold ctrl+alt and a little message will pop up in the top left of the screen telling you to press any key combo to assign it as a hotkey. This is the way you assign hotkeys in ZB and I personally think it should be the way you assign hotkeys in every single program.
Now go to preferences/hotkeys/store. This will auto save your custom hotkeys and load them every time you start ZB.
Disable enable customise.
As for edit mode, don't panic when you exit edit and you start wildly drawing your tool all over the canvas. Just ctrl+n to clear the canvas. Look to the tool palette on the right of the screen to see that your tool is active. Drag it out on the canvas. Enter edit mode. Continue working. It is simple but stumps a lot of beginners. The main thing to remember is that you haven't lost your work as your tool will always be available in the tool palette. Also, ZB quicksaves your work session and you can press comma hotkey to open lightbox and view/load all your quick save files.
I press it by accident cuz I'm used with Maya workflow and sometimes I press R for resize, but cuz I'm working with a tablet and I have to stretch my arm to press R...I press T. OR...when I press B -> S-> T for standard brush...sometimes I again pressed not B, but V or N and do the combo B S T. Whatever tho...
Last question...how to fix the resolution/zoom if I mess it up after I press T? If you don't understand me I can screenshot. I'm 100% it's something very small and easy...it's just I could not find answer on the internet
It's an Image Document.
The 'document' is essentially a 2d document that is made out of pixels, just like photoshop documents (zbrush even exports the document as a .psd file). The difference is that each of these document pixels can also store material and depth information in addition to RGB values, and so they can be referred to as 'pixols'. This is where the company 'Pixologic' gets their name, and zbrush too since you're painting with depth.Note: Document depth values are very simply z values for each pixol on the document, similar to one of these toys. As a result, you'll see it referred to as "2.5d".
So where do 3d models come into this?
You can paint onto the image document using 3d models to determine the values for the pixols. This is why models are referred to as 'tools' in zbrush. You could grab a simple paintbrush and manually paint rocks onto the image document, or you can grab a model of a tree or rock and stamp it all around the image where ever you want. To let you have better control over the result, zbrush will let you edit the scale, placement, and orientation, and general look of a 3D Tool before you finally convert it down into image pixols...This is what edit mode is! You draw a model onto the document like a brush stroke, and are given a single chance to turn on edit mode in order to adjust the model's appearance and placement as needed. You can also stamp a model down onto the document at any point just by hitting Shift+S.
Here are some of the key take aways from this:
- 3d Models (Tools) are independent from the 2d Document.
- This means if you want to save a sculpt/model, save the tool! If you save the document you'll only have an image.
- The usual problem new sculptors run into is that they accidentally leave edit mode, or stamp their model into pixols . They don't know what happened and they don't even know what pixols even are, they just know they don't want them on their screen since they're only using zbrush to sculpt. But this is why you hit ctrl+n to clear the image document of pixols, then redraw the Tool and re-enter Edit Mode to continue editing the Tool.
- When you zoom in and notice an pixelation issue, its because you're actually zooming the image document. It's going to get pixelated, just like zooming a document in photoshop or any other image made out of pixels (because that's all the zbrush document is). The top buttons on the right shelf ("scroll document", "zoom document") are for the 2d image document, what you want are the tool transform buttons just a little bit lower on that shelf. Those will rotate and size the object around the screen. The mouse shortcuts also do this.
- While you are still in edit mode, the model is just floating on top of a 2d document. You're not moving a virtual camera around a model, you're rotating the whole model on top of the image document (similar to loading a 3d model into photoshop). You're not zooming a camera into a model, you're scaling the model as it appears on the screen.
It might take a while if you're expecting zbrush to behave like a dedicated 3d application just because you may want to use it for its Edit-Mode Sculpting capabilities rather than it's 2.5D Illustration document, but once the basic document/tool concept clicks in your mind the UI ends up making a lot of sense and becomes easy peasy to work with.Btw, as I'm left-handed, I've never hit "T" by accident. Also, all the shortcuts have been super easy to do as well. And besides, I've never thought about how majority of artists in this industry, which are right-handed feel using ZBrush. My right hand is on the left lower corner of the keyboard for 90% of functions I need.