Introduction to the ZBrush Interface
From ZBrush Info
The key to getting the most out of ZBrush is to be able to get around the interface quickly and easily. ZBrush 2 has introduced many enhancements to be more intuitive and faster than ever to use. It is well worth taking the time to explore this chapter before proceeding to the other tutorials.
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ZBrush Modes
The ZBrush2 Window
In its standard configuration, the ZBrush window is mostly taken up by the canvas. This area is where you will do your painting and modeling. Immediately below the canvas is the ZScript area, where ZScripts load unless they are designed to embed their components within the interface. Completely surrounding the canvas and ZScript window is the Shelf. This provides a handy space to keep the most commonly used interface items. The Palette (Menu) List near the top of the window provides ZBrush's menus, and Trays on either side of the window can be used to dock the menus. The Title Bar at the top of the window provides information and a few miscellaneous controls.
- To hide the Shelf, press the Tab key on your keyboard. Pressing the Tab key again will bring it back.
By hiding the Shelf, you are able to reclaim almost the entire interface for your canvas, providing a great amount of room to work in. The Shelf, like much of the rest of the interface, can be customized to suit your needs. We will deal with this in detail in a later section.
Palette Basics
Beneath the title bar, there is a row of words that spans the top of the screen. This is the Palette List. All of ZBrush’s functions are contained within palettes. Each palette contains a group of related functions. Within the palette, these functions are further broken down into groups in order to help make it easier to locate the particular control that you need.
- Move your pointer over one of the palette names to open the palette.
- Move your pointer off of the palette to close it.
Palettes only remain open as long as you keep the pointer over them. In most cases clicking on an element within the palette will not close the palette. This allows you to change several settings without having to constantly pull the palette down again. In a few special cases, clicking a control may close the palette. - Move your cursor over any interface item and watch the area beneath the palette list.
This provides immediate online help about the interface item.
Palette Controls
- Buttons are shown as a light gray raised object. Pressing a button causes something to happen.
- Switches are interface items that can be turned on and off. When off, the switch is shown as dark gray. When on, it is orange.
- Sliders allow you to set a ranged value. They show the current setting as a number next to the slider’s title, and also show where it fits within the range by a small indicator at the bottom of the slider. The minimum value is to the left, and the maximum value is to the right.
- In the Render palette, click in the 3D Shading slider and drag to the left to set a value of 50. The slider value will update as you move the slider.
- You can also set a slider value without dragging simply by clicking in it and then typing the value that you want. Click the 3D Shading slider and type 100.
Subpalettes
In order to further help with organization, many palettes contain menus, also known as sub-palettes. These menus contain controls that are all related to a specific task within the palette’s more generalized categorization.
- In the Render palette, click the word “Antialiasing”.
Clicking on a menu’s name will expand or collapse it.
- Open all of the menus within the Render palette. Move the pointer into any blank space within the palette. When it changes to up-and-down arrows, click and drag up.
Palettes can sometimes get to be so long that they go off the bottom of the screen. By dragging within empty space in the palette, you can slide its contents to reveal the hidden items.
The Title Bar
The area between the palette list and the top part of the Shelf is called the Title Bar (or Note Bar). This area is meant to provide helpful feedback while you work.
In most cases, the title bar will show you the name of the current interface item. Other times, it will provide helpful suggestions for what to do next. Also, when ZBrush is performing a complex action such as a best-quality render, the title bar will provide several kinds of feedback at once. In the example shown above, it informs us of the type of action being performed, how long it has spent on that action already, how long it estimates will be required to complete the action, and finally an orange bar showing a graphical representation of its progress.
Trays (Palette Docking)
ZBrush provides many ways to make your workflow easier. When working with palettes, you will normally find that they are more convenient as pull-down menus. However, there will also be times when you need to repeatedly return to a particular palette. For example, if you are sculpting a model, you might find that you return to the Tool palette frequently. ZBrush accommodates this need by providing Trays on the left and right sides of the interface. These trays are used to keep palettes open continuously.
- To open a tray, click along its outside edge. To help you find the right spot, there is a pair of arrows at the vertical center of the interface.
Clicking this separator will expand the tray. In the default configuration, both trays are empty. This allows you to use them however you see fit. - To move a palette to the tray, open it and look in the upper left corner. Click on the orange circular icon.
This orange icon is called the palette’s handle. Clicking on it moves the palette to the top of the open tray. The palette will now stay open while you continue to work on the canvas. - To collapse a tray, click its separator bar.
Doing this leaves the palette in the tray. It will still be waiting for you if you expand the tray again. - To remove a palette from the tray, click its handle.
You can also use the handle to move a palette from one location to another within the tray.
Some general notes about trays:
- Each palette has a preferred tray. If neither tray is open, clicking on the handle will open the preferred tray and move the palette there automatically. If both trays are open, the palette will automatically go to the top of its preferred tray.
- You can also drag the handle to move the palette where you want it. This is handy when you have both trays open and want to put the palette in its non-preferred tray, or if you wish it to be below other palettes that are already in the tray.
- When a palette is in a tray, its appearance changes slightly. Its icon appears to the left of the palette’s name and the handle moves to the right. Next to the handle, there is also now a small icon with a triangle in it. Clicking the icon will toggle between the palette’s basic and advanced states. If you would like to simplify the palette so that only its most basic features are available, click this icon.
- A palette that is in the tray can be expanded and collapsed by clicking on its title. This conserves room when several palettes are in a tray.
- When several palettes are in a tray, it is not uncommon for them to scroll off of the screen. To bring items back into view, simply click in any empty space within the palette and drag up or down.
- A palette can only exist in one place at a time. If you have a palette in the tray, you can still access it as a pull-down menu from the palette list. If you do this, it will temporarily disappear from the tray and will reappear once its pull-down counterpart closes.
Tools and Other Inventory Lists
ZBrush uses Inventories to allow selection of objects such as tools, texture maps, etc. Below, we'll give a quick example of how inventory lists work using the Tool inventory.
- In the Tool palette, click the large thumbnail.
- In the popup menu, select the Sphere3D.
We have now changed the active tool from the Simple Brush to the Sphere3D.
Several palettes use this thumbnail system to select things. For your convenience, their large thumbnails are also located on the left side of the shelf.
Once an item has been selected the first time using the large thumbnail, a small thumbnail of it is added to the palette next to the large thumbnail. These small thumbnails provide shortcuts to recently used items. You can reselect that item by clicking on its small thumbnail rather than going through the popup menu. The active item will always be highlighted with a teal background and a small triangle in its lower right corner.
Double-clicking on a small thumbnail will allow you to replace it with a different item from the popup menu. As more items are selected, more small thumbnails will appear. To restore the palette to its starting number of small thumbnails, click the R button just above all the thumbnails to the right.
Curves
ZBrush graphs, also known as curves, provide a visual way to modify a range of values. Due to their versatility, curves are found throughout the ZBrush interface.
A curve in ZBrush is simply a graph showing a range of values. They can be found in nearly every part of the ZBrush interface: material modifiers, defining the falloff of the sculpting tool, defining how fog or depth cue acts throughout a scene, etc.
Curve Quick Reference
The diagram below gives a quick visual reference as to what different types of clicks and drags do when using curves. The step-by-step tutorial below will take you through these various types of manipulations.
Curve Tutorial
In this tutorial, we’ll work with one of the curves that has been introduced in ZBrush 2: the Alpha Adjust Curve. As you will see, this curve makes it possible to modify the current alpha and with it, your paint brush -- “on the fly.”
- Begin by reinitializing ZBrush. (Preferences:Init ZBrush)
- For convenience, place the Alpha palette in either tray.
We’ll be adjusting the curve constantly while working through this tutorial, so it will be easiest to keep it open rather than having to pull it down again each time.
- Click where it says Alpha Adjust.
In order to conserve screen real estate, curves are normally displayed in a compressed state. Clicking on the curve opens it for editing, simultaneously closing any other curve that might already have been open elsewhere in the interface. Only one curve can be open at a time.
So that we can better see the results of our edits, we’ll draw an example of the alpha on the canvas. Use the thumbnails on the left shelf to work faster:
- Select the Simple Brush.
- Select the DragRectangle stroke type.
- Select the Toy Plastic Material.
- Press Ctrl+F to fill the canvas with the current material and color.
- Select another color (such as blue).
- Also set the Z Intensity (on the top shelf) to 100.
- Drag a large stroke on the canvas.
- Press W to activate the Move gyro, then position the stroke so that it’s pretty well centered on the canvas.
ZBrush uses 16 bit grayscales, which give a far greater range of values than the standard 0-255 range of an 8 bit image. When exporting a displacement map, it is crucial to use the TIFF format, which also supports the 16 bit range.
While the gyro is active, our changes to the Alpha Adjust Curve will also update the example on the canvas. This is an important principle of the gyro: it allows you to make changes to many of the components that were used to draw the most recent stroke.
Now we’ll go back to paying attention to the curve.
First, let’s clarify what an alpha is. An alpha is simply a grayscale image. More precisely, an alpha is an array of pixels, each ranging somewhere between white and black.
The Alpha Adjust Curve provides a way to interact with those values, which in turn changes the alpha. The horizontal portion of the curve represents the current grayscale values of the image, with black on the left and white on the right. The vertical portion determines how those values are output, with black at the bottom and white at the top.
At this point, the curve simply shows a straight line from the lower left corner to the upper right. That means that any alpha values that are black will be output as black (lower left) and any values that are white will be output as white (upper right). Anything falling in between is also output exactly true to the alpha. Let’s put it to work.
Any point on a curve can be moved. Right now, the curve is made up of only two points. Since they are the end points, they can only be moved vertically.
- Move the lower left point to the upper left by clicking on it and dragging. Move the upper right point to the lower right.
What this did is tell ZBrush to output black (left side) as white (top) and white (right side) as black (bottom). In effect, the curve has been reversed, and the current alpha has been modified along with it. You can see the changes both in the alpha large thumbnail and on the canvas.
- Click the Reset button to restore the alpha to its original state.
- Click any point along the line between the two existing points.
This adds a new point to the curve. The yellow circle surrounding it represents the point’s area of influence on the curve.
- Drag the new point around to see how the curve is adjusted by it, then finish with something like the example below.
As you move the point, watch how it affects the alpha and what you’ve drawn on the canvas.
- Now add another point, moving it above and to the left of the last one.
If you move the point too far to the left, you’ll notice that the curve can end up shooting way up off the top of the graph. That’s due to the point’s radius.
- To tighten the point, click on the circle surrounding it. When it turns orange, drag to resize the circle.
Any point can be modified at any time. Simply click on it to make it the active point, and then adjust its position or radius.
- Now drag the point off the curve and without releasing the mouse back on again.
When the point comes back into view, it will be a sharp angle instead of a soft curve. Radius no longer applies, so the circle won’t be present. You’ll also notice that any points adjacent to it become “split.” The line coming out will be a sharp point on the side leading toward the angular point, and the line going out the other side will still be curved. To make a point soft again, simply drag it off the curve and back on.
- Now click on the point to make sure it’s active, then click on it again.
This zooms in on the point, allowing you to make fine adjustments. To return to a normal view of the entire curve, move your mouse anywhere off the graph.
- Remove the sharp point by dragging it off the graph and releasing the mouse.
You’ll now be left with the three point curve. Go ahead and play around with the curve a little bit, adding points and moving them around. Watch how it affects the alpha and the canvas. Make sure that you have a few of them before you move on to the next step.
- Immediately beneath the curve is a slider called Focal Shift. Drag it to the left and right.
When you move the slider, watch what happens to the curve. The points on the curve will shift horizontally, but not vertically. This compresses the curve toward one side or the other. The purpose of this slider is to make it easy to quickly modify the curve without the need to move points around. Even with the simplest possible curve (the straight line that we started with), the focal shift can dramatically alter the alpha.
- Adjust the Noise slider to .25
This slider affects the curve without actually changing any points. At this low value, you can see on the canvas how the noise was added, but the overall shape of the alpha remains essentially the same.
- Click Undo a few times.
As you can see, Undo affects all edits made to the curve. This includes changes to the Focal Shift slider, and also the Noise slider. Redo behaves the same way.
The remaining controls are for inventory.
You can save a graph to disk for use in another project or for sharing with other users. I say “graph” here because any graph can be loaded into any curve, anywhere within the ZBrush interface. If you create one that you really like, save it for later. Feel free to experiment, also, with copying graphs and pasting them into other places. One area in which this is extremely useful is when you’re working with materials. The Material palette has many curves, and sometimes it is useful to place the same graph into several of them.
- To close the curve, click the Close button at the bottom.
This helps keep the interface from becoming cluttered. Of course, the curve would also close automatically if you opened one somewhere else.
- Now switch to alpha 19.
Notice how the new alpha is immediately modified by the Alpha Adjust Curve. That curve affects the current alpha, regardless of which one is selected. Also, if you look at the popup menu again, you will see that the previous alpha now looks exactly like it did when we started. By default, modifying the Alpha Adjust curve does not permanently change any apha.
- To convert the modified curve to a permanent alpha, click the Make Modified Alpha button.
Two things will happen. First, a new alpha will appear at the end of the thumbnails. It is automatically selected. The original alpha #19 is now shown in the thumbnail list in its unmodified state, and is no longer selected. This new alpha will not remain if you initialize or restart ZBrush. If you want to save it for another session, use the Export button at the top of the Alpha palette. Second, the new alpha is also modified by the same Alpha Adjust settings!
- Open the Alpha Adjust curve again and click Reset.
This restores the newly-created alpha to exactly what you saw before you clicked the Make Modified Alpha button.
