Stroke
From ZBrush Info
Several enhancements have been made to ZBrush’s Stroke features. Most of them are related to the creation of masks, the Clip brushes and hiding or unhiding polygons.
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Moving the Stroke while drawing it
If you need to move your stroke while drawing it, simply hold the spacebar without releasing the mouse button (or tip of your pen tablet). The cursor will change to a four axis cross, letting you know that you are now in move mode. Move your cursor to move your stroke across the screen, parallel to the canvas.
When releasing the spacebar, ZBrush will allow you to continue the active brush stroke.
Inverting the content of a stroke
While drawing a brush stroke, hold the ALT key. ZBrush will switch to the function’s opposite operation:
On the left, adding a Mask. On the right, holding the Alt key to partially remove a Mask.
- If you were drawing a mask, holding the ALT key will erase the mask at the location of the stroke.
- If you were drawing a selection to hide all the polygons except the content of the stroke, holding the ALT key will hide all the polygons inside the stroke.
- If you were using a clip brush, holding the ALT key will invert the direction of the pushed polygons. Please refer to the Clip Brush section of this documentation for more information about these brushes.
Lasso and Marquee in symmetry
When using any stroke, if the current Tool has symmetry activated, the stroke will be applied symmetrically. This includes the options for curves, circles and squares. Symmetry will affect mask creation, the clip brushes and hiding/showing polygons.
When masking is combined with radial symmetry it’s easy to create a hex screw.
Circle, Rectangle, Curve and Lasso Strokes
In previous versions, ZBrush already had the Rectangle and Lasso strokes for masking and hiding/showing polygons. ZBrush 4 now adds Circle and Curve strokes.
The Lasso and Rectangle strokes remain the same, except that they can now use two new options described below.
Circle Stroke
The Circle stroke creates an ellipse by default when it is drawn on the canvas.
It can be combined with the Square and Circle stroke options (see below).
Square Stroke
The Square stroke creates a rectangle by default when it is drawn on the canvas. This stroke was the one used in previous versions of ZBrush for marquee selections and masks.
It can be combined with the Square and Circle stroke options (see below).
Curve Stroke
The Curve Stroke creates by a straight line by default, combined with a shadow on one side. The side that the shadow is on is the side on which the operation will take place.
Lasso Stroke
The Lasso stroke creates a closed curve by default when it is drawn on the canvas. This stroke was the one used in previous versions of ZBrush for lasso selections and masks.
Square option
When enabled, the Square option forces the creation of a perfect circle or a perfect square.
This option is available only with the Circle and Square strokes..
Center option
When enabled, the Center option will cause your stroke to be drawn outward from the stroke origin and centered on that point.
This option is available only with the Circle and Square strokes.
Center cross in Circle and Square stroke
When drawing a Circle or Square stroke, a small cross (+) is displayed in the center of the stroke. This small cross is a visual indicator that is helpful when using the Clip brushes as the result of the operation be different depending on whether the cross overlaps the model or is outside of it.
Please refer to the Clip Brush section of this documentation for more information about the Clip brushes and the cross position.
Roll distance
The Roll option located in the Stroke Palette has a new option: the Roll Distance slider. Modify it to stretch your alpha along the rolled stroke. High values mean your alpha will be highly stretched.
The same stroke with the same alpha. From top to bottom: no roll option, roll at 0.5, at 1 and at 2
The Waves brushes and the Rope brush use this new Roll Distance option, combined with different Alphas.
