Strokes

From ZBrush Info

While sculpting polymeshes in 3D you can use 6 different types of strokes: Dots, DragRect, Freehand, Colorized Spray, Spray and DragDot. These can be used with the alpha sculpting feature.

Using DragDot

A DragDot stroke allows you to drag your brush around, to place your sculpting or painting at a precise point. Only the area under the mouse when the drag ends is affected.

That's very useful for a case where you might want to have a company logo or some other bit of text stamped onto the model. For our example, though, we're going to get a bit more creative so that your imagination might be sparked to try even more interesting things.

We'll need these settings:

• Brush:Std selected.
• Alpha:Brush 09 (ring-shaped alpha) selected.
• Stroke:DragDot selected.
• Transform:Z on, to activate Z symmetry
• Transform:(R) on, to activate radial symmetry.
• Transform:RadialCount = 8.
• Draw:Z Intensity = 80.
• Draw:Draw Size = 64.

Now:

1. Click Tool:Layer:New to create a layer that we'll edit on.
2. Use Tool:Layer:Rename and change the layer's name to DragDotLayer.
3. Click on the column and drag your stroke down to a point near the bottom as shown below.

Draw again to get this:

As you can see, this stroke allows us to very easily create an intricate pattern with only a simple alpha. What's especially nice about this stroke is how precise it is. You can place your alpha instance(s) in exactly the desired position.

Using Dots

This stroke draws a great many instances of the alpha very close together so that they blend into a single line. The closeness of each alpha to its neighboring instances is determined by how quickly you move the mouse. A slow stroke will create a uniform line (especially when lazy mouse mode is active), while fast movement will create a blotchy effect that is useful for some organic work.

For this example, we're going to use the stroke to add some rings around the column, separating it into sections.

Set:

• Brush:Std selected.
• Alpha:Brush 12 (ring-shaped alpha) selected.
• Stroke:Dots selected.
• Transform:Z on, to activate Z symmetry
• Transform:(R) on, to activate radial symmetry.
• Transform:RadialCount = 100.
• Draw:Z Intensity = 20.
• Draw:Draw Size = 5.

After everything is set up, just:

1. Create a new layer by pressing Tool:Layer:New.
2. Rename it by pressing Tool:Layer:Rename, call it DotsLayer.
3. Draw some narrow rings around the column as shown in the following figure.

Keeping the same settings as above, set:

• Draw:Z Intensity = 15.
• Draw:Draw Size = 10.

Add a few more rings as shown in below. Don't be afraid to keep going over the same area to build up additional width or depth.

Now let's sculpt a bit of a design on the very top of the column.

Otherwise keeping the same settings as above, set:

• Alpha:Brush 01 (ring-shaped alpha) selected.
• Transform:RadialCount = 6.
• Draw:Z Intensity = 35.
• Draw:Draw Size = 20.

Now just three strokes will add the sculpting shown below.

Using DragRect

The Drag Rectangle stroke draws a single instance of the alpha, which may be rotated while dragging the stroke. The alpha is drawn with its center point being where the stroke begins. As you move the mouse away from the starting point, the alpha becomes larger. As you move the mouse around the starting point, the alpha is rotated.

Set up for drawing with:

• Brush:Std selected.
• Alpha:Brush 29 (three stacked arrows) selected.
• Stroke:DragRect selected.
• Transform:Z on, to activate Z symmetry
• Transform:(R) on, to activate radial symmetry.
• Transform:RadialCount = 6.
• Draw:Z Intensity = 50.
• Draw:Draw Size is irrelevant; the size is determined by your mouse movement.

1. Create a new layer by pressing Tool:Layer:New.
2. Rename it to DragRectLayer by pressing Tool:Layer:Rename.
3. Now draw a stroke that begins a little below the upper set of rings. Drag straight down until the arrows almost touch those that are also being drawn to the left and right. When the size is right, move the pointer left or right a bit to ensure that the arrows point straight down along the shaft of the column, and release the mouse. The result will be as shown in the next figure.

1. Repeat this just above the next set of rings down. Drag your stroke upwards to point the arrows toward the top of the column.

As you can see, the DragRect stroke type is perfect for stamping any sort of design onto the model. Another use would be with a speckled alpha to draw pores on a person's skin. Because you control the size and orientation of the alpha with every stroke, you can keep the stamps from repeating, thus preserving a naturally organic appearance.

Using Freehand

The Freehand stroke type is very similar to Dots, but gives you precise control over how far apart the instances of the alpha will be stamped.

Set:

• Brush:Std selected.
• Alpha:Brush 18 (ring-shaped alpha) selected.
• Stroke:Freehand selected.
• Transform:Z on, to activate Z symmetry
• Transform:(R) on, to activate radial symmetry.
• Transform:RadialCount = 6.
• Draw:Z Intensity = 60.
• Draw:Draw Size = 20.
• Stroke:Spacing = 1, to cause individual applications of alphas to be mostly overlapped. (Higher values would result in less overlap.)
• Stroke:Lazy Mouse selected, to result in smoother lines as you draw.

1. Create a new layer by pressing Tool:Layer:New.
2. Rename it to FreehandLayer by pressing Tool:Layer:Rename.
3. Now draw a single line down the side of the column. It may help to rotate the model onto its side before doing this.

The Freehand stroke type is remarkably useful any time you want to draw lines of repeated detail. You could trace a line of rivets along the seams in an aircraft's panels, create cute little swirls of dots, etc.

Using Spray and Colorized Spray

These two stroke types splatter the model with semi-random copies of the alpha. There are settings to determine how far apart the alpha instances can be, how much they fluctuate in scale, how densely the instances are drawn (just a few scattered, or a lot), and how color is affected. The difference between the two stroke types is specifically in how each deals with color. Spray will cause the value of the currently selected color to fluctuate. Colorized Spray will affect its hue. Since we're strictly sculpting in this tutorial, the color modifications don't play a role and so we could use either stroke with exactly the same results. We'll just use Spray.

Set:

• Brush:Std selected.
• Alpha:Brush 04 (like a puff of cotton) selected.
• Stroke:Spray selected.
• Transform:Z off.
• Transform:(R) off.
• Transform:RadialCount = 6.
• Draw:Z Intensity = 30.
• Draw:Draw Size = 20.
• Draw:Zsub = selected.

1. Create a new layer by pressing Tool:Layer:New.
2. Rename it to SprayLayer by pressing Tool:Layer:Rename.
3. Now simply draw some damaged spots on the column.

The Spray strokes are a very powerful way to quickly create randomized organic detail. Don't forget that while we've used them strictly in a modeling capacity in this tutorial, they also work quite well with polypainting. That's where you'll really put the color features of these stroke types to good use.