Transform Palette

From ZBrush Info

Introducing the Transform Palette

The ZBrush Transform menu provides tools for moving, rotating, and scaling 3D objects, as well as powerful facilities for editing object shapes. It also gives you access to ZBrush's special Marker and 3D Copy functions, as well as features for symmetrical modeling.

When you first open the Transform menu, the only active control in the upper two rows of buttons is the Draw Pointer button in the upper-left corner:

This means that dragging in the document window produces new paint strokes or objects using the current tool, stroke, and other program settings.

After you draw something, other transform menu controls may or may not become available, depending on the current combination of settings. In the most typical case, immediately after you add a 3D object such as a sphere or cube, most of the controls become available.

Less typically, when you use certain combinations of tools and stroke types, ZBrush makes available all or some of the Transform tools. For example, if you use the Eraser tool in conjunction with the Drag Rectangle stroke type, you then have access to two Transform functions: Move and Scale. With these, you can change the position and size of the erasure.

Whichever brush and stroke type you use, the way you apply the Transform functions is the same.

Basic Transforms

For information on moving, scaling, or rotating a paint stroke (i.e. while in paint mode, not in 3D Edit mode–see ZBrush Modes), see the page on The Gyro

The Info Sub-menu

Image:Transform Palette Transform-Info-submenu.jpg

The Info sub-menu is a useful utility in ZBrush that shows current transform information, and lets you input numeric settings for precise transforms. To access it, click the Info heading in the Transform menu.

The Info sub-menu shows data for the x, y, and z axes, from top to bottom, relevant to the current transform mode:

When Draw Pointer is active, the Info sub-menu displays the current cursor position in pixols. The Zaxis value becomes higher the farther away the cursor is. That is, negative values indicate closer distances, while positive ones indicate farther distances.

When you're just moving the cursor around the workspace, the z-axis display shows the default cursor position when over the background. But when the cursor is over a drawn surface, the z-axis display shows that surface's position. When drawing with most tools, the default z-axis position is at the rear clipping plane, which puts strokes drawn on the background at a suitable distance away from the "front" of the workspace. When drawing 3D objects, the defaultz-axis position is 0, which places the objects drawn over the background in the center of the workspace depth.

In this mode, you cannot change the Info settings.

• In Move mode, the Info sub-menu displays the position of active object's pivot point. To set a precise position for the object, click a slider and drag horizontally to set it, or click it and enter new data from the keyboard. When using the keyboard, press Enter to input the new data, and press Tab and Shift+Tab to move forward and backward between the fields.
• In Scale mode, Info shows the active object's scaling factors as multipliers (percentage of actual size). For example, if you draw a medium-size sphere, its scaling factors might be 90, 90, and 90. To make it egg-shaped, change the second factor to 140 by clicking a field and dragging horizontally to move the slider, or entering new data from the keyboard. When using the keyboard, press Enter to input the new data, and press Tab and Shift+Tab to move forward and backward between the fields.
• In Rotate mode, Info shows the active object's orientation in degrees. To set a precise orientation for the object, click a field and drag horizontally to move the slider, or enter new data from the keyboard. When using the keyboard, press Enter to input the new data, and press Tab and Shift+Tab to move forward and backward between the fields. Range = -180 to 180.

Changing Object Color and Material

An important aspect of ZBrush is that, whenever any transform mode is active, any change you make to the active color and/or material is applied immediately to the current object. You use the Color menu to change the active color, and the Material menu to change the material. Note that it's possible to assign a fill color or material to an object so it's "protected" from these changes. These menus are covered in greater depth in their own sections of this manual, but we'll provide a brief example here.

In the following illustration, a white sphere (#1) was added, converted to pixols with Snapshot (covered later in this section), and moved, and then the color was changed to orange (#2). It was then converted to pixols and moved again, and the material was changed to Metal Spherical Blend (#3):

Editing 3D Objects

The first icon in the second row of the Transform menu is the Edit Objectß tool. As the stylized button background of vertices and edges indicates, this is really a "3D Edit" button; After activating Edit Object, you can use a special customizable brush to sculpt objects and/or paint them, adding physical detail as well as color wherever you like. You can also move and scale parts of the object using editing functions.

Here's a 3D object that's been sculpted and had some color added to it:

To begin editing an object using the default settings, simply click the Edit Object button or press the t key, and then drag the mouse/tablet cursor over the object surface. As you drag, you'll see the raised-surface effects immediately.

While you're editing, the object remains three dimensional, and you can rotate it to draw on other sides. In fact, you don't even need to switch modes-—simply drag on the background to rotate the object freely. To rotate on the in-out (Z) axis only, press and hold the Shift key, click and hold outside the object, release the Shift key, and then drag the mouse.

You can also move and scale the object as a whole while in 3D edit mode:

• To move the object, hold down the Alt key and drag on the canvas.
• To scale the object, hold down the Alt key, click and hold the mouse, release the Alt key while still holding the mouse button, and drag.

Brush Controls

During editing, a number of controls in the Draw menu affect various aspects of drawing and sculpting:

The most useful are:

Editing Submodes

Editing of 3D objects is accomplished with one of 3 different "submodes"; while the Edit button is on, you can also select the Move, Scale, or Draw buttons to change how drawing will affect your model. We'll present the Move and Scale submodes first, but the real power lies in the Draw submode.

Moving and Scaling Model Vertices in Edit Mode

• Edit-Move Submode (ZBrush 2):
  If you turn on the Move button while Edit mode is active:
  
  then the brush will move vertices under it, so dragging on an object moves the parts of the object underneath the brush; the precise effect is determined by the various settings in the Draw menu.
  The top and bottom areas of a sphere moved in opposite directions in Edit-Move mode:
  

• Edit-Move Submode (ZBrush 3):
  In ZBrush 3, this activates the Transpose tool, and dragging over your mesh will draw an action line. Click here for more information about how to use the transpose too.

• Edit-Scale Submode (ZBrush 2):
  If you turn on the Scale button while Edit mode is active:
  √then dragging on an object scales a part of it whose size is determined by the Draw Size setting, with the center of the scaling determined by where you click before dragging. In the picture of the edited cube, below, two corners were scaled up during editing, and a third corner was scaled down.√A cube’s corners scaled larger and smaller in Edit-Scale mode:
  

• Edit-Scale Submode (ZBrush 3):
  In ZBrush 3, this activates the Transpose tool, and dragging over your mesh will draw an action line. Click here for more information about how to use the transpose too.

• You can turn on Rotate while in Edit mode, but it will have no effect.

• Edit-Rotate Submode (ZBrush 3):
  In ZBrush 3, this activates the Transpose tool, and dragging over your mesh will draw an action line. Click here for more information about how to use the transpose too.

Drawing in Edit Mode

If you turn on the Draw button while Edit mode is active:

then the following controls in the Brush Palette take effect:

The various buttons produce different types of sculpting effects, while the Edit Curve can be used to precisely control the shape of the brush (see "Brush Shape", below.) To see how these brushes work, hold down the Control key while hovering the mouse over them, and also experiment on your own.

Brush Shape

By default, ZBrush uses a pointed brush to draw on objects in Edit Object mode. You can see a representation of this brush by looking at the graph in the Modifiers sub-menu. The graph shows a cross-section of the top-left corner of the brush. In other words, the left side of the graph shows the outer edge of the brush, and the right side shows the center. Thus, by default, the reshaping caused by painting in Edit Object mode is strongest at the center of the brush.

Default brush profile:

You can reshape the brush in an infinity of ways. For example:

Using such a shape can allow you to produce very specific shapes with little work. The above brush, when applied to the surface of a sphere using a single click in Transform:StdDot mode, results in:

Symmetry Controls

Using symmetry, you can modify two or more areas of an object the same way; the software makes additional copies of any edits you apply. Moreover, you can mirror symmetrical edits, so that they go in opposite directions, or not, so they go in the same direction. Radial symmetry is a powerful way to make multiple edits simultaneously, all the way around an object's perimeter.

Z-axis radial symmetry with Mirror on (Middle) and Mirror off (right):

Mirror is available only when X, Y, and/or Z symmetry is on. Default = on.

6 points radial-symmetry was used while transforming a 3D sphere into a flower:

Modifiers

The Transform menu's Modifiers sub-menu offers switches for editing using specific axes and combinations of axes, as well as controls for modifying the shape of the brush used in Edit Object mode.

The first row of buttons in the Modifiers sub-menu lets you specify any combination of the three axes for deformation using the Edit Object brush. In the previous illustration, a cube was edited using the three different single-axis modes as well as all three combined. Using the X axis, the deformation occurred from left to right. Using the Y axis, the deformation occurred along the vertical axis. Using the Z axis, the deformation took place on the cube's in-out axis. And using the XYZ setting, the cube was indented perpendicular to its surface.

Other Transform Controls

This section covers additional controls in the Transform menu that aren't directly related to editing 3D objects.

Snapshot

While using the Transform tools, it's useful to be able to convert the visible part of a 3D object into pixols, thus placing it into the drawing, and then go on and manipulate the original 3D object some more. To convert a geometric object into pixols, first apply any transforms and/or editing, position it where you want it, and then use the Snapshot tool. The easiest way to do this is by positioning the object in the desired location, and typing Ctrl+S.

For example, by combining Move, Scale, and Snapshot with a simple cylinder, you can make a geometric composition like the illustration below. Snapshot was used to copy the cylinder onto the canvas after each transform:

Note that, when an object is copied, the copy is no longer an independent 3D object; it simply becomes part of the drawing. Only one 3D object at a time can exist as a transformable entity in ZBrush.

Markers

Markers are used to remember the position and other properties of objects, and to restore those objects at a later time. See Markers for further details.

Mark Object Position: Places a marker for the currently active object.

Display Options

Display options control various aspects of how objects are displayed onscreen.

{{Control|Quick 3D Edit|

When a 3D object is in Edit mode, it is shown in preview mode for faster interaction. When this is active, the model will not be subdivision-smoothed each time the mouse is released after an edit action.

{{Control|Pf| (Polyframe)

When Quick 3D Edit is active, the Polyframe mode becomes available. This viewing mode is a shaded display of the model with the wireframe drawn onto the surface.

Dots Display: Displays wireframe of 3D object when moved.

Other Controls

Local Transform: Determines how resize and rotate functions are performed while editing 3D tools. By default, this button is un-pressed and resize or rotate actions using the Alt/Option key while in edit mode are centered upon the object’s true center. Pressing this button causes these actions to be centered upon the most recent editing point. This is useful when editing a small portion of a very large object.

3D Copy

In ZBrush, you can paint directly on 3D objects, but the resolution of the texture is dependent on the mesh of the object. To show fine details, you must use a very high resolution mesh or a texture map. Using a texture map is preferable, since a high resolution mesh uses many more resources. The best solution is to use a high resolution texture map with a low resolution mesh. To produce the very highest quality details, use the 3D copy tool.

The fundamental action of the tool is to copy the texture on the canvas to an object in front of it. The 3D copy does all the distortion of the texture needed, based on the UV coordinates of the texture and the object.

The sphere is moved over the star, and 3D copy is pressed.

The texture is generated and is automatically distorted to map correctly to the sphere. It will show up in the Texture menu.

3D Copy Controls:

If not pressed, colors are transferred to all surfaces equally, regardless of orientation.