ZBrushCentral

Dynamic button that was added to draw size slider, how to remove it?

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Any way to remove that “dynamic” button from the draw size slider? Why isn’t that button seperate like all the others in the first place?

In the past I used a hotkey for that draw size slider so that it popped up on the screen every time I wanted to quickly change brush size. I used hotkey, click + drag and done. But not anymore. Now I can accidentally click the new and totally pointless “dynamic” clickable text that was implemented into the slider turning that feature on when I don’t want to, or not be able to change draw size with one click because again, I am accidentally clicking the “dynamic” text rather than slider.

I am taking a wild guess that it is yet another unchangeable thing that will frustrate me constantly that I can add to rather long list of such “features”. I am changing size of brush constantly, like every ten seconds. Expecting me to look, aim and double check the slider every few seconds is kinda a big deal. That is not a trivial problem.

Now it looks like I have no other option but use the adjust plugin that I strongly dislike.

#2

Do you use the s key for quickly accessing the draw size slider? If you do the slider should appear directly at the position of your cursor giving you little to no chance at all to accidentally hitting the dynamic button.

#3

Yes I do use S key, and yes I often did hit the “dynamic” text that way because I like to have my max brush setting at 256 so I used whole slider. The workaraound I found for that is to use big maximum brush size setting in preferences so that I basicly will never have the need to go to the far right of the slider. So as long as I set the slider to 768 making it unlikely that Ill ever get near the “dynamic” text.

Either way it is weird that it was implemented that way rather than seperate button that could be simply hotkeyed. Things that get often used in fraction of second should not require pixel perfect precision and user attention. I am getting tired of these constant flow stoppers that keep showing up like shift+alt+click-drag is sharpen which I use alot, but at the same time shift+alt+click-tap is frame. Stuff like shift/ctrl brushes popups that I can’t seem to be able to turn off because apparently I have to be reminded what those buttons do for next decade every time I launch Zbrush. Each new version seem not only to not fix these accidental workflow interruptors, but adds new ones.

#4

Hello Piotr

What features are you referring to here?

shift+alt+click-drag is sharpen which I use alot, but at the same time shift+alt+click-tap is frame

#5

Well since you asked here is a quick list of stuff that causes alot of frustration because of how often it interrupts work. Let me start with the two I mentioned already:

-no option to disable beginners tooltips when choosing smooth/clip brushes and so on.

-sharpen shortcut being the same as frame aka fit mesh to view ( While we are at it overall lack of customizeable mouse/tablet inputs).

-sharpen and smooth brush being the same brush which means they use same settings. However I want very weak intensity for sharpen but very strong for smooth.

-lack of sharpen radius settings means I constantly have to drop a couple of levels below to sharpen big details rather than create pointless noise. It is cool that there is multires sculpting but there is serious need for proper sharpen/strength brush with radius to control what detail is affected.

-noise maker while useful and being a good addition unfortunatelly forced the removal of the old noise. The old noise had one crucial feature that the noise maker doesn’t have and that is changing noise size on the run based on the brush size. Noise maker can’t do that. So if I want something remotely organic looking then I have to setup my noise in noise maker, use brush, open noise maker again change size, use brush, open noise maker set size… you get the idea. Noise repetition is the ultimate realism killer.
Either bring back optional old noise for noise brush with “size by brush” option or at the very least add size modifier outside of the noisemaker window if possible so that I don’t have to constantly open it.

-lack of seperate folder paths for different file types. I often want to save noise/brush settings to disk and I often save new files as I don’t like to overwrite. So I constantly have to navigate folders.

-Eye icon in subtool panel when using it to hide all subtools should not affect the active subtool. It should flag all other subtools as hidden but the active one should still have visibility icon turned on. Problem is I often when dealing with huge number of subtools when I want to edit few of them belonging to same area, lets say hand + glove + watch etc, I choose my subtool I want to sculpt, click on eye icon to hide everything and manually turn visibility on for few subtools of interest. The moment I switch subtools, for example I was sculpting hand and I switch to watch (I use macro for that) the hand suddenly disappears because it had visibility flag off even though it was vissible a moment ago because it was active subtool. Now I know technicaly that is user error because after hiding everything I should have click on the active subtool name to turn on visibility icon and then choose visibility for other subtools but I don’t see a reason why active subtool is marked as hidden as default when hiding everything using that eye icon. I hope that made sense. Might seem silly untill you have to suddenly find one subtool out of 100 on the list with absolutely zero options for that outside of scrolling through them.

-no option to disable right click pivot when using local transformations. I mentioned it in the past. Two styles of navigation exist. Left click one that forces you to use pen tip outside of your model borders (hence the grey lines near the edges of canvas, btw option to hide those please) and that makes it rather cumbersome, it requires aiming outside of the model and alot of attention for such basic thing as rotating camera.The other one is right click navigation aka, use right click anywhere you want to rotate camera. Cool, except that the same right click sets new pivot for camera if I use it . So something that should use zero user precision and thought now just like left click style, requires me to aim in the right place to rotate, because if I won’t aim with cursor I’ll end up with crazy pivot in some weird spot that will make my camera go crazy and force me to readjust it, yet again. It is actually even worse than that, because I can right click to pivot only on the active subtool, so basicly the whole thing is pointless.I want to be able to rotate camera with right click fast without thinking/aiming/analyzing which subtool is active and which one is not. To be able to do that option to disable “right click pivot with local transformations” is needed. I already am setting up local pivot using left click, I just want to press right click and rotate without worrying my camera can go crazy.

-no global backface mask. Basicly back face mask is needed whenever I am editing thin object, because without it backside will get messed up. The problem is that this setting is local per brush, so if I want to edit lets say a thin collar on the shirt I now have to enable backface mask for every single brush I will use. If I forget on just one then Ill end up destroying back side of such object and I may notice it hours later. So global “backface mask” for brushes is needed. While we are at it, global multiplier for Z intesity would also be nice because sometimes I need alot weaker intesity on all brushes when finalizing model.

-entire control scheme with keyboard, hold alt to pan, tap alt to zoom etc. I often get the wrong result with such poor hotkeys setup that is unchangable. Basicly alot of problems would be solved with 100% customizeable mouse/tablet/keyboard inputs. I remember even some new user PMed me because of problems with camera. All of that clicking stuff for various tools/camera should be customizeable. Id for example could disable any framing outside of pressing dedicated shortcut that I already have set up for it.

-scale using transpose is way to weak. So if I create a cube and appent it I have to zoom really, really close in order to be able to scale it down with a single drag. Why the scaling is weak when object is framed but strong when I am really zoomed in is still a mistery to me.

-transpose, no, just no. Proper handles please.

-bugs like wrong color being displayed in color picker or alpha maps suddenly disappearing from my shift+qwertasdf1235 hotkeys. That weird window lines on the right and bottom window borders sometimes appearing after switching fullscreen apps (or was it minimising, don’t remember).

Those are just things that happen often. If id get to list everything that is frustrating id write whole night. Lightbox at launch turned on every time I save config, ton of options not saved in preferences like AA sharpness (aa is way to blury even with 100), deep shadows (I don’t like deep shadows, but there is no option to save them in preferences nor to be able to turn them off using script, at least I failed to do that even though I already am forced to have launch scripts for few settings). Bpr shadows from backlight overwriting front light, rendering engine without specular maps etc.

#6

I never knew this…
Thank you!

I would also like to remove the dynamic button.
And some other things

#7

Have you read the documentation fully? Some of what you want, it does already. I’d like a more standardized sizer for the 3 axis though. Axis plug in helps tons. While in transpose move, alt+LMB drag on object to move, don’t need the transpose line. Hide sidebars. You have both document AND ‘object zooms’. ZBrush is awesome. Show all eliminates scrolling through the list.

#8

I went through starting guides and online documentation on more than one ocasion, I try to not ask questions before trying to find answer first. Let me comment on those points you made, as you have seem to miss the point quite a few times.

  • “While in transpose move, alt+LMB drag on object to move, don’t need the transpose line.” - I knew that already, thanks. That has nothing to with the fact that I still find transpose bad.

  • “Hide sidebars” - If you know exact location how to hide the gray square on my canvas that is used for left mouse navigation please point out where that is. I tried searching for it both in online docs and on the internets, I also went on manual hunt inside Zbrush, could not find anything to disable it.

  • “You have both document AND ‘object zooms’” -not a single point I made was about document zoom so again, don’t know where it is coming from. If it relates to my point about camera control problems and you think it is fine then go try this. Press alt + left click to pan camera aka “move”, realease click. Everything is fine right? Now try the same but release alt before releasing click. Oh snap, model is resised and in wrong place on screen. If you use keyboard franticly that little problem can happen alot. Know a way to modify hotkeys for camera? Please point me in the right direction then.

  • “Show all eliminates scrolling through the list” - You mean List all? Yes I know about it. That is just different way to display subtools trying to fix the problem that occured. Scroll, list, same thing. Does not prevent it from happening in the first place.I mean the accidental hiding of the active object because by default when hiding everything the active vissible object is flagged as hiden, even though at the moment of such action it is not, thus making me forget to reflag it vissible again. You know, brain sees something on the screen that software claims is not, that kind of thing.

#9

@gabo1991, get rid of the ‘dynamic’ button in the ‘s’ menu, it’s rather annoying when you accidentally keep on clicking it ALL the time.

i use the ‘s’ menu alot since my ring finger practically rests on it, but this is stopping my workflow more than i wouldve wanted it to.

#10

Hey pabgo

have you tried turning up your max brush size so you tend not to get near the end of the Draw Size slider. I also use the ‘s’ myself so I know what you are encountering. You can turn up the Draw Size by changing the setting in Preferences>Draw.

Let me know if this helps.

Paul