hey all,
i need to edit a model/tool’s edges in great detail and i need to do it perpendicularly to my point of view
but naturally my hand/cursor often slips outside of the model’s boundaries and i rotate it unwillingly
is it possible to lock/disable rotation completely until i finish editing the edges this way?
thanks
I don’t believe that you can stop rotation altogether. However, if you hold Shift while rotating it will snap the model to the nearest axis.
Also, a little known trick is that you can use Transform >> Modifiers to prevent ZBrush from editing in certain directions. In this way, it doesn’t matter if your angle isn’t exact, edits can’t go in unwanted directions.
chmm, no, editing direction restrictions won’t help me much because my problem is not that i accidentally edit in the wrong direction but that after accidental rotation i can’t edit since i loose my original point of view
so there isn’t any way to disable rotation then, too bad
strange that noone has ever brought this up though, i would think it’s quite necessary and easy to add a button
but anyway, im very happy with pixologic overall so i can’t complain, i’ll just have to live with accidental rotation
omg so close and yet so far! 
i found a rotation speed setting in the preferences! 
but it doesn’t go down to 0 can’t believe this
at the lowest setting though, it’s much more comfortable to work with even if the model stilll rotates a bit
i still have to re-shift+rotate all the time in order to secure that im still on ortho view 100% but it’s an improvement nevertheless
if only it went down to 0, omg it was just a value limit for the developers, the setting is already there!
Use the old Marker feature to store the position of the model. Then you can recall that position at will, if it ever gets rotated.
Marker > M+ with the active tool posed where you want it. Then you can clear the canvas, and click on that marker, and it will draw the object in the same location position for you. Enable edit mode, and pick up where you left off.
thnx but that’s even more impractical than constantly using shift to reset the angle of view (which is what im trying to avoid)
you probably didn’t realise that this (accidental rotation) happens every few seconds so any workaround has to happen that often as well
it’s just not possible not to click-drag on the background and accidentally rotate the model every few seconds when you are working with small areas at the boundaries/sides/edges of the model
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?161588-quot-Axis-quot-Plugin-for-ZBrush-4r2
I also made some to ‘change views’, not as extensive as his, but seem to work in 4R8.
Link below post to ‘goodies’
Append a plane as a subtool, and scale it to take up the entire background so you’d have to deliberately swipe outside the inner border line to rotate?
that could be a really great workaround idea Spyndel but i can’t find a way to hide the dummy subtool without reactivating rotation - it only works when the subtool is visible too
i tried the Geometry>Subtool>Eye icon, i tried masking + Geometry>Visibility>Hide PT and other things but everytime the subtool becomes truely hidden, rotation comes back
so i attempted another workaround of assigning a Flat Color material that matches the background (which is also flat) to the subtool in order to make it blend in with the background and at least pretend to be hidden
but unfortunately as i learned the Flat Color is not a material that can be permanently assigned to a subtool
even after Color>Fill Object with MRGB on and Geometry>Subtool>Brush icon on, the material on the subtool still changes to the current material im using for the main tool
are there any suggestions on this? if there is another way of permanently assigning a flat color to the subtool then i can say we are done, that workaround would work for me 100%
the best i’ve done so far is using Preferences>Inactive Subtool Dimming which darkens the dummy subtool enough to say that the main tool is dinstict enough to be workable
i’ve added 6 subtools in order to cover all 6 orthogonal angles of view and each time i change the angle, i change to the dummy subtool that is behind the main tool while hidding the other 5
i don’t mind this at all because i only change my angle of view after i’ve completely finished one side, so it only happens every 15-30 minutes maybe an hour, it’s not a problem at all
sry for the long post
OK, here’s a slightly better idea. Fill the background layer (ctrl-f) with the color/mat of your choosing(2.5d pixols). Flat color will work in this regard. Then switch to your working mat/color, draw out your tool and enter edit mode. It should have the same effect of having a subtool in the background , but it can be cleared (Layer > clear) and reapplied much more easily.
Note, beware of hitting that bug in r8 that sometimes locks you into 2.5 d mode–happened to me once while doing this. If it happens, simply switch to another 3d tool then back again.
Protip: customize an interface that has the small color selector, the small material preview selector, and the fill layer and clear layer buttons in close proximity somewhere, and you can execute the whole process quickly with a small series of clicks/taps. Or macro it, but that is outside of my expertise.
haha you are awesome,
there is a drawback, the 2.5D fill hides half of the model and if i do anything to keep the fill apart from the model, then the rotation comes back again
but still it’s usable, im going to try those two workarounds to see which disadvantage is less annoying
thnx a lot, i don’t think i could have imagined the second workaround especially, even if i knew zbrush as well as you do
and thnx everyone else as well for your time
There’s even a fix for that if you wanted to get really old school and work with the 2.5 d pixol layers.
Fill the canvas, then go to layer > displace Z, and move the slider all the way to the right a few times. Then create a new 2.5 D layer and draw your tool on that, put it into edit mode and do your work there. That should push the initial fill layer back like a wall away from the view plane, and keep it from obscuring your model. The effect will be the same–it will keep empty canvas navigation from working in open canvas, but you wont be interacting with that pixol layer unless you select it again.
chmm, that’s exactly what i tried myself but it doesn’t work here
it should be a difference of settings, i’ll do some more exploring to see if i can make it work since you say it’s working for you
i’ve kinda pushed the machine to the limits and zbrush was loosing functionality yesterday though, so i 'll probably have to wrap things up for a reboot first
thnx again
Clicking outside the model is very annoying, especially for people that use RMB navigation. What needs to change and I hope Pixologic sees and takes notice, is to disable LMB navigation when RMB nav. is ON in the Prefs. Or have a toggle for LMB nav. similar to RMB nav. toggle for people that like to use both.
