ZBrushCentral

Trimming? Clipping? cut the thing off...

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

I’m having the hardset time removing unwanted surfaces from the piece I’m working on. I’ve tried the “clip” family of brushes and found either it would clip off everything I want to keep and showcase the unwanted surfaces, or there would be a “ghost” of what used to be there; if I cut a hand off at the elbow, there would be a 2D ghost of a hand with its fingers left on the stump. Neither option is going to work for me. I have tried to manipulate the mesh back to a nub, but invariably it turns into a bulletproof hair that you can’t do anything with. Very frustrating, seems so silly to me that trimming your part isn’t the easiest thing to do.

I’m sure it’s easier then I’m making it… Please advise.

T.

#2

When that happens, press Undo. Now draw your clip line again but this time hold Alt before you release the stroke. This will cause the flattening to go in the opposite direction from before, giving the results you want.

#3

That works great except for the “ghost” I was refering to… not sure what to call it. When ever I cut something off there is a witness left on the flat area created by the cut. Please see the attached. All four limbs of the character have this issue.

Thanks

T.

Attachments

flat feet.pdf (56.1 KB)

#4

Why not just mask with the rectangular mask with an aligned display, and then use the fill holes function? Thats what I do.

#5

So you cant just trim something? Are these brushes working correctly? Seems pretty sad that the cut function doesn’t cut without creating new useless geometry. Did you see the attachment? I was hoping it was a setting issue or my lack of experience

#6

I use masking so much I just created a button to deleted masked, so thats just an easy workflow for me.

When I want a flat base, I hold down a button on my intuos pad, draw the rectange out, and but the delete masked button I created. I can trim something perfectly in 2 seconds.

#7

I’ll try that. I’m so green at this… I’m a product developer, and have been drawing CAD since 97. Solidworks started using a rendering plug in designed by Modo a few years back that changed the game for high resolution rendering (in CAD at least) which is what brought me here. I bought Adobe Master Suite, 601, Zbrush, and a Wacom Cinti. Now I’m trying to put it all together. My ultimate goal is to be able to animate my designs for my customers, but I have a ways to go.

Thanks for your help

Attached is a pure Solidworks rendering (except for the lense flare) of a product I designed

Tod

Attachments

Clip Assembly.JPG

#8

Welcome to the nuthouse. Zbrush will drive you mad, because its a more organic method of modelling. You have to throw out your passion of micro managing polycount and specific point locations, and work yourself into the zbrush groove.

Once it finally clicks though, you’l love it. Getting to that point though was a love/hate relationship with me.

#9

Thanks Gareee,

It seems to be like that with any new program that is sufficiently different. AutoCAD to Solidworks (from 2D lines to pure solids)was a real treat. You think you know something, but there is always that growth period and plenty of “why the heck doesn’t it do that” I’m also working with Modo which really defines the difference between polygons and nurbs. Thankfully I can draw in SW and import to Modo.

Hey, thanks for holding my hand through this little learning spasm, I’ll try to keep an open mind.

Cheers
T.

#10

[SUB]Thats one of the huge issues with working on 3d creation. The tools completely change over every 2-3 years, so you are constanbtly releaning a good 50% of what you thought you already knew. I’d say half my time is spent relearnign or leanring new techniques and tools, and the other 50% is actually doing something productive with the available tools.

And I’ve been on this rollercoaster now since Videoscape 3d, which preceeded lightwave 1.0, back around 84![/SUB]