ZBrush

ZBrush – Creating Characters and Morphs for Daz 3D Figures: Preparing to Sculpt, Plus Tips

March 29, 2017 8 comments

This is Part 2 of my Learning Path:
Creating Characters and Morphs for Daz 3D Figures Using ZBrush & GoZ

Previous Step: Daz Studio to ZBrush with GoZ
or Export .obj From Daz Studio to any Modeling App

Preparing the Figure for Sculpting

Draw out Genesis 3 on the canvas, if you haven’t already.

If you need help importing Genesis 3, refer to:

Creating Morphs for Daz 3D Figures: GoZ to ZBrush

Creating Characters and Morphs for Daz 3D Figures: Export .obj to any Modeling App

Make sure you’re in Edit mode (hotkey T).

I like to keep my head and body morphs as two separate project files. I find it makes it easier to manage my layers and helps keep me from accidently creating deformations on the body that I don’t want included with the head morph. This is just a personal preference; however, you will want to make sure to keep your body morphs and head morphs separate from each other (either by using two separate project files, or by using separate layers). This will give you more control inside Daz Studio and will create a better product, whether for personal or commercial use (but you can do whatever you want, just don’t say I didn’t warn you).

Preparing to Create Body Morphs

Fortunately, sculpting on the body doesn’t really require any pre-setup. I just want to point out the fingernails and toenails are separate meshes, that way you’re aware and can use the masking techniques described below to assist you when working on the hands and feet, if necessary.

Preparing to Create Head Morphs

Masking Certain Features

I like to be able to easily mask off certain features of the face to avoid distorting those that I didn’t intend on; mainly the eyes and sometimes the teeth. Since eyes are typically always at least mostly round, I like to mask them off while I do most my sculpting on the face and then deal with them when I’m basically done.

Depending on how much you plan on changing the jaw and mouth, you may also want to mask off the teeth and deal with them at the end as well. Sometimes they’ll move appropriately with the jaw when left unmasked.

Here’s my method for masking them off

Turn on Draw Polyframe
I find it easier to have visual feedback as I go through the steps, so I like to turn on Polyframe (hotkey Shift+F).
Group similar features

On the tool palette, Expand the Polygroups Palette.
Click Auto Groups to group individual features of the mesh into separate groups.
Click Merge Similar Groups. This will merge symmetrical features into one group, grouping the eyes together, the top lashes together, the bottom lashes together, etc.

Set up your Masking

CTRL+Shift+Click any part of the main body’s mesh to hide everything except the body.
CTRL+Shift+Click+ drag on the background to invert the visibility.
CTRL+Shift+Click+ drag and draw out a box around the teeth. This will set the teeth as the only visible objects.

Sometimes some of the teeth will get grouped with the eye lashes, so we’ll manually group them together to be on the safe side.

Click Group Visible. This will group all the teeth together as a separate group.
CTRL+Shift+Click the canvas to unhide everything.
CTRL+Shift+Click any part of the main body mesh to hide everything except the body again.
CTRL+Shift+Click+ drag on the background to invert the visibility again.
CTRL+Shift+Click everything you want to leave unmasked (it will toggle visibility by group, meaning both upper lashes will be hidden when you click on one of them). I usually click the upper lashes, lower lashes and the lower lash line.

If you want to mask off the teeth as well as the eyes, leave them visible at this point, otherwise click on one of them.

CTRL+Click the canvas to invert the mask. This will mask off everything that is visible, even though nothing was masked prior to this step.
CTRL+Shift+Click the canvas once again to unhide everything.

At this point you should have something that looks like this (your polygroups may be different colors).

Congratulations, you now have your masking set up! You can turn off Draw Polyframe now if you want.

Pro Tip, Use Layers!

Now before you start sculpting away, I highly recommend using layers!

I like to create layers as I go for each feature I will be sculpting on. For example, if I want to start sculpting on the nose, I create a new layer and name it Nose 01, and record all the sculpting I plan on doing to the nose, at that point in time, to that layer. I do this for every feature as I go along, then when I get back to the nose, I create a new layer and name it Nose 02. You can also go back to the original nose layer and record more sculpting to it if you prefer, or be more specific with your layers and create layers like Nose Width, Nose Height, Nostrils, etc.

Some people like to create all their layers before they even start sculpting, then select them as they go when they plan on sculpting on each feature. The point is to figure out a system that works well for you.

First create a Base Layer and name it.

Don’t record any sculpting on this layer, save it as is just in case you ever need it.

Expand the Layers Pallette.
Click the New Layer button.
Click the Name Button and type in Base

Now let’s create our first layer for sculpting

With the Layers Pallette still expanded.
Click the New Layer button.
Click the Name Button and type in Nose 01 (or whatever you want).
Make sure Record is on.

Sculpt away (don’t forget to make sure X symmetry is on, unless you’re going for asymmetry)!

You can also change the strength of each layer

This may come in handy as you’re fine tuning your sculpts.

Click the 1 that’s directly to the left of the name of the Layer (when you hover you mouse over it) and enter a value between 0 and 1, or use the slider below the name.

Pro Tip, Dynamic Subdivision

Since you’re working off the base mesh inside ZBrush, you’ll probably want to know what your morphs will actually look like once they’re loaded into Daz Studio and subdivided. You can always send the mesh back and forth between ZBrush and Daz Studio to check your progress (which I recommend doing every now and then anyway, to check your progress by seeing what it looks like rendered), but there’s another way. You can also use Dynamic Subdiv to see what the mesh will look like when subdivided without actually subdividing the mesh, that way you get to see the results, but will still be able to send it back to Daz Studio as a morph!

You can also leave it on as you sculpt!

Expand the Geometry palette.
Expand the Dynamic Subdiv options.
Turn it on by clicking the Dynamic button.
Set the SmoothSubdiv value between 0 and 2 (there’s not really any point setting it higher than 2).

1 is the Daz Studio default for the viewport.
2 is the Daz Studio default for rendering.

Next: ZBrush to Daz Studio with GoZ

ZBrush Preferences Tips ‘n Tricks

December 20, 2015 21 comments

I recently purchased ZBrush 4R7. At first for me, getting used to the interface felt a whole lot like trying to pick my nose with a baseball glove on. The hardest thing was getting used to how to navigate the viewport. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a very powerful program and I am happy with the purchase, but there were a couple things I wanted to customize that I couldn’t find the ability to do so within the user interface.

Here are a couple things that I wanted to customize, how I was able to do so, and a couple other tips ‘n tricks that may be helpful for both the beginner and more advanced user as well:

Set ZBrush canvas to fill entire viewport

Depending on your monitor size and screen resolution, you may be annoyed when you open up ZBrush the canvas doesn’t fill the entire viewport. Fortunately, there’s a simple fix.

Go to the “Documents” menu. Next to the “New Document” button, make sure “WSize” is highlighted, then click the “New Document” button.

A new document should be created with the canvas filling up the entire viewport.

Now to make it like that when you start up ZBrush, navigate back to the “Document” menu and click “Save As Startup Doc” button.

Bam, you’re all set.

Add mouse wheel zoom functionality

I simply was losing my mind not being able to zoom using the mouse wheel!

Thankfully I found a plug-in to add the function.

Here’s a link to the main thread with the plug-in and installation instructions.

*For it to work with ZBrush 4R7, refer to post #83, here’s a direct link.

Change ZBrush’s scratch disk location

If you’re like me and have both a SSD and a HDD, you may not like temporary files being constantly written to your SSD. If you don’t know, SSDs wear out faster than HDDs. In normal use scenarios most people probably don’t need to be concerned about this, but I like to keep things in tip top condition =). Another reason a person may want to change the location of the scratch disk is to conserve precious SSD space for other things.

There are a couple ways to change the scratch disk location:

The easiest way is to go to your “C:\Users\Public\Documents\ZBrushData” location, open up the “ZBrushScratchDiskPath.TXT” and change the file path located in the document to wherever you would like the scracth disk to be located.

*Now make sure whatever path you specify actually exists (ZBrush won’t automatically create the folders, you have to manually create them) or it won’t work properly.

The 2nd way is a little more advanced, but in my opinion, is the way to go if you also want to change where the “QuickSave” files will be saved as well.

Change where ZBrush saves it’s QuickSave files

To change where ZBrush saves it’s QuickSave files you have to create a directory junction. A junction is similar to a desktop “shortcut” except programs will also follow the path.

To create a junction fire up the good ol’ “Command Prompt”, make sure to run it as administrator. Now simply type in:

mklink /J “C:\Users\Public\Documents\ZBrushData\” “D:\YourNewLocation”

*Important: type in exactly as shown, except replace D:\YourNewLocation with whatever path you would like.

**Note: this is to change the location of all the files in the “ZBrushData” folder. If you only want to change the “QuickSave” files location see below.

To paste into Command Prompt, right click on the Window Title, select Edit > Paste.

The command I used was:

mklink /J “C:\Users\Public\Documents\ZBrushData\” “D:\Users\Public\Documents\ZBrushData”

Finally, cut and paste the original “ZBrushData” folder to its new location.

Now every time ZBrush tries to write to it’s default “C:\…\ZBrushData\” location it will actually be writing to whatever location you specified.

If you only want to change the location of the “QuickSave” folder, add “QuickSave\” to the end of both paths and only move the “QuickSave” folder to the new location.

Change GoZ Cache location

Navigate to “C:\Users\Public\Pixologic\GoZBrush” and change the path specified in the following 3 text documents:

GoZ_ProjectPath.txt
GoZ_ObjectPath.txt
GoZ_ObjectList.txt

You may not have all 3 files depending on how many times you’ve used GoZ.

*Again, make sure that whatever path you specify actually exists (ZBrush won’t automatically create the folders, you have to manually create them) or it won’t work properly.

A couple of other useful resources

A keyboard shortcuts cheat sheet pdf with the most important items – download here

A full list of keyboard shortcuts as a printable pdf – download here