ZBrushCentral

Tip for hiding polygroups

Hi everyone. This is probably old news to some of you, but I stumbled upon this technique while messing around with an old model of mine. I’ve seen zscripts and tutorials by other artists that demonstrate hiding unwanted polygroups and they usually show the ctrl-shift drag rectangle to hide unwanted areas. Seemed a bit time consuming and unreliable on complex objects to me. So here is what I came up with. I tried labeling the picture directly to show the steps.

I hope this isn’t too redundant, but sometimes finding answers by searching threads and reading through manuals can be frustrating. Hope someone benefits from it!!!

Hiding-Polygroups.jpg

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its always nice to see when someone goes out of their way to explain good workflow to others. thanks :smiley:

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Or you could ctrl + shift + left click on the head to show only the head and then ctrl + shift + left click and drag to inverse the display and then ctrl + shift + left click on the mussel. And then ctrl+shift left click and drag to inverse the display

Half as many steps :slight_smile:

Thats good or you could save yourself the frustration and redundancy and just ctrl shift click the line where the red and yellow meet for the muzzle or where any two poly groups meet this should give you the exact selection you need i hope this helps figured i would tell you since its something that can be faster in some cases!!

one step only and faster then the previous try it it works great!!

Thanks Slosh,:+1: I need all the pointers I can get!
Anyone have any for zb to xsi rendering?!:cry:
Cheers cal;)

the good profesor talk about the obvious things first !
Not always the obvious things are clear to the mayority!
Thanks for take in account:D
Andreseloy

It may seem a little bit “old news” indeed but I learned a lot from explanations like this one, they are in many cases more useful than the grand tutorials.

Also, I`d like to add that you can control the polygroups, assign them where you want so this kind of selection will go easier and in the exact areas you need.

It`s good that people take time to explain things.

Thanks for the tip,
…is that Eeyore?

It does have to be a SD resolution that’s higher than one to work.

Hey Slosh, these would be great things to see up at our on-line documentation site: www.ZBrush.info. Can you put it up there as well? :slight_smile:

Ryan

Wow, I really didn’t expect too many people to respond. Thanx

-E- you are right! That would be several steps shorter.
AVTPro, also correct. I didn’t try it at level 1, but you are right.
Sadicus, yes it’s Eeyore. From a pic I did about 4 years ago.
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=4503&highlight=eeyore

Troy - do you have to be in point selection mode for that to work? If so, it would be much easier indeed. But, if you were lazy like myself, you would either not feel like switching to point mode, or you may also forget to switch back. I’m glad to see a quicker alternative, so I thank you.

Ryan - I would be happy to post it there. I’m not familiar with the site (although I checked it out right before I typed this response and registered), so I don’t know where I would submit it. Any suggestions?

No you dont have to be in point selection mode for it to work slosh!! Im glad it helped and its good to see you around again and your welcome!!

Ah you have me reminiscing as I often do about the old days of the forum when these kinds of post were about 50/50 with the art.

Ofcoarse much of all that knowledge is now searchable and people are less likely to post tips such as this but it’s great for people starting out to see fresh posts that they would find helpful. So all power to you Mr for sharing what you know.

Sometimes I think that the forum is so big now that it realy needs a begginers area where people help each other out as they learn and those with more experience can help out from time to time.

All of us over the years are aware that you will see the “I’ve only used ZBrush for 2 hours” blurb and then some fantastically sophisticated work is trotted out which in fact has been sculpted in ZBrush using a tiny percentage of the programs depth by an extremely competant modeler with many years of experience.

Whilst this is inspiring in many others ways; it also I feel misleads those starting out and perhaps to a degree makes posting first attempts in ZBrush daunting.

Years ago everybody who was starting out posted desperate stuff with promise and that’s the one’s you know who are really starting out because the truth is ZBrush is a very complex piece of software to get to grips with if you wish to use it as your main creative tool. which many do.

So if someone is listening, Slosh has made me see realise that a begginers pool is needed at the Forum - one where those further up the tree can be lifeguards.

On top of that I’d add an old timer’s club where the post rate doesn’t move too fast for those of us who enjoy languishing more.

I don’t know what set me off - I must have made my cocoa too strong.

I love both of those ideas, boozy.

Then let’s storm the gates at ZBrush towers and have at them with pitchforks and fiery torches untill I wishes are met.

Right, so there is the eight step way of selecting and there is the normal single click method. Unless I’m missing something here.

just different ways of doing the same thing, dogbone. More than one way to skin a cat, as they say. As I said when I posted this, it’s probably old news and not something everyone is interested in. If you figured out the one click thing, then go ahead and use it. I fumbled around trying to hide polys til I was frustrated. This just was a happy accident for me and I wanted to share it.

Another thing I just realized is that I can have 2 instances of ZBrush open at once. That way I can run a script in one window and try each step for myself in the other. Or have an object open in window 1 and another in window 2 and both are editable and rotatable, etc. That way I can use one for reference while working on the other and still be able to view it from all sides and angles. Of course, this probably won’t be helpful with very high poly objects, but it’s still a cool idea and works just fine with zscripts.

I just hit Tab to hide the floating menus and collapse the shelves. Right clicking in the doc window pulls up the quick menu for most features.

good tips, Brian.
Ron
catfishmn@aol.com

You can also have Photoshop/Image editor and ZBrush open. And if you edit a texture in PS and save the image, it’s automatically updated in ZBrush. No need to reload. Only thing to consider is the fact that both apps use the same memory.
Lemo