repeat/replay last stroke and 'corrective' mouse

[wailingmonkey]

Howdy Andrew,

Zbrush 3.1 has these features which are quite nice for a variety of things.

Repeat/Replay:

The ability to re-do the same exact stroke you just did. (good if you did something just

'perfect' but you want to double/triple/etc. it's effect---which you could do if it was

on it's own layer, but this is more specific to a stroke) Dunno how costly it would be in

terms of program interaction, but I guess it would depend on your implementation.

'Corrective' mouse (LazyMouse in Zbrush terms):

Cleans up a stroke by delaying it and taking out the natural jitter of the user's hand

(by limiting the actual cursor's reactiveness, I guess).

Has a visual indicator showing how far behind the mouse pointer the stroke is 'trailing'

based upon user settings for auto-smoothing quality. (I've found that this behavior can

currently be approximated by using the 'pill' alpha on a pen, turning everything to 0 in

the parameters except depth modulation, and having only 'rotate along motion direction'

on and spacing on with a setting of 5.00).

You might also consider checking the demo of Zbrush3.1 to see if some of their tools stimulate

new ideas for 3d-brush.

Cheers.

wailingmonkey

[wailingmonkey]

Didn't want to start a whole new thread for this, but you might also want to consider allowing a

'preset' to automatically change folders to the appropriate one that contains the actual pen alpha.

I had created a new pen folder and had some alpha's in there associated with custom presets. When

clicking my preset, it would not trigger the proper pen due to my being in the 'default' folder and

not my newly created custom folder...

*edit* and on the topic of presets, if I can ctrl-click to use multiple pens, if I then save that as

a preset, the preset doesn't save all of those alphas together, which would be pretty important to

getting the right look again. I tried this with a grungy alpha and ctrl-clicked the same alpha so that

I had 6 duplicates (but set the brush to jitter and rotate)...when re-calling the preset I end up with

just a big lump, not the nice multi-grunge pen that I had before saving the preset.

[wailingmonkey]

hehe....me again.

Here's another plug (request) for getting some user-controlled radial fade on pen alpha's.

While focal shift is quite handy at what it can do, I still think the addition of radial fade levels

(based upon however many pixels in from the borders the user chooses) would be a powerful

asset. This would open up the ability to use 'square' custom alphas but fading out their edges

radially (instead of pinching or bulging the alpha) for blending or nice falloff instead of square

edges.

I realize one can make their own alphas with radial fade already on it (circular instead of square),

but doing it in 3d-brush allows for realtime experimentation and options for more creative usage.

Cheers.

wailingmonkey

[Andrew Shpagin]

I like idea about lazy mouse, I want to do something like that. I also like other propositions, will do most of them in near time.

Also please tell me what does means focal shift in ZBrush? Can you post some screenhots what does it means?

About repeat: you can store stroke using transform tool. Also, does repeating the stoke means that you can repeat it in other place of mesh?

About presets: I will do that 3DB will change the current folder. Do you mean that preset should remember additional pen rotation value?

[wailingmonkey]

Also please tell me what does means focal shift in ZBrush? Can you post some screenhots what does it means?

from http://www.zbrush.info/docs/index.php/Draw_Palette :

"Focal Shift: Adjusts how fast the brush's effect "falls off" as it approaches the edge of the brush. This is really just a

shortcut; for drawing tools it is the same as Focal Shift in Alpha:AlphaAdjust, and when modeling it is the same as

Focal Shift in Transform:Edit Curve. Both of those curves can be adjusted manually for more control of brush shape. "

So in this regard, your focal shift is tweaking the pinch/bulge of the alpha whereas Zbrush's is doing a shift on the

curve profile of the alpha--basically effecting the 'hump' of the hill created by the displacement (screenshot below)

...that's why I was hoping you could add the radial fade (but keep the pinch/bulge, as it can be handy too)

to effect the actual alpha on the pen from the outside edge to the center.

About repeat: you can store stroke using transform tool. Also, does repeating the stoke means that you can repeat it in other place of mesh?

I didn't know that...glad I asked. Nope, in Zbrush you can only repeat the stroke exactly as you laid it down (it will virtually

repeat what you last did).

Do you mean that preset should remember additional pen rotation value?

Well, if I was to interpret what a preset did, I'd expect it to save a pen's settings (with spec, displacement, color)

exactly as I had it set up...including the alpha and jitter/rotation/spacing, etc. That would be ideal, since a user is

basically custom-tailoring a pen to do what he wants, he's probably not expecting to choose that preset and then

remember what he did to get the exact look/effect he had before.

wailingmonkey

[wailingmonkey]

just bumping this thread in the hopes that you may still have "More user control on soft stroke"

on your list (mainly being able to set a value for how soft/corrected the stroke will be so that

it's not just on/off but we can adjust it depending on the need).

[Carlosan]

On 30/12/2007 at 1:07 PM, Andrew Shpagin said:

About repeat: you can store stroke using transform tool. Also, does repeating the stoke means that you can repeat it in other place of mesh?

Replaying Strokes

Repeating your most recent stroke on another part of your model is possible by using the Replay Last Relative function. For example, a lightning bolt alpha that is drawn in one location can be identically reproduced at another location as long as the point of view remains the same.

To replay the last stroke in this manner, you must use the Shift+1 hotkey. Because the repeated stroke begins at the cursor location it is not possible to use the interface button for this function.

If you want to replay a set of strokes, you need to use the Stroke >Inventory > Record function to save your actions.  Once done, use Shift+2 hotkey to replay all of the stored strokes.

Because the strokes are recorded, it is possible to change the point of view before replaying them.

[Carlosan]

Changes 4.8.08

- possibility to record strokes as curves (enable NewCurves in settings), set RecordStrokes in Curves menu, look CurvesTree