#AskZBrush: “How can I load reference images into ZBrush as a separate subtools?”

you this is Joseph trust and welcome back to another episode of ask ZBrush so we'd a question sent in asking how can i load reference images into ZBrush as separate sub tools so start off I just have ZBrush loaded up and I just have a poly sphere project here loaded in and the question is asking about loading in reference images into ZBrush as separate sub tools so you can use them while sculpting so as an example here I have two images that have created these are just helmet images here and I want to take these images and I want to use them as reference as I'm sculpting inside a ZBrush so how can I go about doing this process so the first thing we need to do is when you take these images and import them into ZBrush so I'm gonna go back over to ZBrush here and then I'm going to navigate to the texture palette at the top here and I'm gonna click on this import button now after you click on import you'll get this little dialog here and in here I can select those images so I'm just going to click one hold down shift and click the next one and then I'm just going to click open so ZBrush is now going to import those maps into ZBrush if I go to the texture tab here again you'll see I now have those two maps loaded it now the next thing I want to do is I want to apply these maps to some geometry in my scene as separate sub tools so I'm gonna gate over here to the tool palette I'm gonna open up the sub tool area here in here I'm going to scroll down and I'm gonna locate the append button here I'm gonna click this button and then this is going to open up the quick pick dialog here and in here I want to locate the plane 3d object so the plane 3d object inside of ZBrush is a plane primitive that's single sided this is perfect for applying these maps to and then using as reference inside of my scene so I'm going to click that plane 3d there this is now going to append that as a new subtool so if I come over to my slip tool palette again and click on that plane 3d object there you can see that it is now single sided and it's intersecting the middle of that poly sphere so now with this plain 3d selected I can now go back to the tool palettes I can scroll all the way down to the texture map area and open this up and then in here I can click on the blank texture map slot this is going to open up another little Quick Pick menu here and now I can come through and select one of those textures that I loaded in so I was going to come through and select the z-man front now after this has been selected you'll see that now this texture has been applied to that plane so you can't really see the texture map being applied to this plane at the moment because it's in the middle of the sphere so I'm going to navigate up to the move option here and activate that which is going to give me the gizmo 3d and now with the gizmo 3d I'm going to hover over the z-axis here and click and drag kind of move it back in space and so now I should have my sphere and then I should have my plane 3d object behind it now the first thing you'll notice is that when this map was applied to the plane 3d object it is applying upside-down so you have two ways you can resolve this so the first way is that I could actually go to the gizmo 3d again and then I can rotate in the z-axis by 180 degrees until it is right side up or I can come back up to the texture palette here I can select that texture and then directly below the texture there's this flip vertical so I can click that and actually go to the side one as well and click that and now I can go back to my tool palettes and go down to the texture map area here I can click on the image again and then just simply reload it and that is now going to reload that texture and now it should be facing in the right direction so now I have taken that texture map that I imported in I've appended a plane 3d object to my scene and I have now applied that texture map to that object so now I have a back side to my scene here and if I rotate my sphere and say get out of perspective it then activate transparency and this is gonna allow me to see the sphere as a transparent object and then I'll be able to see the plane 3d object behind it so I can scale that plane 3d object up kind of make it match the sphere so something like that and now I go back to my sphere there and start manipulating that model to match that shape now if I want to bring in the other image as well I can go to my plane 3d object I can duplicate this by clicking on that and then going to the tool pallet sub tool duplicate button right here and clicking that this will create a duplicate version of that sub tool that had the front part of the helmet there can now switch back to the gizmo 3d use the move Z to move it out in space and then I'm going to go to the tool pallet again scroll all the way down to the texture map area in here now I'm gonna click on the texture that's is currently loaded and then switch it to the side so now I have the side version of the helmet there I can now rotate the plane in Y gonna rotate in 90 degrees then move it around here and then position this into my scene like so so now I have that secondary plane loaded in and now I can go back to my sphere object here and get in and out of perspective as I like you can switch to say the move brush and now turn on transparency turn off ghost and now I can start manipulating my shape here to match those images now one thing also of note when you're doing this process is that you may want to switch to a material inside of ZBrush that's a little more vibrant so the madcap gray is going to cast this gray kind of quality across all the models in your scene but if I come over here to the material palette and open this up and then select something like the skin shade for now the texture map and my model are gonna be a little more vibrant so I come through and start manipulating this a little bit more start playing with this form here to try to match the rough silhouette of my shape and start smoothing this out use any of the other brush options inside a ZBrush here and start manipulating my model based on those 3d objects so the process again to import texture images and then apply them as separate sub tools is basically you need to come to the texture type here importing your texture Maps after they are imported you may want to select them and flip them vertically after they have been vertically flipped you can then come to the tool sub tool area here click the append option and then append in a plain 3d object after that plain 3d object has been appended in your scene you can select it and then navigate to the tool texture map area there click the texture map slot and select one of those image Maps this will now load that image map onto that plain 3d object you can then with the plain 3d object selected activate move scale or rotate to get the gizmo 3d and then I can manipulate that plain 3d object to position it in your scene to use as reference images so if you have any other questions related to ZBrush pipelines or processes please use the hashtag ask ZBrush on Twitter happy zbrushing

Channel: Pixologic ZBrush

Views: 45,942

Keywords: pixologic, zbrush, 3D, askzbrush, sculpting, modeling, digital, art, design, creation, create, artwork, how to, tutorial, making of, reference, plane, 3d, image, map, importing, moveing, scaling

Id: YncNcfzjvFk

Length: 7min 55sec (475 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 10 2020