Lovecraft Forest

NOTE 8/23/07: I no longer recommend ZB3 on the Mac. See my review: http://www.lovecraftforest.com/blog/2007/08/19/zbrush-31-and-the-mac-a-review/___________________________________________________________________OK, so Pixologic dropped the ball for Mac users by releasing Zbrush3 without OSX support and probably none for several months. However, if you have an Intel-based Mac, your in luck, because Pixologic will give you a PC activation key to use it in a virtual machine, such VMware fusion so you can run Zbrush 3 under Windows XP.(ZBrush3 also works well under Parallels3 or BootCamp.)This tutorial assumes you’re on a Mac and want to use Zbrush3 under VMware Fusion (currently at release candidate 1) hosting Windows XP Pro SP2 with a Wacom tablet. Make sure Wacom tablet is functioning in OSX first. Make sure you have a second mouse connected to the computer before you begin–I will refer to this as your “other mouse” when you need to use it.The steps:

1. Install and license VMware Fusion according to their directions
2. Install Windows XP as directed by VMware. This amounts to selecting the new button and walking through the Wizard for an XP install. Note where you created your virtual machine! Don’t activate Windows yet, as you may need to do adjustments that would require re-activation.
3. Run the Windows updater from the start menu and go get a cup of coffee while all the updates are installed and applied, don’t worry of you have to reboot Windows a couple times during this process as directed, this is normal.
4. Install VMware Tools from the Virtual Machine menu
5. Download Wacom’s drives for your tablet from www.wacom.com, but don’t install them yet.
6. Shut down Windows.
7. Go to the directory where you created your virtual machine in Step 2. There should be a single big file there with the name of your virtual machine, such as “Windows XP Professional”. Right click on it to show package contents. This will reveal all the pieces of your virtual machine.
8. With a plain text editor, like TextMate, BBedit, TextWrangler open the file yourvmname.vmx (such as “Windows XP Professional.vmx”). This is the configuration file for your virtual machine. If you’re uncomfortable with this, make a backup of this file first.
9. Add the line “usb.generic.allowHID = TRUE” to the end of the first group.
10. OPTIONAL: Add the line usb.autoConnect.device0 = “0xXXXX:0xYYYY” (such as “usb.autoConnect.device0 = “0×00b7:0×056a” just below the line you added in the previous step where XXXX and YYYY are the Product ID and the Vendor ID of your tablet (which can be found in system profiler.) Sometimes this will allow the VM to automatically connect the tablet–it hasn’t always worked for me.
11. Save the VM configuration file
12. Close the package for the virtual machine you opened in step 7 and go back to the directory where you virtual machine resides. Start VMware Fusion by double-clicking the virtual machine. If VMware complains it hasn’t seen your VM before, just click “I moved it” and continue on. VMware will correct any issues.
13. Assuming you use Windows XP in a mac window, mouse along the USB icons in the lower left of the window until the tool-help tells you you’re over the one for your Wacom tablet. Click on it to connect Wacom tablet to the VM. (If it’s an Intous3 it will identify itself as PTZ-something.) Your Wacom tablet is now connect to Windows, and will not be accessible to OSX until you disconnected.
14. Using your *other* mouse (either a wired one, the notebook trackpad or a wireless mouse), click in the Windows VM window and run the Wacom installer. It should go normally and your Wacom tablet will come to life inside Microsoft Windows but *invisible*.
15. Invisible mice aren’t very helpful, so we’ll now fix this. Using your *other mouse*, go to windows settings for the mouse (Start -> Control Panel -> Printers & Other Hardware -> Mouse.) On the tab that says “Pointer Options”, select “Mouse Trails” and set the slider to short. Now when you move your Wacom mouse, it should be visible. Yayyy!
16. Configure your Wacom tablet to suit with the Wacom settings panel *in Windows*.
17. Go back the USB icon you used to connect your tablet, it should be glowing blue. Disconnect your tablet by clicking on the USB icon and shut down Windows.
18. Time to adjust some Key VM settings:
    • Under Display, turn on “Accelerate 3D Graphics”.
    • Under Memory, set the memory size of your VM. You usually need to leave 500MB to 1 Gigabyte of RAM free for OSX, the virtual machine, other programs, etc. Do not make your VM too big or your performance will get very bad in Windows, because the VM will start swapping virtual memory in and out. I usually tell people to start with 1GB free and then assign the rest to your VM, up to 4 Gigabytes. (Unless you have a 64 bit version of Windows, such as XP-64, or Vista 64 , you’re probably not going to be able to effectively use more.)
    • If you have a multiprocessor mac, set virtual processors to two (the current max for Fusion.)
    • Set any other parameters to suit.
19. Restart Windows, reconnect your tablet with the USB icon as before
20. Install and activate Zbrush3 as directed.
21. In Zbrush, select Preference -> Tablet -> Use Tablet if not already selected
22. Zbrush happy.

NOTES:

1. If everything is OK, now would be a good time to activate your copy of windows. I’d play with it for a day or so, as long as your Windows grace period allows to make sure you’re happy with your VM settings. Windows will remind you to activate it if you forget.
2. Should you have trouble with you Wacom tablet when starting windows later, just use your *other mouse* disconnect and connect it with the USB icon in the lower left corner of your VMware window. Sometimes the USB emulator “looses it” and needs to be reminded.
3. Remember that your Wacom is a slave to windows when connected to it. If you need to go back to hybrid mouse mode, you’ll need use your other mouse to click on the USB icon to release it. If you quit VMware and let it suspend Windows, it will usually return the Wacom back to OSX. If shutdown or suspend inside of windows, sometimes it won’t give back the Wacom to OSX, so disconnect your Wacom from Windows *before* using shutdown or suspend from the Windows start menu.

I’ve been using this setup without problem, but remember that VMware Fusion is still in Beta until August, so save your work frequently. Enjoy!