Zbrush makes it easy to quickly create an alpha from geometry, which in turn can be used to detail objects.   Let’s take the hex nut from the previous exercise.   By turning SMT on in the Geometry Subpallet art level 4 and subdividing a bit more I’ve rounded the edges to give me a nice bevel.   I just position it so I’m looking straight down on it, (use shift-drag outside the object to snap the view to the nearest orthogonal position.)  To make an Alpha from this shape, it’s just as easy as going to alpha pallet and clicking “GrabDoc”.   A new alpha is available on your alpha pallet, starting “ZGRAB” like magic!

You’re not quite done yet–ZB prefers square alphas to avoid distortion and because I was lazy, the canvas was actually 800 x 600.   It’s a quick fix in an image editor, so export the alpha from the image pallet, fire up photoshop and crop to 512×512.

Name the file it something suitable, reload it into ZB, and now you sculpt with it using any brush you like (I prefer the Clay or Layer brushes for example.)  

Turn on symmetry and with one stroke, I have detailing on a plate.

Tags: 3D, Zbrush

I needed a hexagonal part with a round hole in the middle.   This would seem to be a challenge for ZBrush requiring an outside modeler.   However, it is actually pretty easy in ZB if you know primitives and deformers.

First, we can start with our old friend the cylinder primitive:   

Not very hexagonal yet, and too long, but we can fix that.  We tweak the number of sides to 6 and shorten the z-length in the “initialize” menu:

Better, but no hole . . . We can solve that by setting the “inner radius”:

Nuts, close, but the inside whole isn’t round.   I’ll need to fix that up before the boss sees it.   I go ahead and make this a poly mesh and then group the inside polygons.  I also divide the polymesh a few times (well, 3 actually) with the “SMT” option off (so that it doesn’t round off my hexagonal prism).  Showing just the inside polygons (with display-double on for ease of viewing, I have:

Now if there was a easy way to round those off, I’d be home free.   Hey, what about that “deformations” subpallet?

Ooo . . . I like that “RFlatten” thing . . . (It’s short for Radial Flatten).   A little RFlatten and slight tweak of the size (with just X & Y turned on) and I have a nice round hole.  

Unhiding my geometry, I’m good to go:

Total time to  model: less than two minutes.

Tags: 3D, Zbrush