Zero brush 1.5

Addon created by Blender Sensei
http://blendersensei.com/zero-brush-1-5-cycles-bake-painting-is-here/

ZERO BRUSH 1.5 UPDATE LOG

• When loading brushes ZB now checks if the image already exists and will use it for your new brush instead of reloading the same image which conserves resources.

• The new render preview button for Cycles and BR provides a quick glimpse of what your object will look like rendered. It also uses render border contextualization to help avoid the repetitive task of enabling and disabling render border, press Ctrl-B set render border size.

• Huge update to ZB Fast Mode which now makes Sensei Format even better by automatically switching your default bottom camera view into wireframe mode which means if you’ve got a resources heavy scene, Blender will only have to draw full objects for your main 3D View. Also added contextualization for backface culling and buffer shadow samples as well as some internal performance fixes.

• Zero Brush layer saving got a big update. You can now choose to save all of the object you are painting on’s textures to a folder on your hard drive rather than internally to the file itself. Click the small folder icon next to “Save My Layers” in the ZB texture painting menu to choose a folder to save to. Click “Save My Layers” and that’s it. All images will be saved to the location you selected. If you wish to go back to having the textures save internally just unchecked this option. While the option is checked you can edit any of the textures you’re working on externally in another program like Photoshop or Gimp, save them, press the “Reload All Images” button which shows up while you have “Save To Hard Drive” checked, and see all your changes made in another program show up instantly.

• Added quick access to brush saturation, brightness, contrast and stroke detail by clicking the “Expand Brush Options” button located under the color wheel when in Texture Paint mode (This option also contains the other standard Blender brush options)

• ZB now automatically converts text, curve, surface, meta and nurb objects into sculptable and paintable objects when clicking on the sculpt or paint buttons.

• You can now bake instantly with the press of one button in the Zero Brush Options menu located in the properties shelf when in Texture Paint mode or by pressing “Q” from any mode. The baking system requires no initial material, images, or duplicated objects. Simply select your object (or objects multiple) and select a Bake choice of “Material”, “Shadow” or “Ambient”. These work contextually for both Blender render and Cycles. Once baked, the layer is editable like a regular Zero Brush layer. Change the Blend mode, opacity, or position of the new baked layers for advanced results.

• Holding shift on bump layers, now erases them just like color is erased on color layers.

• Zero Brush will now automatically detect if your object’s mesh is marked with seams and unwrap its UVS using them if they exist. If they do not exist it will auto generate UVS with your choice of Smart UV or Lightmap.

• Create a base layer from your current texture brush image by going to ZB options and selecting “Layer From Brush”. This option will only be available if you have a loaded brush texture. Once activated, you can adjust your layers position and the amount of times it repeats horizontally and vertically. You can re-apply the angle of the brush layer while editing it by pressing “Re-Apply Brush”. When you’re satisfied hit “Finish” and a new layer will be added into your Zero Brush layers.

• You can now create normal maps from your sculpted mesh instantly, with the press of one button. This sets up a normal map with all the appropriate settings for both Blender Render and Cycles. In Texture Paint mode, if your object has a multires modifier on it, you will notice a new “Add Normal” layer option with the other add layer types. In Sculpt mode, if using Multires (or after choosing ‘Make Sculptable’ which adds one), you will notice next to the “Apply” button an “As Image” button which will also carry out this step. The buttons do not change, delete, or lower your multires modifier settings, so to see the change either click the “Less” button while in sculpt mode (after clicking the “Apply Image” button first of course), or you may change the level manually on the modifier itself.

• You can now merge your color layers by clicking the Zero Brush “Options” button and selecting “New Merged Layer”. This will combine all of your color layers into one new layer (Does not delete the layers it came from).This is most advantageous for painting high quality source layers but being able to merge them into a single (and/or lower resolution image) if you are working on game assets. This is also helpful when using Cycles, as the Zero Brush Cycles workflow only allows for the display of a single Color layer at a time.

• Zero Brush now dynamically cleans up after itself by deleting any object, material, image (as well as several other data types that like to hang out even after you tell Blender to throw them away) if they have been purposefully deleted conserving memory and hard drive space when saving.

• All Zero Brush classes, operators and properties have been prefixed with zb_ to prohibit any possible conflict with other addons or scripts.

• Fixed code to fully remove texture images once deleted via the ZB menu for better performance.

• Added decal, stencil, and hard type brush loading presets for loading one or a folder of images as these various types of brushes. This is contextualized for both Sculpt and Texture Paint modes.

• Added options to reset or give less detail in sculpt mode of Zero Brush.

• Choose to load brushes for both sculpt and texture paint at the same time now in the options menu.

• Sharp new layout pushing the boundaries of Blender Python UI design.

• Default Layer size is now 2048 X 2048.

• You can now set new layers to be the color of your brush, or use one of your palette colors by simply clicking it before adding a new layer if you have this option selected in the Layer Settings of Zero Brush.

• Added “Make Unique” option in the ZB options menu which allows you to instantly duplicate an object’s material and all its related textures and texture images. Say you’ve duplicated an object you’ve been painting but now you want to make some individual changes to this new object, you would click “Make Unique” under the Layer Settings. This button will also turn group instanced objects into real object with their own materials and even their own groups.

• Added the option for using “I” to use the color dropper tool while in paint mode.

• Added Mask invert and reset options on the actual Mask paint brush so you don’t have to switch to the slots tab and hunt for it.

• Certain texture paint brushes have been greatly enhanced with contextualization. Now when you try using Smear, Soften or Clone you should notice a huge increase in performance (Make sure you’re selecting them through the ZB brush menu ‘Spacebar’.) This contextualization also sends you directly into the proper viewport shading when using the Mask brush.

• Updated vertex and weight paint modes to be more consistent with new Zero Brush layout and functionality.

• The awesome Sensei Format version of weight painting is now default with Zero Brush. This means you no longer half to deal with 2 to 3 different sliders while weight painting (this has been updated for mask painting as well). Simply paint to increase your weight or mask value and paint while holding shift to decrease your values.

• The Sensei Format convention of X for brush radius, Shift-X for strength, and Ctrl-X for rotation is now default in Zero Brush. If you don’t like it then deal with it girlfriend… Just kidding, you can still use the Blender default hotkeys of F, Shift-F, and Ctrl-F.

• Added button to quickly go into Rendered mode without navigating through any menus.

• Added “Quick Lights”, a simple light rig for Cycles which generates its own world, material and lamps for material tests and quick rendering. Turning off “Quick Lights” reverts back to your previously in use world and light setup to avoid interfering at all with your scene.

• Added smart spacing on layer manager side so layout doesn’t appear to “hop” around so much.

• Organized brush menus for better visual hierarchy and flow. Also created Gradient button to quickly switch between gradient and color wheel mode.

• Added stroke buttons which make good use of the new 2.72 paint tools created by the magnificent Antony R. These shape tools technically change the “Stroke Method” of each brush, and also behave contextually creating more expected behaviour, especially with the new gradient tools.

• Added hardness slider (Like in Photoshop). This slider works by dynamically adjusting your current brush’s curves. It will not actually affect the selected brush until you change its value after having selected the brush. This way you may still choose to use brush curves for certain brushes.

• Added “View Mask Mode” to sculpt and paint mask brushes which allow you to view the mask strokes you’re making and then quickly click out to test your results.

• Selecting Mask brush while in Paint mode will switch you into the proper viewport shading to see what your mask is doing. Selecting any other brush after that will take you back to the proper viewport.

• Removed pretty nasty bug in the texture layer mover buttons.

• Added dynamic topology quick tools.

• Shortened layer names to more easily see what each layer type is.

I’ve been eagerly awaiting this update! Thanks so much!!

This is really coooooool, thanks for this. It would be cool to get this to work for other render engines. I’ll need to brush up on my coding skills a lot though to do it XD

YES! I’ve been waiting for this! Thank you

This is just absolutely awesome, Thanks so much!

You might want to change the name - it might be confused with ZBrush.

Looks great.
This is how painting workflow in blender should look like.

I wish blender’s texture painting slots acted the way they do in this plug in. Right now they are practically useless

Would just like to point out, the poster of this thread is not Blender Sensei or the creator of this addon, just an enthusiast. So your suggestions or thanks about the addon are wasted. I don’t think the poster did this intentionally to assume credit but just to spread awareness, just thought everyone should know.

–EDIT-- DELETED
I didn’t understand very well, sorry.
Very good addon tho.