Custom Colors

Changing the Interface Colors

Preferences > IColors sub-palette

Preferences > Icolors sub-palette

The Icolors sub-palette contains the modifiers that control every aspect of ZBrush’s coloring. Your modifications can be broad such as shifting the tint more toward blue, or very specific with setting individual colors for every type of element.

Before doing anything else, click Preferences > Icolors > Save Ui Colors and save out a file called DefaultColors.cfg. This will make it easy to revert to ZBrush’s original coloration at any time by pressing the Load Ui Colors button and browsing to this DefaultColors.cfg file.

Setting Colors Affecting the Entire Interface

The bottom half of the Icolors submenu is a set of sliders. Starting with Preferences > Icolors > Red, these sliders are used to modify the interface as a whole. The sliders are all initially set to the middle value. This means that adjusting the sliders affects the interface relative to its current state. For example, moving the Red slider toward the right will tinge ZBrush to be more red. Moving it to the left makes the interface less red (which is the same effect as increasing both the Green and Blue sliders together).

With these sliders you can affect individual Red, Green and Blue values, as well as Hue, Saturation, Intensity and Contrast. As you adjust these values you will notice that the sliders stay at the point that you move them to. So if you set Red to 29, it will stay at that setting until you change it again. This means that you can continue to tweak and modify these sliders relative to the interface’s starting color state. Once satisfied with your settings, click the Preferences > Icolors > Apply Adjustments button. This button essentially bakes your settings into the interface, setting a new starting point. All of the sliders will therefore immediately snap back to the midpoint (zero) value. Any further adjusting of the sliders will be relative to the state that the interface was in when you clicked the Apply Adjustments button.

It should be noted that the SubOpacity1, SubOpacity2, Highlight and Gradient sliders are not tied together with the color adjustment sliders and Apply Adjustments button.

Setting Colors for Specific Control Types

Above the sliders is a series of color patches. These patches (all 40 of them!) each set the base color for a different aspect of ZBrush’s interface. This is for the real control freaks out there, who want to completely customize the interface beyond what’s possible with the color adjustment sliders alone. Holding down the Ctrl/Cmd key and mousing over any patch will give a detailed popup description of what that patch controls.

Changing a color patch is a two step process. First, select a new color using any of the selectors found in the Color menu. This will update the Color > Main Color patch. Once satisfied with the color choice, click the Icolors patch corresponding to the interface element that you wish to affect. The interface will immediately update to show the results of your change. You can then repeat the process for any other patches that you’d like to adjust.

One thing that you might notice is that these patches always ignore any modifications that have been made via the color adjustment sliders – even if you’ve clicked the Apply Adjustments button. This makes it easy to always see the base colors that have been set for the interface, regardless of what broad-color changes have been made.

Note: The only color patch that has no effect at all on the interface is the one labeled as “Unused”. That one is just a placeholder to avoid having an empty hole in the menu.

Important!

It’s very easy to share custom interfaces with your friends and coworkers. For standardization, it helps to follow these simple rules when creating interfaces that you plan to share: Use Preferences:Config:Save Ui only when ZBrush is set to the default color scheme. Use Preferences:Icolors:Save Ui Colors any time you wish to share a color scheme. So if you wish to share both layout and color, please provide the user with two .cfg files. This standardization will allow other people to easily adopt the new layout and choose for themselves whether or not to use the new colors as well.

Once you have created a color theme that you’re satisfied with,  we recommend doing two things. First, press Ctrl+Shift+I (or Preferences > Config >Store Config) to store the new colors as part of ZBrush’s startup configuration. Second, click the Save Ui Colors and save out a .cfg file which will only contain the color modifications. That way, you’ll always be able to apply your favored colors to any interface configuration.