001: Growing and Shrinking Selections in ZBrush
A Step-By-Step Tutorial on How to Grow and Shrink Selections in ZBrush


Preface
Sometimes we want to group by visibility and using the Shift + Ctrl keys and selection Polyfaces to do that, well… it can be a pain. This technique is similar to Maya’s Grow Selection, and it even has its key-shortcuts! What we are going to use this technique is to Group different PolyFaces to a finger, so we can eventually moves the different digits to form a pose…


Basic Grow / Shrink Selection Pipeline
The technique is very simple:

(Click on the image!)

1. Isolating a starting point..

1) Use Shift + Ctrl + to select (thus, hiding the rest of the mesh,) a starting point…

WARNING! If you can only see one side of the mesh, go to Tool / Display Properties / Double…


2. Grown / Shrink the selection...

2) Use Shift + Ctrl + X to GROW the selection: the PolyFaces that were hidden near the edges will re-appear…

3) To SHRINK the selection, use Shift + Ctrl + S...


3. Group visible PolyFaces...

4) Once you have all the PolyFaces you want to group, go to Tool / PolyGroups / GroupVisible…

NOTE: To change the color of the newly created PolyGroup, keep hitting on GroupVisible and the colors will cycle until you find one you like!

Done!

5) Shift + Ctrl + Click on the empty canvas to reveal the rest of the mesh…

Done!


Continuing to PolyGroup the mesh…

6) Select the newly created PolyGroup by Shift + Ctrl + Click on the PolyGroup. This will hide the rest of the mesh…

7) GROW the selection (Shift + Ctrl + X) and you will see that the PolyFaces adjacent to the newly created PolyGroup will appear…

8) Once you have enough PolyFaces to Group, Shift + Ctrl + Click on the newly create PolyGroup to hide it…

Continue with Step #4…


Cheers!