ZOrbit

A radial menu for ZBrush on Windows. Hold a hotkey over the canvas and a ring of your brushes and buttons appears around the cursor. Flick toward one, or move to it and let go, and ZBrush switches. You set up the rings in ZOrbit Studio.

Yes. There is no licence key, no account, no trial and no expiry date, and you can use it on as many machines as you like. The Licence screen in Studio is a joke. You can hide it in Settings > Studio.

Yes. The GPL lets you run the program for any purpose, and it does not cover what you sculpt with it.

ZBrush 2022 or newer, on 64-bit Windows 10 or 11. ZBrush 2026 and newer load the plugin the installer sets up. ZBrush 2022 to 2025 need one extra step in Studio, see older ZBrush.

No. ZOrbit relies on Windows to catch the hotkey and draw the ring, so it runs on Windows only.

No. ZBrush starts it through the plugin, and it quits a few seconds after ZBrush closes. While it runs it has an icon in the notification area with Open Studio, Reload menus, Open logs folder and Quit ZOrbit.

No. ZOrbit is an independent project. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Maxon. ZBrush is a trademark of Maxon.

No. The heading says so. The people and their quotes are made up.

Not for the installer. It installs for your user only. The one exception is the plugin for ZBrush 2022 to 2025 when that ZBrush lives under Program Files: Windows asks once while Studio copies the plugin in.

It installs to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\ZOrbit. It adds that folder’s bridge folder to your user ZBRUSH_PLUGIN_PATH variable, keeping any entries already there, and adds a Start menu shortcut called ZOrbit Studio. A desktop shortcut is offered but off unless you tick it.

ZBrush reads ZBRUSH_PLUGIN_PATH only when it starts. Restart it once after installing and it loads the plugin, which starts ZOrbit. After that it starts with ZBrush on its own.

Yes. On a fresh install Studio opens on a Setup screen. It lists whether ZBrush was found, whether the plugin is loaded, whether ZBrush needs a restart, and has you try the ring once. Press Finish or Skip for now when you are done. If you close Studio without either, Setup comes back next time. It is Alt+6 in Studio, and Show Setup on next start at the bottom of the screen brings it back.

Those versions have no Python API, so ZOrbit gives them a ZScript plugin with the same Zplugin > ZOrbit palette. Open Studio, go to Settings > Older ZBrush and click Install next to your version. If it is not listed, use Add a ZBrush folder. Then restart that ZBrush.

Studio draws its window with Microsoft Edge WebView2. It is part of Windows 11 and of up-to-date Windows 10, so you most likely have it already. If not, get it from Microsoft.

Yes. Unzip the portable zip, run ZOrbit.exe once, add the zip’s bridge folder to ZBRUSH_PLUGIN_PATH, then restart ZBrush. The first launch can show the same SmartScreen warning as the installer.

When Studio opens it asks GitHub whether there is a newer release. If there is, an orange dot and the new version number appear at the top. Click it, download the installer from the release page and run it over your install. It stops ZOrbit, replaces the program and leaves your menus alone. Then restart ZBrush.

On ZBrush 2022 to 2025, Settings > Older ZBrush then shows Update available. Click Update and restart that ZBrush.

Yes. Switch off Settings > Studio > Check for updates. While it is off, no request is made.

Open Windows Settings > Apps > Installed apps, find ZOrbit and choose Uninstall. Restart ZBrush afterwards so it lets go of the plugin. The uninstaller removes only its own entry from ZBRUSH_PLUGIN_PATH.

On ZBrush 2022 to 2025, remove the plugin first with Studio > Settings > Older ZBrush > Remove. If you forgot, delete ZOrbitBridge.zsc and the ZOrbitData folder from that ZBrush’s ZStartup\ZPlugs64.

No. Your menus and settings are in %APPDATA%\ZOrbit and your logs in %LOCALAPPDATA%\ZOrbit, outside the program folder. Delete those two folders if you want no trace left.

Yes. ZOrbit is the same project under a new name. Run the new installer over the old install. It moves the program, removes the old shortcut and plugin path entry, and copies your menus and settings to %APPDATA%\ZOrbit on first start. The old data folders stay where they are, and you can delete them. In ZBrush 2026 and newer, an F9 you bound by hand to the old Apply has to be bound again on Zplugin > ZOrbit > Apply.

All three work, with the same hotkey:

• Release. Hold the hotkey, point at a slot and let go.
• Flick. Move out past a slot’s outer edge and it is picked at once, without letting go.
• Click. Tap the hotkey, which keeps the ring open, then click a slot.

A press shorter than 250 ms counts as a tap. You can change that in Settings, from 0 to 1000 ms.

No. A slot is chosen by the direction of the cursor from the centre, so pointing toward it is enough. Inside the small dead zone in the middle nothing is picked. A slot answers to at most a quarter of the circle, so on a ring of one to three slots, pointing away from all of them picks nothing.

The pick waits until you lift the pen or release the mouse button, then ZBrush switches. The tool never changes halfway through a stroke, so a pick that feels a moment late is doing this on purpose.

Any of these:

• Release the hotkey in the middle of the ring, after holding it past the tap time.
• Press the hotkey again, or press Esc.
• Right-click, or click the middle of the ring.
• Wait. It closes by itself after 20 seconds, which you can change in Settings.

With flick switched off, clicking outside the ring cancels too.

Centred on your cursor, with slots laid out clockwise from the top. Near a screen edge it moves just enough to stay fully on screen. Its sizes scale for high-DPI screens automatically.

No. The ring window never takes keyboard focus, so ZBrush stays the active window underneath it.

A window with your brushes, alphas, materials and textures on four tabs, each with search, folders, tag chips and thumbnails. Press Alt+B to open it over ZBrush. New installs have that hotkey. If you have an older radial.json, set one on Settings > Browser first. A Browser slot on a ring opens it too.

Switch tabs with Ctrl+Tab, type to search, use the arrow keys to move and press Enter to pick. Press the hotkey again while it is in front and the keyboard goes back to ZBrush. It also works without ZBrush running, so you can browse and tag items on their own.

Hover an item in the Browser or the Library and press the star in its corner, or select it and press Ctrl+D. Favourites is the first entry in the folders list on every tab. Recent sits under it and lists every brush, alpha, material or texture you picked in ZBrush, newest first, up to 24 per tab. A {"tag": "favourite"} slot opens a fan of your favourites on the ring.

The ring opens from a keyboard key, so you point with the pen as you would with a mouse. Picks made mid-stroke wait for the pen to lift, and after each pick ZOrbit nudges the cursor by zero pixels to wake ZBrush’s pen tracking.

Yes. In Studio, click the hotkey field on the Menus screen and press the keys you want. Or type it into the menu file, for example "hotkey": "Alt+G". It applies as soon as you save, with no restart.

Any mix of Ctrl, Alt and Shift, with a letter, a digit, F1 to F24 or one of ` - = [ ] \ ; ' , . /. In the menu file you can also use space, tab, enter, backspace, insert, delete, home, end, pageup and pagedown. The Windows key is not allowed.

Yes. Give each menu its own hotkey and open it straight from the canvas. Two menus cannot share a key: the second is reported as a problem and ignored. A menu with no hotkey works as a submenu.

Not by default. A menu swallows its hotkey, so ZBrush never sees it. Switch off Swallow hotkey in that menu’s settings, or set "swallow": false, if you want the key to reach ZBrush too.

No. It only works while ZBrush is the front window. Everywhere else the key behaves as normal. Keys sent by other programs, such as macro tools, are ignored as well.

Each slot does one of these:

• Select a brush (brush).
• Select an alpha, a material or a texture (alpha, material, texture).
• Press any ZBrush button by its interface path (press).
• Set a slider or value to a number (set).
• Flip a switch (toggle).
• Run a list of those in order (steps).
• Open another ring (menu).
• Open a fan of every item with a tag (tag).
• Open the Browser (browser).

Yes. Use {"alpha": "Alpha 058"}, {"material": "SkinShade4"} or {"texture": "Txtr01"}, or drag one in from the Library. The name is the file’s name without its extension, and capitals and spaces do not matter. If ZBrush has it loaded, it is selected. If not, ZOrbit loads it from its file first. A material goes into the selected material slot and replaces what was there, as in ZBrush. ZBrush 2022 to 2025 need the plugin updated first, with Update in Settings > Older ZBrush.

A tag is a coloured label for brushes, alphas, materials and textures. An item can have several, and they all share one set of tags. In the Library, select items and press Tag..., or right-click one, then click a tag to put it on or take it off.

Favourites is a built-in tag with a star. It cannot be deleted or renamed. A tag slot, such as {"tag": "blocking"}, opens a fan of every item with that tag, brushes first and most used first. The fan holds up to 12, and a last More... slot opens the Browser on that tag. Tag colours can show the colour on the ring.

There is no hard limit, but rings work best with 4 to 12. Each slot gets an equal share of the circle, so a crowded ring leaves less room to aim.

Join the palette and button names with colons, as ZBrush shows them, for example Tool:Masking:Clear. Capitals do not matter, and Studio suggests common paths as you type. A path your ZBrush does not have shows up in bridge.log as “no such interface item”.

Brush, press, set and toggle actions, run in order. Steps cannot open menus or hold more steps. The starter menus have a Fresh Start slot that clears the mask and then picks the Standard brush.

Yes, if ZBrush has them loaded or ZOrbit can find the .zbp. It looks in your ZBrush install’s brush folders and your user ZStartup\BrushPresets folder, subfolders included, and skips folders whose names start with an underscore. Spaces and capitals in a brush name do not matter.

Yes. label is the text under the slot. icon can be a brush name or the path to a .zbp or .png. Without one, a brush slot uses the brush’s own thumbnail and other slots show a round placeholder with short text.

Put a menu slot on a ring. Move onto it and the submenu opens at once, centred on that slot. If you are still holding the hotkey, one movement can go into the submenu and on to one of its items. Release in the middle of the submenu to keep it open and click instead.

Yes. Switch off Open submenus on hover in Settings, or set "hover_submenus": false. Submenus then open when you release or click on them.

A plain submenu replaces the current ring with a new one. A fan opens in place: its items spread in an arc beyond its slot, and the ring you came from stays on screen. Switch on Fan out when opened from another menu in the submenu’s settings, or add "fan": true to it. The setting belongs to the submenu, so every slot that opens it fans.

The same ways as on the ring: release over an item, click it, or flick past it. Release on the fan’s own slot to keep it open and click. Moving the cursor away from a fan closes it.

Yes, up to three deep, and the earlier fans stay visible. Where there is no room for a fan by a screen edge, or it would lead back to a menu already open on the way, it opens as a ring instead.

It opens as a normal ring. Fanning only applies when the menu is opened from another menu.

Brushes on Q, with the submenus More Brushes, Tools (masking, symmetry, PolyFrame, LazyMouse and other switches) and SubDivide. They use only brushes that come with ZBrush, so they work on any install.

Twelve: smooth, bounce, pop, zoom, fade, drift, fancy, spiral, ripple, breath, mist and snappy. Snappy has no animation at all. Closing is always instant, so a pick never waits for an animation.

Yes. Choose one under Open animation in the menu’s settings, or add "animation": "spiral" to the menu. Menus without one use the ring-wide setting.

Yes, in Settings. Radius goes from 60 to 400 pixels (145 by default), slot size from 32 to 160 (72) and the dead zone in the middle from 10 to 120 (38).

Yes. There are five colours: slot fill, accent, highlight, text and lines. Any you leave alone keep their default, and Reset all colours puts them back. To show icons only, set Labels to none. Tags have colours of their own, see tag colours.

Open Settings > Tag colours. An item’s first tag can show on its slot as an icon tint, a glow or a band through the ring. Each has its own switch and an opacity, and a preview beside them shows the result. The band is on by default. A ring with no tagged slots has no band.

It edits your menus. The Menus screen has a live preview drawn by the same code as the real ring. The Library lets you search every brush, alpha, material and texture ZBrush can load, tag them and drag them in. Setup walks a new install through its first steps. Settings covers size, animation, labels, colours, timing and the ZBrush bridge. Status shows whether ZBrush, the app and the bridge are running.

No. The ring is drawn by a separate small app that starts and stops with ZBrush and reads your menus itself. Close Studio once you have saved.

Yes. The app reads the file again as soon as it changes, new hotkeys included. There is no need to restart ZBrush.

Yes. Ctrl+Z undoes, Ctrl+Y or Ctrl+Shift+Z redoes, and Revert goes back to what is saved on disk. Closing with unsaved changes shows what you would lose and asks first.

They are in %APPDATA%\ZOrbit\radial.json, a plain JSON file. Edit it in any text editor and the app picks up the change within about half a second. If you then save in Studio, it notices the file changed on disk and asks whether to overwrite it or reload.

The app keeps using the last good version and logs the error. Studio opens a recovery screen with the error, its line and column, and three choices: Open folder, Restore backup and Start from defaults. The unreadable file is kept as radial.json.broken.

Studio shows a problems pill. Each entry says what is wrong in plain words and jumps to the menu, item or setting to fix. The app skips bad items and logs what it skipped, and out-of-range settings fall back to their defaults.

Settings > Import and export has an Export button that saves your menus, settings and tags to one .json file. Or copy radial.json and tags.json from %APPDATA%\ZOrbit yourself. Studio also keeps the version before your last save as radial.json.bak. Both files are plain JSON, so they diff cleanly in git.

Export from Settings > Import and export and send them the .json file. They press Import, which shows what the file holds before anything changes. Menus and settings load as an unsaved change, so Undo takes them back. For tags they choose Merge or Replace, and Replace keeps their old tags as tags.json.bak. They need the same brushes, alphas, materials and textures, and any button paths must exist in their ZBrush. Icons that point at .png files on your disk do not travel with it. Your tags live in %APPDATA%\ZOrbit\tags.json.

Delete radial.json (or move it somewhere safe). The app or Studio writes a fresh one from the starter menus the next time it starts. Single settings have their own reset arrows in Settings.

Work down this list:

1. Open Studio’s Setup screen (Alt+6) first. It says which step is missing.
2. Make sure ZBrush is the front window. The hotkey is ignored everywhere else.
3. In ZBrush, open Zplugin > ZOrbit > Status. If the palette is missing, see the next question.
4. If Status says the app is not running, press Start App, then read app_stderr.log and radiald.log.
5. In Studio, look for the problems pill. A menu with no usable items or a duplicate hotkey does not open.
6. Another program may grab the same key first. Try a different hotkey.

ZBrush did not load the plugin. Restart ZBrush, then check that your user environment variable ZBRUSH_PLUGIN_PATH contains ZOrbit’s bridge folder. On ZBrush 2022 to 2025, install the plugin again from Studio > Settings > Older ZBrush and restart that ZBrush.

Open Zplugin > ZOrbit > Status and check that the listener says verified. If not, bind the fallback key: Ctrl+Alt+click Zplugin > ZOrbit > Apply, press F9, then Preferences > Hotkeys > Store. bridge.log names every action and whether it worked.

Picks there arrive through the bridge key. Hover Zplugin > ZOrbit > Apply and check its hotkey matches the bridge key in Studio, F9 unless you changed it. If you bound a key by hand, press Preferences > Hotkeys > Store, or the binding is gone after a restart. If Settings > Older ZBrush says Update available, update the plugin. zscript_bridge.log shows what the last pick did.

There is no thumbnail for it. For a brush, ZOrbit found no .zbp file. For other kinds of slot a round placeholder with short text is normal.

Studio needs the WebView2 runtime. Install or repair it, then read studio.log in %LOCALAPPDATA%\ZOrbit, which records how Studio started.

In %LOCALAPPDATA%\ZOrbit: radiald.log for the app, bridge.log for the ZBrush side, app_stderr.log for crashes at startup and studio.log for Studio. ZBrush 2022 to 2025 also write zscript_bridge.log. Studio’s Status screen and the notification-area icon both open the folder.

On the issue tracker. Say which Windows and ZBrush you use, what you did, what you expected and what happened, and paste the last lines of radiald.log and bridge.log. The logs hold brush names and menu ids, so glance over them first.

The installer is not code-signed yet, and SmartScreen warns about any program it does not recognise. It does not mean Windows found a problem. Choose More info, then Run anyway. The install section has the other ways through.

No. There is no account, no tracking and no telemetry. The only network request is Studio’s update check, which asks GitHub for the latest release and sends nothing about you or your menus. The app that draws the ring and the ZBrush plugin make no network requests. On your own PC, the app keeps a count of which brushes you pick, and your recent picks, in usage.json, and that file never leaves it.

No. Everything works offline. If the update check cannot reach GitHub, Studio notes it in its log and carries on.

Windows needs a hook for ZOrbit to catch your hotkey before ZBrush does. The hook only compares each key press with your menu hotkeys. It does not record or store keys.

Only what is on your menus: select a brush, alpha, material or texture, press a button, set a slider, flip a switch, or a list of those. It does them through ZBrush’s own commands, and radial.json is plain text, so you can read exactly what each slot does.

Then build it from the source. All of it is in the repository. You need Windows, Python 3.12 and the packages in requirements-dev.txt, then run packaging\build.ps1.

The GNU GPL-3.0. You can study, change and share it. If you distribute a changed version, you publish its source under the same licence. Third-party parts and their licences are listed in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.

Yes. Fork the repository, make a focused change and open a pull request. CONTRIBUTING.md has the details.