I need adaptive skin help?

[kmp3d]

I'm having trouble getting the results I want with adaptive skinning. I searched through the forum but I couldn't find what I was looking for. I understand zsphere modeling fine, thats no problem. What I'm trying to do is create a low poly mesh (biped character) that I can bring into other 3d apps to tweak and animate, and also use the 3d app poly smooth on it. I created a character model and used unified skin which worked great but the mesh was just too dense to utilize and animate in another app. I tried using adaptive skinning on my zsphere model but it didn't work right there were all these gaps in the mesh, it didn't create one continuous mesh the way unified skinning does. There is just some concept I'm not getting. I've seen other people make these low poly models fine, for instance: Ken B's models, which by the way ROCK!!
http://www.pixolator.com/zbc-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=009425

Do you use the multimarker and put the parts together? Is there something wrong I'm doing when I skin it? Oh yeah one more thing when you apply adaptive skin the root zpshere disappears, how do I stop this from happening or how do I overcome this? Any help is highly appreciated. And if you want to critique my current model, here ya go:
http://www.geocities.com/kmp3d/3dstuff.html

Tell me what you think. THX!! ;)

[aurick]

To create an adaptive skin, you simply pressing the Make Adaptive Skin button rather than Make Unified Skin. The resulting mesh will be exactly what you see if you press the A button (preview) while in Edit mode with a ZSphere model.

If you are getting gaps in the mesh, my guess would be that you have turned some of the linking spheres into Discontinuous spheres by Alt-clicking a linking sphere.

When you Alt-click a linking sphere, and the child sphere has no spheres of its own, the child becomes an Attractor Sphere. But if the child does have children, then they will become a discontinuous mesh instead.

Please see this thread (http://www.pixolator.com/zbc-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=4&t=000252) for a more detailed explanation.

[kmp3d]

I still can't get the results I want with adaptive skinning. That post doesn't really answer my question. How do you create localized detail with an adaptive mesh? I was looking at Ken B's trolls and he got very good localized detail but a low res mesh. For instance around the eye sockets and mouth the mesh was cut denser and therefore he could add more detail in those areas. How do you do that? Or like this post:
http://www.pixolator.com/zbc-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=009565

I don't understand how to go about creating a low poly model with good localized detail like that. I understand zpshere modeling and sculpting unified skin, thats no problem. I just cannot model anything with good detail using adaptive skinning.......

please help...... :confused:

[The Namek]

I believe you're looking for Masking and Divide.
Make your Zpsphere model => skin adaptive
Go to preferences and enable the pf (wireframe view) go into edit mode and hold CTRL while using the draw method in edit mode , you will mask an area on your model. Mask the areas that need more detail. Go to the TOOL->modifiers->Selection , press on "inverse" , then deformations in the same palette , push the divide button , the amount of polygons in the masked area's will be doubled making it easier to add more detail there.

[Mike Rhodes]

Go through the ZSphere script. Adjusting the IRes on the Inventory subpallette of the Tools can help (my understanding is that if you have it set to a number equal to or larger than the child spheres of a root sphere you'll get an higher poly count and smoother skin).

From my playing around with zifs, Sometimes I'll get a completely different skin from what preview gives me when I click on the unified skin button.

mr

[keith]

If you like planning ahead, you can also increase the xres, yres or zres sliders in the transform palette and then draw the zsphere.

Mike, the preview, if i'm not wrong, gives you a preview of the adaptive skin not the unified skin. Hence if you press unified skin, you will get something different than in the preview. You may want to press Make adaptive skin.

[Mike Rhodes]

Ahah, thanks for the info Keith.

Too bad there's no way to specifiy which skin you want to preview...

After mucking about with zSpheres for the better part of the AM, here's my take, hopefully it'll help:

ZSpheres and Adaptive skinning is like real estate: location is everything. By giving more 'space' between spheres, the Adaptive skin looks *so* much better. Especially now that I'm not using the 'root' zif as my head sphere. I'm starting my figure at the hips and working my way up: waist, chest, shoulders, arms, neck and then the head. Careful planning, as Keith said, is the cure for the zif headache.

There's a whole lot more, I just need to make copious notes and slam it into some kinda step-by-step. But for now, the best thing I found out is to just play with the various settings, preview and fine tune them. This worked well for me, as I was able to fill in gaps in my understanding.

mr