ZBrushCentral

Rigging & Surface Rigging (Topology) in ZB3 - (step by step)

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?p=353553&posted=1#post353553
Originally posted here, I thought it would be a good idea to copy it to the tutorial section.

Setting up a rig, or a surface rig, are basicly the same steps.
:small_orange_diamond:Read these 2 links for the full details: http://www.zbrush.info/wiki/index.php/Rigging
http://www.zbrush.info/wiki/index.php/Topology

  1. For either, first add a root zshpere to your scene and enter "Edit" mode.
  2. In the Tools:Rigging palette, press "Select" to load in a mesh. At this point you can add 2 different things, or both. You can add Re-Topology points, or more ZSpheres to act as a rig. A surface rig is a combination of using both, so let's do that.
  3. In the Topology submenu, press Edit Topology, and make sure you are in Draw mode.
  4. Now lay down surface points. When you got enough points for your rig, you will convert the surface lines to a ZShpere rig, by pressing Convert To Main and unpressing Edit Topology. Your topology lines will now be a ZSpheres rig that you can edit and adjust. From here on, you use the Rigging pallete.
With Rigging, for adjusting your mesh, you turn on and off the Bind button when you want the rig, to attach itself to your mesh. You can edit the zsphere any way you want. Pressing "A" in Rigging mode will give you a sub-divided version of the mesh you are posing. In Toppology mode, "A" gives you a view of what mesh your Re-Topology lines would make, when sub-divided.

Hope this helps. :slight_smile:

Iv just posted in a new thred with issues to surface rigging, For some reason zbrush crashes when pressing the bind button in the riggin pannel?

Here Zbrush doesn’t crash , but i see the rigging system seems a bit unreliable for complex posing. i think pixologic just went transpose because this tool is at its initial state. :slight_smile:

It only crashes when using the surface rigging, the pose rigging works fine for me. Load the Zscript, I cant press bind as it will crash.

aah ok. could you explain me something about surface rigging? is it different from building a new surface with topology?

With the surface rigging you can convert the new made topology into thin zphears, that should bind to the mesh. You can then deform the mesh by moving and scaling the rig as shown in the early video, ZbrushPreview_SigRig2.mov. This means you can make drastic changes to a face, this is very usfull for morph targets.

This seems to only affect certain models. I’ve not been able to determine what makes one work and another not. But, for example, (from the included ztools) the demo head causes a crash whereas the dog does not.

this is fantastic! too bad you say it crashes. uhm… well i’ll try this one soon hehee.

This is easy to do and doesn’t cause regular crashes. Simply load a zsphere and then press Rigging:Select to select a mesh to rig. Then position and scale the root zsphere using Move/scale modes before switching to Draw mode to add further zspheres. Probably best to set the Draw size to 1. Symmetry can be used to build a symmetrical rig. Aim to build a fairly simple rig inside the mesh. The larger the zspheres the greater the area they will affect. It can be a little difficult to position the zspheres correctly so check the position from all angles.

When done, press Rigging:Bind. You can now use the Move/Scale modes on the zspheres to affect the mesh. Press A key to preview the result. If the zspheres’ influence is too great, turn off Bind and adjust the rig before turning on Bind again.

When you are happy with deformation you can create a deformed mesh by pressing Adaptive Skin:Make Adaptive Skin.

Yes your right, other meshes do seem to work?

Here is one using the dog. It’s a very nice feature when it works!

It’s very nice feature, works very well for me, but not when I try to rotate zshperes after bind. Sometimes when I try to rotate model randomly rescales itself to a very small size. Move/scale seems to do not have this problem

Thanks for that script, Marcus.

There’s great potential there, but it seems fussy at the moment…lots of
testing necessary to figure out fine control of the deformation or get a
precisely desired effect. Also, when trying to undo previous movements
on a zsphere, Z3 crashed. :frowning:

Hopefully this is one of Pixologic’s items of focus as this could bring great
power to morphing one’s sculpts to create a series of facial gestures, for
example (as previously noted).

well, nice…Is it possible to convert a Low-Version of my High-Poly Mesh into a ZSphere Rig for the HighPoly ?

This would be a nice feature ?

Regards,

Thomaskl

No, I don’t think so. The rig needs to have a root zsphere and although you can edit an existing mesh this doesn’t have a root zsphere, so ‘convert to main’ won’t work - at least I managed to freeze ZBrush trying.

I´m trying to use the surface rigging but it freezes when i click on the bind option… I can draw the zspheres on the mesh surface but if i move them the mesh doesnt follow the spheres as i had hoped… any help?

I´m trying to use the surface rigging but it freezes when i click on the bind option… I can draw the zspheres on the mesh surface but if i move them the mesh doesnt follow the spheres as i had hoped… any help?

Yes, I have the same.
I posted this feature yesterday in another Topology-Thread (didn’t notice that Game Master already discovered this method, sorry :o ) and added a ZScript.
You will find the same behavior in my attempt.

Here is the link:
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?p=355466#post355466

Maybe not all users allready noticed this:

The rigging feature of ZB3 is not only good for putting riggs on your mesh-objects, but its also perfect to use as a tool for modeling with ZSpheres.

Start just as you do when rigging a mesh-objekt, but after selecting the mesh to the ZSphere(s), DON’T press the Bind-button, instead start modeling with the ZSpheres and use the loaded Mesh-model as a 3D-reference instead of using 2D-Photos.
Perfect for creating sample-ZSphere-models from a Master-Mesh-model and store and use them as a basic model for further developments.:smiley:

To avoid double-posts, in Plakkie’s ’ Topology & Flow Lab’-Thread we are currently also developing new aspects of rigging via topology.

You find it here:
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=44876&page=1&pp=15