ZBrushCentral

A Small Extract Tool Tutorial

Well, by request, I have made a small tutorial in regards to the Extract tool for Zbrush 3.

You can find the tutorial at this site: http://www.mixmash.com.au

It can be found on the tutorials page.

Cheers,
Revanto :stuck_out_tongue:

Thanks For this Revanto it helped very much. I didn’t know you could hide the mesh in zb and do an extract instead of masking. Masking gives strange edges even with high poly counts for me at least and are hard to smooth but your tut solves that thanks again.:smiley:

Hello Revanto

It seems to me ( zbrush beginner ) that mesh extract is only useful for creating clothing for a zbrush model. The poly mesh is quite dense. What would be the workflow if you were wanting to make it a low poly model with a displacement map? Is it better to create a base mesh in another program before bringing into zbrush for more detailed modeling? If you wanted to put a pocket detail on a shirt base mesh could you use the mesh extract in some way? I have come across a couple of tutorials on mesh extract, but none explaining uses outside z brush.

Hi,

Well, it seems like you wanna know how to deal with high resolution meshes, in a way, am I right? What you could do is to create your extracted and sculpted mesh and then retopologise to create a low resolution mesh but by using the high resolution mesh as a guide. Remember that you don’t need to make all your meshes perfect. I am constant creating mesh JUST for the purpose of using them as reference. Sometimes it’s just for the shape and volume but sometimes it’s for alignment, too.

In regards to one of your questions, personally, I create all my base meshes in Lightwave then import them into Zbrush later. Zbrush isn’t the best modelling program (modelling, that is, not sculpting) and you get more control if you make your base mesh in another program first.

Re: Pockets - Well, if you wanted to, you could do a medium resolution extraction to get the shape of the pocket and then use that to model the pocket. Some people find that Zbrush gives them more control in the creative process and others find their control with their native 3d program. The key is to play on your strength and find out what you are comfortable with.

And, no, mesh extraction can be used for a number of great things. Meats Meier’s wireframe technique is now easier to do with extraction. Anything you want to add to your model could easily be extraction. True, you won’t get a perfect extraction but you can still get a good reference from it.

I hope this has been informative for you.

Cheers,
Revanto :stuck_out_tongue:

Hello Revanto

Thanks for your reply. It was good answer, and finally confirmed some thoughts I had, although I have got some things I want to try, I guess I am trying to avoid doing double work.

:+1:

Don’t think of it as double the work but part of the process. If you wanna get into 3d, you have to take everything that is involved and, in a way, enjoy it, or at least take pride in your achievement after you have done it.

When you do create a rough first version, keep things simple. Don’t stress about things like keeping your mesh all quads or whatever. Just keep things rough. You can always refine things later. Oh, and don’t be afraid to do things on paper or outside of your usual program. Sometimes changing the way you do things gives you a fresher perspective.

Anyway, good luck.

Cheers,
Revanto :stuck_out_tongue: