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Background processes

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hey all,

Will shutting down background processes help me work with a really large file?

I have a zbrush file that is composed of separate subtools totaling close to 18 million polys. I am trying to decimate them to reduce the size, but decimation master keeps crashing. Actually the file has become so large that it crashes a lot. Does anyone have any advice? If turning processes off will help me, maybe it would be easier to tell me what background processes would I need to leave running, and I’ll end the others??

Thanks a lot folks.

#2

Are you using Windows? Mac? which version of ZBrush are you using?

As for shutting down background processes… It may helps, if these processes actively use memory which would otherwise be given to ZBrush.

Here are some suggestions that you may want to try in an ‘emergency’ situation (Usually, you do not want to reach a level is which the memory and processing power required for the task is more than what your system can supply)…

  1. If possible, apply the task separately to each subtool instead applying it to all subtools as one.

  2. When you are about to execute a task in ZBrush that requires significant amount of system memory, you may want to try to execute the task immediately after launching ZBrush. Do not use any none-essential functions, simply execute the minimum steps that are required in order to accomplish the task. A more drastic approach will be to launch ZBrush immediately after system startup (without launching any other none-essential applications ).

  3. Set ZBrush rendering mode to fast (or - even better - to Flat mode if you do not need 3D rendering).

  4. Reduce ZBrush document size. If your task is not depended on the canvas size, you will gain some memory be temporarily reducing the canvas size.

  5. Temporarily remove none-essentials startup plugins.

There is more that can be done but I hope that these steps would suffice, start at the top of the list (step 1) and continue to add steps until you are successful.

#3

Hey support,

Im on a PC, and Im using 3.1.

Thanks a bunch for your response. I am only preprocessing/ decimating one tool at a time. As a matter of fact, I have cloned and saved to a separate file some of the higher poly tools, and still am having trouble with some of the them; for whatever reason some tools will always crash (which brings me to another issue I’ll put into another post.) As for point (2) I have been executing these tasks right after launch.

When I look at the task manager I see a lot of processes using a lot of k of RAM. I thought if I ended the unessential programs it might help me out.

Also: Is it normal after decimation to have a laggy response when rotating around the model??

I will try the rendering settings.

When you talk about “temporarily” removing some of the plug-ins, is that a matter of just removing them from the plugin file folder, or is there another prefered method. Sorry, I wish I was a bigger geek :slight_smile:

Thanks again for your help. :slight_smile: