Well, i asked this question in the main Forum, too. But since i got no correct answer, i will try here at this place again.
I want to collapse my SubTool-Stack, resulting in a new Tool with all my Sub-Tools inside WITHOUT having them separated as Sub-Tools.
Regards,
Thomaskl
I have had a good look in wika and spent a good hour trying to resolve this, and could not find anythink.
I would have thought that it was posible to merge down all sub tools into one composite mesh while there bring polygrouped into their parts. There is layers and looks to be a posbility but wika dont show where these functions are?
Mrg fuction can merge layers into one. http://www.zbrush.info/wiki/index.php/Layer_Palette
I tryed this last night and could not do it, I may have got too tired as it was 2am.
Ok just tryed layers and, like in ZB2 each layer is a droped model so thats a no go.
Tryed multi markers, this also dont work per sub tool.
Next I will try 3D Layers and make 3d tool, this looks more promissing.
This method is a little fiddly but works. (I have written a zscript but it needs refining before release.)
Save a copy of your ztool so that you can retrieve it if necessary.
Selecting the primary subtool, switch to the highest subdivision level and then delete the lower levels. [Geometry subpalette]
Press Tool>Clone to create a copy of the subtool.
Repeat steps (2) and (3) for all subtools.
Select the clone of your primary subtool. Then press Insert Mesh in the Geometry subpalette and select the first of your subtools from the popup. It is added to the mesh.
Repeat steps (5) until all subtools have been inserted.
Note that this will only work if the subdivision levels are the same - which is why the lower levels are deleted in step (2). It is possible to omit this step if the number of levels and level set are the same for all subtools.
HTH,
Marcus then what does baking into sculpt means??
this is from the birth tutorial.
This is purly sculpturing infomation that 3d layers holds, not sub tools. You can make a layer for every edit you make to any sub tool, and sellect different edits. If you delete one of these layers while visable it bakes that sculpt into the mesh, if you delete a layer while not visable ,then that layer infomation is gone with no effect on the original mesh.
marcus, thanks that does work and is quick to do, however its a real shame that I cant reconstruct sub surface. Its good that it makes the insert mesh a new polygroup so that helps alot.
It may be the case of doing this at a early level to get the lowpoly base mesh then start sub D the whole modle as you build detail up, at least a displacment can be made while retaining a lowpoly version.
Thanks for your answers, so far.
Intresting to hear, that this seems to be a real problem. Using the insert Mesh function works, but its a kinda time consuming workflow, because you have to reposition all your subtools. I was hoping, that there is a “Collapse-Sub-Tools” Button somewhere, but seems as if there isnt.
So it would be a suggestion for upcoming updates to implement a function like this.
If there are people with more ideas to solve this, please share it !
Regards,
Thomaskl
Thomaskl, you shouldnt have to reposition your subtools. While each tool is already placed while in as a subtool, cloning should retain the position. When you insert mesh the sub tool clone should apear in the same place.
I would haver thought that is a essential feature and cant see why it would be left out personly.
I was hoping you might have a script in mind for this issue, Marcus…I look forward to it! The subtools are a fantastic start of new functionality in Z, but hampered by some limitations you dont expect from the way its set up like a traditional “layers” pallette.
I’d also kill to be able to select more than one subtool at a time to make active, but I doubt thats anything that can be addressed with scripting.
Hello,
I had the same problem with the subtools merge, and what I did was:
1- turn the subtool that I want to merge in a polymesh.
2- delete lower subdvision from the primary subtool
3- used “insertmesh” using the polymesh in the primary subtool
regards,
Erick
so if I want to add my level 1 subd eyes to my 200000 face model, I need to crank up the eyes? hmm there must be a better way…
squeige - you don’t need to up the subd of the eyes. Just delete any and all subdivisions on all subtools, other than the one you want to keep. For example, if eyes are at subd 1, and head is at subd 5, delete all lower subd in head, which will then leave you with only 1 subd, equal to what you had at subd 5. Now, eyes and head are both at subd 1, meaning you can insert.
That I understand but, I would like to keep the subd levels so I can continue working on the model. and I dont thnik there`s a way to rebuild the subd levels after you del lower.
Basicly you need to beable to combine all sub tools into one mesh, so each sub tool gets converted into a polygroup. What we want is to beable to take all our sub tools to level one then combine them while keeping all the sub d levels above 1.
After working with Zbrush 3 for a bit longer iv found that while it would be nice to combine all the sub tools, but there is still the matter of the maps for each sub tool. If you make each map your have to export them directly after making them, as after so many maps being created it will be hard to know what maps belongs to which sub tool. It makes more sence to export the sub tool with the correct texture sellected as it automaticly exports the texture map with it. Im only doing 2D still at the moment but this is the work flow id use for both.
2D still work:
Make base mesh and detail it, texture it and make the maps. export mesh and maps.
Pose, then make the sub tools, detail and texture then export each maps for each sub tool as I make them.
Animation work:
Make base mesh and detail it. Make new topology low poly, export and make uvs.
Inport back to zbrush and use Mesh Projection to add the details.
Make sub tools and repeat the above.
Make maps for base mesh then export it with all maps, make maps for sub tools then export the sub tools which will auto export the texture map for eahc one asuming the correct one is still sellected.
Bring into animation/ render program to finnish.
The way I see it, the whole “sub tool” way of working on things is neat, but basicly worthless.
All the good it does at the moment is to allow you to see all the separate pieces of your model to sculpt at once then you have to save out each piece again separately. You can’t sculpt fine details in the pieces using projection master because that requires you to create a texture which you can’t do at the moment.
You can’t combine the pieces together to create one mesh without going through a hassle. You can’t apply one large texture to all the pieces to create a composite mesh with one texture ( while sub-tooled ).
I imported several meshes and split one up to create several sub tools. I’ve tried the “delete lower sub levels and insert mesh” method, but all the pieces are so large in file size that when I try to re-create the sub D levels to the combined pieces, I get a “not enough core memory” warning and a crash.
The only way I can save my detail is to end up having more separate pieces and textures…that really erked me.
Once we have projection master and the normal mapper that will help things, but for now there’s not much you can do with it.
There are a few bugs associated with it as well. If you have your model on the canvas with all the layers turned on and then shift+control to hide just a small part of your model, it will delete the entire layer that part was on. At lest it looks like it does…pretty funky.
Edit:
I realize that it’s not the purpose of the sub tool function to combine pieces because that would result in one model being over millions of polys in size. I only wanted to merge the parts of the model that were originally merged to start with. I made sub tools out of them to make it faster and easier to work with.
Even so, you still have limited ability in sculpting because you can’t use projection master with sub tools.
wholly schnikeeez…but I’ve got 62 subtools! 
Yeah, well that’s a lot. Are you sure that your computer can handle the combined mesh? One of the points of subtools is to extend the maximum - it’s available for each subtool. So, for example, my system can only handle 1.5 million polys in a single mesh but I can create a mesh of 8 million polys when it’s split into subtools. But there’s no way I could collapse those subtools into a single mesh. My computer couldn’t handle it.
howdy marcus,
yeah…it’s sizeable (4 million polys) but I was hoping to group them into
one, then re-topo the consolidated mesh inside Z3…then I could export
out the lower cage and keep the hi-res for when Pixologic releases the new
Zmapper…
is there a way to re-topologize them as 1 mesh as they sit currently as
subtools? (I tried to select the ‘parent’ subtool and re-topo, but it only
applies to that particular subtool…not all. Unless I’m missing something?)
Unfortunately, I don’t think Silo 2beta will handle a 4mil object, or I’d just
export them all and try to re-topo in there (my 2gig RAM only gets me to
2mil polys in Silo 2beta, sadly). Hmmm…wonder if Topogun can handle 'em.
Kinda restrictive to get to this level but not be able to do anything outside
of render in Z3 with the result. 
WailingMonkey
I don’t think there’s a way of retopologizing them as subtools. You’d need to collapse the subtools, ideally at the lowest subdiv level. You could then retopo the low res combined mesh. Once you’ve done that, add the new mesh as a subtool and use ZProject to transfer the detail (you’ll need to subdivide the new mesh sufficiently).
Hi all,
This one is baffling me too. I have tried following a tutorial on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoyaXLYByIs) that shows how to use the Sub Tools Master to ‘Merge’ subtools and then export to OBJ. Then import the same OBJ, either ramping up the weld threshold or selecting Merge.
However, I cannot get this to work. When I try to import the OBJ it goes through the routine of trying to weld verts and according to the video, I should then get a screen appear, indicating how many verts it welded or something. Needless to say, this screen never appears.
I have Zbrush 3.1
Any ideas?