ZBrushCentral

Creating contour lines

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hi there,

This is my first post on this forum so I would firstly like to say thanks to all the talented and outgoing people on this forum that have helped me and others out.
I’m currently working on a heavily faceted sculptural wall that requires certain facets to resemble contour/3d print lines. It’s quite large and I don’t think manually doing It will give the accuracy that I’m looking for.
I guess I’m looking for a way to get very clean steps on some of the angled facets/polygons, sometimes adjoining. Kind of similar to rice paddy fields but more geometric.
I’m at a loss and would greatly appreciate some help from someone on the best way to do this.

The picture below is an example of what I need to do, but much cleaner, crisp and sharper etc

This screengrab below is an example of what I need to put the effect onto

I am going to polygroup the selected polygons so I can isolate them. Then subdivide them heavily to prepare them for the clean contour lines I’m after.

Has anyone got some ingenious way of doing this? I will be forever in your debt!

Looking forward to hearing your input.

Many thanks,

Mike

Attachments

Capture02.JPG

Capture05.JPG

#2

Hey everyone,

Well, I managed to work It out myself eventually so thought It’d be rude not to share it with anyone who’s interested.

  1. I basically turned the model on its side in ortho view, then sent a drag rectangle alpha mask which I created in PS (pictured below) through the mesh, making sure the mesh density was high enough.
    contour mask grad.jpg

  2. The alpha mask makes perfect contour lines through the mesh, I then changed to the move transpose tool and simply moved down until the lines turned into steps and were at 90 degrees (pictured below). Worked an absolute treat and you can change the amount of contour lines by changing the amount of gradients in the PS file.
    contour.jpg

Did exactly what I needed it to so hope this helps someone!

Thanks,

Mike

Attachments

contour mask grad.jpg

#3

The final result looks fantastic. :+1:
Cool technique that could be used for all kinds of stuff, I think.

… but it’s not at all what I thought you were trying to do from your first post.