Dynamesh workflow advice please

[Led_Stereo]

I’ve watched hours of tutorials and I’m still not clear on the correct workflow with Dynamesh. Looking for some definitive advice, please!

Some tutorials advise sculpting at a low sub/d level, and moving up a level when more detail is required.

Other tutorials (including the latest one from Kurt Paptstein on his Gumroad) work exclusively in Dynamesh, and never work with sub/d levels. They stay in Dynamesh and increase the resolution of the mesh for adding high level detail.

Am I correct in thinking that you need to come out of Dynamesh and retopologise your sculpt if your mesh is going to be imported to another app, i.e. for rigging, animating or rendering?

If I am working solely in ZBrush and doing all of my rendering in ZBrush, is it feasible to work solely in Dynamesh?

Can someone please outline the pros and cons of exclusively working in Dynamesh and under what circumstances I’d need to retopo or to start working through the Sub/D levels.

If I’m working in Dynamesh, for static images that will be rendered inside ZBrush, do I need to concern myself with projecting details in ZRemesher, or is that a workflow for games/animation?

Thanks for any help and pointers in advance.

[beta_channel]

It all depends.
If you’re a competent sculptor you’re not going to really need subD levels, as you don’t get them in clay either. Now, you need to take into consideration what you’re trying to produce as well. If you’re messing around with shapes and forms and doing broad changes then working with dynamesh exclusively might actually hinder your work flow. If you know exactly what you want to make then working with dynamesh shouldn’t cause a problem.

Typically you’ll work from low to high to help you understand forms for low level and high level shapes and details. It’s the same as painting in your broad forms first and then moving to the details. Now, with subD levels you can work on both at the same time without breaking the others (if you need to increase the size of your head or move a chin down it doesn’t break your pore level details (too much) so you can move between the two easily. Now if you’re working in dynamesh you’ll need to do a bit more clean up when you’re working on those broad forms.

You also lose a lot of functions when not working with dynamesh (mask smoothing, transpose deformations are a pain at high subD levels, etc) you also lose a lot of functions when working with subD levels, mirroring, slicing, trimming, etc.

There isn’t any “You must work this way” thing inside of Zbrush because there isn’t really any rules for how you create your art, which is one of the main things people like about Zbrush, it is completely free in that sense.

Now, if you’re trying to do something specific that needs to happen outside of Zbrush then you need to follow rules that will adhere to the other software packages you’ll be using.

If you’re only working in Zbrush you don’t need to retopo and project. Do I recommend you do? Yes. Only because using dynamesh as your base frees up your creative side and gives you all the things mentioned above, as well as a ton of other options. Then switching your sculpt over to subD levels gives you all the other added benefits of working with subD levels, and at that point you shouldn’t really need the options dynamesh gives you because you’re sculpt is nearing completion and the creative part is gone and now you’re to the technical side.

Eh, this could be a whole chapter or 2 about workflow. Basically, do what works best for you. If you’re not getting the results you want with one, switch to the other.

[Led_Stereo]

Thank you beta_channel, I feel less like I’m doing things “wrong” now. Appreciate your reply.

I watched another tutorial where the artist started in Dynamesh, then did a retop/project and worked though sub/d levels before going into polypaint and rendering. Combined with what you said this made a LOT of sense and is pretty much the ideal workflow for me, with 90% of the work done in ZB and the other 10% in Photoshop.

Thanks again for your help.

[Carsten_Lind]

AS bete_channel said, theres no rules - only what suits you best.

I use a mix between Dynamesh, Maya, primitives. Often I end up going from primitives to Dynamesh, and then retopo. I even go from retopo to dynamesh again! so basically, no rules apply, only do what suits you the best for the situation.

[Led_Stereo]

Thanks for your input, Carsten, appreciated.

What would you say has the most influence over your workflow? Is it the final output/destination format and whether your work will be used by colleagues in other applications?