Hi guys,
I’m pretty new to zbrush and today I discovered a problem.
I’m currently working on a character and my problem is right now
that i can’t add detail to certain areas of the mesh for example to the face.
If I try to add detail to the face,
for example creating the lips, it gives me something like this:
I’ve searched for hours, can you pls help me
It looks like you have Smoothing in the subdivusion settings turned off.
Where I can turn this setting on?
in the geometry palette next to the divide button, just below the subD levels is a “smt” button. when that is turned on, smoothing gets applied when subdividing. since you’ve already subd without it, turn it on now won’t change anything.
you have to step down in subD levels, delete the higher levels, then turn on “smt” and subdivide again.
then the model will smooth out with each division.
are you forced to use subdivision to get detail? if you can change the geometry, sculpting and dynameshing at a nice resolution should give you better results than subdivisions.
****… mhn, what do you exactly mean by “forced” ? I mean I use it cause it know how work with it, I tried dynmesh too, but I don’t get how dynmesh exactly work. As I came to the problem with the lips I dynmeshed the character and tried to fix it with higher resolution, but at some point it won’t increase the polygon number, so I still couldnt add detail to the lips.
Did you start the model in ZBrush? Personally I prefer subdivision over Dynamesh unless I’m ‘forced’ to use it to fix a really bad problem. Start with adaptive skin from ZSphere armature then add levels only as needed. Under render options is smooth, that helps. Wireframe pic might be helpful.
what i meant by forced was, it could be a person is stuck with the geometry of the low poly mesh, like maybe they need to keep the same UVs, in that case they can’t remesh. but evidently that doesn’t apply here.
dynamesh’s resolution is related to scale. if you can’t get enough resolution, go to the deformation palette, and scale the model up good bit. then dynamesh and you’ll get good resolution.
I created the armature with zpheres, turned it into a 3D Polymesh
and then I instantly added 5 subdivison lvl and began to scuplt the model in the first subdivison.
Whenever I felt I could’nt add any more detail in the current subdivison I switched over to the next one
until I was in the 5th with 12 billion polygons and still could not add detail to the face.
Right now I still have the mesh (character) with 12 billions polygons but I’m still unable to add detail to certain points.
Can you pls give me a tip what would be the best option to precede for me right now to finally sculpt in in the higher detail?
ZSphere armature >Adaptive skin. Start with low setting and then start to model? Why what you said subdivide 5 times bam like that? There is another option. Sculpt HD
And what’s exactly the difference between adaptive skin and just making it a polymesh 3d and subdividing?
12 Billion??? Don’t you mean 12 Million? The secret to using ZBrush is “Subtools” The more subtools you have, the greater the detail you can have. Break your model up into more than one subtool. ie: if you had the head as 1 subtool, you could have 12 million points for that alone which would give you lots of detail.
Oh, I didn’t know that, but how I cut my mesh into different subtools?
The problem you’re running into is that you have 12 million vertices to work with, but 99.5% of them are found in other areas of the mesh. One way to solve this is to use topology that will concentrate more verts into areas that will need more detail. The edgeloops tool would have been very useful for this (very similar to how this video uses them). Another option is to use subtools so that you can subdivide the head without having to subdivide the rest of the body.
Oh, I didn’t know that, but how I cut my mesh into different subtools?
One way is to separate the mesh into different polygroups (there are several ways to do this). From there you can use the Tool: Subtool: Group Split option.
Subtools are very useful when you’re working with a design that is made up of several different components - eg: a watch and a shirt could each have their own subtool since they’re two completely different things. A human body can be trickier since it’s supposed to be one seamless object. If you can, you’ll want to try and hide the split seams in locations that will be covered by clothing and other props, otherwise there might be noticeable gaps between each subtool.
Some of the immediate benefits to working with subtools are:
In this case I wouldn’t recommend using subtools as a way to increase your maximum vertex count. It’s a short term brute-force solution, but it wont be helpful to your sculpting in the long run. This is the kind of thing you should nip in the bud, and develop an understanding of how your edgeflow affects subdivision and sculpting. At this stage it shouldn’t be too much of a loss to drop down to your lowest subdivision, delete the higher levels, and start adding more geometry to the face using the edgeloop tool. It won’t need to be prettyeither; just adding some extra loops for the mouth, eyes, and nose will go a long ways. From there you should be able to sculpt in the larger forms of the head with a fraction of the point count that you currently have. And once you have the medium-res sculpt blocked in, zremesher could potentially take over to give you even better edgeflow / polygon density.
And what’s exactly the difference between adaptive skin and just making it a polymesh 3d and subdividing?
Once the adaptive skin gets converted to a polymesh (either by using the Makepolymesh3d button, or by using the MakeAdaptiveSkin button), absolutely nothing.
I’d like to add that the options selected before (classic or adaptive) and their settings can be a big help. Just looked at a model I had here, head was a separate sub tool at 5.5 million. 20 mil total in the scene with hair. Have a look in my Einstein thread.
Here are some things to help you split up your mesh…
If this was my problem I would probably drop to lowest subdivision, mask the lips and make them a new Polygroup (Ctrl+W). Then hide the lips, Split Hidden so the lips become a new subtool. Subdibide the lips with smoothing ON and then merge the kips back into the main mesh(or not if you prefer).
I thank all of you guys for that huge amount of help, awesome.
Just one question, at which point I should start to add polygon groups.
And what’s the difference between masking a area and click “group masked” (under polygroups) and
select a area with strg shift and click on edgeloop. Could someone explain this for me?
