I’m having no luck finding relevant information for this so I thought I’d ask it myself. What kind of preference settings can I adjust to make ZBrush faster for my setup? I’m using the most recent ZBrush 2020 update.
I’m running OS X 10.15.4 on a 2019 iMac 27” with the 9th gen i9 9900k 8 core processor. I have 64gigs of 2666MHz DDR4 SDRAM.
What I’m most curious about is how to take best advantage of my system through ZBrush settings. I have never messed with the preferences for memory or performance since I didn’t want to mess anything up. But I’m really hitting an issue where ZBrush slows way down when undoing on dense meshes.
Any insight would, as always, be greatly appreciated.
After you’ve installed Zbrush on hardware optimized for it, there’s not a lot to be done. ZBrush is designed to operate without the need for user tweaking to performance settings, and I would not recommend changing any performance related setting unless directed to by Support in conjunction with some other issue.
Everything slows way down for dense meshes. This is a workflow issue, not a software/hardware issue. Avoid ultra dense single subtools as much as possible–spread out poly load among multiple subtools wherever it is logically possible to do so. Avoid adding fine detail until you need to in order to keep polycount down longer. Optimize base meshes to deliver more polygons to high detail areas and fewer to low detail areas. Make use of HD Geometry where possible, rather than trying to subdivide your mesh too far for your system. Remember that fine detail sculpting is best done on a mesh with a low poly base with multiple levels of subdivision–meshes in this form have performance optimizations which make them perform much better when navigating than a high density mesh with a single level of subdivision.
Thank you for sharing this information, it’s very helpful to know.
My mesh currently that is having issues was ZRemeshed down to 100k and sub divided up to 18M.
I haven’t used HD Geo for this because I wasn’t sure if HD could be 3D printed. I’ll have to research that more.
I need the density for this particular mesh since it has very high frequency detail and will be printed kind of big. Probably just something I will have to deal with.
I haven’t used HD Geo for this because I wasn’t sure if HD could be 3D printed. I’ll have to research that more.[...]
I need the density for this particular mesh since it has very high frequency detail and will be printed kind of big. Probably just something I will have to deal with.
Most 3d print processes are not capable of reproducing the kind of detail that HD Geometry is for (skin pores, fine wrinkles, etc). However if you feel your situation warrants it, this video may be useful:
There’s no escaping the basic fact that the more points are active at once, the slower and more cumbersome many processes in Zbrush will become, dependent on hardware. You want to avoid working in this state whenever possible, for as long as you can, saving the sort of work that would require extreme subdivision for the very end, just prior to texture or mesh export. The more mesh discipline you have in creating optimized base meshes that deliver more polygons to high detail areas and not wasting them in low detail areas, the better the mesh will perform at high levels of subdivision, sometimes eliminating the need for additional subdivision.
Since you are working for print, you have the advantage of not having to worry overmuch about the quality of your topology. You dont have texture concerns, and are just going to decimate the geometry anyway. That would make it easier to partially subdivide a small section of the base level of a mesh that will be receiving a lot of high frequency detail. When the full mesh is subdivided, this will create zones that are very responsive to detail, while still keeping the polycount economical in zones that dont need it. This will create poor topology that would be problematic in other contexts, but you’re going to decimate for export.
I’ll definitely have to implement these workflow tips in my future projects. This current one is at its final stages so I won’t be able to do it for this one. Thank you for all the information, it really helps and is very appreciated.