ZBrushCentral

How dividing a masked mesh works

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

I have a slight problem with the divide function. It doesn’t seem to respect masking properly!

If I Mask the area I want to divide, invert the mask and then divide, the divide goes all the way around the object rather than just dividing the masked bit. It’s a bit hard to explain so I took some pictures :slight_smile:

Inverted mask (just one poly);

Divide and this happens;

A clearer view of the whole object;

This doesn’t just happen with single polys either. Is there any way to stop this? At the moment it’s creating lots of un-needed polys.

Sleeper

#2

This is covered in the manual, actually, and it’s doing exactly what it is meant to do. ZBrush will always do its best to maintain quadrangles. In order to accomplish this, it does need to divide unmasked portions of the mesh as well. But it will attempt to keep the division as much within the masked area as possible.

#3

Ok, thanks for the reply.

#4

If you do not care wether you end up with Quads or Tris, you can export your zbrush primitive and import it again. All imported objects respect the mask when dividing. Zbrush primitives divide in masked areas as well.

#5

It’s amazing what your brain can do while you’re sleeping! I woke up this morning & just knew what the answer was :slight_smile:

I read this thread when I first came to this forum but didn’t know much about ZBrush. Using that type of sphere means you get much more controlled divisions;

There is also a page by the same guy (tlillehoff)
here describing how it was created and a ZScript to make it easy :slight_smile:

#6

And here is an imported cube, subdivided with mask and spherized…

Subsequent masking is also localized and symmetry is intact.

Sven