ZBrushCentral

I´m despaired

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hello friends of Zbrush !

I´m really despaired. I really can´t work with zbrush, I do have always the same big troubles.

  1. Crashing
    ZBrush always crashes, if I use a higher divide level. If I do have about 700.000 polys, this is the maximum before I get kicked.

  2. Displcament
    And all I can do, I always get not the right Displacment map. Very often my mesh goes into “nirvana” and I can´t see it. After that it´s not possible for zbrush to calculate the displacment map and it ends up with a one-gray colored image stored as alpha.

I don´t know what I can do ? It´s no fun working on tools - cause you can´t do any progress.

Is my hardware the problem ?

I do have:
2,6 GHZ AMD
OS Windows 2000
1,5 GB RAM

Is there any hardware minimum for making high quality 3d meshes I can see day for day in the featured gallery ?

If so, please let me know more. Of course, I can see big troubles in working with textures with 4096x4096. My Computer needs really a long time for calculating, etc… Or is Windows 2000 not possible to handle 1,5GB RAM ?

But my system tells me no errors and all other software packages works fine for me.

Thank you for every little help and sugestions.
the despaired little capu :cry:

#2

Sorry you’re having so many problems.

Your mesh crashing issue is because the next level up on 700,000 polys is 2,800,000 polys, almost 3 million. And since you don’t have that fast of a machine that’s why it's most likely crashing. a fix to this would be starting out your base mesh at a level that when you sub divided it it didn’t exceed that point. example, if you started with a mesh that was a 1,000 polys at sub d level 6 it would be at 1,024,000 polys one more sub d level over that and it would be at 4 million polys, so just be smart at what level you are at and start at. What are your mem settings in zbrush under preferences set at? As far as your displacement map issue. How many different meshs have you tried it on, and what is your general workflow? And also don’t forget that the people that make top row on this site for the most part have been using zbrush for a long time and/or understand basic principals of modeling and anatomy. Sure a fast machine that can handle a few million polys helps. But it isn’t necessary, a lot of work that doesn’t make top row, (and this isn't true for all cases, but definitely stands out to me) are works that lack these elements.
#3

I´ve tried to get at start a really low poly mesh. But to get the detail on my mesh I do need a higher subdiv level. I´ve tried a lot with different meshes - but there is no way - I do need about 800.000 polys to get a good and clear result for the details.

My Preference Settings:
Compact Mem: 512
MaxPolyPerMesh: 6.99

What do you mean about my general workflow ?
This question is not really clear for me.

Sorry for my bad english and thx for helping me.

#4

I am not saying start at a low level, I am just saying be aware that every time you subdivide it multiplies your polys by 4. so if you want to try to hit 1,000,000 polys or higher without going to high just think about your poly count and what is happening every time you hit divide.

I am not 100% sure about windows 2000, but with xp if you have 1.5 GBs of ram you should be able to up your compact mem setting to more like 750 or even 1 GB of ram, which is about double what you are using right now, so that will definitely help.

Also what is the speed of your hard drive that zbrush is installed on and how much free space do you have on it?

What I meant by workflow is, what steps are you taking to create a displacement map?

#5

Speed of my harddrive:
7200rpm

Free DiskSpace:
1,2 GB

Steps to make a displacment map:

  1. Document Double
  2. Load Tool (Obj File Low Poly)
  3. Tool–>Texture–>GuvTiles
  4. Make a new texture with 4096x4096
  5. Tool–>Geometry–>Divide the mesh 7 times
    Result: 753.664
  6. ZBrush crashes if I take the next level of divide 8

Here is my .obj file to download:
http://www.bernhardrieder.com/problem/schild.rar

  1. I try to work in divide level 7

  2. I load a alpha map, make stencil

  3. Stencil–>Inverse, Wrap Mode

  4. I use Projection Master

  5. I position the stencil, with move, scale to my mesh

  6. I use the Layer Brush ZAdd 10
    –> Brush 01, Current Stroke: Dots

  7. I paint my details

  8. After finishing, I try to create my displacment map

If I create the displacment map, sometimes I get the message “Insuffiecient Memory” - but not always. The result from the created displacment is one gray colored map - seems to be, that the displacment map couldn´t be calculated.

Tool–>Displacment–>Create Displacment (Size 4096)

That´s all. No Displacment, no chance to export in other software.
I use 3dsmax.

I found out, that I should be sure that I do have a single sided mesh and it is not double sided. you can see the .obj file if you download it. you have to rotate on the canvas to see it, cause it´s loaded with the backside into zbrush.

well, I think I did nothing wrong here… but have no clue why zbrush make such troubles…

#6

I can check out your .obj later today,

but why are you doubeling your document. if you dont have a fast machine keeping your document size low will help a lot

also try using a displacement map at 2048 and see what kind of results you get at that size.

#7

double size beacuse I use a screen reoslution from 1280x1024… but I will try a smaller one.

I found out one very interesting thing:
Only if I divide my mesh and nothing other, I don´t oaint on the mesh, or Move or edit something … and I rotate in the canvas, I can see, that my mesh goes into “nirvana”.

Isn´t that weired ?

thank you so much…

#8

You can zoom in on your document to make it larger on your screen.

as for your mesh problem, this has happened to me once or twice before, and I think it was because I was hiding parts of the mesh and working on it and dividing it and moving up and down sub d levels. it does seem kind of random though.

How many meshes has this happened to you on?

Is this an imported mesh from max or maya or is it a zbrush created mesh?

#9

So I think it has something to do with your machine not being all that fast and perhaps your settings in zbrush.

I was able to open your obj, and subdivide it to level 8, which is over 3 million polys and edit and move up and down sub d levels, and it did not shoot out like yours did.

#10

I noticed your free disk space is really low. You might want to clean up some stuff off of your hard drive.

#11

Hello friends and thank you so much for your help.

Well, today I´ve got the chance to test all my troubles on a friends pc.
And… well, all works fine.

So… it´s not really a good news for me, cause I have to buy a new pc.
For some reasons I can´t find out, it´s not possible to work with ZBrsh on my computer. Maybe it´s a AMD conflict or driver problems I don´t know.

However, it´s time for a new machine… uff…

thx for your help !!!

#12

Before you do try that, if you have the spare things laying around.

You might want to make sure you have the latest drivers for everything on your computer.

Defrag of course if you haven’t.
Upgrade your system bios.

If none of that works try a reformat.
If that doesn’t work maybe try installing windows xp.
Perhaps getting more ram?
Maybe a faster hard drive?

I don’t know just throwing things out there, would hate to see you buy a whole new computer when all you might need is some driver updates or a good reformat.

#13

Also, did you try freeing up more space on your hard drive?

#14

yeah thx for all your help, thats really special.

I´ve tried it with 6 GB free harddrive disk space, but the same problem.
Hmm, yeah, I thought that I have to instlal new drivers, but really don´t know which drivers I do need… that is one thing I didn´t understand to this day…

I do have the following:
Motherboard Chaintech Zenith 7NJS
Nvdidia Graphic Card GeForce 4200ti 128MB

hmm, well… that´s all, or isn´t it ?

Or do you mean some special driver ?

thx for all your nice help !!!