ZBrushCentral

Is this the easiest way to achieve separate detail levels in an object?

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Is this the fastest way to achieve high polycounts in one area and low in others?

  1. Create separate polygroups a, b and c.
  2. Press W and CTRL/SHIFT-click group a to separate it from b and c.
  3. Use ZRemesher to raise the number of polys in group a.

If this is correct, how do you then later select groups b and c in order to edit them separately?

#2

http://docs.pixologic.com/user-guide/3d-modeling/modeling-basics/mesh-visibility/

#3

Thanks - I assume you mean that the easiest way is to CTRL/SHIFT-click group a and then use ZRemesher for that group.

But how do you edit group a while the other groups are visible?

And on a similar note: How do you select separate parts if they have been separated by Tool\Subtool\Split\Groups Split - or if you have imported them via .obj-files?

#4

How do you select separate parts if they have been separated by Tool\Subtool\Split\Groups Split - or if you have imported them via .obj-files?

That brings you to Subtools, which are my preferred way for quickly and easily working on different resolutions for different areas of a mesh (granted, they tend to work a lot better for objects that are made out of several components, vs a singular organic shape).

You can select them using the tool: Subtool subpalette, hitting N to see a list, or alt+click on the subtool itself.

#5

Ah, thank you so much! This is beautiful!

EDIT: Just one thing - ZBrush actually crashes (or becomes unresponsive) when I switch between objects in Subtools. I haven’t seen that before…

EDIT 2: I tried a few more times without crashes, so all seems to be good.

EDIT 3: More crashes - but they only appear when I select very, very tiny parts; in fact parts that are so small that they never should have been separate items in the first place. (I originally separated the first object into groups using polypaint which seems to be a bad, or questionable technique as it also creates these tiny ‘in-between’ parts.)

#6

hey, after your group creation you should try
> merge stray groups (polygroup rollout)
to assign single smaller groups to nearby larger groups, works nice.
hope that’ll fix your problem :slight_smile:

#7

Thank you, great advice!