ZBrushCentral

Manual Retopology Problem (Solved)

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

I’ve never been very good with retopology. I’m fairly new to ZBrush in general but retopology has always confused me. I don’t understand many of the problems I face with manual retopology (using a Z-sphere and “Edit Topology”). This is the worst problem and it happens all the time…

I go and retopologize an object and then it gets all weird like this. At first I thought it could be fixed by simply turning the quads into tris. It definitely makes the mesh look normal. But then when I got to “Project” the higher res version onto a subdivided retopology it only works in a few places, leaving the resulting mesh looking very strange. In the places on the mesh where it does project, it actually subtracts, too.
This is a MAJOR problem. Every sculpture I’ve worked on has had this problem and so I can never project details the way I should be able. Does anyone know what this problem is? If I could get around this problem I could actually start making some cool things to animate/use in a game. I really want to know what is wrong!!
Thank you

Attachments

problem1.jpg

problem2.jpg

problem3.jpg

#2

Additionally, this usually happens with cylindrical objects. Arms, animal teeth, fingers (especially fingers) and toes, etc… Again, if anyone knows what is going on here I would greatly appreciate the help. This is the only real problem I have with sculpting right now!

#3

One more thing: I do make sure that all of my vertices are connect and that there are no problems with the placement of vertices or edges. If it is user error, it’s not carelessness or laziness, it’s ignorance. I am totally open to that reasoning :lol:
Also, I usually “Check Mesh” and it says everything is OK. Clearly, everything is not OK with the mesh. This is what it looks like when I “Project” the other subtool:

project1.jpgproject2.jpgproject3.jpg

The first two images are the low poly (subdivided but not smoothed) and the high poly with polypaint, respectively. The third image is the low poly result after the projection. This was a surprisingly good projection but if you look at the tip of the left horn and the base of the right horn, you’ll see what I’m talking about. I believe this is related to the retopology problem I am having. I cannot figure out what’s wrong and I have tried many things to fix it with no luck.

#4

I keep remembering things that I wanted to include because the more accurate I am with my explanation of the problem, the more likely it is that someone will be able to help me. I must add that nothing is masked. That was the first thing I checked.

#5

If it helps, this is a much worse (and more typical) case of the projection problems I’m having. I do believe this is linked with retopology because when I project onto a subdivided low poly model that has been decimated instead, projection works perfectly.

project4.jpg

#6

I just attempted to set normals in the right direction. I wondered if maybe somewhere along the way I got the normals flipped. That wasn’t the case. I took it into Maya as an .obj file and the normals were all reversed (I’ve heard that happens, anyway). In Maya I put all the normals back to the way they should be and then reimported it into ZBrush. Same results when I tried to project.

#7

A couple of things. Retopo tools (zspheres) do not support 4 sided boxes. Zbrush doesn’t under stand a box for some reason and you need to use 5 sided loops in order to use zsphere retopo.

Your project distance isn’t high enough for your projection, that is why you are finding broken areas. Are you using zspheres and the project subpalette or are you using an adaptive skin and using the projection functions within the subtool subpalette?

Your horn projection was fine. You can’t expect every projection to be perfect…actually, I’ve never had a perfect projection. You will always need to do some clean up.

#8

Thank you very much! I have been periodically refreshing this page since I posted it, waiting for a reply. I changed my 4 sided pieces to 6 and it worked. That is such a simple solution. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that.
As for the projection, I am using an adaptive skin appended as a subtool after Zsphere retopology. I don’t know much about the “Project” subpallete with Zspheres so I have stayed away from that. Would one be beneficial over the other?

#9

projections inside of the subtool subpalette are usually cleaner IMO.

#10

How exactly do I use it? I clicked the button to turn projection on in the “Projection” subpallete but nothing happened.

#11

check the documentation or look for a video, way easier than me trying to write it out.

#12

Alright. Thank you very much, you’ve been a great help!