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Transfer groups from 2 identical meshes and poseable symmetry problem, could use advice

ZBrush Usage Questions ZBrush 2020 Usage Questions
#1

Hi, I have 2 questions.
I was using Transpose master and made a group out of an arm before I moved it very close to the body. When I came out of Transpose master the group was gone. (kind of expected)

I can still mask the arm but it requires a lot of steps. I have an identical copy of the unposed mesh. Is there a way to group it’s arm, and copy that group to the posed mesh?

Second, I posed the character’s head, eyes and hair, and wanted to symmetrically move the eye positions. I thought this would be no problem with poseable symmetry, but it couldn’t create the poseable symmetry even though the eyes are posed only pretty slightly off center.

I’ve tried turning on and off local symmetry, I tried S. Pivot, and I think I’m missing a trick. Help with this will help refresh me about how objects centers work and I’d really appreciate it.

#2

Hi @PrinceSquare

There is a button in the Transpose Master menu labeled “Grps”, that will preserve your existing polygrouping in the merged mesh. I think it might be easier at this point to simply start over with your polygrouping intact, but if you want to fix it, I’ll give you some tips:

Masking can be drawn based on topology with tools like:

These tools might let you draw a mask onto the arm only, even if it is too close to the body of the mesh.

Likewise, if the arm has clean edge loops, you canhide a section of geometry on the arm up to a clean edge loop, and then hide the rest of it section by section with the Tool > Visibility > Shrink command, which will then hide loop by loop the arm as long as it’s cleanly divided into loops. Once the arm is hidden, group the remaining visible portion, then unhide the arm, which will now be its own polygroup. You can mask it at will at that point.

Re : Poseable symmetry.

PS only works on a mesh that is topologically symmetrical in itself, and even then it has limitations. It should not be relied upon in lieu of the discipline to simply take care of all your symmetrical modeling/sculpting prior to posing the mesh.

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#3

Awesome and amazing. I did not know about the Grps thing at all, nor the shrink command. That will solve it perfectly!

The eyes, they are topologically identical, but they are definitely off center. Imagine a head that is leaning forward and tilted to the right, kind of thing. I’m trying to get a concentration look in the character in his action pose.

But huge thanks for the ideas, the shrink thing is going to do the trick.