Hello I’ve been trying to create Chain mail with both Dyanmesh and Micro Poly and Every time I use either it comes out distorted I’m trying to make a chain mail coif / collar and hood for medieval characters with rather large loops as it’s for a miniature.
Each time I’ve done micro poly and make a cone shape for the collar or mail coif it comes out with rings towards the bottom of the mail larger and distorted then the ones closer. Due to the poloy shape. It’s not a square. I’ve tried making a square and draping it over with dynamics but they just distort more and the rings bend rather then colliding with each other I’ve tried applying it and using collusion same problem.
Does anyone know how to fix this issue? SO that I can make a uniform chain mail coif?
With large rings. You’ll notice that the top image The rings are just not connecting.
Is there a way to turn the nanomesh/dynamesh one into a solid 3D object that I can autogroup and move each ring individually? Every time I try to make object 3D it reverts back to just a piece of cloth with polys.
I really want to avoid doing each loop by hand and they can’t be smaller then this they need to maintain the same size because they’re for miniatures.
Dynamesh, which is not immediately important to your process here.
I know it’s confusing that all those terms sound similar, but apply to different features.
It’s going to be important to make certain that your target geometry is made up of evenly distributed quads, as close to the same size and as close to square shaped as possible. For small visible sections of mail, it would probably be easiest to create on a grid the way Michael Pavolvich does in the following video, then use dynamics to drape over the target area.
It’s often easier to simply remove unwanted sections of mesh after it’s been placed, than it is to tailor-make a complex garment and keep the polygons square. See in the following image I have simply hidden the head and draped a nice grid of well shaped rings over the shoulders, then restored the head. Excess rings can be deleted, or cut away.
If you must create a more complex garment, it is probably going to be necessary to ZRemesh it, and possibly even manually edit areas in order to get decently shaped polygons. In this video, Michael Pavlovich shows how he creates, then simplifies a wrap-around garment to create better topology for this process. Dynamics can then be used to shrink the mesh to the body.
Don’t try to fit every contour on the mesh as a whole when using the Dynamics simulation. Just let the mail cloth fall or shrink as far as possible before polygons start distorting too much. Then use the Cloth Move brush to push the mail to conform to difficult contours in small sections at time. If you hold down ALT after making contact with the move brush, you can push or pull sections of the mail in or out along a normalized direction.
This is an artistic decision and it’s your call. However, the larger the rings, the more evident any polygon distortion will be making your job more difficult. Also, while it’s true that miniatures require large, chunkier detail, you also want to avoid creating impossibly fine rings that are undercut with space between them and the underlying mesh. This is the sort of detail that may fail to print at that size.
What you want is raised surface detail, not individually articulated rings. So you might consider fusing the rings to an underlying garment so they just barely stick out from the surface, but do not create any negative or hollow space any place on the mesh.
Nanomesh will place your nanos according to the topology, and the size and position of the target polygons. If you edit the topology, you can change their size and placement.
The correct way to convert Micropoly with Dynamic Subdivision to real geometry is to use the “Apply” function in the Dynamcic Subdivision palette.
Actually that’s not very helpful I’ve already went through micro poly and it’s not going to work based on the advice you’re giving here or at least not the way that I want it to.
For one you’re using a different micro poly preset then the second of the two images, and two the first of the two images has nothing to do with dynamics.
The issue is when I export it or turn it 3D it just reverts to a flat surface with polys rather then what you see above. Or if I use Dynamesh it also turns into a flat surface losing all of the rings and geometry, made up of only a few poloys.
Which I think I can fix with BPR render but I’m not sure.
Is there a quick way to covert the IMM rings into it’s own sub tool with it’s own geometry as Micro poly does with apply under dynamics.
And again even using collision and micro-poly it distorts the shape of the rings which are extremely difficult to recover their original intended shape. .
I feel that micro poly needs a lot of work before it’s not just a gimmick.
I really just need to know how to transfer the above image which again has nothing to with micro poly but is done using IMMs and transfer it into it’s own obj and keep the rings intact without them dispersing into flat plane.
Then I can quickly auto group ctrl shift and mask each ring that is out of out of place. it invert the mask and move it back with transpose then export the subtool via 3D print hub as part of the obj. Because the first of the two images the IMMs are amlost where they need to be .
Which I again think is possible with BPR render but I’ve never used with with IMMs and Micromesh etc.
The micro poly presets with the apply feature can be used to create solid geometry, but when dynamics is turned on they distort when they collide with a mask. Making it unusable, the micro poly will not hold it’s shape it will bend the rings. Which need to maintain their hard surface look.
I didn’t think to use a flat square then drape it but I feel it will still distort maybe less. Then I could auto group, and remove the unwanted polygroups with cltr shift and mask, hide visible then delete hidden. I’ll give that a try and see if it works but I’m still concerned that the Rings will distort.
Is there a way to keep the rings solid when they collide?
As you stated above their is a lot of technical terminology
The IMMs using Nanomesh to align them… Dyna-mesh instantly turns the IMMs also into
a flat plane. Sort of left that out, and didn’t explain it very well. My bad.
So I think… not 100% sure on this but I need to BPR render it and unify… Never really done that before so I’m a little out of my depth on that. which is in this video here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv3uNqr1Rf4
I originally used this second video below to convert the IMM into a the first of the two
images labeled dynamesh nanomesh.
Thanks again for your help. Zbrush is a trip. should have stuck with hand sculpting.
There is nothing to be solved as far as I can determine. This is a skill issue. The ZBrush Dynamcis simulation is currently limited to cloth and liquid. Using a mesh with dynamics will deform that mesh to some degree, and if you generate instances based on a deformed mesh topology, those instances will also be deformed. I warned you that trying to use this approach to create large rings would be challenging. It works much better for smaller fiber cloth, and smaller chain links that resemble cloth.
I recommend creating your armor in smaller sections at a time, and manipulating the topology with the mesh editing and re-meshing tools in ZBrush to precisely control the shape and placement of the nanos or micropoly. Nanos that don’t need to be welded can be placed without deformation, so you could actually place your rings without the topology shape affecting them, as long as the target polygons are evenly spaced. There is no rule saying you have to attach these instances to the topology of your subject–duplicate and remesh it into a form with simplified and well-shaped topology for the creation of the armor. Create smaller sections of retopologized geometry over top of your existing mesh with tools like ZModeler or the Topology Brush to target for your instances.
To do these things, you will need a broad understanding of the ZBrush toolset–broader than I can explain in a forum post-- from ZRemesher, ZModeler, Polygroups, to mesh visibility functions. If you are new to ZBrush and have not learned the fundamental concepts of the program, everything else you try to do will be more difficult.
The community forums are a place where users volunteer to help other users with ZBrush usage questions. People tend to get better answers for focused questions on smaller subjects, rather than broad inquiries that require large portions of the program being explained. You may have better luck seeking out free tutorials or commercial artistic instruction on this subject, if no one has given you a better answer. If you believe you have a repeatable technical issue with ZBrush, the place to report that is the Pixologic Support site.
