ZBrushCentral

Troubles with ZSpheres - unexpected results

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hello, I am following a digital tutors tutorial called “Your first day in zbrush”. It literally is my first day in zbrush, so please bare with me. I believe my pictures explain the issue better than i could i words.

http://gyazo.com/1a6a044181cfadedba5154316da63e1f
And then adaptive skin
http://gyazo.com/e5bde70482d5adead8ba44f4794dfc7a

Once I add a ZSphere to make a neck i get weird adaptive skin issues
http://gyazo.com/2890d69f7385377b86f7436fd5717972
Or
http://gyazo.com/880033ffa8708c197f263f0d5b2e8f4b

I would expect the zsphere that i am adding for the neck to look similar to what i did with the fingers. I don’t understand why in some situations it totally alters the entire adaptive mesh and in others it has a giant vertical spiking…issue?? I have noticed that if i place the ‘neck’ far forward of the body or far backwards of the body so that it would be pointing at you while you look at it straight on, the adaptive mesh is not altered and i get the expected result that i am after. Minus it being in the completely wrong spot. :confused:

I’ve messed with some of the settings in the old adaptive mesh area. The MBr adjustment kind of fixes it but really makes the model look quite different.

Is there anyway of fixing this? Is this normal to run into when dealing with zspheres?

Thanks for any help you can provide!
-Jonathan

#2

ZSpheres can be a bit tricky sometimes, especially if they are too close together. Also, sometimes a ZSphere can get added by mistake and get buried inside the others which can screw things up. It’s difficult to say what might be going wrong in this case as there’s nothing obvious from your images.

When using ZSpheres it’s best to concentrate of placing them for good topology rather than trying to get the exact shape you are after. If you see the ZSpheres go transparent then that’s an indication that the skinned mesh will not be good. Also, avoid using the Classic Skinning mode - it’s an older skinning mode and can be more difficult to control, especially for hands and so on.

#3

Marcus, thank you for getting back with me and thank you for the advice. I really do appreciate it.

I just wanted to give an update that i was able to fix it. However i don’t understand how or why and all i did was i tried rotating it. No visual change happened with the zsphere, but afterwards when i attempted to put a new zsphere on top, the adaptive skin appeared as expected. Craziest thing… /shrug

I tried rotating it because someone suspected that since my sphere was facing the wrong way, meaning that half the sphere was facing forward the other half facing backwards instead of half the sphere pointed downwards the other half towards the ceiling. I’m not sure if this is correct or not but thats why i attempted to rotate the zsphere itself. I figured out that i couldnt, maybe there is way i just don’t know it, and tried playing a new zsphere. It worked.

Hope this might be helpful to someone new in the future like myself.
-Jon

#4

Yes, twisting can sometimes cause unexpected results. Anyway, I’m glad you got it sorted out and thanks for posting your findings.