I am trying to recreate the tutorial on AskzBrush to make a quad cylinder. Why am I getting the result in the last screenshot below when I subdivide a simple 2 poly plane 2 times, with the smooth option set to “on”?
The initial plane was created the same way as in the video by initilaze > make polymesh 3D, it is single sided and has no creases.
Hi @zber2
I deleted the lower subdiv’s so everybody can see the mesh better. My question is - why does the plane not smooth out when dividing, and also why the second subdivion is not centered but happens towards the outer edges.
Hi @zzeebee ,
If youre referring to the way the edges are shrinking inward, this is probably because there is no creasing on the edges. The creasing prevents the edges from shrinking inward when subdivision smoothing is enabled.
If you don’t want the plane to be smoothed, you can simply disable the SMT button.
Note that the corners on a 2D plane will always round off a bit if SMT is enabled because the verts on the corners are not connected to enough edges to prevent that from happening. You would need to create an additional edge connection there and crease it to prevent that from happening. This could be done by smoothing the plane as part of a box, rather than a 2D grid. Or you you use Zmodeler to extrude an additional loop of polys around the edge, then delete them after subdividing.
Hi @Spyndel,
I do want the plane to smooth so I can use it as a quad cap for a cylinder. In the meantime I found that polish by feature does the trick, so this thread could be marked solved if you guys are very busy. But it would be interesting to know what is happening.
Hi @zzeebee,
To achieve the effect Joseph did in that video you would need to follow the instructions closely. You’ll need to have SMT enabled, and the edges of the plane will need to be creased. He doesn’t delete the creasing until after the subdivision operation.
Note that you also need minimum geometry there. The more points the plane has on the surface, the more it will resist smoothing.
Oh boy, that’s embarrassing. I missed that small but crucial detail twice…
Thanks @Spyndel for pointing that out!
You shouldn’t feel embarrassed! Sorting out the fine details in ZBrush usage is what we do here. I had to run through the process myself just to make sure
Subdividing 2D planes has some additional concerns over a closed solid like a cube. They do behave a bit differently than other 3D primitives.
Well, just a little embarrassed 
. Thanks again. The ZBrush Support team is outstanding, and so is the video documentation. Without both, learning ZBrush would have been quite a climb for someone who “has grown up” with the traditional 3D packages.
