ZBrushCentral

Why does my model look dented/uneven (pictures)

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

I’ve been watching the panel loop videos and then the car design videos in the zclassroom. Then I tried coming up with something myself so I made a rough car shape.

After refining it quite a bit with the smooth and hpolish brushes it still looks… I don’t know, it doesnt look “hard surface”, it still looks like clay, with an uneven surface. When making polygroups with the slice curve brush it also looks somewhat crappy, the edges or the whole thing don’t seem to look as nice as in the videos. I can’t quite put my finger on it as I havent used zbrush much yet, maybe someone else can see it?

I also seem to have these weird dents in the surface in some places that I can’t seem to get rid of. I attached pictures so you can check out what I mean.

Dents:
http://i.cubeupload.com/eDGVq3.png
From a different perspective
http://i.cubeupload.com/LmVvkb.png
This is how it looks with the polyframe turned off. You can see the dents on the lower edge:
http://i.cubeupload.com/VO9hc8.png

Example of how it has an uneven surface in general, doesn’t look flat and metal-y
http://i.cubeupload.com/un22PH.png

I don’t know how to improve from here. Can someone help me out? Id love to know what im doing wrong and how i can improve.

#2

Render properties> smooth normals

#3

But in the videos the rough car model didn’t look as strange/crappy as mine even before rendering (and even at the points were it isn’t much more detailed than mine here). The option you mentioned sounds like it only helps with the BPR render. That doesn’t change how it looks now, while working on it, does it?

Could you be a little more specific? That would be cool. Thanks for replying.

#4

More complete screen grab would give us a better shot at helping you. Try the planer brush. As for around the wheel wells, just smoothing may help a lot. Mask areas you don’t want turned into pillows :wink:

#5

those dents look like dynamesh artifacts. it happens to me sometimes for some unknown (to me) reason.

i have the same trouble with the surfaces too sometime what i do when i’m at your point is a combination of subdividing up, zremesh, decimation, dynamesh. my goal is to get a basic mesh the is working well.

from your pics, try something like…

first smooth out the dents best you can…then subdivide up, then should help even out the surface bit, smooth best you can.

then lightly decimate… then zremesh…click auto groups along the process to keep or get back your groups…then dynamesh.

repeat as needed.

and if that fails i just use zremesher without dynameshing.

#6

It can help to switch the material to something reflective looking, such as the ReflectRed matcap. I find it makes it easier to see what’s going on with the surface, and it helps make your model look like its actually made out of something harder vs using a softer waxier material.

You’ll want to get well acquainted with the Trim, Polish, Planar, and Flatten brushes, along with their variants (same deal with the Smooth brush too; Lightbox has some extras tucked away, and releasing shift while smoothing can also change how the model gets smoothed). These brushes will give you sharper / more planar cuts into the form, while letting you average out the curvier areas without completely destroying them.

Using Polygroups in conjunction with Creases, Grouploops and the Polish by Feature commands will also help give you control over surface transitions. This would be especially useful for areas like the wheels and around the windshield; they will alter your edges to flow along the sharper areas of the vehicle instead of just trying to wrap a grid around every corner. I think getting a feel for these tools are especially important for creating hard surface shapes in zbrush, as otherwise you’ll need to crank your dynamesh resolution way up (and the more geometry you have to deal with manually, the more chances you have to create a lumpy surface).

To that end it can sometimes be useful to use your initial dynamesh sculpt as a way to block in the general proportions of the model. Then use the retopology tools on top of it to create a simpler surface designed to subdivide cleanly.

#7

Thanks a lot for all the tips, I’ll give that a shot.

About the zremeshing and also the decimating: I don’t manage to get my polygroups back after doing that. Hitting Auto Groups just creates one polygroup out of the whole thing. What am I doing wrong there?

#8

Polygroups from polypaint.