ZBrushCentral

Z4r2 Subdivision smoothing quirk with inserted mesh

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

When I insert a cylinder via the default “Insert Cylinder” tool, it is a bit coarse for my preference. As the function auto-masks the other geometry in the tool, I figure I can just divide it once or twice. It does divide, but it seems to do so without any smoothing applied, as if the SMT button in the geometry palette were not pressed, or all poly edges were creased. I hit Shift+Uncrease Edges to clear any possible creased edges, but the result is the same. If I unmask all other geometry in the tool, it subdivides normally, but then the geometry is subdivided globally, which is not desirous. Result was the same with an inserted sphere as well. If any other gemoetry is hidden/masked, it does not subdivide as expected. It’s possible this has always been Zbrush behavior, as I rarely worked with inserted meshes.

I realize I can insert a custom made cylinder more to my liking, but I was just wondering if there were a simple way to achieve this with the default menu tool, outside of applying a deformation effect which is a bit “mushy” for my liking. Ideally I’d like to be able to just insert the default cylinder, crease the top and bottom, and locally sub D it once or twice. If I were drawing the primitive by itself, there would be an “initialize” value I could tweak.

Thanks for any tips! Im sure this is basic stuff.

#2

I don’t know why partial subdivision doesn’t smooth the cylinder. From my tests it seems that the best way of getting the result you are after is to create your own cylinder and apply it to the Insert Brush by clicking the Mesh Insert preview in the Brush>Modifiers menu. If you save with a new name to the ZStartup/Brush Presets folder it will appear in the Brush pop-up.

#3

Thanks Marcus. I figured as much. I knew I can always just make my own custom shapes for insertion.

I guess the thing that most alarmed me was the smoothing failure when locally subdividing inserted meshes. If I’m going to adopt an R2 workflow making heavy use of inserted mesh tools for use with dynamesh, this seems like it could be problematic at times. I was wondering if there was something I was doing wrong, or didn’t understand (likely).

#4

I opened Zbrush 4 to experiment with this. Apparently, this is just Zbrush behavior ( at least as of Zb4). It does not apply smoothing when using local subdivision.

I never noticed before, because local subdivision in a continuous mesh is generally avoided by most people, and most “mesh insertion” and remeshing was done via subtools, where levels of division were likely to be similar, and any creasing and smoothing is likely to have been sorted out for each tool individually.

However, if the evolving Zbrush workflow is now going to promote prolific use of mesh insertion tools of meshes with disparate subD levels, it may need to be looked at.

Thanks for the feedback!

#5

Thanks Scott, that’s interesting and not something I had noticed.