Hello! I’m rather new to ZBrush, so I figured my question could be easily answered by more experienced people.
Basically I wanted to make a tree using Zspheres, as it makes ading branches easy and quick.
But when I switch to adaptive skin, the result is mostly good except for one thing I don’t like: the topology is very even across the whole mesh, when simple straight branch sections really don’t need that much poly density.
I want to optimize it for real time in the end, so I’d like to reduce poly density between zspheres of the branches.
Is that something I can adjust at this stage, or am I going to have to remesh it later?
Tried classic skinning, but it creates membranes between branches, where I really don’t want them.
The resolution of the adaptive skin can be controlled via the Density slider in the Tool > Adaptive Skin menu, and the G Radial slider to a lesser extent. You may also wish to disable the Dynamesh slider there if aiming for a low poly mesh (remember to err on the side of lower poly–you can always subdivide a mesh at any point to increase the resolution, but working down to low poly from a high poly mesh is a much more complicated subject).
However:
This is actually rather the point of many of the auto-topology tools in Zbrush.
Optimization of topology is something you’d do towards the later stages of developing a mesh in Zbrush. The ideal mesh topology for the majority of things you do in Zbrush is evenly distributed quads, as close to square shaped as possible. This type of surface returns the best results when sculpting or painting. Overly stretched or oddly shaped polygons will cause distortion in the surface. Most of the Zbrush resurfacing tools are designed to quickly redistribute the polygons as evenly as possible, to allow for sculpting without distortion.
There is no single right way to work in Zbrush, but for many artists, the early stages of developing a mesh in Zbrush are done free of topological contraints, allowing you to redistribute the topology at will. This allows you to use tools like Dynamesh or Sculptirs Pro mode to their full potential. Export quality topology is a more deliberate decision you would make after the bulk of that work is done, depending on your export needs. Some outputs, like print, are very forgiving in terms of topological needs. Others, like animation, may require very deliberately constructed, manual re-topology, highly optimized for performance.
Thanks for the advice. It seems like I’ve been putting the carriage in front of the horse a bit.
I have discovered those parameters, but they also apply in a uniform manner, so it only did half the trick.
Guess I’ll focus on finalizing the high poly mesh before trimming it down
I would set the Adaptive Skin Dynamesh Resolution slider to 0 in order to disable it, and then drop the Density slider down to either 1 or 2 (depending on how low poly you want to get). This will create clean, lowpoly topology .
The result will still have evenly spaced quads across the surface as it is designed for sculpting, but because it will have nice clean edge loops you can quickly use ZModeler to remove any loops that you would deem to be non-essential.
