ZBrushCentral

A Few Questions

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

  1. Is there a way to “add” geometry to an existing OBJ mesh? For example: I created an head and imported it into ZBrush, but I realized I don’t want the mouth, but when I smoothit out there still is a space or hole. Can I smooth or fill the mouth in?

  2. Subtools - I have 2 pieces of geometry in 1 subtool but I want to delete one piece in that subtool . Is this possible and how would I do it?

  3. How do I delete the “subdivision history”?

  4. How can I “delete” or “erase” a part of my mask?

  5. Can I save a mask so I can create a new mask on the same piece of geometry?

Really appreciate any help on these. Thanks :wink:

#2
  1. if its a hole you’ll have to patch it using retopology.
  2. if both pieces are not actually connected you can do a autogroup. otherwise you will have to select one and hide the other, you can use topological maskign and use hidept in masking palette, then just goto the geometry palette and do a delete hidden.
  3. in geometry palette, you del lower and del higher, i would do this with a copy of my model just to have a backup
  4. ctrl+alt
  5. i’m not sure but i believe there is a way, heres a link that might help
    http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=51302
#3

Q1: You can also add a crease to visable mesh Geometry>Crease to add extra geometry, but might not be enough for a mouth cavity depending on your mesh/topology.

#4

scratchy, crease doesnt add extra geometry, edge looping does, also creases are not exportable.
from the wiki"Crease: Applies a tag (visible as a dotted line) to edges bordering hidden polygons. Such marked edges are less affected by subsequent subdivision smoothing, and so come out looking sharper. Note: There is no industry standard for this kind of tagging (other programs have their own similar but proprietary methods), so if you mark a creased edge this way, that creasing will not be exported when exporting a model with such creases–use the Crisp feature above if you need to export creases. However, Crease can still be very useful when generating displacement etc. maps."

#5

Apologies Spaceboy thanks for the correction, edge loop is what I was meaning/should have said as it does add the extra geometry that is exportable, my bad (not a feature I’ve used very often). And not going to help in this case, its been a long day.
Cheers;)

#6

Thanks spaceboy412 :smiley:

  1. if both pieces are not actually connected you can do a autogroup.

Well I’m not sure what you mean by connected. They are not connected as actual geometry (they aren’t touching), but they are in the same polygroup. So how does “autogroup” delete the piece of geometry?

scratchy,
thanks for the edge loop tip! :smiley: I’m not sure what the difference between edge loop and retopology is or what would be better but I will have to look it up.

#7

an edge loop just adds a loop of more geometry, it would not patch a hole as you said you have, retopology would work for that.
perhaps you just mean you have a mouth “pocket”, you should be able to smooth it out with the smooth brush.
if your 2 pieces of geometry are not actually connected that makes it easy to just select out what you don’t want and use delete hidden.
i’m sorry if this isn’t all clear, please check the wiki for more info.
http://www.zbrush.info/docs/index.php/Main_Page

#8

to save a mask:

  1. draw the mask
    2) in the masking sub-pallette select “create alpha” (this will
    create an alpha in the shape of your mask)
    3) in the alpha pallette, select export (this will export your
    mask as a .psd file)
    4) to re-use the mask, in the alpha pallette, select import to
    load your mask into the pallatte
    5) select it as your alpha and in the masking sub-pallette
    select “mask by alpha” (this will apply your mask)

    - you can select multiple .psd files and import several at once - don't forget to reset your alpha before you start sculpting - with the "inverse" selection in the masking sub-pallette, you get 2 masks for the price of 1

hope this helps