Hello Guys.
I have been playing with zbrush for a year or so on a loose basis, I work long hours so don’t get much time. I do absolutely love it however. I used to build wax figures in RL for a living, mainly cartoon stuff like Disney/Warners etc. but the job sadly went in 2008 and now i’m in tech support for HP.
I spend as many hours as I can trying to learn more about this brilliant program, just wish I had more, can afford 20 or so hours [on a good week] at the present time… I’m here for advice basically and hope someone might take the time to respond. The tutorials have gotten me so far, but sometimes it’s easier to ask the community i guess… too many tut’s can make the brain melt …
I have began attempting a male T-Pose figure, as pictured, the idea being to have a complete, well made basemeshwhich i built from scratch, learning more about anatomy as I go and also perhaps being able to create assets for virtual worlds/games [yes i’m a dreamer]. I’d like to create a figure which at its highest subdiv levels is very detailed, but i’d like to be able to pose the figure also, and make nice artwork/scenes through photoshop etc to finalise a concept. Would be good at the same time to have a human basemesh with good poly distribution that could be used as a starting point for any future male figure. I realise that retopology is necessary for animating in game worlds… but not for static artworks.
I realise that there may be many ways to accomplish this, but it makes the head spin a bit. Please allow me to explain my process thus far.
I started with zspheres, and I have kept all my subdivisions so far up to 7. Now as far as I understand it, when trying to pose a 13 million poly or higher figure in zbrush [I’m using 4R4], by way of a zsphere rig, one runs into trouble as the machine tries to process, so we need to keep our lower subdiv levels - pose it, and then wind it back up to the higher levels - maybe tidy up a bit… At least thats how I see it at this point.
I tried once in the past and i deleted all the lower levels on my sheep character, kept only the highest poly version… some 10 million or so… used a zsphere rig, and tried to move the arm and hand… well … you can imagine it was a bit of a struggle.
OK - so why do I not just keep subdividing and sculpting and then wind it down to pose, then back up to shoot a photo ?
Well, my figure is at 13 million… it’s not enough to make nice hands… as you can see they are currently stumps. The feet need toes and lovely shapes and toenails too, but i’ll never pull those out of this mesh as it stands, the geometry at the toe edge and finger roots is not sufficient… and i’d like to divide up even more on all areas. As it stands my PC wont divide past 13 million, as this would make 52 million and thats too much for this machine …
I know about Dynamesh and Q-remesher, but I seem to wait 20 mins or so for q-remesher to calculate and the result may not be what i was after in terms of distribution of edgeloops etc which are currently nice… at the same time i get worried about dynamesh and the way it needs to ‘freeze’ the subdiv levels, which i need to remain available so i can be posing when done with sculpting. Someone told me to just 'reconstruct subdiv’s - but will the distribution change then ?
In my head I feel like chopping the hands off, the head and feet off, and having them as separate parts, which i could sculpt to higher subdiv levels, but then i’m a bit new to it all and my head worries that if i do this [if it is possible], will they be able to be stitched back together into a complete figure again? with all the lowest levels intact so that i can pose the figure via zsphere rig and then wind up to full details for photo/scene purposes?
I hope this is clear enough.
Essentially there is a 50 million poly limit to each subtool with my computer, i can chop my man into 5 or so, gaining enough geometry for each part… then somehow join him back together into a complete mesh, slide down to low level subdiv for posing purposes… [Rodin’s thinker would be ironic given my headstate]… then… slide back up to get all the musculature back on and tidy it up where necessary - bingo !! … take a pic, lob it into the shop and wahey!! Plus I can still use this figure for any other scene as a starting point as I have all the subdivs. And, in his native state he is T-posed, so i can retopologise that with whatever clothing added… and then he becomes an asset for a game world…!!
Sorry about the length of this post, I know many will not be bothered to read such a lengthy muddled thing … but perhaps someone has an idea which makes all this slot into place in my mind.
Thanks to anyone who helps
Will :)
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