ZBrushCentral

At the Crossroads of Dynamesh and Subdivision

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

I need some technical advise to finish a sculpt. At a certain point in my process, I stopped dynameshing and began to sculpt the way I used to. [The model is at around 4million polys, but no subdivisions]. Then I decided to scale the head and neck area bigger. Even with using a very softened mask, there is tearing in the stretched area. I tried a combination of brushes including smoothing and claybrush build up that seems to work-at least the flaws of the stretch are hidden. But I know underneath the surface, it’s a mess. I can’t really subdivide again because the polys will be too many.

Now I want to add hair all over the body. I am going to use Ryan Kittleson’s great short hair (free) brush that I got on YouTube, which I love – to draw the hair everywhere. How can I fix the stretched area before adding the hair? The area has stretched polys. I can’t re- Dynamesh because I will loose all my detail (even with turning off smoothing and selecting freeze-too much detail will be lost).

Would the best way to continue use Decimation Master and make it an object of about 1million polys and then start re-subdividing the reduced model, or will re-topo-ing the object be the way to go? I have tutorials on retoping but have never used it yet and I am not sure it will solve my issue.

It seems to me that as wonderful Dynamesh is, one must really know where one is going with the model. Adding eyelids after the fact, or my example of drastically changing a model’s basic structure – it is hard to continue. I haven’t been able to work out the right approach for tweeking.

Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance.

#2

The idea of dynamesh is to be a primitive mesh. Meaning that you fast sculpt your model, get proportions and some main detail AND then do a retopo and finish your model with fine detail.
So, my advice is - make a nice topology, re-project your details and finish your model

#3

Yes, that is great advice, but in my case I am way down the line. My model started out in Dynamesh, but now I am no longer in Dynamesh. I have given it a lot of detail, and then – when looking at the model-- I decided to stretch out the muzzle of the face. Pulling the face forward, there are very few polys now in the muzzle area. I spent all Saturday trying to retopologize. But because the figure is no longer symmetrical (having given it a hero’s pose), and the head also has ornate horns, I am getting all kinds of errors when I hit “A” key to preview my work. I turned off symmetry and am working on one side, then the other. I’m trying to fix the flaws in my construction but it is far from not easy. It’s more like going to the dentist. I understand that there is no great auto-retop solution at this time. I guess I should have “retoped” early-on, but since I didn’t, retopology seems like a nightmare to me.