ZBrushCentral

Disappearing mesh when Unified Skin is activated.

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

I have a skull that I made while working through one of the tutorials that came with 4R4. The Skull is made from a single
ZSphere with ZSketch on top of that. The first weird thing is that I can’t group the Polygroups into a single Polygroup. The entire sub menu is grayed out. Also when I try to activate Unified Skin the mesh just disappears. Any ideas? Here’s a link to a video of the bug:

http://youtu.be/EM1sHGT9MSA

and here’s a link to the file: I removed the undo history so it’s under a MB.

http://www.ffx-dropbox.com/temp/skull.zip

#2

Do this:

  1. With your ZSketch visible and in Edit mode, turn off Edit.
  2. Turn on ZAdd (either at top of UI or in the Draw palette).
  3. Turn Edit back on.

You should now be able to preview your ZSketch mesh (hotkey A).

However, note that you can’t change the polygroups for the ZSketch spheres, only of the mesh.

#3

Thanks for the help. I understand now why it was disappearing. I’m a bit fuzzy moving forward. I can get it to work but I’m not totally clear as to what is going on.

After I have my Unifed Skin>Preview I click “Make Unified Mesh” A new tool is created but it’s still a ZSketch object. That is to say if I started a new document and drew with this tool and turned off ZSketch I’d only be looking at the original sphere. So what did pressing the “Make Unified Mesh” really do?

Where it seems like the proper steps to move forward would be to Unified Skin>Preview, then group the visible Polygroups, then Tool>Make PolyMesh3D. And now I have a solid piece of geometry from my ZSketch to sculpt with. Is that the proper method?

#4

When you press "“Make Unified Mesh” you need to select the new mesh in the Tool palette - it will have a name that begins “Skin_”. You will then be able to sculpt, subdivide and assign new polygroups as you wish. Note that your original ZSketch tool is still in the Tool palette. Make sure you save the project through the File menu so that all your work is saved, or save each ztool separately through the Tool menu.

In this instance, pressing the Make Polymesh3D has the same effect. However, it is possible to use color when ZSketching and that would be lost if you don’t use the Make Unified Mesh button (see the ZSketch_Critter in the Demo Projects). Also, for ZSpheres, the Make Adaptive Skin button preserves the subdivision levels set in the Adaptive Skin>Density slider.

HTH,

#5

Awesome. Your explanation is very helpful.