ZBrushCentral

Dynmesh takes ages

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hi guys, first of all,
I’m pretty new to Zbrush so please don’t judge me
for asking a question like that,
but today I discovered the dynmesh function and began to work with it.
The thing is, it takes ages when I try to
increase the resolution or fix the topology by clicking strg and let go.
Is it maybe because I turned on dynmesh
while I was already in the 6th subdivion lvl and had about 10billion total points?

My PC isn’t that bad, got a quad core,
8gb of ram and a pretty good graphic card.

#2

well i’m no expert but 10 billion points???

i don’t even know what to say to that.

what could you do with 10 billion points that you couldn’t do with say…9 billion?

#3

Before I created a dynmesh I was at that point where I could’nt add any more detail to certain points
the pology began to crash everytime. So I turned the mesh to a dynmesh with the hope to fix the problem
but now the problem is, that it takes way to long to do anything with the dynmesh.

#4

I think you should try ans error to take all the powerfull of dynamesh over control.
I would recomend first to deactivate Project. This is what is taking ages.
Then it´s no pint to add more resolution than you need to block the major volumes and shapes. Then i would turn to subdivide or ZRemesh etc… But if you have already divided your model and you Ctrl and Drag again you will be asked if you want to freeze subdivisions or want to delete. If you freeze then will take ages (Because of projection and subdivisions) and result might be a bit wired for now (Project all matters here). So i will just say don´t freeze and get rid of my subdivisions. Consider each time you Ctrl and Drag you are creating a new even topology ideal for free sculpt. But this goes against subdivisions aproach.

Hope this makes sense

#5

i’m sorry, i didn’t mean to come off as a wiseguy.

that many points is going to put a load on the remeshing, it sounds like dynamesh would take a long time.

i think the issue is your work flow. what i’m guessing you’re doing is…you have subdivided up, then you sculpt, then having deformed polygons, you can’t add more detail, so you subdivide up and repeat. and pretty soon you have 10 billion points and your machine craps out.

your work flow is faulty. i would practice with zbrush a little bit to get familiar with the basic features you’ll be using a lot of so you can develop a practical work flow.

#6

Mhn, tell me how you would create a character out of a zphere amature.

#7

what does mhn mean?

IMO, you should just throw that model away and start over. it won’t be the end of the world.

make your base mesh anyway you like…once it is a polymesh, turn on dynamesh…if you don’t know how to use dynamesh…this is your chance to learn…sculpt and remesh, sculpt and remesh.

from there you will eventually figure it out.

continually subdividing up everytime you need resolution is not practical. as you have found out.

dynamesh, zremesher and decimation master are your friends. get to know and use them and you will be happy.

#8

“scuplt and remesh”… by remesh you mean strg and let go?

#9

with dynamesh turned on. work on the model, then Ctrl + left click and drag on the screen. that will dynamesh(remesh) the model.

if you need more resolution, increase the dynamesh slider values. if you increase it to it’s max 2048 and it’s still not enough resolution, then your model needs to be scaled up to some degree. in that case go to the deformation palette, find “size”, make sure xyz are all active…and increase the size, then dynamesh.

personally i find scaling up in size to where when the dynamesh slider is set to 128 i get about 100,000 or so polygons, that gives me a lot of room to increase resolution if i need it.

forgive me if you already know this, but you need clean topology to keep sculpting in the same area, so regular remeshing is necessary. think about this, you were sculpting out a mouth and lips. after you inflate the lips a lot because you want big lips, even though you had 12 billion points, still those polygons were blown up, stretched…how could you then put in fine detail like creases and cracks on those same blown up, stretched polygons?
once those lips are blown up, you would need to remesh to make the area clean and uniformed again.

#10

Thanks man, i’ll try it out. Can you suggest me a good size for my character so that I can add enough detail later on?