im trying to make some edits to my mesh using the deformation menu and everytime i try, i get this error and then zbrush crashes. Anyone know why this is? im using z3 on my intel macbook, with 2gb of ram
How many polygons does your model have?
What is your Preferences>Mem>Compact Mem setting? MaxPolysPerMesh? Undo settings?
How much free space is on the disk where ZBrush is installed?
One other thing: Go to the ZBrush3\vmem folder and make sure that it’s empty before you next start ZBrush.
I see this one a lot. Here’s a real easy way to reproduce it for me.
Can someone else try it on a different platform?
- Unzip attached file to get two tools. One simple Polysphere and a
small jawbone mesh I was box-modelling. - Start ZB. Load the Polysphere. Draw it and hit ‘Edit’.
- Now load the Jaw model.
- Switch back to the Polysphere, then append the jaw as a subtool.
- Select the Jaw subtool. NOTE: Still less than 9K polys on screen.
- Open deformation and size (xyz) to -80% (as in ‘its way too big’ -
actually it looks like any scale factor works). - Classic “Locked Main Mem in List Out” Crash every time.
My setup: 3.1+Windows XP,1Gb Ram. Pref/Ram set to 768.
G.
Note: I tried flushing the vmem folder. No Diff’.
I followed the steps and did not get the error.
How much free space is on the disk where ZBrush is installed? Have you defragmented the disk recently? Have you tried running a scan for spyware and other malware?
Bummer.
When I checked disk space. I did get a surpise. Only 1.2Gb free. But I
freed up about 5Gb, and still see the problem. I’ll try freeing more tomorrow
when I know what I can clear away, and I’ll leave a defrag running (not
that it’s got a lot to work with).
I’m behind a firewall here at work, virus scanned every night. So malware
‘shouldn’t’ be an issue.
How about setup/environment?
Can I reset to the default GUI and no plugins easily? (I’ve got a preferrred
doc’ size/setup saved - Zapplink & ImagePlane3).
I’ll try the same test shortly on my home machine. It’s a lappie, but a
similar spec’ [P4+1Gb+WinXP (Home ed’ as opposed to Pro’)].
Results on my home machine…
Similar config except as noted above. Same test. Same crash every time.
(Oh - No Zapplink installed in this case)
20Gb free on disk. 1Gb ram, same 768 setting in comp’ slider.
Changing the compact mem slider (downwards) doesn’t seem to help.
I was kinda hoping it ‘wouldnt’ crash. Then at least I’d maybe get some clues 
Weird workaround time…
If I scale the appended subtool (even only slightly) using transpose/scale
before attempting any deform/size, then the deform/size, (and it looks like
any subsequent deform/size operations) works OK - No crash. 
Somewhat stranger…A transpose/scale followed by Undo, then deform/size
also works?! So precise resizing is still possible without the crash.
It’s like transpose/scale is repairing something in the mesh (or in RAM).
Then just in case I’d changed something along the way, I went and tried
it again without using transpose. Boom! - Locked memory popup. Still I
now have a way to make this particular case work OK.
Deformation operations on SUBTOOLS is known to sometimes crash.
EDIT: I’m sure there may be some work arounds already posted, so bear with my testing even though I have not read the entire thread:
I’m having this issue too. On Vista 32bit, 2 gigs of ram, only 693,684 total polygons, 841 megs of ram free.
I’m making subtools for clothing, and of course everything is out of scale and rotated wrong, so I want to use deformation on these subtools to prevent loss of symmetry that can happen with transpose.
Sometimes it crashes, sometimes it doesn’t. I seem to have it happen if I append the subtool, then select the first main subtool to save, then switch back to the new subtool, do a deformation, then crash.
I notice that under Active Points with the current error on screen, it says 4, no way that can be right with the subtool I had active. Reloading the tool just before the crash, the correct active points is suppose to be 16,390. Now I can do all the deformations I want with no error.
So, when you guys append a tool and fear it may crash, double check the active points before deformation, note if it’s low, or correct, and if it crashes, note what it says with the error screen up. I’ll try to do a test now.
Well, I did another test. Reopened my figure, then went to a sphere tool and made a polymesh. Switched back to figure tool, appended that sphere, then selected it subtool, which showed correct active points. Deformation, crash. This time at the crash it showed correct active points. Though, another test where I selected the main subtool, then the new sphere subtool, then deformation, the crash screen had only 4 points active all of sudden.
Now, the way around this it seems, is when you append the subtool, save the entire tool right away, usually selecting the main subtool with the file name. Then you can try to deform the new subtool, but all odds it will crash. Luckily, reopening zbrush, loading the tool you saved, now that new subtool will not crash the software anymore.
But I can imagine that’s very annoying to reload your inteface, alphas, brushes, textures, other settings.
New easy tip I just found:
After you append the subtool, do something to it. I tried using the move brush to pull out a spot on the sphere, then undid it. Now, when I try the deformations, there’s no crash. I first tried rotate deform, then size deform.
This was after getting consistent crashes 4 times in row appending a sphere, so doing something to the subtool just before deformation helps fix this.
Seems like it should be easy patch from Pixologic. I mean, what if you forget to do this and it crashes on you. It’s repeatable, so why is there no fix? I thought this was suppose to be high end profressional software?
didn’t work for me. I was following an instructional video about polymesh 3D and pulled out part of the object then undid it and went to deformation pulled the size slider down and got the locked main men error
tried what timothyb said. after appending the tool i just did something to with a standard brush then undid it. and not a single crash since.
Apparently this still isn’t fixed as I am having the problem right now. Going to try one of the workarounds…
It’s hopefully fixed in 3.5. But yes, this is a problem in 3.1.