ZBrushCentral

Need help with Zspheres (catapulted polys) - 3.1

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Well, this happened to me more often than expected and usually fixed the problem by moving the conflictive zspheres around or by adding a division in between a chain to destroy the tension in that place but… somehow I reached to part which is killing my nerves because I don’t know how to fix it in order to continue with the rest of the skeleton frame for my model.

My aim is to create the “bulk” of the model using Zspheres and then using the Adaptive Skin thing to cover it and sculpt from that point. The problem is that sometimes when I tap to the mesh view to check for errors in the topology, I find myself dealing with stuff like this:
[topografia-rara2.jpg](javascript:zb_insimg(‘152807’,‘topografia-rara1.jpg’,1,0))

What is more funny about this problem is that these polygons were perfectly and absolutely fine until I added some small unrelated details to the chest part of the creature. Then suddenly I gazed up and saw this jettison of polygons over my head, and I almost tried everything to try to repose and smooth the tension there, but I’m out of ideas :cry:

My last resort is to delete that part of the wing and redo them again which is kinda awful since I retouched the point of the fingers to accomodate better the membrane of the wings and losing almost an hour of work there is somehow disheartening :frowning:

Any ideas or tips you could counsel to me to fix this problem or at least to prevent it? (I’m aware of trying to avoid to use 1 Zsphere to branch more than 2 chains, but in this case where I need forcedly to have 3 tubes to branch from 1 single Zsphere, I feel like walking in a dead-end…).

EDIT: Sorry, edited the topic to attach the images properly to the topic.

Attachments

topografia-rara0.jpg

topografia-rara1.jpg

#2

Please see http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=68060 for help with getting your images to display at ZBC.

#3

I think the problem is one of scale. Your model has grown humongous as you’ve added more and more.

With the ZSpheres visible, use Tool>Deformation>Unify. This will reset the whole structure to a scale that ZBrush can work with properly.

#4

Ok, I’m back from a quick refreshment. Thanks for the quick reply (even if the first post was to moderate my image hotlinking error).

@aurick: I also thought if it was a problem of complexity or of massive amount of structure, perhaps also related to the sudden downsizing and breaking of the symmetry axis followed by a shutdown of all the program without any other warning (it happened to me like 10 times since yesterday). But I dunno since I’m still a novice with this program shrugs

Did what you said. I don’t know if I should adjust somewhere a configuration related to the Unify tool because, it happened an unexpected thing (seems that Unify has highlighted x,y,z):
[sol-1.jpg]sol-5.jpg
But even after re-scaling the model to a more proper size, the problem perdured.

So, at this point I wonder exactly what it is happening. I saw more complex Zsphere models not seeming to have this problem at any point (or at least, not commented by the authors at all). Oh my, this is turning very odd. I wonder if I hitted a point of no return by accident :eek:

Attachments

sol-2.jpg

sol-3.jpg

sol-4.jpg

#5

I don’t know what the problem is here but you might try running the model thru the script posted here:
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showpost.php?p=573860&postcount=7

Do be sure to back up your model first in case everything goes pear shaped.

#6

@marcus_civis: Golly, I’m sure this script is wonderful because it found hundreds of asymmetric Zspheres in my model:

[plugin1.jpg]toobig-1.jpg

If the problem is really the size of the ztool, is there a way to fix this without trying to re-scale it with the Unify tool?

#7

Rumi,

It’s pretty much impossible to create a model that is perfectly symmetrical. Errors are introduced simply because of the way computers handle numbers: there is limited storage space and so rounding errors occur. The more zspheres you add or move the more those tiny errors get multiplied and eventually it can lead to quite an asymmetric model.

To reduce the size of your model without using Unify, set the Tool>Deformation>Size slider to a negative number. -50 will halve the size of your model. (Don’t use -100, the model will disappear!) Back up before doing anything!

HTH,

#8

@marcus_civis: I understand; after all, computers were made by humans :laughing: On the other hand, I used the Deformation > Size as you said to re-scale the model so more or less it fit’d inside the preview, and surprisingly, it fixed the problem of the mesh jettisoning at that part of the wings :grimacing:

Then, it seems the problem was about the size of the whole. Because we start with very small model bases using Zspheres, when the Zspheres grows in complexity and expands, the default size ends too huge to handle and explodes?

I’ll never overlook the scale of the ztools anymore. Thanks for all the help. Very appreciated :+1:

#9

Rumi,

That’s great, I’m glad you got it fixed!