ZBrushCentral

Question about triangles

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Sorry to ask such a noob question, but I really need to know the answer to this before I continue the project I’m working on.

I’ve had ZBrush for about a year now, but I’ve only been able to really start using it over the last couple of months. I’m working on a “waist-up” bust straight from ZSpheres, and I’ve gotten quite a ways into the project, and so far, I’m fairly pleased with what I’ve gotten and I really don’t like the idea of having to start over from scratch. The problem I’m having is that when I did up the ZSphere rig, I think I put far too many spheres into the fingers. I’m up to level 7 subdivision, and I have 5.4 million polygons, but over half of those are in the fingers! I really don’t need to be able to sculpt the fingerprints!:lol:

So, I’m kind of at the point where I could actually use a few more polys in the head (I should have probably added another pair of zspheres for the ears, but I didn’t think about it at the time), but my system can’t handle another subdivision, so I started surfing about here looking for ways to reduce the polys in just the fingers. I wasn’t successful in finding that (the “reconstruct subdivision” button will not highlight for some reason, regardless of what subdivision level I’m on), but I did figure out how to increase just the head/neck polygroup.

The question I have is this…given that doing this will introduce triangles into my mesh, and given that I’ve read that doing this can cause some problems, can anyone tell me exactly what the risks are in having triangles in my mesh?

Again, sorry for the noob question, as my background is more in traditional arts, and my actual 3-D modelling experience is very limited. :o

Thanks! :slight_smile:

#2

Your best bet at this point is going to be to use the Retopology feature on your model. You’ll be able to redistribute the polys with as much control as you need.

#3

Okay…I’ll look into figuring out how to do that. In the mean time, so that I can better understand how things work, can you tell me what some of the hazards are of having triangles?

#4

A mesh with triangles can never be reconstructed to create lower subdivision levels.

Also, triangles divide differently from quads. When a quad is divided, it becomes four new quads and the surface is smoothed. When a triangle is divided, it becomes three new quads and the surface is not smoothed. Therefore, a mesh with both quads and triangles will smooth inconsistently, which normally becomes pretty apparent.

Another thing to avoid is star intersections, where more than four polygons share a single vertex. That will create dimpling in the mesh, which is very difficult to get rid of.

#5

Thank you! That is some good information to have. I shall keep that in mind, particularly for future projects. :cool: