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Sculptris user here: Does ZBrush have Dynamic Tessellation?

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hi, I’m a Sculprtis user, and I’m increasingly interested in getting ZBrush. But, without a demo version available - something I learned on these forums - I’m unable to answer a question, on my own:

Does ZBrush have Dynamic Tessellation like Sculptris? If not, is it something that’s maybe coming? Or now in the new ZBrush 4R6?

Sorry if this is a silly question. I’m just a hobbyist at all this 3D/CG stuff, and haven’t had any training. I’ve watched YouTube videos of QRemesher, and just tonight heard about ZRemesher. And I’ve seen videos of DynaMesh used too. Both of them look kind of intimidating though, compared to Dynamic Tessellation. They also sound rather system hungry too, and need to be run manually, rather than occurring automatically under your brush like in Sculptris.

I love the way Dynamic Tessellation works, but maybe it’s thought to be a bit “basic”, so that’s why no one shows it being used in videos. Or, maybe that’s why it’s not even included in ZBrush at all.

I guess I’m just curious. Dynamic Tessellation, and how it works, is so central to the Sculptris workflow, but seems not to be in ZBrush at all, despite the latter being so much more advanced and more fully featured. I’ve looked really closely and video footage and screengrabs.

My suspicion: it’s not in ZBrush at all… Also, I really hope that Sculptris gets an upgrade soon / gets some attention from Pixologic, because you do run into its limitations eventually.

Thanks anyone who is willing to offer any advice.

#2

no but it has dyna mesh and go z between ZB and sculptris

#3

Zbrush uses MRE (multi resolution editing), and is made for SDS (subdivision surfaces).
So in that, Zbrush doesn’t use dynamic tessellation. It works best with quads, where as tessellation works with triangles.
They are two different approaches to the same problem. Either works as well as the other.

Zbrush uses Dynamesh for dynamic mesh generation where as Sculptris uses dynamic tessellation. 2 sides, same coin.

#4

Both of them look kind of intimidating though, compared to Dynamic Tessellation. They also sound rather system hungry too, and need to be run manually, rather than occurring automatically under your brush like in Sculptris.

I wouldn’t worry about those. In practice it’s about as intimidating as clicking one button. It’s manual, but you only have to run them when you absolutely need to. The rest (in my opinion) is pure perks: being able to use subdivision levels while sculpting without destroying existing topology is soooo beneficial. Also, I think it’s even less system demanding since it’s not trying to always recalculate the topology on the fly while you sculpt, you have more control over where and how vertices are being spent, and in general the way zbrush stores and renders its objects can usually allow you to have tens of millions of verts on screen at once).

#5

Hi everyone! Sorry about the delay getting back to you. Password issues today, as well as an ISP issue / outage.

Thanks for your answers, you three. You’ve clarified things greatly. I’m reassured that I shouldn’t feel intimidated, and I’m becoming more confident that I might actually be able to use ZBrush, were I to buy it.

And, it hadn’t occurred to me that Dynamic Tessellation might actually be more demanding on my system than the tools I would find in ZBrush, like Dynamesh.