I’m a 3D artist from the architectural branch. Having an artistic vein I also started sculpting with Blender. I have also tried with Zbrush but there are unclear things. One of them is the following: is there a way to not lose the subdivision levels when you want to add some very deep details with dynamesh or when you want to merge two meshes?
When it comes to merging two meshes/subtools, you just need to make sure they both share they same number of subdivision levels before merging (and that this highest level is currently active on both).
Dynamesh is a bit trickier since it completely changes the topology (which is what the subdivision level data is dependent on). If you “Freeze Subdivision Levels” before dynameshing then unfreeze afterwards, the new topology will be subdivided back to the original amount with the detail projected back. This tends to work best when you retopologize without changing the form and details of the surface around, but if you carve into the model while dynameshing then you might not get the best results when unfreezing the subd levels.
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To clarify further what Cryrid said, no it isn’t technically possible to change the topology and preserve existing subdivision levels–they don’t exist independently of the topology–but you can automate the process of creating new ones for a new mesh and projecting the detail back onto it. The process for projecting detail from one mesh to another, and for using the Freeze Subdivision levels option that Cryrid mentioned, can be found here.
This is generally how you’d handle most situations where you need to change the topology of a mesh with subdivision levels, but preserve detail. In situations too complicated for Freeze Subdivision, the manual projection of detail may be necessary. In a case like that you might fuse (note that “merging” in Zbrush refers to the subtool “Merge” functions which regroup subtools into the same subtool, but do not change the geometry) whatever meshes you need to at high resolution, duplicate the resulting fused mesh, Zremesh it to create a new clean low poly base, subdivide that duplicate sufficiently to hold the incoming detail, then manually project the detail from the original onto it.
The above process can be used to transfer sculpting and polypainting between meshes with different topologies or UVs.
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Thank you for your invaluable answer. Please correct me if I’m wrong. Theoretically, what is the best way to create a sculpture based on what you said?
Start with dynamesh to shape all shapes in a low resolution. Once all the rough sculpture is obtained, activate the subdivision levels and add the details going up in level, without using more dynamesh. This is fine?
thanks! I’m looking forward to trying this detail projection.
Start with dynamesh to shape all shapes in a low resolution. Once all the rough sculpture is obtained, activate the subdivision levels and add the details going up in level, without using more dynamesh. This is fine?
Yeah, that is a pretty solid approach. I usually like to add an extra step and Zremesh things as soon as I turn Dynamesh off (and then subdivide that in order to add more detail), but that is a personal preference and can even be situational to what I’m trying to create.