ZBrushCentral

Tips for improving projection?

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hi all.

I recently tried these steps to make some minor changes to an existing mesh at div 4.

  1. Drop all lower subdiv.
  2. Reconstruct subdiv to base level (trying to make sure the mesh re-divides nicely).
  3. Export result. Make base mesh edits etc. Re-import.

Now I’m trying to use project (project all) to get (most of) the mesh back up to
div 4. (Obviously I’m not projecting the changed areas, I hide those).

But (it’s a hard-surface model). I’m having all kinds of problems with the project
making a mess of sharp angles at low subdiv’. It tends to bevel off corners and
round edges. You can sometimes undo and use the move brush to bring things
into line, but it’s just as likely to make things worse. I was hoping for better
results since the mesh is almost exactly the same in the areas I’m projecting
(pretty much just divide smoothing).

I’ve tried tweaking the ‘project all’ settings. The ‘PA Blur’ control
doesn’t seem to have much affect at all. Am I missing something, or am
I just hitting limitations in how project works?

#2

Instead of doing those steps try freezing the subdivision levels and then make your changes.

Step 1: Click on Tool -> Geometry -> Freeze SubDivision Level (This will drop your model to its lowest subdivision)
Step 2: GoZ and/or make changes/additions in Zbrush
Step 3: Click on Freeze SubDivison Levels to turn it off (This will bring back your subdivisions and project for you).

Try that and see if it keeps your details better. Projecting can be tricky, especially with hard surfaces as the topology flow really matters.

#3

Thanks MentalFrog. I’ll try that next time.

When I got back to it, I found I had goofed. I was trying to project back onto the original mesh
rather than the one I reconstructed :rolleyes:. Getting that right helped some. But I still had to do
quite a bit of cleanup after each project. I found the ‘mask by feature/border’ function very useful
for cleaning up bevelled edges using scale and move.

Still, I’m glad I only had to do 3 subdiv’s.