ZBrushCentral

Too Dark Polyframe

When I turn on polyframe mode the edge of the polygons turn black. If I subdivide the mesh and wish to perform certain operations I’m forced to freeze or delete lower levels of the subdivision before proceeding. When I delete the lower levels and switch on polyframes the density of the subdivided mesh makes the visible edges become so numerous as to substantially darken the colors of the mesh to the point that in a really dense mesh it’s almost impossible to differentiate polygroups. If you change material to something much lighter the situation improves somewhat but is still there.

I’ve watched a number of tutorial videos where this doesn’t seem to be a significant problem. They can use the default MatCap Red Wax and still have fairly good visibility in polyframe mode even with very dense meshes.

I have not been able to find a solution online so far. I’ve checked to make sure there are no active textures, etc. Does anyone know of a workaround such as a way to shrink the apparent size of the edges or to make them transparent or totally invisible or to keep from showing the mesh as dense as it really is???

It sounds like you might have VariablePFO turned off in “Preferences > Draw”. Below are the default settings.

Screenshot - 8_26_2016 , 3_00_23 PM.png

If that’s not it, can you post a screenshot. Might be easier to figure out the problem.

Here’s a screenshot. VariablePFO is set to the default and is shown in the screenshot. The sphere has 1.572 million polys and it is NOT masked. The default MatCap Red Wax Material is used and you can just barely see the green star polygroup in the middle of the orange sphere polygroup. I’ve tried other materials but they really don’t help, the edges nearly obliterate the view.

Attachments

Screen Shot.jpg

That is strange. Was VariablePFO turned off when you opened the Preferences > Draw palette? If it was and you turned it on, you won’t see a difference until you turn Polyframe mode off and on again. Any changes you make in that palette won’t be visible until you turn Polyframe off and on again. That definitely looks like a VariablePFO off issue though. You can try lowering the PFrame slider (Polyframe Opacity) to see if it makes a difference. Also, you can turn the lines off on the PolyF button.

Uber2 you’re a genius!

I’m not positive but I believe the VariablePFO button was on when I opened the Preferences>Draw palette and did the screen capture I put in my earlier reply. However, based on your suggestions I did experiment with turning it off and on (and going in and out of PolyF mode to refresh) and it helps quite a bit. Lowering the PFrame rate also helped. The biggest help though was your pointing out the Line switch on the PolyF button which I’d never noticed before. It can really help when temporarily needed.

Thanks for your help. I really do appreciate it and I’m a happy camper once again.

You’re welcome Brian. :+1: