ZBrushCentral

Topology No Transfer - SOME TIPS

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Okay, I am sorry for the cross post (I posted this in the tutorial forum too) but I am trying to get some love over here:

I followed the directions for retopo merged mesh to a tee.

I created a low res poly of the combined upper body and head, using insert mesh (at subdiv level 1).

I created a combined high res upper body and head (at subdiv level 8), using insert mesh again.

I export both of them as separate ztl files then load them into a new scene.

I select the high res combined mesh in the rigging pallette then select the low res combined mesh in the topology pallette.

When I click edit topology, the original high res mesh shows up dark, as if it’s masked, but there’s no visible topology from the selected low res mesh. There’s only a single ZSphere (the original) sitting there.

If I begin using the SHIFT paint method to paint on topology, ZBrush eventually just crashes. I’ve tried using lower res versions of the high res combined mesh to paint but ZBrush inevitably crashes.

I tried the CTRL+SHIFT+LMB to unhide the existing topology but I still don’t see it. Is it not possible to get the existing topology in the retopo tool if you use the insert mesh feature? I did actually follow the steps and selected the low res poly under the topology section and the high res poly in the rigging section.

I don’t want to have to SHIFT+LEFT CLICK DRAG to generate all of the existing topology all over again … TONS of detail.

#2

Just a little debugging on my part. The exception that’s thrown during the SHIFT+LEFT CLICK HOLD retopo process is a memory access violation. Somone isn’t watching their pointers over at pixo!

Fix please! Uh thank you.

#3

You guys should really work on quicker iterations. Little fixes like the one mentioned above could easily be thrown into a patch that ZB gets on its own with an auto updater… kind of like how Microsoft and Apple have been doing now. This would free you guys up from worrying about wrapping all of the fixes while you develop the new features.

#4

Wow, I must be my own best poster. I seem to have tracked the problem down to the layers. This is probably also related to many other posts I have seen where people are talking about holes in their adaptive skin, screwed up topology when going to edit topology, and probably a few other issues.

I had to go into my layers of the original mesh and turn off the edits in those layers (basically hid and deleted all layers). Once I turned off the edits in the layers, I made a polymesh at subdiv level two for my topology, and followed the rest of the procedures in the topology and flow lab to get the existing topology to display.

UPDATE:
Okay, I thought it would show the topology for the mesh but it didn’t. I followed bonecradles thread exactly but the topology is not showing up. I am performing the subdivisions on my geometry and exporting the high resolution from that. Anyone else experience this and know how to resolve it?

ANOTHER UPDATE:

After many failed attempts at getting the existing topology to show up, I decided to try reconstructing the subdivision level. I received an error that it couldn’t do it because the mesh contained triangles. I took the mesh into maya, tried to convert to SubDs but it said it had non-manifold faces, I ran the maya cleanup and then converted to SubDs, back to triangles (using the verts option), then reimported to ZBrush.

I’m now able to work with the mesh using the paint SHIFT_LEFT CLICK topology method. Slowly but surely I can reconstruct the topology this way and then merge the body to the head of the mesh… in theory.

I ASSUME the crashing while painting the topology before was caused by either the non-manifold geometry or the triangles…

AND YET ANOTHER

That definitely seemed to cure the crashing while painting the old topology. So the bug is either the triangles or non-manifold geometry are skipped by ZBrush, causing memory pointer issues with the painted topology data.

SO MUCH FOR THAT

Well, now my topology painting is crashing every time I open the model and start to paint. This has to be the most unusable feature in ZBrush. I have never had an application crass as much as this -ever.

#5

kosher for this anytime you do something like lets say save out a model with topo in it and then load it. goto the topology and unclick edit topology. Then reclick it.

Everything will go back to being ok again.

Pretty much anytime anything weird happens while in topoland

follow the following steps

  1. CTRL-SHIFT LMB onto the side of the model
  2. Mask clear
  3. If all that fails unclick edit topology and Re-click it
#6

Cannedmushrooms,

I actually knew that already but thank you for replying. Everytime I save the model I save it with edit topology off, unmask and unclick outside of the mesh. :frowning:

It’s just crashing over and over. Sometimes I can go for a good 2 - 5 minutes, save the progress, then it barfs again.

#7

check your preview window under the tools pallet
does you model fit within that window?

Make sure that you deformation pallet UNIFY any piece before you take it into topo land.
This will size it to a memory friendly scale.

Thats weird its crashing on you in that time frame.

The only thing that crashes usually like that is when the model is really huge.

Which for some stupid reason Zbrush loves to scale your model for everything you do.

#8

Thanks for the tips. Unfortunately, I don’t know why it’s crashing. I tried starting with the mesh fresh as new poly mesh 3D object and creating the topology with your tips in mind. The existing topology still didn’t show up and I ended up attempting to paint it again. ZBrush crashed after the first stroke.

I sent the mesh and this thread to ZBrush in hopes that they might be able to provide a little better insight into what’s causing the problems.

I will let you know IF I get any word back…

Thanks again for your help.

UPDATE

As a sanity check, I took the ZBrush dog mesh and performed the exact same procedure, and it worked without any problems. I was able to edit the existing topology, paint topology, and work with the mesh with no problems. The problem is, not all projects call for a dog :wink: