ZBrushCentral

Tumbling Issue

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

First time this has ever happened to me before - can’t move my character hardly with all subtools at highest divisions - I have to lower all subtools - move it - then raise them back up.

I am using 3.5R3 on Windows 7 with 8GB Ram.

Right now if I move it with all subtools maxed it takes about 2 minutes to catch up. I know there are a lot of subtools (36 right now), but I did not think it was that bad, heh.

The entire set of subtools (about half are completed) is roughly 75m, but I thought that for just tumbling that should not be a problem.

Is there a setting somewhere that I can adjust to affect this problem? I have not really mastered the “mem” settings so not sure which one to mess with in there - if it is in there.

#2

Hey there,

75 m Polys?? Wow i’m actually wondering why you didn’t get into mem trouble before. Anyway one thing that might help is … i noticed that when you leave ZB alone for a while and then get back to it, that often times it’s pretty much unusable because it’s just accessing the HDD like crazy.

Save your model and restart ZB to see if that helps. Other than that i would say you just reached the limit of your system. Make sure you save out quite a few copies of your model …

Hope that helps

#3

I already do all that so I think you are right - reached the limit - just going to have to get creative if I decide to render this in max and probably have to loose some detail levels - I have found that sometimes you can detail something at a very high level - then back off the camera angle and distance it will be from and then lower until you can not see the details any more - then go back up one level and delete higher - most of the detail will be at least subtly remaining. We shall see.

#4

what the hell are you working on that requires 75m polys??? i’ve worked on some pretty notable films with extremely large vfx budgets, and I have never seen a mesh that dense.

it might be worth taking a very big step back and taking a look at where you’re wasting memory with unnecessary polygons.

#5

Well, just do the math - if you have approximately 40 subtools at 2m each that puts you at 80 million - is that really that out of the ordinary? I honestly don’t know - this is my first completed project - or it will be - still a WIP. I currently have 39 subtools.

#6

Well, I think my last response probably came across a bit “smarty”. That was not my intention.

I started with 19 subtools, but I really like using the ZProject brush so (since it currently has a bug about subtools) when i clone, to get the target subtool out of the stack it will loose all of its levels of detail completed unless a “group split” function is completed - so far so good, but these subtools do not merge with either method and retain their division levels if the target objects are not similar in shape it seems (i.e., boots and laces - laces will work together, but not with the boots in the same stack) so I end up with double the subtools very fast.

Not sure if the amount of subtools matter in the tumbling.

#7

testure - as to your suggestion about stepping back - I might be approaching this incorrectly…

My initial thought was to detail all of the subtools to their highest level and then decide my camera set up later and then reduce levels of detail where they were not needed per shot since I intended multiple camera angles to be used in various images.

I have never done things this way before because I have approached projects with an animation thought process in the past so I have always modeled to the camera and had a storyboard to guide me - this time I started sculpting with nothing more than a rough idea of my final render camera set up.

I look at some of the fantastic models on the forum and see them from all angles and it is hard to think they do not have models with just as many subtools and total polys as I do (my subtools subdivision levels range from 6 - 8 in most cases for a highest level).

Am I totally missing the boat here?

UPDATE: Well, after a bit more searching I found there were a few subtools (extremely small ones) that I had obviously accidentally divided after I had detailed them to their highest because they were all over 10m each and they are extremely small where well under 1m each would do the trick just fine - will chalk this up to yet another lesson learned, lol. Now I am at 45 m polys and tumbling like flowing water. Still interested if my approach is correct or not though - really using this project as a way to really learn all I can about this awesome tool:).

#8

Well it might be a bit self deprecating to share this, but if it helps someone else a world of hurt then great.

I reduced a great deal of my subdivisions and then started working away like I had previously mentioned … well that went great for a day or so … then it hit the fan …

I always incrementally save my files since my last lesson learned, but did not realize that ZBrush could save a file that was currupt and then save over it again … and again … and again.

Now, not only do I check the incremental save, but I also look at the actual size of the file being saved - if it gets over 2m KB I close down and restart ZB and reload the tool to verify that it is still available because I am finding that if layers are used on a high density mesh it will quickly double the file size - like immediately.

Going to have to move into the HD sculpting because the regular mesh sculpting gets too high very quickly for the details desired these days.

Hope this helps someone not loose an entire day of work like happened to me yesterday when I had about a dozen incremental files all turn up currupted :/.