ZBrushCentral

Uneven Polygon Distribution

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

I am a new user of zBrush 3.12 for Mac OS X. I am a big fan of the move and inflate brushes and I have discovered that after using them over and over my models begin to have very uneven polygon distributions. Some areas which get pinched or squished are dense with polygon detail where other areas that have been inflated, for example, are stretched and must be subdivided to get the same amount of detail. That in turn creates a bigger model and screws up my polygroups.

Is there a way to redistribute my mesh so that the polygons are more uniform across the model while retaining the overall shape? If not, what are some of the strategies that you use to avoid this situation? Thanks.

#2

This is unavoidable depending on what you’re planning to do. We are only able to achieve such subtle details when polygons are bunched together like this. If you’re using say a Zsphere mesh, then you’ll get unevenness all over your mesh when trying to punch in details. For optimal detailing its best to model out your desired mesh first with the final in mind. Proper planning is the way to go but if you have a powerful machine then this won’t matter as much because you can subdivide that much more on a zsphere or basic primitive mesh. Now Zbrush is so frickin’ cool because it enables you to retopologize your crappy uneven mesh and transfer your subdiv levels to that nice new one resulting in even distribution. Hope this helps a bit, its definitly worth picking up some tutorials -Meats Meyer, digital tutors are always great. Happy Brushing! :smiley:

#3

One thing you can try doing is to relax the high level mesh. This is done by dropping down to a level that has the poly structure that you like and then pressing Tool>Geometry>Reproject Higher Subdiv. ZBrush will attempt to maintain the high level shape while moving the points to conform to the starting shape.

You can get some really impressive results if you stored a morph target at level 1 before dividing the mesh and then go to that level for the reprojection.

#4

What aurick said. If that doesn’t work, when you step down a subD level or two, try using the smooth brush over the area you want to redistribute until you get nice distribution, then hit Reproject Higher Subdiv.

Better yet, just watch Paul’s video on the subject.

http://www.veoh.com/videos/v15797072dBmcMTsN?source=embed

-Dustin