ZBrushCentral

WTF? ZB3.5r3 Reconstruct PolyCube

Does this work for anyone using ZB3.5r3?

  1. Select the Cube3D

  2. Set Tool>Unified Skin>Resolution to 8 (the lowest value).

  3. Set Smt to 0 (to activate cubical skinning).

  4. Press the Make Unified Skin button. This creates a new model in the Tool palette called Skin_Cube3DCopy1.

  5. Draw the new cube on the canvas and activate the Polyframe view. As you can see, it is now a polymesh object and the poles are gone. The only catch is that it has too many polygons.

  6. Press Tool>Geometry>Reconstruct Subdiv. This will add a new subdivision level to the cube below the current level. Press the Lower Res button to go to that level. The cube now has half the number of polygons, and the Reconstruct Subdiv button is once again available.

  7. Repeat step 6 a few more times until you’re left with a cube made up of one polygon on each side.

  8. We no longer need the higher subdivision levels, so delete them by pressing Del Higher.

We’re now ready for box modeling! Before proceeding, though, take a moment to save your cube. That way, you’ll have a pre-made starting point for your own box modeling projects.

Now that we have our starting cube, let’s take a quick look at the Edge Loop command. Under normal circumstances, this command creates a loop of polygons around the perimeter of the visible mesh. This is known in most other software as an Inner Extrusion and is shown below in figure 1.

Attachments

ZB_Reconstruct.jpg

Algorithms are different in 3.5. It’s also now much simpler to get a cube. Simply start with the polysphere that is on canvas when ZBrush launches. Use Tool>Geometry>Reconstruct Subdiv several times. When you get to six polygons, it will be a cube.

Thanks aurick!
…that was making me crazy!

Another fun way is to choose a zsphere, turn on edit topology, turn on radial symmetry with a count of 4, click once on the left side of the sphere, then once on the right side of the sphere, Join your points and create a level 1 active skin.

I think Auricks method is all around better, of course, but if your boss is watching and you need to look fancy, you can’t beat it:)