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zbrush insufficient memory error

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hi.

I’m using Zbrush 4, tried Zbrush 3.5R3 and same thing happens.

Well, i have 12GB of ram and i also set the virtual memory of Windows 7 do 25GB, i set the compact mem in zbrush to the maximum which is 4GB, and i’m trying to sculpt a model of about 27million polygons, and zbrush is giving the error of insufficient and then, crashes, problem is, there is a lot of available memory, while i still can work with the model, i can see that the physical memory usage doesn’t even reach 5GB or 6GB, and yet, zbrush gives me that error.
I managed to reduce this problem by importing the model, already subdivided in level 2 from max, and then, import it to zbrush, and now i only need to subdivide it 2 more levels, before i needed to subd to level 5.
Even though i can work on it a bit longer, it still gives that error from time to time, specially whem i’m gonna save my work, since i can’t save my work, it really doesn’t do any good to me.

If anyone could help me on this matter, would be very appreciated.

#2

how many alphas do you have loaded?
textures?
materials?
geo layers on the model?
textures applied to the model?
texture layers on the model?
masks applied?
are you saving at the highest resolution?
is geometry hidden while saving?

Are you working very quickly while at your 27million polygon level?

Have you changed any other settings…undo levels, max polygons per mesh, etc?

#3

Limiting the maximum amount of undos should help, I think.

#4

Hi.

I’m not using any alphas or textures.
I’m using the standard material matcap red wax.
If by geo layers you mean the subd levels, i’m using 2 levels.
No masks applied.
I’m saving at the lowest level, which by the way, changing levels would also give me the error.
No geometry hidden while saving.
I don’t think i’m working very quickly at the highest level… hehe
And yes, i changed the settings:
compact mem: 4096
Max polymesh: 28.00

And that’s it, i dind’t increase the number of undos.

I actually reduced the levels of undos, and deleted the first level of subd, which helped me save some memory, but now, i’m facing another problem, i just can’t export the model in obj format at the highest level, zbrush says “writing obj” and that stays forever, doesn’t do anything, tried to export as a maya file, but it gave the memory error, and then crashes, i had to delete the highest level (about 25 million polys), and export with the first level (about 16million).

#5

Hi,

I had this problem to and support helped me out.

If you run Zbrush4 as a Administrator you must Disable it. Your compatibility settings should also be disabled.

This did fix it for me.

#6

its weird i have exactly the same problem. even my model is 27 million. no textures or alphas etc… i have 12gb of ram too, and after a while zbrush crashes. I have windows 7 64bit.

#7

Me too… i have a 22 million model. I wants a displacement map… after 10sec and zbrush4 crashes.

#8

Thanks for the advise about using a non-administrator account when running zbrush. I can’t imagine why that would matter, but I just tested it and for the first time I can subdivide a basic sphere 6x without crashing. Yippeeee!

#9

I can’t imagine either. Actualy on my system the ugly bug is back. So dont give a party at this moment:-)