ZBrushCentral

ZBrush keeps quitting

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hi. Using ZBrush 3.1 on precision 690, os Windows XP Pro. 2 Gigs RAM
I’m doing some ZBrush work and suddenly I’m having a problem with the program quitting constantly. It happens whenever I try to save the tool . Sometimes it quits every time I try to save, sometimes on the second or third save the thing quits.

the tool: total polys, 986,064.

Active points at highest subdiv level is 961,286.

At lowest level, active points count is 15,026.

Total active points count is 986,076.

No layers. Two subtools, both low poly count. One is a simple cube, one is a pair of fangs.

The base mesh had been made in maya. All clean quads.

I have tried restarting the computer. No other program is giving me any trouble.

Anyone have any ideas?

#2

You might need to defrag or make sure you have enough harddrive space left that ZBrush can write out to virtual memory.

This happened to me once and I had to reinstall ZBrush. But bewarned, if you uninstall ZBrush, you need to call into pixologic to get a code to reauthorized it and this takes like 2-3 days sometimes. So don’t do the reinstall if you’re on a tight schedule.

Another trick that someone mentioned awhile back on the forums was to rightclick on the Zbrush process in Windows Task Manager and set the Priority to Realtime.

hth?

#3

in 3.1 there is a bug with the CTRL+S hotkey for saving, it is suggested you use subtool master to save. see if that works.
also please list your perfomance settings, what your memory and undo’s are set at have a big effect on issues like this.

#4

Also you might make sure no part of your ztool is masked or hidden.

#5

Hi Huys. Thanks very much for the feedback.

OK, compact mem is at 256, tool undo at 50, max poly per mesh at 5.99.

Free hard drive space is 155 (66%) – so that should be OK, yes?

I had already cleaned out file fragments and other useless RAM gobblers. No improvement. Defragging the hard drive now.

I do use the CTRL + S so maybe that’s the problem?

How do I use “subtool master to save”? I’m unfamiliar with this.

Contacting Pixologic later as I suspect a reinstall may be necesary.

Tristan

#6

Setting your tool Undo to 50 is a very bad idea. That means that ZBrush will always save 50 undos, taking valuable resources and possibly causing the crash on save. Set it back to the default of 4. ZBrush will save as many undos above this as it can, without compromising performance.

The SubTool Master plugin provides a save button which always saves from the top subtool, and checks for hidden mesh. See here:http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=57154

#7

Thanks Marcus. When I had the undo at 4 it stopped at 4. What about going up to 10 or 15?

I’ll check out that link now.

#8

As I said, if ZBrush can comfortably keep more than 4 undos it will do so. By setting to a higher value you are compromising performance and risking instability.

#9

OK, thanks man