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Constant crashing when trying to project from a 13 million polygon tool.

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hi guys,

I am trying to project detail from a 13 million polygon tool to another one that is 11 million and every time I do ZBrush crashes and I get a system memory error.

I know its not my system, I have:

3.33ghz Intel Xeon (6 core)
24 GB DDR3
8TB hard drive space

and I tried cranking the mem setting in ZBrush to the max but it actually seems to have made it worse. I already did a system test and my memory and hard drive are fine. Is there any settings I can change to try and get this mesh projected?

Its polypainted and all I need is to project that last level to generate my texture :frowning:

#2

Have you tried Qremesher to get the polycount down any?

#3

What I’ve been doing, and maybe its not the best way but its the only way I know how to do it and here is the steps:

  1. Duplicate my high poly subtool.
  2. Use decimation master on the new duplicated subtool and UV map it.
  3. Subdivide the new duplicated subtool back up to around the same count that the high poly subtool has.
  4. Set the duplicated sub tool back to subdivision level 1.
  5. Use “Project All” to project the details of the high res subtool to the low res subtool.
  6. Move the low res subtool up to the next subdivision level and “Project All” again (repeating this until I reach the top level).
  7. Generate a texture map from polypaint and apply it to the low res mesh.
  8. Move the low res mesh back to level one and delete the higher subdivisions.
  9. Export the low res mesh and all maps.
#4

Decimation Master creates tri’s. I don’t know if that is part of your problem, or not. Qremesher does a wonderful job for me here. Auto masking on, choose value >half,same,double or polygon count in K. Hope you succeed.

#5

Thank you for the suggestion. I tried to give it a go but qRemesher did something so insane I had to share and I seriously have no clue how this happened.

First, let me say that at no time was a mushroom subtool ever imported into my ZBrush project (The subtool was something made a long time ago and since deleted) what I’m remeshing was started from scratch in a brand new file. I can verify there is no mushroom subtool in my project or in Lightbox.

After remeshing the base (pic 1) I ended up with what you see in pic 2.

All I did was set the qRemesher to 50k polygons. I turned on automask like you said, and somehow went from a stone base to a mushroom. The subtool you see as a mushroom was a duplicate of the base before qRemesher.

EDIT: Sigh Its doing it every time. I’m loading my scene, it has no mushroom subtool in the project or in lightbox and yet my base remeshes to a mushroom :frowning:

pic1.jpg
pic1.jpg2037×828 108 KB
pic2.jpg
pic2.jpg1727×833 80.3 KB

#6

That’s some weird math and result…lol…Did you try the half option? I’d try to use half on it a couple times.

#7

Well, I fired up ZBrush on my other hard drive (this hard drive has Mac OS Snow Leopard on it where as my main one has Mountain Lion), I loaded the exact same file and tried qRemesher with half option and got this:

ss2.jpg
ss2.jpg1640×1135 64 KB

Somehow, the ghosts of old meshes are coming back to haunt my ZBrush project :frowning: I think its time to file a bug report with Pixologic. I already took screen captures showing there are no extra subtools in the project and such.

#8

Nice Jack-o-lantern. Too bad that wasn’t the desired result. How was the first object made? Is the center hollow?

#9

Thanks! Sadly the pumpkin never got finished, he got scrapped awhile back since the geometry ended up being too thin.

The first item was made in two parts in Maya, I just imported it awhile back to test resolution for polypainting. The cap was hollow as was the stem but when I imported it into ZBrush for testing the first thing I did was have it close the holes. I did a quick test and that was the last it ever saw of ZBrush. That was probably back in August or July.

I just did another full reinstall and still got the same thing, that stupid mushroom coming back:/ I even used an entirely separate project (a ring I made last year) and it too turned into a mushroom.

#10

Then you should have version 4R4 P2?
Sorry to hear about your issue.

#11

Yep I have the latest. Thanks for trying to help me :slight_smile:

I messaged Pixologic on the direct support forums to see if maybe they have any ideas. Its such a crazy issue. I’m really good at finding those for some reason :confused: