So I am just starting to work with 4R7 after working with Sculptris for a quite while and I was Wondering if there is a display
setting in ZB that makes the mesh apear smooth instead of the flat shading. I know you can subdivide the mesh
and of course it actually becomes smoother, but I’m not talking about that. Sculptris does not display the mesh polygons as
actuall flat surfaces but gives you a simulation of a smooth surface on the screen, for example if you GoZ a scuptris model to ZBrush it looks different in ZBrush, ZBrush has what I have seen as being referd to as a “flat shader” in some other soft wares
so that you see all the individual polygons and their actuall edges. I am doing some jewelry design so my base meshes already have a relative high poly count before I refine them, but when zoomed in close you see the angular flat shading in ZBrush where as in Sculptris you dont see this. I know that the flat shaded surface is what the real suface is, but I like seeing a smoothed simulation sometimes when I draw on the surface, also by drawing on a slightly lower poly count I think the program will respond better as I probally would need more ram to draw on a higer count surface. Hope this makes sense, Thanks.
You can use Dynamic Subdivision. This lets you see the smoothed mesh, as if it has been subdivided, while editing is done on the low res mesh. You turn it on in the Dynamic Subdiv section of the Tool>Geometry sub-palette.
One important thing: if you decided to actually subdivide your model then be sure to turn off Dynmaic Subdivision. Otherwise you will see a big slowdown in performance.
You can read about Dynamic Subdivision here:
http://docs.pixologic.com/user-guide/3d-modeling/modeling-basics/dynamic-subdivision/
Thanks for directing me to that feature.
Out of curiosity, do you know if this is what Sculptris does? Is its system of displaying a smoothed
looking model the same as ZBrushes dynamic smooth subdivision slider or does it it have its own unique algorythm?
It’s the same basic idea but the actual algorithms will be different. 3D programs render objects by calculating how the light would fall on their surfaces. By interpolating between points the object can be shown more or less smoothed. ZBrush does this all with its own code whereas other programs use the features of the graphics card. I’m not sure what Sculptris does but it’s sure to be different from ZBrush.
You can preview a smooth mesh using display properties.
Note: you must be in quick mode to actually sculpt on your mesh, but you can toggle Quick mode to preview a smoothed mesh without having to subdivide.
I think that is an outdated feature as it subdivides temporarily the object instead using a real normal smooth. There is a physical modification of the geometry, even temporal, instead than the expected render effect found in other programs. I mean, dynamic subdivision does the same but allows editing and has more options.