ZBrushCentral

Tutorial on Seamless Mesh Combine ?

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Does anyone know of a good tutorial which illustrates how to combine two (or more) subtools and create a seamless joint ?

ie : Seamlessly attaching a head model to a neck/shoulders model.

I have a feeling that topology is involved, but I’d love to see the correct steps towards getting the best and cleanest result.

I found the below, which seems close to what I what, but does not mention anything about smoothing the joint to crate a continuous mesh.

Combining SubTools

Before combining subtools be sure that your computer will be able to cope with the polycount of the combined mesh. This must not be greater than the maximum for your system.


  1. Save a copy of your ztool so that you can retrieve it if necessary.
  2. Selecting the primary subtool, switch to the highest subdivision level and then delete the lower levels. [Geometry subpalette]
  3. Press Tool>Clone to create a copy of the subtool.
  4. Repeat steps (2) and (3) for all subtools.
  5. Select the clone of your primary subtool. Then press Insert Mesh in the Geometry subpalette and select the first of your subtools from the popup. It is added to the mesh.
  6. Repeat step (5) until all subtools have been inserted.

Thanks again, this community rocks.

E

#2

I’ll be glad to create a movie and add it to the ZClassroom for you. But in the meantime try this excersise.

  1. Create a ZBrush sphere3D. Convert it to a polyMesh and divided twice.

  2. Now create a ZBrush cube3D, Convert it to a polyMesh and divided twice.

Note: the dividing twice part isn’t important. I just wanted you to have a bit more resolution.

  1. Now that you have your polyMeshCube on you canvas go to the subtools
    pulldown in the tool palette, and append the polyMeshsphere you created.

  2. Using transpose position the polyMeshShere so that it is touching
    the polyMeshCube.

  3. Select the the subtool that has the polyMeshSphere and press clone

Note: the clone button is located in the Tool pallet right under the import button.

  1. Select the polyMeshCube subtool and also press clone.

  2. Now clear your canvas.

  3. Draw in your cloned cube and press edit or the letter “T”

  4. In the Tool palette under the layers pulldown click insert mesh and select your cloned sphere.

  5. Select the “clay” brush. NOT CLAY TUBES, but the clay brush.

  6. Use the clay brush to smooth together the sphere and the cube.

Note. That should do a basic job of smoothing your two objects together. The clay brush does a great job at that! However you will notice that other brushes like smooth will pull your mesh apart. To achieve a truly seamless mesh you will have to do a retopology after completing the above steps.

Note: possible problems with the above steps. When you do a insert mesh
you must make sure that each of your objects, in this case the sphere and
the cube have the same amount of Subdivision levels and are on the same
Subdivision level before you preform the insert mesh.

Let me know if you have any other questions!

Martin

#3

If you truly want a seamless mesh (IE a united mesh), the only true option you have IN ZBRUSH is to use the unified skin option (after you merge your subtools together, that is). But the problem with unified skin is that you lose alot of the sharp details and you have to set the resolution real high to get a decent mesh which will probably end up being a few million polys. If you are fine with that, you also have the option of taking your newly created hig resolution mesh a retopologising it to get your lower res mesh.

You can also export each of the subtools and Boolean all the objects in a separate program and import them back. But with this technique, booleans give an ugly unworkable mesh. I have not found one program that can do decent multiple object booleans so, if you still want to do the boolean option, I wish you the best of luck finding one.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Revanto :stuck_out_tongue:

#4

Wow, thanks for the great rundown on this !

It appears I’ve made a nobbie mistake however, I went and did all my fine detail before I thought about combining the two meshes ! (talk about lack of foresight). In the future I’ll definitely combine all of my elements and re-topologize before dividing and doing any fine detail work.

I think the clay brush method will work great for now though, might be a little bit messy when I try to pose my model, but you never know !

Just so I can confirm this for myself though, is it common (good) practice to combine all my meshes at low poly level and then re-topologize before moving any further with my sculp ?

Thanks again, you guys are great !

#5

If you combine your meshes (unified mesh or with booleans) at a low level then when you subdivide, you will lose any sharp details.

If you mean merging subtools together without combining then you can do it at any level you feel happy with. I think you need to have both subtools subdivision levels (current and maximum) at the same levels before merging them.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Revanto :stuck_out_tongue: