Is there a way in Zbrush to bevel a single edge?
In my example I want the green part (facing the camera) to have a little bit of a smooth corner. Not too smooth but not completely hard edge either. Is there a way to archieve this with Z modeler?
I tried searching but couldn’t find anything on the internet.
Hi @Ometecuthli,
Yes, you can bevel a single edge, but remember that the bevel has to start and end someplace, and that polygons with greater than 4 points cannot exist at any time in ZBrush, so edges will be inserted to force quads and tris.
If you were to start and end the bevel on both corners of that edge, the result would be more of a diamond shape, because the bevel would taper to a point at both of the corners. So you would have to find some place to start and end that bevel that results in the edge that you want being fully beveled.
The trick here is that when you tie off an edge into a pole that results in more than 4 spokes, or that results in an extreme angle between the edges extending from that point, it may produce problematic results when smoothing the mesh up from high poly–pinching or distortion in the surface when using Creasing to mark which edges stay sharp when subdividing.
It may take more deliberate modeling here to produce the shape you want in this situation, than applying a bevel to a single edge loop.For this reason, I try to avoid doing that and try to find cleaner ways to tie those points off. In the following image I have inserted an edge loop to achieve the result you want, rather than a bevel operation. Then I slide the edges or points to create the shape you’re after, rather than relying on the bevel function:
Please keep in mind the pinching and creasing issues I mentioned when attempting to smooth on a curved surface at low poly. You may have better results trying to do this sort of modeling if the mesh were somewhat higher in resolution, because there will be more points to define the curves and keep the form stable when subdividing.
Note these are issues specific to low poly modelling. There are many other ways to create this shape in ZBrush that don’t require you to fuss over the topology :). Depending on your output needs, it may be easier to simply create this shape at high res from two different forms that have been merged together.
Good luck! 
Something else I forgot to mention–remember that when subdividing low poly topology, two edges very close together are effectively the same thing as a Crease. You can use this to manipulate the topology to create edges of varying hardness. This may be a better option for times where a full Crease causes too severe of a result when subdivided.
Hey @Spyndel , thank you so much for your answer, really helpful! but to be honest that is not what I mean (sorry for my bad explanation). What I meant is this:
That is the edge which I would want to bevel a little, or at least not have super sharp.
I mean, it is hard surface, but a perfect super sharp edge does not exist, so I want it to be a little bit more realistic if that makes sense.
But like you said, maybe it will be easier to do this “detail” when the model is in a much higher poly count 
Best regards
Hi @Ometecuthli
If all you’re after is a slight smoothing to the edge and not an actual bevel, the post following this may have a simpler solution.
For an actual bevel, you can do this at low poly with spot modeling, but not with a bevel operation in ZBrush. A single edge cannot be beveled with a bevel function, because the points would converge at each end, resulting in no bevel. You would need at least a single point in between the two end points to produce any effect. Even if you could, you may still find you need more deliberately drawn topology than a bevel operation would produce to avoid smoothing issues.
Remember that your question is not as simple as it seems because of the smoothing concerns in this curved surface scenario. I can’t simply answer it without addressing the problems you’ll face as a result. Low poly modeling is a distinct skillset, and the most honest answer to your question is that to do this at low poly you will need to develop some finesse as a low poly modeler. A low poly specialist or an instructional course would probably serve you better than I will here.
So the way I have gone about doing this is as follows. There are many ways to slice this sort of feature in, but of the options I tried this resulted in the least amount of cleanup work:
Mask your mesh, and hide the backfacing polygons (not pictured!). You are going to use the SliceCurve brush, and this will cut through the other side if they are not hidden. The masking protects the polygroups from changing, but will not stop the mesh from being sliced. However, it’s important to have the polygons you will be altering fully visible. Slicing through the edge of a visible polygon into a hidden polygon will cause problematic, barely detectable polygons slivers to be created along that edge.
Unmask your mesh, and use the Point> Stitch > To Endpoint option to stitch the mid point in the edges that were created in the adjacent polygons to the corner, eliminating the extra polygons there.
Delete the corner polygons. Then use the Edge> Bridge> Edges function to draw a new square polygons from one edge of the corner to the other, leaving only a triangular hole on the surface of the sphere. Use a Close Hole function to fill that in–Geometry> Modify Topology > Close Holes, or an Edge > Close function in ZModeler. Assign the newly created polygon to the sphere surface polygroup.
Important! Check the mesh with Tool> Geometry> Mesh Integrity> Check Mesh for any issues, which is always a good idea after creating new topology in ZBrush. If you did everything the way I described there shouldn’t be any issues, but it is possible to create problem geometry in this scenario, which would need to be fixed for the mesh to be safe to use.
Use Tool> Geometry> Crease> CreasePG to automatically crease the borders between all polygroups. Then switch on Dynamic Subdivision to preview how the mesh will smooth when subdivided to look for problems in the surface. Assigning a reflective material will make surface distortions easier to spot.
Our problem areas are going to be the the poles you created when you extruded the surface and converged the edges to meet at a single point on the curved surface. I inherited those in this scenario, but you may want to try and find another way to draw that topology. It may be helpful to slightly inset the area first. As I mentioned before, performing this work on a slightly higher resolution surface (subdivided once or maybe twice) would result in the surface being more forgiving.
Sometimes simply sliding the points around to create edges at more forgiving angles will do the trick. Sometimes with a light touch, the points can be moved slightly in or out from the surface of the mesh to alleviate an issue.
In addition, I created a pole on the curved edge which is going to be a problem. In this case I simply used the Edge> Spin function to rotate the edge into a less troublesome angle, but for the best results it would be best to eliminate this sort of join altogether, and attempt to create a couple of nice looking quads by drawing a new edge from corner point to corner point across the top surface of the extrusion.
Please understand, many of these issues are just part of any low poly modeling process with subdivision surfaces. When modeling at low poly, it’s important to understand how the base level topology is going to influence the smoothing process when subdivided. A low poly instructional course may teach you how to do this more effectively than I’ve done here. Likewise, a low poly expert may be able to share a more successful configuration for this situation.
Depending on the situation, a more ZBrushy way to go about this might be to create the topology of both shapes individually at higher resolution, clean them both with ZRemesher separately, then fuse them together with Live Boolean and clean the mesh again.
You can do this however you choose–low poly modeling, sculpting, Clip or Trim brushes, etc. It doesn’t matter how you start–ZRemesher is going to crunch it back down into cleaner, low poly topology that can be accurately creased. This is a skillset in its own right, but the general principles are:
ZRemesh shapes at high target poly count to give it enough polys to work out the form accurately, then use the “Half” option to crunch it down progressively lower until ZRemesher can no longer maintain the form accurately.
Use ZModeler to correct minor issues as they pop up , rather than chasing perfect results in a ZRemesher trial and error spiral.
Pick one method for maintaining hard edges, and stick with it. I prefer using the “keep Groups” option with well defined polygroups, as clean polygrouping is extremely useful in all stages of ZBrush work, and they survive scenarios where creasing wont. It’s then a simple matter to use the Creasing> CreasePG option on the ZRemesher results to re-establish all your creasing with a single click.
Sometimes polygroup smoothing is useful, sometimes it isn’t.
ZRemesher generally does really well with simpler hard surface forms. Instead of producing a single complex surface with very fine details, it generally produces better results to develop the forms separately, and make sure both meshes have nice clean topology with polygons around the same size to minimize the number of extreme connections the Boolean process will produce.
In the following example (in which I exerted very little effort 
), I created the two forms separately in which case it is a trivial matter to model the bevels you want, and cleaned the results of each with ZRemesher. I fused the shaped together with Live Boolean, and cleaned the results again. Subsequent ZRemeshes to reduce the polycount as far as possible to smooth the results and eliminate any higher resolution distortions that the mesh may have picked up (like a slight seam I accidentally introduced with a Mirror and Weld operation). Generally speaking, the fewer the points, the cleaner the curves when subdivided.
In the case that your output doesn’t require clean topology or polygroups, there are also many high poly sculpting options to produce this form on a curved surface free of the smoothing concerns you’ll face when working from low to high poly.
Good luck!
It occurs to me this all might be overkill for what you want. You’re not actually looking for a bevel, you’re looking for a “slight smoothing” when subdivided to only that edge. So my low poly modeling primer might not be necessary here.
The easiest way to achieve a “slight smoothing” for that edge would be to simply crease the geometry you already have there, including that edge, subdivide it up a few times , then delete the crease on that edge and continue to subdivide it. It would result in something like this:
How smooth the line is depends on how many subdivision levels the creasing is active for. Keep it active longer for sharper edges. The Creasing menu has a slider where you can specify how many levels the creasing will be active for, but to affect only some creases and not others the creasing would need to be manually deleted.
Likewise you could simply create your geometry at higher resolution, and decline to crease that edge:
A lower poly solution that creates a semi smooth edge but not a bevel, is to use the tip I provided earlier about moving edges close together. In this case I simply subdivided the geometry once, and slid the edges in the corner close together but not touching. This will produce a semi smooth edge when subdivided or with Dynamic Subdivision:
However, non-square polygons produce sub-optimal results in ZBrush when painting or sculpting, so you’ll probably want to remesh this topology at some point after it has been subdivided.
