ZBrushCentral

Reducing polygon count

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hi there!

I am new to this forum. May I ask you guys a question which has been bothering me for quite a while. I have been trying to model a character with ZBrush. However, I find it hard to reduce its polygon count from 0.5 million to around 1500. Details of the hands and feet lose and I get broken geometries on them every time when I try to further reduce the polygon count from around 10000 by using Zremesher. The problem persists even though I use Poly Paint to protect the hands and feet. Should I detach the hands and feet before Zremeshing the body and remeshing them individually. Can I attach them back after the process?

Many thanks!

#2

Hello @panit5 ,

It might be helpful to see a picture of what you’re trying to do. There may be some awkward geometry or something about the form of your mesh in that location that ZRemesher is struggling with. General tips:

  1. ZRemesh first at a high target polycount so ZRemesher has enough polygons to work with to accurately capture the form, then use the “half” option to further reduce as low as you can before ZRemesher can no longer maintain the form.

  2. The AdaptiveSize slider can be used to tell ZRemesher to prioritize the form OR the even distribution of polygons. One of these may work better for your situation, or Adaptive mode can be disabled entirely to force ZRemesher to prioritize the target polycount.

  3. If your model has well-defined polygroups, ZRemesher options like “Keep Groups” can be used to direct edge flow and substantially improve the results you get.

That said, it may be necessary to manually draw or touch up the topology on portions of the mesh. ZModeler is useful for this. I generally recommend not falling into a trial and error spiral chasing perfect results with an auto-retopo solution, but rather using it to do the heavy lifting and then addressing problem areas as they pop up.

:slightly_smiling_face: