ZBrushCentral

Wrap a bunch of feathers arround a ring...?! How does it works?

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hi guys,

I’m pretty new to Zbrush (abt 2 weeks) and I need to wrap arround a bunch of feathers and kind of bend and align them to the ring’s surface does anybody has got any suggestions for me pls?

best,

Robert

Attachments

uartsy_quest.jpg

uartsy_quest.jpg

#2

You may find the Match Maker brush useful.

#3

Hi Scott,

thanks for the advice :slight_smile: the matchmaker brush delivered the best results but I still had to ‘manually’ dragging and placing the feathers… I actually looking for something like random distribution from nanomesh but with the capability to matchmake it onto the surface…

#4

There is no magic button for that, I’m afraid. It would be a multistep process. Nanomesh can distort the dimensions of an instance to fill or fit a 2d polygon shape, but it cannot alter its curvature.

You could use nanomesh to place the leaf objects, convert them to mesh, split them off into their own subtool, then use matchmaker to conform the shape. You probably would have to do them one a time for best results with matchmaker, so run the leaves through Auto-Groups to make each one a separate polygroup, then turn Brush> Auto Maksing> Mask By Polygroup up to 100 for the matchmaker brush, that way it will only deform the first polygroup it touches.

(Note: Nanomesh works better with relatively low poly objects. To place a bunch of objects on a high poly cylinder, you may just want to use a normal Insert Mesh brush with Radial Symmetry.)

You could use a leaf alpha brush with a drag-rect stroke type and radial symmetry to displace the leaves into the side of the ring, which will naturally conform to the ring’s curvature.

You could apply a 2d leaf pattern alpha texturally with cylindrical projection or UV, and displace from it.

And of course you could rely on your artistic ability to sculpt them in.

#5

To add to my previous post, you could also deform a single leaf to your satisfaction with matchmaker along the side of the ring, then draw it out as a nanomesh (or an insert mesh brush with radial symmetry). It will take a bit of trial and error to get the size just right so it matches the curvature, and in the case of nanomesh it may require you fiddling with the alignment options a bit, but my tests here suggest it should work alright.

The trick is to make the leaf objects thick enough that you have some leeway in embedding them. If the ends of the leaves are too thin, it may be difficult to embed them without clipping.