ask him what he thinks about dynamesh. I thought the same way as yoz before i used it "its already there, what do i need it for?" but in fact it changed my workflow entirely its so easy to use and incredibly fast compared to the remeshing workflow. Heck remeshing took so long he barely uses it on his sculpt, like 2 times maybe 3? Iused it but rarely as it took ages. these days for organic sculpting i rarely use any basemeshes at all. I do that woth dynamesh and lateron for better polydistribution with a super quick retopo (5minutes per tool maybe) once the shape is there. I never thought i would use remeshing for my professional work, now i use it daily for almost anything.
so essentially your walking in a circle then. its the scan data workflow. and not any faster. in fact it sounds like more messing about with polygons and topology at an awkward stage in the sculpting process to take your dynamesh to hires sculpting mesh. it takes 10 minuets to model a simple base cage in maya/max with all the poly tool goodness, then just start sculpting start to finish.
as it was noted by Pixologic dynamesh was never intended for hires mesh sculpting and in fact is not capable of such. most models will come in around 10-20 million polygons a piece. thats impossible with dynamesh or voxel atm. why make more work by cramming it in just for blocking. also if i have a model with tons of complicated pieces i absolutely do not want to be fucking around with topology and tweaking in zb its a nightmare. you can knock out all of the complicated poly work and fitting in maya/max where its properly done. dynamesm is just totally unnecessary and more complicated in most cases.
i thought like you until about 1 week ago. at which point i tried Dynamesh for the first time. i remember it quite vividly, i was in a polycount google hangout, i was working on a chick model, and someone said "that would look cool with like... wing membraines". i thought okay... so i'll just make some quick in max and import them in. but there was an issue with seams and meh... and i think it was Daphz was all "dude just dynamesh it". so i did.
took me ~45 seconds to understand how the tool worked, and from there all kinda crazy came forth. i had a sexy chick with wing membraines and clawed feet... i had another chick with anacondas coming out of her head, and the current dude i'm working on the entire body was done in dynamesh. and the result was BETTER than if i'd started from a basemesh.
and why? because when you work from the same base mesh day after day, your work will inevitably gravitate towards using the same shapes day after day. your faces, torsos, arms, legs... they'll all be too similar to each other because subconciously you're being chained by the basemesh. you're thinking about the topology of that mesh, the limitations it has, and subconciously working around those. instead of doing what you SHOULD be doing, and just making badass art.
that's why dynamesh is so good. it doesn't have those limitations, you just make badass art.
Re Dynamesh : Even tho its slider has a limit ( 1024 and now 2048 ), one can actually go much higher than that. When a dense mesh is needed simply duplicate the tool, dynamesh it, divide it one or two times then projectAll to recover the tiny details stored in the copy. Easy!
@almighty_gir
yea its great. i'm not trying to be a scrooge here. i do concept sculpts with it and its fun for that. but the example everyone gives is one mesh and your totally in charge and can do what ever you want. that never fucking happens tho. i'm not a concept artist i'm a modeler. the concepts done. if the concept has some MIDGET in a shirt that is covered with an overcoat with 20 pieces on it which is covered by some piece of armor with 20 pieces on it which is covered by god knows what then it has to be so. now i could do all the tedious work in maya quickly with polys and get it close to where it needs to be. then scultpt it out. or use dynamesh for that??? fuck that. i need a production workflow that gets shit done as quick and as good looking as possible. dynamesh and zb in general is slow and painful to start from scratch once the complexity of the model goes beyond certain point . so i don't need it. unless i have something that is for fun on my own time it does not make sense.
a human is a human is a human. im not going to start from scratch every time. i spend time to match reference and get some base meshes with correct proportions and there going to be just about right for every human on earth. except freaky ass MIDGETS......
@Bigjohn
the script for auto hiding that god forsaken turd soup menu is below. just copy and paste it into a fiile called
I am with you on this gray, i hate using dynamesh, but there again I am more of a modeller than a sculptor. actually building a cheekbone is so much faster than trying to sculpt it. I like being constrained by my base mesh, because that's the reason I built it:)
if I need to add a penis sticking out of his head at some point its easy enough to fix up.
ask him what he thinks about dynamesh. I thought the same way as yoz before i used it "its already there, what do i need it for?" but in fact it changed my workflow entirely its so easy to use and incredibly fast compared to the remeshing workflow. Heck remeshing took so long he barely uses it on his sculpt, like 2 times maybe 3? Iused it but rarely as it took ages. these days for organic sculpting i rarely use any basemeshes at all. I do that woth dynamesh and lateron for better polydistribution with a super quick retopo (5minutes per tool maybe) once the shape is there. I never thought i would use remeshing for my professional work, now i use it daily for almost anything.
The reason why I don't like remeshing, or dynamesh it's because they kill what I like the most in Zbrush, its multires sculpting system. Work on big shapes on lower levels, detail on high. My brain thinks this is the best effective way to work. Maybe because I'm more a painter than a modeler, don't know. And this system let me have good topology always, to help with sculpting. If I need to add an extra part to a char, like a penis, I usually use the insert mesh, under Tools>geometry tab. It was always there, since Zbrush 2.
Anyway, repeating what I said before, I'm not saying it's not useful, just that is not something revolutionary, like Zspheres, subtools, transpose and many other great Zbrush additions. At least for me.
The reason why I don't like remeshing, or dynamesh it's because they kill what I like the most in Zbrush, its multires sculpting system.
I used to feel the same way until I realized I could use freeze sudivision levels and reproject for the same effect. I think I would only use dynamesh at this point for quickly blocking in and merging forms. 4r4 basically gave solutions to the problems of dynamesh but dynamesh still has use being a quick way to remesh.
edit: a little clarification, 4r4 has several feature that put dynamesh in a better (less significant) place: the ability to bridge different subtools together, ie connecting two subtools based on polygroups without remeshing the entire object; it also has the new Qremesher which lets you have much better control of clean remesh topology in the remesh (even without guides it seems to do a good job), and there are multiple ways to keep subdivision levels while maintaining the same detail (which is my main problem with just using dynamesh).
So I'm doing face topology tests with QRemesher. I'm trying to get a 1000 poly head and I'm
getting pretty good results with these settings.
-AutoMask
-MDensity 4 ( with masking around the eyes,mouth and nose..T zone style )
- Target Polygon count 1
-Cstiffness 10
-QRemesher guides ( 1 circle around eye, 1 line across nose to ear, 1 circle around open mouth, 1 line under ear to chin )
Basically sharing this in case someone else can do better and will share the results... maybe start a thread about it
So I'm doing face topology tests with QRemesher. I'm trying to get a 1000 poly head and I'm
getting pretty good results with these settings.
-AutoMask
-MDensity 4 ( with masking around the eyes,mouth and nose..T zone style )
- Target Polygon count 1
-Cstiffness 10
-QRemesher guides ( 1 circle around eye, 1 line across nose to ear, 1 circle around open mouth, 1 line under ear to chin )
Basically sharing this in case someone else can do better and will share the results... maybe start a thread about it
So this is the day we reached where simple lines and maths will do the retopo for us with a handy guide? Please tell me it's so!
what REALLY hurts my feelings is that where so many of the new tools and functions are pushing / wanting for the composition of multiple objects. . . and it's the one thing maybe above all else that zbrush is just plain fucking balls at
object management in the app is just abysmal. downright absurd. drop this silly fucking subtool notion and offer a ' standardised ' cohesive environment. allow for the basic selection and manipulation of multiple meshes ( a plugin to try and address this point is ridiculous. especially when it is so poorly implemented as now )
for the billionth bloody time pixologic. fix the damn UI !!
tacit, every new release you go off on a rant about zbrush. lots of people don't actually mind the way zbrush works, myself included. minor niggles yes, but overall i like the quirkiness.
Have you tried mudbox, might be more up your street
tacit, every new release you go off on a rant about zbrush. lots of people don't actually mind the way zbrush works, myself included. minor niggles yes, but overall i like the quirkiness.
Have you tried mudbox, might be more up your street
well to be fair only those releases where they continue to ignore the most glaringly obvious holes in the app
credit where due of course. zbrush is a phenomenally feature rich kit. and it's those features which make mudbox as good as a non option ( to me ) when it comes to digital sculpting. even though it does solve the majority of those problems i mention by simply following convention
the object management system as it is now i don't consider to be a minor niggle. it is a huge hit to workflow and a massive slow down. i'm sure any one of us here can put forward off the top of our heads how and where it could be improved
to make the analogy. and still giving it credit for all the things it does super well : working in zbrush is like visiting the finest restaurant in town. where the food is absolutely gob smacking delicious. only problem is the chef. talented as he is. is also a crazy person who decides on a whim to take a dump in the middle of your plate each serving
the meal is wickedly tasty. no question. but you gotta work around a whole lotta crap to get at it
tacit - I suppose it depends what you are using it for, I find object management ok. I remember working in zbrush before we had subtools, that was a real pain, but I suppose it's what you get use to, I liked zbrush from day 1, my only real niggle is the readability of the shaders at times.
I am one of those types who worries too much about UI design , I don't even use shortcut keys:)I am too lazy to reach for the keyboard.
anyway latest niggle is a weird thing where if you zoom in too much the tablet gets stuck on the model, rotating around weirdly, and then it seems to take a snapshot of the zoomed in viewport then make a new layer. It's getting so that I just can't zoom in too close.
gray, never had any probs with mine, using firefox too
Just upgraded to 4r4, man adding clothing details was never easier! Prepare to see every noob in the world sculpt terrible clothing and then cover it in zip and stitch greeble. While i do like the fact it speeds up my workflow for things, i can't help feel it's degrading the value of detail on models. Before somebody would look at a character and go "sweet the artist modelled out all the zips, laces and everything!" And now they'll just assume it took you 5mins in zbrush.
having a few tablet problems still. zoom in too far and everyhting goes flakey, mesh spinning around, activating multiple layers. anyone else having this? - bit of a showstopper really
having a few tablet problems still. zoom in too far and everyhting goes flakey, mesh spinning around, activating multiple layers. anyone else having this? - bit of a showstopper really
Try disabling Right click navigation. A few versions ago I had a bunch of problems zooming where the mesh would jump around etc. and that fixed it for me.
Just upgraded to 4r4, man adding clothing details was never easier! Prepare to see every noob in the world sculpt terrible clothing and then cover it in zip and stitch greeble. While i do like the fact it speeds up my workflow for things, i can't help feel it's degrading the value of detail on models. Before somebody would look at a character and go "sweet the artist modelled out all the zips, laces and everything!" And now they'll just assume it took you 5mins in zbrush.
Then those artists will have to excel in some other area. Evolve or die.
tacit - I suppose it depends what you are using it for, I find object management ok. I remember working in zbrush before we had subtools, that was a real pain, but I suppose it's what you get use to, I liked zbrush from day 1, my only real niggle is the readability of the shaders at times.
I am one of those types who worries too much about UI design , I don't even use shortcut keys:)I am too lazy to reach for the keyboard.
anyway latest niggle is a weird thing where if you zoom in too much the tablet gets stuck on the model, rotating around weirdly, and then it seems to take a snapshot of the zoomed in viewport then make a new layer. It's getting so that I just can't zoom in too close.
gray, never had any probs with mine, using firefox too
man i would at least like to have groups and subgroups as in photoshop. working with dozens of subtools sucks big times.
Just upgraded to 4r4, man adding clothing details was never easier! Prepare to see every noob in the world sculpt terrible clothing and then cover it in zip and stitch greeble. While i do like the fact it speeds up my workflow for things, i can't help feel it's degrading the value of detail on models. Before somebody would look at a character and go "sweet the artist modelled out all the zips, laces and everything!" And now they'll just assume it took you 5mins in zbrush.
Those will be the same people who think a single piece retopo will be all you need, and that Mul your AO over your Diffuse is enough for a NG piece.
I think that's great actually. I don't know what's with this obsession over details. It's almost as if someone can take the teapot out of Max, cover it in "next-gen" details, bake some maps, and he's awesome.
I always thought the underlying work, the actual art, is way more important than the details that cover it. And in game-art specifically, I always thought things are so over-detailed that it kills the art by covering it up too much.
For anyone having trouble with the topology brush...set the brush size to 20 and make sure the lines cross..don't try to be clean. Then change the brush size to 1 and click on the new surface when done.
metalliandy - you are a star mate, that worked:) I did notice a little glitch though, but 99 percent better.
Neox - yeah some extra feature of that kind would be nice, but subtools for me is ok.
I would however like it if you could 'click' select subtool though.
zbrush cloth sim would be awesome. sculpting cloth is beyond tedious
Replies
so essentially your walking in a circle then. its the scan data workflow. and not any faster. in fact it sounds like more messing about with polygons and topology at an awkward stage in the sculpting process to take your dynamesh to hires sculpting mesh. it takes 10 minuets to model a simple base cage in maya/max with all the poly tool goodness, then just start sculpting start to finish.
as it was noted by Pixologic dynamesh was never intended for hires mesh sculpting and in fact is not capable of such. most models will come in around 10-20 million polygons a piece. thats impossible with dynamesh or voxel atm. why make more work by cramming it in just for blocking. also if i have a model with tons of complicated pieces i absolutely do not want to be fucking around with topology and tweaking in zb its a nightmare. you can knock out all of the complicated poly work and fitting in maya/max where its properly done. dynamesm is just totally unnecessary and more complicated in most cases.
i thought like you until about 1 week ago. at which point i tried Dynamesh for the first time. i remember it quite vividly, i was in a polycount google hangout, i was working on a chick model, and someone said "that would look cool with like... wing membraines". i thought okay... so i'll just make some quick in max and import them in. but there was an issue with seams and meh... and i think it was Daphz was all "dude just dynamesh it". so i did.
took me ~45 seconds to understand how the tool worked, and from there all kinda crazy came forth. i had a sexy chick with wing membraines and clawed feet... i had another chick with anacondas coming out of her head, and the current dude i'm working on the entire body was done in dynamesh. and the result was BETTER than if i'd started from a basemesh.
and why? because when you work from the same base mesh day after day, your work will inevitably gravitate towards using the same shapes day after day. your faces, torsos, arms, legs... they'll all be too similar to each other because subconciously you're being chained by the basemesh. you're thinking about the topology of that mesh, the limitations it has, and subconciously working around those. instead of doing what you SHOULD be doing, and just making badass art.
that's why dynamesh is so good. it doesn't have those limitations, you just make badass art.
yea its great. i'm not trying to be a scrooge here. i do concept sculpts with it and its fun for that. but the example everyone gives is one mesh and your totally in charge and can do what ever you want. that never fucking happens tho. i'm not a concept artist i'm a modeler. the concepts done. if the concept has some MIDGET in a shirt that is covered with an overcoat with 20 pieces on it which is covered by some piece of armor with 20 pieces on it which is covered by god knows what then it has to be so. now i could do all the tedious work in maya quickly with polys and get it close to where it needs to be. then scultpt it out. or use dynamesh for that??? fuck that. i need a production workflow that gets shit done as quick and as good looking as possible. dynamesh and zb in general is slow and painful to start from scratch once the complexity of the model goes beyond certain point . so i don't need it. unless i have something that is for fun on my own time it does not make sense.
a human is a human is a human. im not going to start from scratch every time. i spend time to match reference and get some base meshes with correct proportions and there going to be just about right for every human on earth. except freaky ass MIDGETS......
@Bigjohn
the script for auto hiding that god forsaken turd soup menu is below. just copy and paste it into a fiile called
DefaultZSript.txt
and put it in the path \Zbrush 4R2\ZScripts
that workes 99% of the time but sometimes it misses for some mysterious reason.
if I need to add a penis sticking out of his head at some point its easy enough to fix up.
The reason why I don't like remeshing, or dynamesh it's because they kill what I like the most in Zbrush, its multires sculpting system. Work on big shapes on lower levels, detail on high. My brain thinks this is the best effective way to work. Maybe because I'm more a painter than a modeler, don't know. And this system let me have good topology always, to help with sculpting. If I need to add an extra part to a char, like a penis, I usually use the insert mesh, under Tools>geometry tab. It was always there, since Zbrush 2.
Anyway, repeating what I said before, I'm not saying it's not useful, just that is not something revolutionary, like Zspheres, subtools, transpose and many other great Zbrush additions. At least for me.
I used to feel the same way until I realized I could use freeze sudivision levels and reproject for the same effect. I think I would only use dynamesh at this point for quickly blocking in and merging forms. 4r4 basically gave solutions to the problems of dynamesh but dynamesh still has use being a quick way to remesh.
edit: a little clarification, 4r4 has several feature that put dynamesh in a better (less significant) place: the ability to bridge different subtools together, ie connecting two subtools based on polygroups without remeshing the entire object; it also has the new Qremesher which lets you have much better control of clean remesh topology in the remesh (even without guides it seems to do a good job), and there are multiple ways to keep subdivision levels while maintaining the same detail (which is my main problem with just using dynamesh).
(Okay, it's hard to complain about zBrush you know ?)
getting pretty good results with these settings.
-AutoMask
-MDensity 4 ( with masking around the eyes,mouth and nose..T zone style )
- Target Polygon count 1
-Cstiffness 10
-QRemesher guides ( 1 circle around eye, 1 line across nose to ear, 1 circle around open mouth, 1 line under ear to chin )
Basically sharing this in case someone else can do better and will share the results... maybe start a thread about it
Dustin, that's a pretty sweet belt. Are you able to loop it all the way around and close it?
jramauri... just try dynamesh, it chanced my life.
So this is the day we reached where simple lines and maths will do the retopo for us with a handy guide? Please tell me it's so!
object management in the app is just abysmal. downright absurd. drop this silly fucking subtool notion and offer a ' standardised ' cohesive environment. allow for the basic selection and manipulation of multiple meshes ( a plugin to try and address this point is ridiculous. especially when it is so poorly implemented as now )
for the billionth bloody time pixologic. fix the damn UI !!
I just hope one day they start making maya/3ds max alternative...with the ideas they have..., they cannot fail...:P
Have you tried mudbox, might be more up your street
Getting close. More than anything it has inspired me to pump out work
well to be fair only those releases where they continue to ignore the most glaringly obvious holes in the app
credit where due of course. zbrush is a phenomenally feature rich kit. and it's those features which make mudbox as good as a non option ( to me ) when it comes to digital sculpting. even though it does solve the majority of those problems i mention by simply following convention
the object management system as it is now i don't consider to be a minor niggle. it is a huge hit to workflow and a massive slow down. i'm sure any one of us here can put forward off the top of our heads how and where it could be improved
to make the analogy. and still giving it credit for all the things it does super well : working in zbrush is like visiting the finest restaurant in town. where the food is absolutely gob smacking delicious. only problem is the chef. talented as he is. is also a crazy person who decides on a whim to take a dump in the middle of your plate each serving
the meal is wickedly tasty. no question. but you gotta work around a whole lotta crap to get at it
I am one of those types who worries too much about UI design , I don't even use shortcut keys:)I am too lazy to reach for the keyboard.
anyway latest niggle is a weird thing where if you zoom in too much the tablet gets stuck on the model, rotating around weirdly, and then it seems to take a snapshot of the zoomed in viewport then make a new layer. It's getting so that I just can't zoom in too close.
gray, never had any probs with mine, using firefox too
right here!
there's not too much yet though
Like do I replace a brush preset file with last versions (anyone have can you send me as I stupidly deleted my old install).
All the imm are nice, but really. They are examples. Taking away brushes that are more useful.
Then those artists will have to excel in some other area. Evolve or die.
man i would at least like to have groups and subgroups as in photoshop. working with dozens of subtools sucks big times.
Those will be the same people who think a single piece retopo will be all you need, and that Mul your AO over your Diffuse is enough for a NG piece.
I always thought the underlying work, the actual art, is way more important than the details that cover it. And in game-art specifically, I always thought things are so over-detailed that it kills the art by covering it up too much.
Neox - yeah some extra feature of that kind would be nice, but subtools for me is ok.
I would however like it if you could 'click' select subtool though.
zbrush cloth sim would be awesome. sculpting cloth is beyond tedious
(as in Alt+Click, or do you mean something else?)
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