[Maya / ZBrush] how to slice the mesh?

davidlom

Hello dear modelers and PolyCounters.

My question is simple for advanced users, what is the best technique in Maya or ZBrush to achieve "sliced mesh" effect like on picture?

Thanks in advance,

David

AtticusMars

booleans

davidlom

AtticusMars said:

booleans

thanks for advice, Maya 2012 booleans really crappy 
will try in ZB, let you know the results...

AtticusMars

Not familiar with Maya To be honest I don't think you're gonna get a very clean mesh out of zbrush since it's booleans rely on dynamesh.

Worth trying still, I've not used it with flat surfaces so it might be okay. Another thing you could try would be to slice it up, delete the sections you don't want and then use some tool to cap the holes. If maya doesn't have something like this I'd be shocked, but you can do it in zbrush also (capping the holes only, you probably wouldn't want to do the slicing in zbrush as theres no grid snapping afaik)

Again though, don't know how clean the results will be.

Otherwise if you're feeling really adventurous you could load it into Blender to bool it, it's booleans are pretty good.

Internet Friend

I played around with doing this in ZBrush and had some success.

Clone your mesh into a Dynamesh. It's OK to lose detail here. Use ArrayMesh or Transpose + repeat to make your cutting meshes. Boolean them together. Turn off DynaMesh. Under Project options give it a tiny ProjectionShell value and then uncheck the axis you don't want to project along, then ProjectAll. Divide and repeat until you've got your detail back. 

You can also ZRemesh as you feel is necessary depending on what you want to do.  Thin areas like fingers you may need to do as separate subtools with finer Dynamesh resolution and projection distance to avoid errors. 

oglu

booleans in maya 2015 upwards should work... they implemented the carve booleans like you have in blender...

davidlom

Thanks to all for answers and advices.

Actually Maya 15/16 is doing booleans pretty well so my problem is solved for now.

All the best to everyone!