Zbrush Tutorial: Auto Retopologize With Specified Loops...

BradMyers82

Wrote this tutorial to save some people time with retopologizing.  https://www.artstation.com/artwork/ldnGV

Hope it helps!

Shadespirit

Hi, nice tutorial ! I'm just wondering: wouldn't one be able to use ZRemesher Guides to reproduce this end result ?

jth852

Shadespirit said:

Hi, nice tutorial ! I'm just wondering: wouldn't one be able to use ZRemesher Guides to reproduce this end result ?

You can use the zRemesher but it can be tricky to get such clean results, the step 7 "polish by groups" is really what makes this so much better than the zremesher guides, in my opinion at least.  Thanks for the cool tip @BradMyers82!

BradMyers82

Yes, jth852 is right.  If you use the guides you will never get the loops the way you want unfortunately.  They only slightly influence the flow, but definitely don't help with avoiding spiral loops.  I have tried using the guides extensively with poor results.  Glad you guys found this helpful!

juancaratino

Sorry but i think if you  use GUIDEs  and,  pull de CURVE STGRENGTH  to 100% (in Zremesh) this create  the loop and  the polygroup

nekromantikko

Great tip! Can't believe I didn't think of this before 

Torch

This is awesomesauce, always had a tricky time getting the right topo from Zremesh. Nice one mate

BradMyers82

jpr, Torch: Thanks guys!

juancaratino: Hey thanks for the info, I totally didn't know you could get way better results by messing with that slider and the guides.  Its almost as if the guides are useless without knowing that.  Having run a few tests just now Id argue that you still get a lot more control with my method, however; if I wanted to get something decent super fast... guides with curve strength seems like the way to go.  In any event, its awesome if people can use this thread as reference to discover different solutions available.  Info like this can be pretty hard to come by with google searches sometimes.  That was my motivation when writing the tutorial after all.  Cheers!  

jth852

Hey again, you can also make some nice zRemesher curves based off poly groups with Stroke -> Curve Functions -> Frame mesh,
smoothing the mesh of the polygroup first would probably still help with this method. I'm not sure how much better or worse it is than BradMyers82 method or the method of using a high lazy mouse to layout smooth guides and use a high curve strength, but its probably best to try all of them, you'd still spend less time than manually retopo a mesh 

adrxzero

Super good stuff! Thank you  @BradMyers82

dlz

Hey nice tutorial! 
I always did the retopology only with masking and making polygroups and get good results, what diference make the step 7? 
The first time i see this method is in that video but he doesn't do the Polish by features step.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knuLq4QRF5U

BradMyers82

Jth852: that's true, thanks for sharing here!

Adrxzero: glad you found it helpful.

Dlz:. Cool man!  The Polish part just helps you get smoother loops.  It isn't totally necessary but in some circumstances it makes a huge difference!