[Zbrush 4r7] preserving geometry with zremesher

noface789

Been learning zbrush for a bit, I thought the adaptive slider turned to max should prioritize the preservation of my mesh shape, but no matter what my
settings are the bones and all other small bits of mesh lose volume. 

SebastianBielecki

Adaptive slider will cause in additional geometry in places where zbrush thinks it needs to be - where is more details in your mesh. If you turn off adaptive size, you will get mesh composed with polygons of similar size - details will be average to keep polygon size.
In your case - you can try subdividing your mesh a bit - it is pretty low poly. Use subdivision - but this might cause smoothing your mesh so maybe make first subdivision without 'smt' turned off and rest of them with 'smt' on.
What might be even better - you can try to make dynamesh out of it first and then zRemesh.

ReD-SpideR

1 - Original

2 - Sub Divide - Without Smoothing 2-3 times (retains shape) / Then one time with Smoothing.

3 - ZRemesher with Desired PolyCount, Turn off Adapt, turn slider down to 0.

Should be good to go.

noface789

Thanks for the replies, I never would've guessed that you had to increase your subd levels, is that what everyone does to get good results with zremesher? I was reading the docs and in there it said that it suggests that you take your model down to LOWER subdivisions. Anyway I kept applying your guys' tricks and never got good results (better, though), until I split my skeleton up into smaller pieces. Then I got the same result as RedSpider. Maybe there's a limit to how much geo you can zremesh at once while still getting good results.

Also, what does dynameshing beforehand do? Why does that improve zremeshing?

ReD-SpideR

well because dyna meshing adds more uniformed quads to the mesh.
Also I assumed your mesh was just the hand, or I would of mentioned earlier, but yes, separating before zremshing does help. It's generally better to work with smaller parts. You could also try using Decimating before Zremsher as well for potentially different results.