losing form in zbrush

Ruz

my problem is that when yo subdivide in zbrush, you have instances where you need to keep a box shape for example. obviously you lose this quite quickly when you subdivide a few times.
in max you can avoid this by checking 'seperate by material id or smoothing groups.
anyone know of a workaround

cheers
mike

MoP

Subdivide your source mesh in the same way you would if you were modelling a box with a Turbosmooth or Meshsmooth modifier on top - ie. tight loops around the corners and edges.

Ruz

yeah i was hoping to avoid doing that, but if thats the only way then fine. cheers MoP

PrayingMantis

You can use the crease feature to prevent you from adding new edge and getting the same result.
Or you can use the plug-in named, crease divide.

tacit math

you'll have the finest control if you just do all your smoothing in max. or wherever else. and use the reconstruct subd feature in zb to get your levels back

Ruz

yeah, crease is a pain to set up so i have given up on that;0
tacit math, doesn't your model need to have all quads to reconstruct subdivisions?
Praying mantis, i will try that, cheers

MoP

As long as you make sure your meshsmooth or turbosmooth is outputting quads, reconstruct subdiv should work fine, I've done this myself several times. Probably worthwhile making sure Isoline Display is turned off too in Max before exporting, it can sometimes go a bit wonky cos it doesn't think the un-displayed edges exist so you end up with unconnected verts.

Ruz

ok cheers for that, will go and look at it now
Edit: yeah thats cool, thanks everyone.
suppose the only downside is having make 'everything' quads, which can be a pain, but for simple stuff like ammo boxes, combat trouser pockets, thats great.

Neox

there is a plugin to solve that problem over at zbrushcentral, saw it a while back and the shots looked like it would actuelly work, but i never tested it and can't remember the name so you'd have to search for it on your own

Ruz

check the post by PrayingMantis above, SEKNeox , the link is there.
trying that now

Mongrelman

Orrrrrr, you can turn off "smt" in tools>geometry before you subdivide, then it will just divide without smoothing. So you can do that for the first one or two subdivisions and then turn it back on and you should have pretty much the same form.

Though as others have said; crease weighting a subd model in another program, refining the mesh and then taking that into zbrush and reconstructing is probably the best way.

Ruz

yeah i have tried that first technique and its ok for some things, but where you have organic and hard edges in one object, it becomes trickier. second way is best really.

The confusion started when i worked at frontier when the lead insisted on doing everything in zbrush, even the texturing. what a nightmare that was.
Normally its easy to use your instict as it were, but with someone standing over you telling you its the wrong way, it becomes quite tough:{
To be fair though some companies like to have a 'very' minimal base mesh , which is fine for some things but for others its becomes very much about sculpting rather than construction techniques tht you would normally use.
I prefer mixing the two