ZBrush: Problems with Retopo

ralusek

So I had a model of a fat man, made from zspheres, and decided that any additional detail should be added after i redid the topology.

Here he is with original zsphere topology


So the first problem i ran into was saving doc/tool, and coming back to it later only to find that i couldn't visually continue adding vertices, and i was unable to move the original vertices.

that was extremely frustrating, so i just cut off the new topology with no feet, as i couldn't continue. so i saved the new tool with no subdivisions, essentially a very low poly model of my first model. i subdivided to 500,000 shapes, loaded original (1 million shapes) as a subtool, and projected.

this was roughly my result:


i left out the eyes/mouth on the low poly, and like i said the feet were cut off. however, what is shown is a smoothed version of what was immediately projected. the tshirt ridge was very botched, and the nipples were indented hugely, with little divets in the gut. his back also had a rather large [EDIT]:"hole" indented. while i'm very satistfied with the projection of the face/arms/hands...it does make me pretty uncomfortable to retopo any other models i might have, because they are certainly more detailed that this chub-monster. while it wasn't a very big deal for this guy, i couldn't bear to redo detail on something i've spent quite a bit more time on.

does anyone have a suggestion as to why this might have happened?

achillesian

you projected something with 1 million polys onto something with 500,000 polys, that might have something to do with it. Also, sometimes projecting can be hit or miss depending on the model and requires a lot of cleanup.

I still haven't figured out how to project detail after zsphere rigging and posing a mesh.

ralusek

ya, well unless i locally subdivided, my options were 500,000 or 2 million. either way it wasn't gonna sync up with the 1 million original.

however, this is what i'm thinking. from now on, i'm going to zsphere general shape, retopo edge loops etc right after i create the mesh, then just detail the second mesh. my guess is that's how they intended it. i mean obviously i'd love to retopo the last mesh so i can have a low poly in one step...but it's not worth risking it.

again, if someone knows specifically why mine might have been slightly botched, i would love to know how to do it right.

i think an important note to add is that when i retopologized, i used a very low poly subdivision of the original (like level 2 vs. max lvl 6). is this a likely reason it would be fucked?


and again, if anyone knows how to continue editing the topology if you have to save mid work, that would also be great. i mean computer crash, going to work...any of these are reasons why i might not get an entire mesh done in one sitting. not being able to continue later is kind of a hassle

vcool

Concerning the retopo start/save/come-back-later glitch, from what I know it's a bit of a bug in zbrush. Try clicking the retopo button (sorry but I can't remember the name of the menu for retopoing) and try addig vertices. I had exactly the same problem.

Unleashed

The hole or crater is probably that the new retoppo mesh isnt at the right depth compared to the original model you are projecting from. Try moving the faces in that area in or out a little and reprojecting that area. I think the new zbrush

To fix that not being able to move vertices bug, try toggling the Edit Topology button on and off and back on, its been a while since ive retoppod with zbrush but I think thats what fixed it.

im not really sure why the tshirt area would be so off

ralusek

thanks guys. i'll go back and try to get it editable again...since i can't adjust the levels to retry projecting unless i can edit the loaded mesh anyway.

i'm pretty sure i tried "edit topology" many times, but i'll see if i can fiddle with it a bit more