Sculpting a Cave in Zbrush with Dynamesh And Mask Outside Shell Cleanly
polycounter lvl 6
Hey guys. I'm trying to sculpt a cave environment for an animation. I have watched a number of great tutorials out there but I am still stuck on some beginning stages in Zbrush.
I want to create a 'shell'. There seems to be a number of ways to do this but each one has its own problem.
I'm going to do it this way as its the most recent way:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZVDR0EE6mc
I want to create an inverted sphere for the cave, backface mask the outside of the sphere (because the camera never sees it obviously) and be able to sculpt without zbrush collapsing everything. So I'd like to mask the outside of the cave without it penetrating.
When I tried to make a shell in an outside app, zbrush still sculpts through on the other side and I know that will give me headaches down the road when I retopo.
Is there a way to both:
1.) Make the 'shell'
2.) have the outside of the shell masked (when I mask, it masks through on the inside, even when thickness is added)
3.) and have it single sided?
If I can't do it with single sided, I'd like to know how to mask the outside of the cave (that the camera doesn't see) only without the mask penetrating the inside where I want to sculpt.
Thanks!
I want to create a 'shell'. There seems to be a number of ways to do this but each one has its own problem.
I'm going to do it this way as its the most recent way:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZVDR0EE6mcI want to create an inverted sphere for the cave, backface mask the outside of the sphere (because the camera never sees it obviously) and be able to sculpt without zbrush collapsing everything. So I'd like to mask the outside of the cave without it penetrating.
When I tried to make a shell in an outside app, zbrush still sculpts through on the other side and I know that will give me headaches down the road when I retopo.
Is there a way to both:
1.) Make the 'shell'
2.) have the outside of the shell masked (when I mask, it masks through on the inside, even when thickness is added)
3.) and have it single sided?
If I can't do it with single sided, I'd like to know how to mask the outside of the cave (that the camera doesn't see) only without the mask penetrating the inside where I want to sculpt.
Thanks!
Replies
Rather then the way your trying to do it. I would personally build the cave of smaller meshes. Rather then one big connected sculpt.
Edit: Also, you're looking for the Brush's BackfaceMask setting, in the Brush menu, under Auto Masking. Turning it on will prevent the brush from affecting the opposite sides of a thin mesh.
Thanks for the help guys.
I am just making the main room itself into one sculpt. I will break up the elements (there's a little doghouse for the hellhound character, stalagmites, rocks etc) into subtools.
I'd like to move around the walls of the cave in Zbrush because I don't have a solid plan for what the room looks like yet. But I can't do that with a shell (the walls intersect) and I can't do it with dynamesh apparently either. I need help
But I'm not sure how he gets the BackFace Masking to work on his tubes...
If you make a tiling rock texture (by sculpting on a plane, in zbrush, with wrap-mode set to 1, ( http://arifcreations.com/blog/2012/01/21/tileable-rock-texture-in-zbrush/ )), you can then apply it to a cave shell made in max or Maya or whatever. Then you can subdivide the shell a little, and use the height-map from your tiling texture to deform the geometry, to give you some of that sculpted feel.
You're going about this very inefficiently if you're expecting to be able to sculpt the inner parts of a cave in zbrush problem-free. Zbrush's fake camera and general workflow is awkward enough at the best of times.
Yeah, that sounds like it would work. Thanks so much!
I don't know what other apps I could use to get the damn room set up in the first place...
Thanks Joopson! Your method seems to be a good plan of attack.