Hi, I’m new to 3d sculpting and using zbrush, I’ve some questions:
1.Why do we need a retopology? What’s the best way/software to do it?
2.What’s the difference between using ZRemesher and Decimation master (apart from the fact that decimation master creates non quads polygons).
Retopo is needed for animation so that all the joints (fingers, hands, knees, mouth etc.) bend correctly. If all you want to make is still image rendes, you won’t need to retopo.
Short answer. ZRemesher is newer than Decimation Master and because of that ZRemesher offers more control.
Piggy backing to Dillster, Zremesh is retopolo-ing so that you can have subdivision levels. Where as decimation, If you wanted a hiRES model to retain its shape but have a lower polycount, you would decimate it. Typically with Zremesh, to retain hiRES information outside of Zbrush, you would need a displacement map.
So I should first create very high poly sculpt, create displacement map from that level, then zremesh it to lower the poly count?
not sure if your into animation but you can upload your files to https://www.mixamo.com
very simple to rig and animate your models.
animation is not intended for high poly models because it bogs down the render engine and if anyone views it online it take for ever to load,
thats why maps are for to make it appear high poly when its not,
zremesher will allow you too force the edges to flow in the direction you want with zmesher guides
but by default zremesher does a pretty good job in 1 click.
you want good edge flow like around the eye’s kind of like a circle path
or around the mouth so it flows good when the eyes blink of the mouth moves,
and you can even make it better by placing more polygons where the joints bend and move, like the elbow
or knees ect ect where any thing may bend.
you can hand rig your object your self but it takes time to do and you have to do with map painting and bone naming and some stuff that’s not so newbie friendly, it takes a while to do
and it still might not come out perfect ,
use the link above to save you some time and head ache, not sure if they support displacement map but you can look and see,
some maps may need to be flipped before uploading check it
I just want to create still renders, no animations, I’ve used mixamo for unity though, it’s useful for getting animations for game characters.
you can render it in zbrush with out having to reduce the polys.
or export a displacement map to your other render software as long as it supports displacement map
ZRemesher > make the quads more evenly spaced, this makes it where you can add fine detail any where on the object,
you can use Dynmesh which all most does the same but i like ZRemesher because you can have subdivision levels you can adjust high or low,
zbrush is not design for tri’s thats why the decimation master is a plugin to export to other apps,.
quads is what you want and with the ZModler brush it works well with quads not tri’s