Subdivision lost Merge Subtool

#1

I am trying to merge subtools with uv for a human character that I made. Each subtool has 7 subdivision levels, and usually when I Merge Down the subdivision levels are saved. (as long as each subtool is on the highest subdivision level) For some reason, the subdivision levels are being lost and the highest subdivision level is the only available. What is going on here? If I click reconstruct subdivision levels, it says can’t construct lower levels. I also tried having just the two subtools being merged visible, not working either. I have made 4 characters the exact same way for this project, and this one is the only one doing this. What is happening?? Thank you greatly.

#2

If anybody comes across this problem, save out each subtool as its own tool. Then go Geometry-Modify Topology-InsertMesh. Again, make sure each subtool is on highest subdivision level before saving out. This works, subdivision levels remain.

#3

if you have 7 subdivision on all subtools and try merging, then zbrush may not work so well,
to many polygons for 1 tool instead of a bunch of subtools.
you may need to tone it down a bit to like 5 subdivision .
go to tool subtool> all high
then go to subtool that shows 7 subdivision then set slider to 5 then >del higher

  your [b]lowest[/b] subdivision is really your [b]highest[/b] when you merge.
  if you have two subtools and one shows subdivision 2 and the other subdivision 3
  and when you merge it then your subdivision will be 2
  so to fixs it take subdivision 2 and divide to to subdivision 3 
  now both subtools will have subdivision 3 and when you merge it then it will have subdivision 3

remember your lowest subdivision is the one that counts when you merge

#4

From what I understand, if you merge two with different levels, then ZB removes all levels because they don’t match the number of levels. Subdivision level 3 for one object in your subtool may actually be level -2 for the other object because they don’t match. ZB can’t traverse the levels if they don’t match so it simply throws them out and starts from 1 so they do match. The subdivision level is subtool specific so all objects within that subtool have to be on the same level.

So from what I can tell, if the objects have the same number of subdivision levels than you should be able to merge without any issues and keep your levels. But as informerman pointed out, watch your polygon count with that new subtool.

Hopefully I explained that well. :shrug: