Zbrush | Using Insert Multi Mesh fusion to form a plank skirt

Hi Everyone, my name is Michele. In the previous, video I showed you how to form a skirt using Curved Bridge Brush. Right now, I’m going to show you how to form a skirt using Mesh fusion, in order to achieve something like this. Similar to the previous tutorial we will begin by forming two surfaces. First, using Insert Multi Mesh(IMM). Second, using an Alpha

and finally Zbrush will form a third using Mesh Fusion. Let’s begin! Press “,” to open up Lightbox. Under Project, Open up Female model project as a reference for the width, waist and the length of the skirt.

By default, this Female model has 1 million ActivePoints with 4 subdivisions. Let’s reduce the amount of active points so that we don’t bog down the file and make it slow. Go under Tool > Geometry > Sdiv. Slide the number of divisions to Level 2. The number of vector points will drop. Let’s register that by deleting the Lower Subdivisions and the Highest Subdivisions. Now the Total points are only around 60 000. Turn Polyframe on by pressing Shift F and under Subtool, Click on Append to add a new Subtool. Click on circle 3d to form the bottom of the skirt. Click on Circle3D Subtool layer to edit. Press W to activate Gizmo. Click on the red line to rotate Circle3D backwards. Turn on transparency by clicking the button on the bottom right. Rotate it so that you are viewing from the top then click on it. Click on the blue arrow to move Circle3D lower. Click and drag inwards or towards the center of the yellow box, to scale down the skirt. Let’s increase the resolution by pressing CTRL or CMD D a few times. Update the polyframe lines by pressing Shift F twice. Turning it off and on again.

Click and drag downwards to rotate your view we will now use an alpha to form the bottom of the skirt. Holding down CTRL and CLICK on Alpha. Click Import then select the purchased alpha or your own custom Alpha. Then click open. Use Rect Stroke to apply this Alpha. Click and Drag downwards anywhere on top of the polygon to test out the alpha. Then let’s apply the mask with Transpose Smart Mask ; BTM, so that we can adjust the angle of the mask. Once Transpose Smart Mask is activated, Click on Alpha to activate the purchased or your custom mask. If you want to understand more about using Transpose Smart Mask, Click on the link on the top right to watch the video dedicated specifically for this brush. Click on Transform tab and Activate Symmetry. Turn off X Symmetry and turn on Y Symmetry. Radial count, any number between 16 to 21. Zoom in by holding down CTRL Right click and move right. Apply Transpose Smart Mask. CTRL CLICK and drag downwards. Press Spacebar to move the position of the mask. Adjust the angle by pivoting to the left or right. Then let’s fill in the center of the mask too. Holding down CTRL,

Change the stroke to Circle. Press X to turn off Symmetry and apply the Circle mask. Press Spacebar to move it.

Finally press CTRL or CMD W to Polygroup it. Now let’s smooth out the jagged edges, by going under Tool > Geometry > Delete lower subdivisions, or else Edgeloop won’t work . Then under Edgeloop, look for Groupsloops. Adjust the Polish from 50 to 100. Keep Loops at 4, Triangle on and hit GroupsLoops. There will be 4 polished loops created around each polygroup color. Let’s isolate the green polygroup. CTRL SHIFT TAB on the unwanted polygroup. Then reverse the isolation by CTRL SHIFT Tapping again on the same polygroup. Once isolated, we can go ahead and combine these two colors into one by hitting CTRL W or there is another way you can isolate these polygroups, I think is very useful. Isolate green polygroup first, then slowly grow the isolated polygroups by pressing CTRL SHIFT X a couple of times and you can shrink it back again by pressing CTRL SHIFTS S.

Press F to fit the model to screen. Press W to use gizmo to scale the bottom of the skirt. Click on this icon to place gizmo at the center of the unmasked polygons then Click on the red rectangle and drag left to widen the skirt and cover the hip area. Activate Insert Multi-Mesh Primitives with an H at the end to draw the top of the skirt. The shortcut is BIH and watch the top left of the screen for the name if you can’t see the full name on the icon. Without the H, Mesh Fusion will not work. Click and Drag down from the middle of the skirt.

Rotate to view from the front. Press W to activate gizmo again. Click and drag the blue arrow upwards to the waist. Let me zoom in to adjust the PrimitiveH insert. Click and drag the red rectangle to adjust the width and the blue rectangle to adjust the height.

When you’re happy with the size and position. Invert masking to adjust the bottom of the skirt. I think it needs to be wider. CTRL I to invert the mask. Using gizmo, adjust the width of the skirt by clicking and dragging on the red rectangle. When done adjusting, press CTRL Click and drag on the background twice. The first time unmask everything. The second will activate Mesh fusion. This is the first CTRL CLICK and DRAG and this is the second CTRL CLICK and DRAG which activates Mesh fusion. Then Zbrush will join the two surfaces automatically, and that’s how you activate Mesh fusion. Here are a few notes if Mesh fusion doesn’t work for you. Take note to Groupsloops high resolution surfaces before you run Mesh fusion and make sure that both surfaces must be under the same Subtool layer. Make sure Dynamesh is not activated and finally make sure that there are no Subdivisions. There is another common way this IMM Mesh fusion is used, which is for adding geometries onto your existing models. For example, I have here a Sphere3D which is subdivided three times. I applied a Star mask on the Sphere3D. Then activate IMM PrimitiveH on the sphere polygroup the masked area to create an edge. Apply Insert whole cylinder on top of the star polygroup. Click and drag left to scale it and move it outwards. CTRL CLICK and DRAG down twice and Mesh fusion will do its thing. So far from my observation any geometries which is below 200k or Subdivision level 4, Mesh fusion will work without any problem, but any surfaces above the resolution of 200k or Subdivision 4, Groupsloops is required to tidy up the edges for Mesh fusion to work.

Another observation I have is the proximity of open edges. If you have a hidden open edge nearby the newly applied IMM Insert will fuse with it. For example, I have half of the sphere hidden, not deleted, just hidden. The newly applied IMM Insert will fuse with it even though I have polygrouped a star just below it.

In order to fuse with the star shape below the hidden open edge of the sphere,

along with the subdivision levels, in order to make sure that my IMM Insert brush fuse with the star shape below it

then mesh fusion will work as intended. Now, let’s go back to our skirt model. If you have learnt something new today, please subscribe to my channel and I will upload more of such videos and remember to give me a thumbs up! Alright, now back to our skirt. I want to shorten the skirt. I’ll use BTR the regular Transpose Tool

and shorten it . Then use ClothHook brush BCK to move and adjust the skirt so that it’s covering the skin.

Finally, i’m just going to add some material to the skirt for fun! Click on Material and select one that reflects black leather maybe? Even though we have selected the material that we want, we have not registered the material on the skirt. There are a few icons we need to make sure are on before we can register the material on the skirt. Check that the skirt layer must be selected, with paintbrush icon on. Activate Materials brush at the brush intensity slider on top. Now I can go ahead and register this material by clicking on this Fill object button. Oops! the bum is showing a little. Let’s use ClothHook brush BCK to use it. I need to turn off Material brush above the Z Intensity slider

or else I’ll be applying the active SkinShade4 Material.

Oh! and one more thing I forgot to fix. I need to delete the top surface of the skirt. After completing this video, I realised that I have not deleted the top surface of the skirt. So this is an additional video on how you can do it easily with Polygroups >

Groups by normals. Under Groups by normals there are a few options for us to adjust. This is the slider that sets the maximum range of angle, within which the polygon faces should be considered as one polygroup. So the threshold is 45 degrees. Below that angle one polygroup and above above that angle another polygroup. I have here only two surfaces. The first is the top of the cylinder and the second the sides. These two surfaces definitely exceeds 45 degrees and each shall have its own color. Is it confusing? Let me explain. Over here, I have a Polymesh Cylinder3D. All the surfaces belong to one polygroup. Let’s measure the angle difference of each of the sides. Turn on gizmo by pressing W. Press Y to activate Transpose tool. Click at the center and drag out to the first point to check the angle. You can read the angle at the top left corner of the window. Now let’s check the angle of the neighboring face. Click and drag starting from the center. Snap to the second point. Next to the previous face. Do the same to the third to be sure that the difference is 11 degrees. Let me set the maximum angle to 11 degrees, which means I need to set the maximum angle to 11 degrees at the Groups by normals slider,

under Polygroups. Currently, we are using a regular algorithm with the filled dot option active. Every strip with 11 degrees difference is a different polygroup. If I change the algorithm by clicking this dot and change it into a circle with an outline, the polygroups are still divided by 11 degrees. However when i change the angle to 12 degrees and hit Groups by normals, the cylinder sides are all polygrouped into one color, and that’s how maximum angle works. So let’s go back to the previous model and click Groups by normals. CTRL SHIFT CLICK on the pink polygon to isolate it.

Then go under Modify topology and Delete hidden. Now that we’re here and deleted the surface that we don’t want, why not let’s just add some thickness to it by going to Zmodeler brush BZM.

Click on Qmesh,

and click on Polygroup all under Target, and then click on one polygon surface and slowly drag it out and all the polygons with the same polygroup and color will be pulled out. Adjust the thickness as much as you want and that’s the end of this video. For more similar tutorials please subscribe to my channel or visit michtintin.com for more indexed tutorial and I’m still working on my webshop. I’ll be selling some Alphas and also some VDM brushes. Please subscribe and stay tuned!