The unofficial Guide to hidden features in the

new Rigging and Topology of Zbrush3

by Ralf Klostermann (Rastaman), (www.rk-art.de)

You find both new ZB3-features inside the Tool-palette.

First read the Wiki for both:

http://www.zbrush.info/wiki/index.php/Rigging

http://www.zbrush.info/wiki/index.php/Topology

and my Tutorial about the yet undocumented feature of Zsphere-topology-

based modelling and rigging :

http://206.145.80.239/zbc/showthread.php?t=46117

and of course Plakkie's marvelous thread which initiated all this gizzmos in our
brains to explore these new cool features:

http://206.145.80.239/zbc/showthread.php?t=44876&page=1&pp=15

So, I suggest you have already studied the wiki-topics and maybe the other
links and tryed out some of the descriped techniques. Only with having read
the basics you can understand what is written here.

So here are conclusions of what we found out so far...........

- Understanding the differences between Rigging and
Topology. -
Well, both are obvious different, but often work in conjunction as descriped in
the Wiki.
The rigging-feature is primarily intended for giving you the opportunity to add
and use any structure made out of Zspheres as a rigg to pose your mesh-
objects.
But you can do more with it as you will later see.

Not enough, Pixologic also added a topology-feature to ZBrush 3, a feature

that has an enormous power and further potential if Pixologic would build it out
in the next updates.
Topology has here another meaning as you already know from ZB2.
In ZB3, a topology build inside this mode is made out of Micro-ZSpheres.
In general, they are the same zspheres you already know, but they have a few
differences to the 'normal' Zspheres.
First, of course, they are very small, but beside that, you can do with them the
same manipulations that are possible with their big older brothers ;).
But furthermore, they have much more power and functionality than any
ZSphere had ever before.
They can build new meshes by being drawn onside a mesh-objekt (see Wiki),
create mesh-objects out of ZSphere-models (see my tutorials), act as a
surface-rigg or as a very quickly and easy to build conventional rigg.
For me one of the coolest new things in ZBrush 3.

But it is essential and fundamental that we understand that both features uses
a different origin of the Z-Axis.

When working in the 'Topology'-mode, ZBrush automatically locates all new

ZSpheres inside or (when in 'edit topology'-mode) directly on the surface of
the mesh-mode-structure, so the mesh-model is the center of the coordinate-
system, especially regarding the Z-direction.
So the topology-coordinate-system is a local-coordinate-system.

In Rigging-mode the direct-click-in the mesh-model-method to produce a

new Zsphere also works, but the Zspheres are all then drawn massivly in –
(minus) z-direction dislocated outside your mesh-model, so the Rigging-
coordinate-system is a world-coordinate-system

Only if we have this in mind, we understand why Zbrush behaves different

when we work in each feature and why we have to use different techniques
of drawing new Zspheres in each system.
 - Drawing new Zspheres -
You have drawn a ZSphere on the Canvas and activated EDIT.

Now activate the DRAW-Modus.

Open the desired Palette (Tool -> Rigging or Topology) and load any desired
mesh-object via the 'Select'-button.

Scale down and position your Base-ZSphere as desired.

Rigging-mode :
You always use the 'mother-child'-method of the traditional ZSpheres-drawing-
technique.
LMB-Click on the 'mother-ZSphere, hold LMB and drag out a 'baby'-ZSphere.
Switch to MOVE-Mode and drag the Baby-ZSphere to the desired place.

Topology-mode:

You use the 'Quick-Click'-method, what means that you can directly click on
the desired place within your mesh-model.and ZBrush will draw a new micro-
ZSphere and its connection-line to the previous Zsphere. To choose this
'mother-ZSphere', you first Ctrl + LMB-click on that Zsphere and after that
you LMB-Click on the desired point for the new micro-ZSphere.
Keep this in mind, it is essential to avoid problems and understand why things
you do work or don't work.

So, overall and beside the fact that both modes are used for different
purposes, working in the topology-mode is much quicker and performs a better
workflow.
I would recommend that Pixologic enhances especially the topologic-feature
and fixes the bugs that it mainly has, because principally its the better
workspace for creating riggs compared with the construction-method that you
have to use in the rigging-mode.

As you read in the Wiki, Pixologic currently only supports officially the creation
of 'normal' riggs for your mesh-objects in the rigging-mode.

So it was our (the user's) job to find out what is further possible.

And we did ;) .
- Surface rigging -
(The principial way was first descriped by Game Master 770 and several others
, later again posted by me )

Follow the steps of the Wiki to create a 'Convert to Main':

1.2 Convert To Main Feature

The Convert To Main feature has some very cool functionality. Designed to
enable the surface rigs that were shown in '04 it has other uses such as
creating vines on a character or a tree or many other things your imagination
might come up with...you tell us!

To use Convert To Main there are a few things you have to keep in mind.
First, all ZSphere chains must be connected to the base ZSphere that is active
when you enable Edit Topology. If they are not, they will not be converted to
normal ZSpheres.

The steps are as follows:

Draw your ZSphere on the canvas.

Go to Rigging and select the mesh you want to draw on top of.

Press Topology:Edit Topology. Make sure that the base ZSphere is selected
or that the root of your ZSphere chain is connected to it.

Begin drawing new topology on your model.

When you are done first press Convert To Main and second unpress Edit
Topology. Your topology lines will now be ZSpheres that you can edit and
adjust. From here you can add them to another model as a subtool
Now comes the trick:

1) Press Tool -> Rigging -> Delete

The mesh-object on which you created the topology disapears.

2) Press Tool -> Rigging -> Select and select the same mesh-object again.

3)Press Tool -> Rigging ->Bind

The 'Convert to Main'-Topology is now the rigg of the mesh exactly on the
same places where you draw it.

Now you can change to Move-Modus and manipulate the mesh very detailed
via this new rigg.

The disadvantage compared to the original feature as shown in the 2004

sneak-preview-video is that the rigg fully controlls all the mesh-strukture, even
on places you don't want this. The original function only influences a smaller
amount of the mesh.
Maybe this can be compensated by masking areas (has ZBrush3 a weighting-
option with his rigging feature ?)

Though you are normally only able to do surface-rigging with low-poly-versions

of your model, I tried a variation in that I first cloned my model in maximum
subd-level and again in subd-level-1, then selected the level-1-clone in the
rigging-panel, made my 'Convert to Main' with it, deleted in from the rigging-
panel and selected finally the high-poly-clone to bind the rigg and pose or
deform my high-poly-mesh.

Although I came only once around with that without a crash, this picture shows
that is is also possible to surface-rigging with high-poly-meshes.

Dargelos was the first who found out a method how to do make quickly a rigg
in topology-mode:
I analyzed the picture he showed and came then to this way:
A Quicker (variation-) method of rigging your mesh-model
with ZSpheres:
(inspired by the post of Dargelos, discovered by Rastaman:)

This method uses the topology-mode to create very quickly a rigg on a loaded
mesh-model.

1) Draw a ZSphere on the Canvas and press EDIT.

2) Instead of going to the rigging - menue as normal, open the 'Tool ->
Topology'-menue , press 'Select' and choose your mesh-model.
Now, your mesh-model appears as the already known bright-yellow mesh.

3) Now, DON'T push any other buttons and simply move & scale your first
drawn ZSphere to a desired dimension and position inside the mesh-model,
activate 'Draw' and klick LMB inside the mesh-model to create new connected
ZSpheres as a rigg.

4) When you're done, open 'Tool -> Rigging', press 'Select' and again choose
your mesh-model. After that, press 'Bind'
Now your rigg is connected to the mesh and can be posed as usual.

Then you will still see the yellow-mesh in the background like on Dargelos'
pictures. Looks a little bit like a mesh with a soul ;)
But because you cannot later get rid of the yellow mesh, it's further use
(beside the cool 'Yellow-Soul'-look) is a little limited. But if you preview your by
this technique posed mesh-model via pressing 'a' on your keyboard, the yellow
'soul' disappears and you see your model in a new lovely pose..

So Dargelos way of setting up a rigg was much quicker and more comfortabel
to use and an overal big step forward in the rigging features if we could finally
get rid of that yellow-'soul'-mesh.

My above descriped way maked it only possible to rigg low-detailed models via
topology.
So Dargelos posted later his method a little more detailed and I saw that he
was able to pose also a high-poly-mesh-model with topology-riggs with his
way:

His original posted steps (with a few add-ons from me for better
understanding):
l
1- open your mesh-model.
2- clone it with the high subdivision level
3- clone with subdivision level 1
4- apend a zsphere as a subtool to your original model tool and resize it.
5- select the zsphere so you can see the topology and rigging submenus and
hide the model subtool (eye-symbol in the subd-panel)
6- select the high-poly-clone in rigging menu and the unsubdivided clone (level
1) in topology menue
7- delete your selections so you can only see the yellow soul
8- click onthe zsphere and draw new microspheres just clicking in your desired
places they won´t go to the infinite or the surface they should stay inside the
mesh
9- when you have finished your structure select the subdivided clon in rigging
menu and press bind to start posing.
10- you can move scale or rotate. the best results are achieved by selecting
the "bone" line betwen 2 microspheres and rotate it.

A little further explanation for all who didn't come through with that.

The purpose of his method is to rigg a highly-subdivided mesh-model via a topology-micro-

zsphere-rigg.
As it is not possible to do that directly with your original mesh-model, you first need to make a
clone (press 'Clone' at the top of the Tool-menue) in the high-subdivision-level you like to pose.
For the use in the topology-mode, you must furthermore create a clone in the lowest subd-level,
which is Level 1. (see Steps 1-3)
Now comes the clever thing.
He appends a ZSphere (Root for the later rigg) as a subtool to the original mesh-model and selects
it in the subtool-panel to get access to the rigging and topology-menues.

Hint to step 5: He means hide the mesh-model by clicking on the eye-symbol in the SubTool-
menue.

In the rigging-menue, he selects the high-poly-clone and in the topology-menue the level-1-clone.
Step 7 is essential, you must press the Delete-buttons in both menues, rigging and topology so that
you only see your Root-ZSphere and the yellow-ghost-mesh on the canvas, otherwise the micro-
zspheres you want to create now will not be located inside your yellow mesh, but dislocated to
world-Z-Null (see my hidden-features tutorial)
Now its easy to set up your rigg with microspheres.
When you now reload and bind your high-poly clone into the rigging menue, you can pose now
the high-detailed Model-clone as you like. (note: the original high-poly-mesh is not displayed in
the selection-dialogue, so you always have to work with two clones !)

A usefull hint from Sire:

'But there's a shorter way to clone a subtool anyway: extract without mask and zero thickness. No
need to append then and being confused which icon in the tool list pop up is the clone.'
And now Plakkie tells us how to extract :
'It's on the bottom of the subtool pallet. Select the subtool, press extract with the thickness slider
to zero, and tadaaa, a new cloned subtool!'

But I prefer 'Clone', because 'Extract' does not produce a good result with the low-poly-status of a
model. The extracted version is thinner and has a big loss of the former outline.
Only 'Clone' produces an identical copy of your original.

Because I was not satisfied that we should end here in our rigging attempts, I
made some thougths, some hours of frustating try-and-errors with countless
Zbrush-Crashes, until I came to this:

Pixologic implemented the 'Convert to main' (and imagine, they say they have
themselfes no idea what is all possible with it). As we already know, you can
use the converted topology as a surface-rigg, but limited to low-poly meshes
(otherwise, Zbrush => data-nirwana, you know this, don't ya ?).
So, I do software-programming for years, and thought because of the behavior
of Zbrush, the reason for freezing and crashes might be a programming bug so
that Zbrush 'looses' the surface from one point on and goes with its calculation
into infinite. So why not show Zbrush the borders ?

With that in mind, I created a Rigg-topology, converted it in 'Main' and moved

all the so created 'Zbones' inside the borders of my mesh.
Then the big moment, pressing 'Rigging -> Bind', and........:
No crash, but a perfectly rigged mesh.
Switched to move and rotate and tried it, worked fine.
Tried it with the highest subd-levels, worked also fine.

And that leads us to:

- Easy Rigging of all Detail-Levels with Topology-Riggs -
(by Rastaman)
Because this bigger theme is also under further development and constantly
updated, I made a separate Tutorial for this.

You find it under:

http://206.145.80.239/zbc/showthread.php?t=46117

- Using Rigging mode for Construction of ZSphere-master-

models -
(by Rastaman)

Start just as you do when rigging a mesh-objekt in the rigging-mode, but after
selecting the mesh to the ZSphere(s), instead of creating a rigg for posing, you
create a ZSpheres-Model just as you formely did in ZB2, using the loaded
Mesh-model as a 3D-reference.
The big advantage now is that you can position and dimension your ZSpheres
within your 'Master'-3D-model as a 3D-reference to create much better looking
ZSphere-based-models than in ZB2 where you only were able to use the
traditional 2D-90°-Photo-reference.
Store & use them as a basic model for further developments.
A cool 'abuse' of the rigging-feature, isn't it ?

- ZSphere-based modelling and rigging with the new

Zbrush3 Topology-Feature -
(by Rastaman)

This feature and the 'How to do' is descriped in my tutorial:

http://206.145.80.239/zbc/showthread.php?t=44876&page=10&pp=15
- Creating a Rigg from a mesh-Object -
(by Rastaman)

1) Load a mesh, position it and klick EDIT.

2) Activate a Zsphere from the Tool-palette

3) press Topology -> select and select the mesh-model. (So, skip the usual
Rigging-palette-step)

4) Now press 'Edit Topology'. You will see your mesh-object as a yellow net
(very impressive at the first time )

5) Press 'Convert to Main', and you see this:

Normally you would now deactivate the 'Edit topology'-Button to have a

functional rigg as if you did it in the normally descripted way, but if you do so
now, ZBrush jumps lately then immediately into data-nirwana, if it didn't do so
before in Step 5).
- Easy-Painting topology on your mesh -
(Crusoe the Painter found this:)

'If you're retopoing your mesh, ....hold down 'shift' while drawing with a
non-zero brush size, it creates a zsphere network that mimics the underlying
geometry!
Very bad for very dense meshes (scads of microspheres & a dense mesh! ),
but great if all you are doing is reworking the low-res mesh! '

Plakkie made a Zscript to that cool new feature (The pictures above are
screenshots from his zscript).
You can download it here:
http://206.145.80.239/zbc/attachment.php?attachmentid=58009
This tutorial will be further updated if something new is found.

Because in the moment nearly all few hours something now is discovered and
added to this overview, I recommend to periodically check my source-post for
new versions of this Tutorial, because other links might refer to already deleted
versions of this files.

You find it here:

http://206.145.80.239/zbc/showthread.php?t=46117

Happy ZBrushing,

Ralf