Zbrush - Mesh Extraction Tutorial

Learning Zbrush Tutorials: - Where to get Zbrush - Lesson 1: The Interface Misc Zbrush Tutorials - Mesh Extraction Other Program Tutorials: Learning Photoshop Tutorials

Zbrush - Mesh Extraction Tutorial
New geometry can be made using masking tools, and mesh extraction. This is one of the easiest ways to make extra geometry for a character, such as a shirt. Mesh extraction works by taking the masked area on a piece of geometry, and creating a new piece of geometry based on that mask. Follow the steps below to get started!

Step 1. Start off by selecting the Plane 3D tool from the tools pallete. You can use any 3d object, but for this simple tutorial we will just be using a Plane 3D.

Step 2. Draw the plane into the canvas by clicking and dragging until it is large enough to work with. Holding shift will help keep it aligned straight while you draw. After you have drawn the plane, click edit. Now you will need to convert it to a PolyMesh3D by simply clicking "Make Polymesh3D" in the tools menu. Now you can actually draw onto it freely. At the moment, your plane doesnt have many polygons to it, so you will want to increase the subdivision levels by pressing ctrl-d a few times, probably 3 or 4 depending on how detailed you want the final outcome.

Click edit after drawing your Plane3D

Then choose "Make PolyMesh3D"

Step 3. For this lesson we will actually just be drawing a mask onto the plane, the standard brush should work fine, and we wont need to use any alpha. So lets right click on the canvas, and change our brush size and Focal Shift. Changing the Focal Shift to -100 will make the mask we draw nice and crisp, and I have set the draw size down to only 10, since I want to make some small lines.

Now that you have your brush setup, hold control to enable the masking mode, and start to doodle something onto the plane. You can see that I just did a simple smiley face.

Change the draw size and focal shift

Holding control, doodle something onto your Plane3D

Step 4. Extract your drawing into a mesh. Under the tools panel on your right, find the subtools sub menu and click on it. At the bottom of the subtools window we want to click extract. You can also use the "Thick" slider to adjust how thick you want to resulting mesh to be, I will be using the default for now.

After clicking extract you should see the masked part of your plane pop out into 3d, you will also notice that it makes a new subtool in to subtool window. Rotate your plane around by simply clicking and dragging in an empty spot on the canvas, and if your happy with what you extracted, you can delete the old plane you drew the mask on by clicking delete in the subtools menu.

Extract your mesh by clicking Extract in the subtools menu, Use the Thick slider to change the thickness of the resulting mesh.

After extracting, you will have 2 subtools, make sure your first subtool is still selected.

Click delete in the subtools menu to remove the old Plane3D

Step 5. You can save your new object as a ztool by clicking "Save As" in the tools menu (right above the Make PolyMesh3D button). Now you can load the tool anytime you want and place it into another creation!

What you should be left with is a 3d "cut out" of what you doodled!