ZBrush Tip: ZRemesher Guide Curves for Directed Edge Flow

Steer your topology where it matters: ZRemesher Guide Curves let you drive edge flow for cleaner, animation-friendly loops with minimal cleanup.

• Prep the mesh
  • Organize major regions into Polygroups (eyes, mouth, ears, panel borders) to pair with KeepGroups for reliable borders.
  • Crease essential hard edges (Crease) if you want ZRemesher to respect them via Keep Creases.
  • Decimate or DynaMesh to even out density if the source is extremely uneven or scanned.
• Draw effective guides
  • Select the ZRemesher Guides brush (Brush palette) and draw short, purposeful curves along desired edge flow.
  • Encircle critical features (eye and mouth rings, nostril loops, ear helix; for props, panel borders and bevel paths).
  • Use multiple short guides instead of a few long ones; avoid intersections and keep guides tangent through junctions.
• Core settings that work
  • Target Polygon Count: set the K slider to your ballpark (e.g., 5–8K for heads; 2–5K per hard-surface part).
  • Curve Strength: 15–30 for firm guide adherence; lower if you see wobbly loops, higher if guides are being ignored.
  • Adaptive Size: 0–15 for more uniform quads (great for deformation); higher values allow size variation to preserve forms.
  • KeepGroups: On when using Polygroups as “islands” and borders. Smooth Groups: reduce if borders must remain crisp.
  • Keep Creases: On for mechanical edges you’ve creased and want preserved.
• Execute and iterate
  • Run ZRemesher. If the result is close but not perfect, add a few more short guides where loops break or wander.
  • Alt-click ZRemesher to try an alternate solution seed—often lands cleaner loops with the same setup.
  • For symmetry, ensure Symmetry is enabled before remeshing to get mirrored topology.
• Advanced control
  • Density painting: Enable Use Polypaint to paint white where you want more density and darker tones where you want fewer polygons; refine with Color Density.
  • Hard-surface: Combine KeepGroups + Keep Creases with a few strategic guides along panel breaks for predictable, quad-friendly bevel support.
• Projection and polish
  • Subdivide the new mesh and use Project All (adjust Dist and PA Blur) to recover sculpt detail without reintroducing messy edge flow.
  • If tiny artifacts appear, lower Project Dist and project in staged passes per subdivision level.
• Troubleshooting quick hits
  • Loops break or spiral: add short guides across problematic transitions; reduce Adaptive Size; increase Curve Strength.
  • Border wobble: KeepGroups On, Smooth Groups lower, add guides parallel to the border.
  • Too dense/sparse: adjust Target Polycount or leverage Use Polypaint density control.

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