Symetrical sculpting on none symetrical meshes

gilesruscoe · on 02-16-2011 08:05 AM

So, i have this base mesh which is a midget with 1 arm and leg and the other arm and leg are going to be artificial... So the base mesh has a stumpy arm/leg on one side, resulting in wierd topological axis. The rest of the mesh such as chest, hips and head are symetrical and i need to sculpt details on these, but due to the wierd axis the mirror is off center, is there anyway to change this inside mudbox? ( if you know a solution for Zbrush i can always use that, i just prefere MB)

Thanks in advance

Mark Dygert · on 02-16-2011 08:15 AM

Depending on what app you used to build the basemesh there might be a way to effect the objects pivot point so you can place it where you would like. In 3dsmax you go to the Hierarchy tab > turn on effect Pivot only and move it where you want.

gilesruscoe · 09:26 AM

Yea, i've been trying to do something similar to that, but its very touch and go, just guessing where to center it, exporting again, trying again.. very tedious and at the end of the day probably wont result in a perfect mirror down the middle. There is a "set topological axis" function in MB but it only works on symetrical meshes :s

Edit: used your technique in the end Mark, took a while, but its pretty much mirrored now, cheers!

sprunghunt · on 02-16-2011 11:05 AM

In mudbox you can set the mirror axis to go along an edge in the model that you select. I'm guessing this is what you want to do? It's called "set topological axis"

Mark Dygert · on 02-16-2011 11:19 AM

Yea, I remember that "Set Topological axis" hopefully they've given it a major overhaul since 1.0. Back then it required the model to be perfectly symmetrical and even then it was buggy if the tri stripping wasn't exactly what it expected. It doesn't sound like they've improved it much... Doesn't it have an offset feature too? Or maybe I'm thinking of max's skin mirroring...

Glad its working, sad it was such a pain.

mortalhuman · on 02-16-2011 02:32 PM

Indeed mudbox will do this for you, it just requires that the topology be the same on both sides, regardless of scale differences or poses etc. As long as it can see it is really the same mesh on both sides, regardless of how it's been reshaped on another side, it'll still work