Dynamesh in Zbrush

      When I first started getting programs for 3d modeling I saw some work that had been made in Zbrush and immediately wanted to try it out. my first reaction was to use the lightbox to open a 3d sphere. When I finally got to sculpt on this 3d sphere, there was a lot of time fumbling before I looked for some online help, I noticed something strange. When I pulled too much on the object it began to get clumpy and faceted.

 After a couple of formal classes on Zbrush I now understand what had gone wrong. Grabbing a few faces and dragging them was only going pull those faces and stretch the rest. To help solve this problem Zbrush gives us a handy little tool for bulking out shapes, Dynamesh. Dynamesh redistributes the polygons and adds more around the mesh while retaining the shape allowing for building and pushing and pulling in any direction

     There are two methods to getting Dynamesh into your sculpts, firstly is to start with a Dynamesh or Dynawax shape. These load up right in your lightbox upon start up in many different resolutions.

This brings me to a first point about Dynamesh, it uses resolution to define its polygonal density. This resolution is set by a slider bar in the geometry tab and can vary on how many polygons it will add based to the complexity of your geometry and the height of the resolution. Any of these starting resolutions will work but keep in mind that the higher the resolution the harder it will be to make major topographical changes. You can open one up straight away or you can take another form of starting geometry and turn it into a Dynamesh.

This option is found in the geometry tab, set the resolution and click the Dynamesh button and you are ready to go, granted you don't have any subdivision levels in your subtool.

While using Dynamesh you need refresh the mesh in order to stop the faces from stretching too bad and redistribute the polygons and this can be done by holding control and marque selecting off of the geometry (on a Mac). This will update the mesh but sculpting is required before the mesh will update, so if you're upping the resolution hit the model with a light smooth the try to re-mesh. When you are done using Dynamesh and want to sculpt without the mesh you simply need to hit the Dynamesh button again and get back to sculpting!

       To conclude Dynamesh is a great tool to help get some great geometry early in your sculpt. It is located in the geometry tab and can be utilized from the beginning of your project in the lightbox. It's simple to use and really helps to reorganize your mesh so that the density of your polygons doesn't insanely stretched and faceted. It can be turned off or on at any time, granted you don't have any subdivision levels, and can really help get you started on the base geometry for some really amazing sculpting!