Smoothing models for sculpting?

[MobyTheDuck]

Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask, but its something I've been struggling to learn.

I wanted to sculpt models to generate the normals based on them, but I cant find a way to smooth them without heavily changing the model itself. I know how to use Blender and know the basics of Zbrush.

Its the only way to subdivide the model until the brushes can put enough detail or should I just skip that and try to learn Substance Painter?

[[DE]Grzegorz]

Maybe these will be of any help.

 

[fredaven]

"Its the only way to subdivide the model until the brushes can put enough detail or should I just skip that and try to learn Substance Painter?"

yep. thats how its done. bring in LP-. and Sub-D til kingdom come.

[MobyTheDuck]

2 hours ago, fredaven said:

"Its the only way to subdivide the model until the brushes can put enough detail or should I just skip that and try to learn Substance Painter?"

yep. thats how its done. bring in LP-. and Sub-D til kingdom come.

Guess I got to get used to it then. Been trying to do that so I got the Zbrush 45 day trial, but it 'finds a problem' and closes itself randomly.

No idea what could be, reinstalling didnt help, so I can only assume its overloading.

[fredaven]

Split the model in pieces

[Stenchfury]

Yup, subdivide the model a few times; I usually go until it's 4-5 millions, so you'll have enough for sculpting details. If you are getting crashes consider writing to the support, they are usually quite friendly.

[Kalimando]

With blender you can bake using a cage to the original topology (in other words, keep the original mesh, and edit a high-poly duplicate). No UV required for the highpoly but you would need to make sure all of the sculpt is above or below the original topology to have a normal which works right. (This method probably takes 5-6 times longer than Substance Painter since its a lot of trial and error)

 

As for subdividing remember that it only takes around 5 subdivisions to go from a 6000 triangle mesh to an 8,000,000 triangle one. Going to crazy with it will cause problems for even the most robust of editors.