Smooth Stopped Smoothing

[FalconCrest]

I'm trying to smooth on a mesh with less then 100k, all of a sudden it's not smoothing. Doesn't make sense to me, I can admit that photoshop does take memory away from Mudbox so if you are working on a 2K resolution image in photoshop, at times, not always will mudbox fail to work.

[FalconCrest]

Here is an image of the lumps and bumps that I need to smooth out but no matter what I try using the smooth tool or any other tool for that matter, no change is applied ?

[Christoph_Schaedl]

try to import the object into an other scene...

if you create the mudbox head in this scene... are you able to smooth them..?

[FalconCrest]

if you create the mudbox head in this scene… are you able to smooth them..?

No, every other tool works except the smooth.

[FalconCrest]

Smoothing works on any of the objects built within Mudbox, how come it's not working on my sculpt hmm.

[FalconCrest]

I have a strong belief it is a bug, somehow fixing one thing, another thing went amok. I would hope Autodesk releases Service Pack 2, very soon because I know I'm not imagining what has been working flawlessly up to Service Pack 1, I can't say what is causing it but I know it's not my mesh the base meshes inside of Mudbox work but that is irrelevant. The basic tools of Mudbox should be last if at all on the list of problems.

[FalconCrest]

On a clear scene all the Mudbox tools work, on my scene that I've been working on they don't. Is their a way I can reset the preferences within a scene ?

[FalconCrest]

I installed Mudbox Subscription Advantage Pack SP1, everything was working fine until I decided to change the brush size from 100 max to 200 max, that is where everything went hairy. All my sculpts that I've been working on that are near completion I cannot finish them, none of the tools work as they should, on the default car, cow meshes within mudbox everything works, fine. I have now installed vanilla SAP (not SP1) and the same problem, what the hell am I suppose to do I have projects near finished and I'm screwed.

[Christoph_Schaedl]

mudbox settings deleted...?
and imported the objects into a new clean scene..?
rebuilded the objects with rebuild subd levels..?

[FalconCrest]

mudbox settings deleted...?

Where are the settings!?!?!?

and imported the objects into a new clean scene..?

This I have done, no difference !

rebuilded the objects with rebuild subd levels..?

I don't get the jest of this works, the docs I get that I have to export the mesh as a high resolution and re-import it, loosing all my sculpt layers !!!

[Christoph_Schaedl]

the mud settings folder have to be deleted every time you install a new version...
the settings folder is located in myDocuments\mudbox\...
it will reset your mud to default...

you could restore your layers by importing them or do a transfer details...

[FalconCrest]

the mud settings folder have to be deleted every time you install a new version…
the settings folder is located in myDocuments\mudbox\…
it will reset your mud to default…

That part is complete. What I have realized, even after deleting the settings and installing Mudbox 2011 SAP vanilla (not SAP SP1) when I make the brush small and the strength high, there is no effect, if I make the brush huge with a high strength it works, or sometimes works but we all know when you sculpt you want a smaller brush with a 90% strength, that has no effect, if export the base mesh and re-import, all the tools work as they should, if I transfer the sculpt details regardless that it transfers incorrectly the problem arises. What could be causing this, it is very strange, I want to solve so I'm asking anyone for their suggestion. I thought about upgrading the video drivers, but the video card is only depending on video card when texturing this problem is only when sculpting !?!?!

[Christoph_Schaedl]

maybe some layers are masked..?
sounds really strange to me...
could you made a video..?

[FalconCrest]

I may have solved the problem. Transfer did work to solve some of the problems, although it wasn't perfect it could have been worse, I may update hopefully once I recovery completely. I don't know what caused the mess, no clue I was able to clean up my topology a little better then I had prior.

I learned another thing about Mudbox, maybe that is why it's disregarded. Mudbox forces you, not to be sloppy with your base meshes/topology, if you are you will face some grueling consequences. I don't know how zBrush workflow is, I've never used it.

[Christoph_Schaedl]

As i said before you need clean meshes and uvs.

[christian]

I know this is an old thread but I was hitting the same problem this week.

Smoothing either as a tool or by holding shift seemed to just stop working.

As a noob Mudbox user I was confused and very frustrated.

I've been using Cheetah3D and Photoshop for my Unity work until this point as an indy game developer.

But of course, in the end it was my own fault... 🙂

I was modelling way too small in Maya and my Model coming from Maya had gotten scaled down on export/import.

Mudbox was reaching some kind of limit of the resolution it could smooth at (?).

Going back to Maya and making sure my model was a good source size and that there were no scaling options happening on export solved this issue for me.

Hopefully this might be useful for another Autodesk noob out there too 😃

[MatthewDoyleArt]

Yup. In Mudbox, Scale matters. You need to ensure your mesh is of proper scale before brining it in from Maya. Maya working units are defaulted to centimeters. So a properly scaled human being should be around 180 centimeters tall (for a 6 foot person).

You can also try scaling a model in Mudbox using the scale tool, then use the Freeze Transform option.