About FiberMesh™
From ZBrush Info
ZBrush 4R2b brings a new specialized mesh generation tool: FiberMesh™. You may already be familiar with the Fiber material from previous versions of ZBrush. FiberMesh is different because it is not a render process. Instead, FiberMesh creates real geometry on the fly which is added to the existing model as a new SubTool.
You will find FiberMesh in the Tool >> Fibers sub-palette.
Depending on your settings within the Fibers sub-palette, you can generate totally different shapes for fibers, hair, fur and even vegetation. Thanks to these fibers being a real geometry, you then have the ability to sculpt your hairs with ZBrush’s powerful feature set. This includes the default sculpting brushes, Masks, TransPose, etc. as well as being able to paint them through the PolyPaint system. ZBrush 4R2b also introduces a number of “Groom” brushes designed specifically for use with the FiberMesh feature.
Of course, because these fibers are real geometry, they are also able to be exported to your application of your choice. Export the fiber geometry with or without UVs where each fiber will allow a texture to be applied to the individual fibers.
FiberMesh geometry is optimized for performance which and includes specific attributes which let thethat allows the ZBrush groom sculpting brushes know that they are being used on a FiberMesh. Any 3D brush can be adjusted to edit fibers with new settings available in the Brush Palette. However, if you do something that changes the topology -- like slicing the fibers or adding subdivision levels – ZBrush converts the FiberMesh into a classic PolyMesh3D. From that point forward, the sculpting brushes will behave exactly like they would for any normal mesh object.
