Zbrush essential brushes ?

illusion red

So I am pretty new to Zbrush and I was just wondering what are some brushes that I should have and should be using I am currently using Zbrush 4R4, Also I am also trying to make some wood and I was wondering what would be a good brush to do this with any information on this would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

Azaraen

Orbz Crack brush for wood! orbart.free.fr/Orb_Cracks.ZBP

peanut™

Look on YT

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lddOrWmLGLw"]Stylized planks in zBrush - YouTube[/ame]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDYb7dZJtAs"]Stylized Asset- Wood - YouTube[/ame]

shabba

I feel a lot of people believe that every detail needs to be sculpted in Zbrush, which I disagree with, and they end up losing the realism b/c they cant quite replicate nature. But I personally feel that if you use Zbrush to really sell the form/feel of some material, that you can then combine your hires zbrush normal map, with a photo reference detail normal. Then you get the best of both worlds, the beauty of nature through a detail photograph (helps if you can tile it), and your awesome sculpt for the form.

To answer your question, I find I use Clay Tubes/Buildup, Pinch, Dam Standard, Trim Smooth Border, Trim Dynamic, Move, Morph and a few spray brushes ALL THE TIME. Mix in different alphas into those and you can get a ton of variety.

Goodluck!

IchII3D

I agree with Shabba, really you only want to be doing major forms if Zbrush if your planning on baking down for your typical first person shooter game asset. I only ever put in as much detail as I'm going to need, something like planks would literally be a matter of minutes to scuff the edges and chip away the odd bit here and there. The majority of the normal map detail would come from extracting the correct levels from my diffuse texture.

Also just to add, I personally think a lot of people waste a lot of time in Zbrush trying to achieve realistic results. But reality is incredible time consuming to replicate and the results are often as good as you might hope. This is where Surface Mimic comes in, unfortunately its a little to expensive to get accounts for personal usage.

http://www.surfacemimic.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ztexture/6110897616/