I have a bit of a 3d sculpting app quandary

Steve Schulze

I'm in need of some suggestions on a sculpting app.

I'm currently exclusively a ZBrush user with Maya for anything that needs a bit more precision. My problem lies with the sort of work I often have to do at Creature Technology. Frequently my job entails building internal structure for animatronic creatures. This typically involves taking a high res model, either a 3d print or ZBrush model and then carving into it, chopping bits off, etc. A good example of this is our Statue of Liberty where I had to take the head and build a skull and separate jaw, cut grooves, indents to a specific depth and generally work to a reasonable degree of precision.

The problem is, ZBrush doesn't have much in the way of a scale and trying to do things like take a section of the model and pushing it in exactly 20mm, for example, is pretty awkward. It can certainly be done with a bit of fiddling about, but I'm thinking that there are others apps out there that might make this type of work a bit simpler.

3D Coat is one that I wondered about, given that it has both modelling and sculpting facilities. I'm assuming it has some options for taking measurements, setting tools to specific values (and not just imaginary ZBrush values) and generally being a little bit more accurate than what I'm dealing with now.

Is Mudbox more workable in terms of having a real scale?

Any other suggestions would be most appreciated.

Fwap

What about Modo? It has internal sculpting, and Meshfusion.
Seems to be used a lot for design and such, so i'm assuming its relatively accurate with scale.

Shrike

If Modo has internal sculpting, you surely could profit from the normal modeling stuff IE accurate measurements

Aside C4D also has internal sculpting on mudbox level, but thats the same usage case as modo I would assume, so I would go with one of those tools that were initially made for traditional accurate modeling (Modo is the popular choice here)

MagicSugar

Not sure if this helps but here's an image from Meshfusion dev Darrel Anderson. I believe a quadrangulate feature is also in the works for a future update.

Rwolf

quickest work around would to be make a 3d ruler in maya, and append it in zbrush.

Steve Schulze

That's pretty much how I'm working now. It gets pretty fiddly though. I think I've got roughly 30 reference objects in the scene I'm working on now.

I'll definitely take a closer look at Modo. I think coupled with Meshfusion, that might go a long way to solving a lot of the issues I'm working with here.