Zbrush - Models imported or built within?

Seiyaru

So I have a project to learn Zbrush for class (self chosen, I bought the program) and jesus christ it's daunting at first. I am not even sure what everything does and it feels super cluttered compared to something like Maya, Strata, or 3DS Max. Anyways, my question is for my project.

I have to create game assets from scratch and I wanna use (mostly) Zbrush but my assets are things like Loki's staff, Thor's Hammer, Cap's Shield; familiar things we and the teacher can recognize. Simple stuff just so I can learn the program but what I wanna know is should I create a low poly elsewhere and aim to import it into Zbrush or can I from the ground running learn the program in enough time to model and produce at least 2 objects in 8 weeks?

Thanks again for any advice and help! Also my resource sites right now are Lynda.com, Youtube.com, and here. I may invest into a month or two of digitaltutors, but I am gonna hold off for a few days atm until I know which direction I need to go.

peanut™

Quite frankly, i rarely model within zbrush. I found myself always importing lower rez objects and refine them. I've been using zbrush since version 2.0 and still learn something new every week.

Zbrush isn't hard or unattainable you will reap from zbrush what you sow in it. Don't be deceived by all the bells and whistles, have the habit to practice daily. Youtube is your best friend.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMxir6VFy40[/ame]
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hcVA3C3lSs[/ame]
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnVROI8SF9Y[/ame]
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdEVj39ur-U[/ame]

DireWolf

Zbrush 4R7 added a Zmodeler brush which sort of work like other application's polygon modeling tool.

Paul Gaboury is the master of this tool. He has a workshop Zbrush4R7 Everything you need to know with a side of mech. Here's 1 of his student's work. http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?194028-Gandam-MSA-0011-ext-EX-S

Seiyaru

@Peanut: Wow I am definitely gonna be watching some videos tomorrow, and start diving in if possible. Just looking at the 0:00 images they look amazingly detailed. Especially at base glance the Clooney likeness. I've heard that initial modeling is never done in Zbrush (most of the time) and it's usually imported in so maybe I should do that and then fine tune it in Zbrush. Start in Maya and export over? I guess it's preference really.

@Direwolf: I will check out the 1st link tomorrow after class, but that 2nd one is literally jaw dropping. That is easily some of the cleanest Zbrush work I have seen and makes me wanna learn this program so much more haha.

Edit: Quick insert. What is Keyshot exactly? Gonna google it, but I will probably get some technical terms I don't understand. Is Keyshot just a rendering tool? What makes it better than say Maya's Mental Ray? Or something of the kind.

DireWolf

I guess it's about what you're comfortable doing. In my point of view, for pre-designed assets, creating base mesh in other apps may give me more control regarding the size and likeness, but only because that's how I learn modeling when I was starting out. Also I'm much more fluent in Maya than Zbrush.

On the other hand, those that do concept design straight in Zbrush, or, traditional sculptors turned digital, generally start their model from scratch inside Zbrush using Dynamesh because it gives you so much freedom to try things without limitations. Check out Grassetti's time-lapse. It looks very much like real clay sculpting.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Farx1_Gvykw[/ame]

This seriously is how I want to work in Zbrush. Trying to get there

Keyshot is a rendering application. Very simple, you just drag and drop your materials onto your model. Works great if all you want is to present your models without having to set up complex scenes/lights/etc in MAX or Maya or whatever. https://www.keyshot.com/

Seiyaru

1,000$ holy shit. Gotta hold off on keyshot even if it is amazing as hell. That's what I loved about Strata was the basicness of rendering and drag and dropping your materials. I feel like Maya's rendering while good is just too tedious for what I want come render time. Yeah I see how modeling there seems very much like real sculpting. It raised a question of how he got the skin to be 'hexagonal' or patterened that way. I'm assuming some sort of map import or brush that just created the etched lines in the skin.

DireWolf

Oh, sorry I forgot to tell you that you don't need the full version. There's a Keyshot For Zbrush and a bridge which is only $149

https://www.keyshot.com/zbrush/

You could use alpha to create surface details yes. Grassetti is well-known for doing it manually tho

Seiyaru

That's all I would probably be using it for. Not much of an animation guy myself. I prefer the still life and character / landscape work. Thanks for saving me a crap ton haha!

Seiyaru

Oh another question, whats the use for things like Xnormal, 3d coat, and substance painter if you have something that renders out like Keyshot?

Edit: Probably a noob question to ask but I wanna make sure I understand everything as I jump in.

DireWolf

Xnormal is a baker. It bakes maps such as normals, ambient occlusion, etc, from high detailed model to a low polygon model.

3D Coat is a whole nother program. Very popular in this forum for doing hand-paint textures. 3D Coat itself can be used for modeling and sculpting too, and also offer really powerful auto retopology and auto UV tool. One of the best.

Substance painter is a 3D texture painter. It can utilize maps created by Xnormal, or bake its own map, too.

Seiyaru

So just varying tools of the trade one can use based on preference really? Good to know. I appreciate all the help! Answered more, and more swiftly than anyone who else I asked a question of! You're awesome

DireWolf

You're welcome. Nothing special tho, I'm taking night shift as a render wrangler at the moment. Monitoring render queue and when there's no error I have quite a bit of free time