ZBrush 2018: An actual feature-filled update
high dynamic range
http://https//youtu.be/FZYeHlwMCCM
http://pixologic.com/features/
Anyone else slightly hyped for the new Dynamic Tesselation? (comeon Autodesk, get your stuff together meng)
http://pixologic.com/features/
Anyone else slightly hyped for the new Dynamic Tesselation? (comeon Autodesk, get your stuff together meng)
Replies
Edit: Yup, free. Awesome.
I think zbrush has crashed once on me in the last 3 months
Here are some of the things that I was hoping to see that I didn't show up in Zbrush 2018, please correct me if I am wrong and these are actually in ZBrush 2018.
While I appreciate the free upgrades, it is a double edge that cuts both ways. Pixologic is probably one of the least responsive companies when it comes to support and taking feedback from customers. After all they already got our money, and they are not asking for more money so why should they listen to customers? I don't think it's malicious, it's just what happens when you are not obligated to deliver.
Good Points. It may be integrated into pipelines but it does feel as if they are moving towards 3D printing rather then production pipeline work and it is this space that Autodesk could fill with Mudbox.
I personally use 3D Coat along with a slightly older version of Mudbox, the two can work good together. I've always had the feeling zBrush is a program onto it's self, it doesn't feel as if you can connect it to other programs. As I mentioned, Pixologic was throwing around creating a new version of zBrush with a cleaner user interface etc for quite some time; I don't think they are are interested going down this route anymore.
While it's great zBrush users have gotten free upgrades up to now; the program could use a face lift.
I really don't understand where you are coming from on this.
still Not viable in a work environment? WTF
i have been using it as both a freelancer and a senior artist since around 2006
Just because a software is widely used does not mean it is perfect. ZBrush has a history of being pipeline hostile, that is actually why Mudbox came to be. ZBrush caused as many problems as it solved and Pixologic just didn't care to do anything about it.
, making ya boy rethink some thiiingss
hoping it's just their server being pounded
As I understand it'll come to you in your email I think? Please let us know how it goes. I imagine theres a lot of traffic today.
So we'll see. I'm not in a rush for it, just wanna make sure it ain't break! hehe
- Subtool folders
- A proper texturing toolset similar to Mudbox with layers n sheeeat! New updated UI please Pixo
- Merging subtools but forgot to turn on uvs, opps!
- If you have a mesh facing the wrong way and try to flip it. Zbrush just goes Naa!!! delete subdivision and mirror then Reproject please.
- Or .....Baking 20+ UDIMs, acciendentally clicking some other program, maps bake slower and Zbrush refuses to respond.
pixologic are pretty cool i think , free updates for all. I am not a total fanboy, just think some of the criticism here is a bit much really.
lots of easy workarounds for problems in zbrush
onionhead_o re flipping the mesh which has sub d levels, try deleting lower levels, flip it then reconstruct subd's, only take a few secs
zbrush has scale tools also, have you tried scale master?
also try not pressing the wrong button or forgetting to do things, pixologic can't really plan for that i guess;)
- flipping the mesh which has sub d levels, try deleting lower levels, flip it then reconstruct subd's, only take a few secs
Sure you can do that, But reconstructing means that your low is no longer the same low res as before. Vertex order might change.
- zbrush has scale tools also, have you tried scale master?
Nope I have not tried.
- also try not pressing the wrong button or forgetting to do things, pixologic can't really plan for that i guess;)
why have keep uvs off in the first place? it doesnt remember every session even i clicked it once. Have to click it every single time you start a new file.
Again for a game pipeline, Zbrush is king. but when it comes to feature film, its not that great. Im sure tons of zbrush users is gona get offended when I say this.
will have to have a look a that out of interest.
re films/vfx the only problem I had was that in the film/vfx workflow, they always want a model to work with straight away, so they can test rigs etc. they really can't wait for the final retopo and it can be hard to explain this to them, since each role is separate ie rigger/animator/texture artist.
But i did loads of work for various London vfx companies and using zbrush was generally not a problem other then most people were 3d generalists, not organic sculptors
re the uv button,it's done on a per subtool basis. not really an issue for most people.
i generally change the final low poly anyway, so keeping the vertex order is not really a problem these days( for me at least)
BTW I don;t use a lot of the fancy new tools, I mainly sculpt and polypaint. I am NOT doing hard surface in zbrush lol
all the fancy zbrush ways seem so destructive when you look more closely. why can't their polymodeller simply work on a mesh with established subdiv levels for instance? that could be so helpful, as it is i rather do that kind of stuff in another app.
or layers - have the wrong one toggled visible and have the one recording make a fine mess of things.
and i don't think zbrush is intended at all for pipeline work of the type mentioned further up (alembic, etc) and never will be. chronosculpt on the other hand looks interesting, first time i've heard the name. also from checking their forums it's abandonware with only a single release ever from a bunch of years ago? shame if true.
mudbox will never catch up again though. they dropped out what - 10 years ago - when the developer was still skymatter? speed has always been an issue when stepping through subdiv levels, also handily beat by zbrush in sculpting feel. nice for basic 3D painting though, i wish they'd expand on that over sculpting - then we could talk about subscription.
Yes every studio use it because there is no better sculpting software right now but we have to agree that zBrush has his own way to work and you can't really mix it with anything ( flipped UVs by default = why ? )
As Aabel said very well
are missing a LOT and also
+ Seamless Back and forth with Maya
- Proper texture management, maybe thinking about setting the UVs inversed off by default...
- The facts that you can't bake displacement without crashing your zBrush if you do anything else during the export...
- real world scaling
zBrush is a great tool but I'd prefer having less fancy stuff like theses in zBrush 2018 and more boring pipeline stuff
I have a feeling most of us are USED to this, but if it would flow like your usual 3D programs, I think we'd be applauding right?
Finally downloading mine. Trying to get it early yesterday broke my license and I had to file a ticket to get them to repair it, but we all good now.
the program is well over a decade old and had several UI reworks so far. who knows how much of that has been hacked in - i'be surprised if they themselves could give an estimate for that without a really thorough review.
i think most of us would love a regular interface, multi-screen compatibility, perhaps floating palettes outside the main window, drag and drop functionality and so on (i do not care for maya viewport controls though - have them in blender's sculpt module and in mudbox and they don't suit sculpting very well in my opinion) but with a major overhaul you tend to lose a lot of little functionality along the way, in my experience anyway.
this wouldn't be like a reskin with a different UI framework like they did for maya and max, you'd have to rework some more basic concepts of it all. can you imagine how many iterations of Z that would take...
As has been said, only a few of Zbrush's many features are truly useful in production. For a competitor to rise they don't need to copy every feature in Zbrush, just the ones necessary for production and of course be more pipeline friendly than Zbrush. In many ways ZBrush has already done all the hard work for the competition.
1. Option to see all tools listed in alphabetical order
2. Option to hit first letter of searched item and it will jump to all named with this letter (like max modifier stack)
3. Option to enter searching word and it function will open.
But the latest update is a blast for me.
I started 3D sculpting with sculptris in 2010. So super easy to use. Same year DrPetter / inventor of sculptris / announced that his idea was bought by Pixologic. After a while I bought zBrush hoping to find some functions implemented. Took me ages to get in.
Meanwhile there have been voxels in 3D coat, dynatopo in blender and "dynamesh" in zBrush. But nothing with the ease of Sculptris.
But now it is really, really lovely to see and use what they've done. Sculptris pro will be a game changer for a lot of beginners. Sculpting without caring about anything - well almost. . So much better than in sculptris and much more reliable. One can even do very thin stuff, like dragon wings. And tentacles
But those Pixo maniacs are still able to do things pretty complicate.
In Sculptris we had one detail slider controlling the tessellation.
Zbrush needs two (SubDivide Size & UnDivide Ratio) plus brush size.
Plus two buttons.
All this hidden in the stroke menu.
Therefore one can control everything.
I really do recommend to switch of "Adaptive Size" and "Combined" for tentacle like stuff. Don't forget to switch it on again, polycount is up to 3 million in seconds. But with those two options switched off and SubDivide Size higher, at 1.4 i.e. (depending on mesh size - this was a very big mesh...3x grid size / after unify, one fourth of grid, I put SubDivide Size down to 0.144 - then you can even smooth without killing you mesh) you can use snake hook brush like move brush, but with reasonable dynamic tesselation
Play Around with wireframe "SHIFT+F" switched on, to see what's happening with tessellation, while you play with sculptris pro.
AND! Switch off UNDO HIstory as often as you can, when saving. ( File size = 8MB without history - 3GB with history !!! ) Every step saves the complete mesh, as it is always new.
Sculptris Pro will give zBrush a completely new creative freedom for artistic works.
Those doing finetuning stuff in zBrush will love the new "Elastic" and "Liquid" curve functions.
Man, I felt like fighting with a boa constrictor sometimes when editing curves in zBrush. But now everything is super cool.
Couldn't play with new deformers, I had too much fun in sculptris pro!
Sure - there could be plenty of stuff done....but I am happy in the moment
Ahh - well.... I miss polygon smoothed rendering in viewport. At least when you switch on "Smooth Normals" in render properties, BPR render will show smoothed surfaces.
That and a waffle making function. Make it happen Pixo :P
I Like it because it is mainly aimed at producing geometry. I don't really use any of the so called fancy features at the moment, but that might change in the future.
I do wish they would put back in the normal map functionality it used to have and agree that proper texture painting would be a great thing.
Torch - yeah because of the lack of a waffle making function i may have to stop using it soon
If I could use it. I got my license and download, but when i start it now all it says is corrupt license... back to the support ticket queue..
Now I am starting a new model and going to see how the sculptris method can fit into a workflow, but it seems that it can only be used for concepting/creating a mesh that must be retopo'd down the line. So a workflow of working from a low base mesh and going up from there cannot work, right? Nonetheless, this is fun to just work purely artistically and not give a damn about anything else.
More for concepts in 3D. Sure you have all the tools to go for Decimation, UV mapping and retopo.
The question is always what is faster and depends on the needs.
- Brush setting which auto-masks by angle, The topology mask rarely works
- Some way to set the pivot to a vert (rn the only thing you can do is hide all but one triangle of your mesh and centre it)
- Transpose Master (For rigging) could use the new gizmo to control the ZSpheres, and also some more settings regarding weights, hell even weightpainting via polypaint and using zspheres as bones would be nice
- Some kind of grid based modelling system, They keep pushing the hard surface stuff with ZModeller Brush etc, And the core idea is there since you can manipulate verts, edges, faces
Great new version. Am busy playing with all the new doodads.
maybe I am just doing it wrong
I will show you what a good UI is (image below)clean with nothing to distract you
You should try what I did map most of frequently used functionality to hotkeys and rest of useful thing put in a costume drop down menus this way you wont even need to use default zbrush UI
Every program should look like this at start.