Blender et sculpting so far.

melviso

With a lot of developments and features being added to Blender in the past  months where sculpting is involved, I am wondering how these features are compared to ZBrush currently. I do gather that ZBrush is probably better since its tailored to sculpting specifically but what about ZModeler, how does that hold up.
I am not sure if there are people here who have used both ZBrush and Blender, if you have, how does Blender do so far comapred to ZBrush. I use Blender for sculpting, I am hearing ZBrush has a better cloth/simulation brush?

kanga

It depends on your requirements and your workflow. For a start zB is 2.5D, which means you rotate  and scale the model instead of navigating the editor camera in the usual 3D sense. Models in zB are made up of pixols which are way lighter for information representation and are only converted to points and polys on export.

So zB handles more complex models with greater ease than is possible for poly based software. The subtool system, texturing, masking and deformation systems are superbly geared to make sculpting models intuitive and efficient. The introduction of the modelling brush has made poly (like) modelling in zB accessible. Modelling with this brush opens new possibilities and having done a few personal tests I was able to achieve things I could not have in a standard 3D program.

zModeller opens up loads of possibilities, but at the same time it costs the expected frustration in adapting to the new method.

I make  my characters in zBrush because I use the old method of low to high poly sculpting. I do lowpoly and retopo in Blender just because its quicker for me and zBs uvs are most useful to aid sculpting. I haven't tried the cloth sim in zB yet and use MD for that.

melviso

Thanks for the info. Nice work, mate.

Can anyone pls share their experiences with the ''cloth/simulation brushes''. I wonder how it compares to Blender's.

cryrid

I was under the impression that Zbrush always worked with regular polygons since its polymesh models have always reported data on its points (vertices) and polys. The models are constructed the same way (except for the fact that it doesn't support n-gons, something it had in common with Blender for a while), and they behave just as polygon models would when it comes to subdivision / UVs / etc. Even the parametric objects are still polygon-based, they just can't be manually edited without a polymesh conversion as they're derived purely from a mathematical formula. 

The Pixol information is related purely to Zbrush's image Document, and so it only affects how a polygon model is displayed inside of Zbrush. It uses this unique rendering system to completely fake its camera, lights, and materials, and basically gets rid of the whole 3d scene management in the process by cutting out everything it doesn't need. But otherwise sculpting is still pure vertex manipulation at the end of the day. 

kanga

Ah, I stand corrected. Thanks cryrid.