Zbrush questions
polycounter lvl 18
So I finally decided I could ignore its existence no longer and on sunday forked out the 500 bucks. ( God, how annoying that my recently arrived work copy doesn't work at home too! ;-) )
Im so hating the interface right now, but reading through the 'practical guide' is helping me a lot.
However, Im still stuck with a few questions that I can't fully find answers for. Would appreciate any help.
1) Document size. This is weird. I'm not sure I fully understand the relationship between document size and what you're working on. 640x480 is too pixellated to work on serious zbrushing of any detail surely? But it doesn't seem like you can abitrarily up the rez part way through something without artifacts right? I've been doubling it as soon as I start. Is that generally the done thing? Do I need to think about the doc size more like a 2D app like Photoshop?
2) Performance. Now, one thing that's surprised me ( but to be fair I guess I didn't consider this too much ) is just how much you need to subdivide before you can get any painting done that doesn't look pixellated to buggery hell. And of course when you reach the level 6 or 7 subdivision, things get very very slow indeed. I find that If Im painting a vein, the line gets broken, instead of it being all nice and smooth. So any performance tips would help here. Ive got a decent machine, with a couple of gig of ram. I guess you rely on hiding a lot of the geo right? Any other tips?
3) Use with other apps. I'm not so much thinking of using this as a tool to help me with game work yet. More as simply a means to add detail to models for rendering. So, displacement mapping is the way to go right? Spitting out a displacement map, applying it in my material in Maya? Is this generally the way? Or are there other ways to go? Info here seems to be sketchy.
4) Wrinkles. Getting nice wrinkles I'm finding tough. e.g crows feet around eyes. Generally my 'grooves' on the surface are looking like their cross section is rounder than i'd like. i.e what Im getting is the top image, but what I want, is more like the bottom:
Any help with these questions and any other general useful advice for a Noob very much appreciated as always.
Im so hating the interface right now, but reading through the 'practical guide' is helping me a lot.
However, Im still stuck with a few questions that I can't fully find answers for. Would appreciate any help.
1) Document size. This is weird. I'm not sure I fully understand the relationship between document size and what you're working on. 640x480 is too pixellated to work on serious zbrushing of any detail surely? But it doesn't seem like you can abitrarily up the rez part way through something without artifacts right? I've been doubling it as soon as I start. Is that generally the done thing? Do I need to think about the doc size more like a 2D app like Photoshop?
2) Performance. Now, one thing that's surprised me ( but to be fair I guess I didn't consider this too much ) is just how much you need to subdivide before you can get any painting done that doesn't look pixellated to buggery hell. And of course when you reach the level 6 or 7 subdivision, things get very very slow indeed. I find that If Im painting a vein, the line gets broken, instead of it being all nice and smooth. So any performance tips would help here. Ive got a decent machine, with a couple of gig of ram. I guess you rely on hiding a lot of the geo right? Any other tips?
3) Use with other apps. I'm not so much thinking of using this as a tool to help me with game work yet. More as simply a means to add detail to models for rendering. So, displacement mapping is the way to go right? Spitting out a displacement map, applying it in my material in Maya? Is this generally the way? Or are there other ways to go? Info here seems to be sketchy.
4) Wrinkles. Getting nice wrinkles I'm finding tough. e.g crows feet around eyes. Generally my 'grooves' on the surface are looking like their cross section is rounder than i'd like. i.e what Im getting is the top image, but what I want, is more like the bottom:
Any help with these questions and any other general useful advice for a Noob very much appreciated as always.
Replies
1. document size.. this is what i do.. just double it.. remember zbrush started out as a 2.5D painting program.. so stuff like this just think of in terms of photoshop and what you can see.. i just make it so its not too pixelated. if it helps think of it as a 2d app that lets you paint 3d stuff rather than a 3d app like maya..
2. preformence.. this one i cant help you fully cause i need to be in the app to remember but i can put you on the right track.. you can select parts for your geometry and hide it.. when working on large chunks of geometry its best to hide everything that your not working on and only work on the areas you need details in..
3. yeah displacement maps is one way.. also you can render out normal maps just as easy by applying the normal shader and just rendering it out..sorry i cant be too specific..maybe someone can fill in all these holes i am leaving..
4.. wrinkles.. i generally do all this kind of stuff in projection master.. you should really play around with it.. just make sure your rez is pretty high before going into it..
hope this helps.. i am still learning new stuff but the more you mess around with it the cooler it gets.. i started playing around with painting color maps and bump maps with the same brush.. 2 maps half the time.. its not as good as body paint.. but being able to do everying zbrush does in one app is pretty handy..
good luck.
*edit* oh yeah try not to use the mouse.. the program was designed to all be done with a stylus and keyboard.. i know people that have a hard time letting go of the mouse when making stuff in 3d.. just keep that in mind.. its one thing that helped me grasp the interface a little better..
God, how annoying that my recently arrived work copy doesn't work at home too!
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Sure it does, each license allows two installs, a work one and a home one.
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Im so hating the interface right now, but reading through the 'practical guide' is helping me a lot.
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I still it hate it. Feels like I'm using my feet to work instead of my hands.
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1) Document size. This is weird. I'm not sure I fully understand the relationship between document size and what you're working on. 640x480 is too pixellated to work on serious zbrushing of any detail surely? But it doesn't seem like you can abitrarily up the rez part way through something without artifacts right? I've been doubling it as soon as I start. Is that generally the done thing? Do I need to think about the doc size more like a 2D app like Photoshop?
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For models it doesn't matter. Just make it as big as your screen and be done with it. If you started off with it small, save the tool (model), reset the canvas, resize it and reload the tool (model). A bigger space to work will make it easier to do Porjection Master stuff though.
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2) Performance. Now, one thing that's surprised me ( but to be fair I guess I didn't consider this too much ) is just how much you need to subdivide before you can get any painting done that doesn't look pixellated to buggery hell. And of course when you reach the level 6 or 7 subdivision, things get very very slow indeed. I find that If Im painting a vein, the line gets broken, instead of it being all nice and smooth. So any performance tips would help here. Ive got a decent machine, with a couple of gig of ram. I guess you rely on hiding a lot of the geo right? Any other tips?
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Yes, it's not as blazing fast as they make it to be with the dense meshes, but it's the only thing around!
Get used to hiding your geo, working on one side and symmetry it later (the active mirror is slow) and using projection master when you get to the small details. Another thing that bothers me is that the display is always set to hard-normals on the model, I just want softened normals! It's amazing, your can take something that looks like a pixellated vien and bring it into some other software and soften the edges, and it looks good. I'm not down with their way of doing things. When I was making normal mapped stuff, I would export the level one up from my densest and it would look just as good when softened.
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3) Use with other apps. I'm not so much thinking of using this as a tool to help me with game work yet. More as simply a means to add detail to models for rendering. So, displacement mapping is the way to go right? Spitting out a displacement map, applying it in my material in Maya? Is this generally the way? Or are there other ways to go? Info here seems to be sketchy.
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Don't bother using it to generate your normal maps, it doesn't let you use arbitrary geometry for the low/high. The high must be derived from the low (smoothed) to work. And good low poly geometry is not a good base for high poly stuff. I prefer to build my low after the high is done, so can really put the edges to good use. If you're simlpy wanting to generate displacement maps, same thing applies. Finding all the right settings to get the displaments looking the same is tricky as well.
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4) Wrinkles. Getting nice wrinkles I'm finding tough. e.g crows feet around eyes. Generally my 'grooves' on the surface are looking like their cross section is rounder than i'd like. i.e what Im getting is the top image, but what I want, is more like the bottom:
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Either create your own alpha (for projection master), or use the "focal shift" to adjust the falloff of the brush. That might get the shape you want. I know, it seems like a lot of zBrush work has that look, where the brush behaved like that. It's tough to get away from it.
Do you mean you hand edit the displacement map in Photoshop? Or do you simply mean that what looks pixellated in Zbrush, doesn't look quite as bad when it's exported?
First thing about the interface, you really don't need each and everything... Once you know what to use you'll end up using only a few things,the rest is mainly for weird 2.5D paint
Displacement maps coming out of Zbrush work rather well. You'll find all you need here, users have been performing heavy tests to find out the best i/o settings for every major app.
http://206.145.80.239/zbc/showthread.php?t=20310&highlight=displacement
You will also find tons of info in the 'phone' tutorial shipped with the app.
Performance will be much better if you use a base head model as a base instead of a mere zsphere. You'll have all the base loops at the right places hence you will avoid 'crossflow' zbrushing if you see what I mean.
This http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v242/pior_ubb/3d_supermale_01.jpg and this http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v242/pior_ubb/3d_fille_01.jpg both come from the same model and allowed easy handling even on my lowend comp.
I also highly recommend doing what Warghoul suggests : often tweak your focal shift settings in order to avoind lumpy results. And when it comes to wrinkles you can use the 'classic' technique described here :
http://209.132.69.82/picasso/tutorial.htm
It works like a charm, can't live without it myself!
Hope this helps, good luck with the app
you don't have to use a submenu to change brush size, press space to have a shortcut menu pop up under the cursor.
i'm not a big hotkey user for paint apps, so i never explored that area but i figure zbrush must have hotkeys somewhere
what really helps in getting a non-blobby look is imho to build up detail, then using the soften brush and playing around with the brush profile curve editor.
as for painting wrinkles and stuff, i usually prefer to paint those in 2D on a baked displacement/normal map. i see no point in subdividing into insanity just to do that kind of stuff.
also, the autmoatic uv mapping in zbrush is a joke for anything intended to go realtime and rather impossible to tweak at a later stage in general. i'd always set up my zbrush mesh and lowpoly base/subd-for-displamcent-rendering base in another app.
Rick: That's a really good tip with the quad tessellation beforehand! Thanks!
So with this line: "It's amazing, your can take something that looks like a pixellated vien and bring it into some other software and soften the edges, and it looks good."
Do you mean you hand edit the displacement map in Photoshop? Or do you simply mean that what looks pixellated in Zbrush, doesn't look quite as bad when it's exported?
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Sorry, yeah, the second one. What I meant was:
Because the mesh is shown with hard edges everywhere, you can take something that sometimes looks pixelly (meshwise), and bring it into your 3D software and simply soften the edges, and it's enough to make it look good. It helps avoiding dividing the mesh another level or two. Defintely experiment first though!
to help with the broken up lines, you can go to the stroke menu and turn up the mouse average. other than that, just take your time and paint slowly. it really is a strange app in the reguard that painting in mass is a slightly unique feeling, i find. when i started i almost shat with rage. my god was i ever frustrated. i started a thred about it myself , acctualy. just keep practicing and you'll start making nice, smooth shapes.
something that helped me was to just take a sphere and build up little bits of mass, like, two huge lumps with a super sharp edge between them, so you get some practice defining creases.
best of luck man! i can't wait to see what you'll come up with.. i'm sure it'll be insane. you post your stuff and i'll post mine hahaha.
oh and get pior's videos! they're great! and the ones by martin kroll and pixolator (i think you can find the stuff on the zbrush forums.)
paint slowly, smooth over again, paint/smooth/paint/smooth/paint/smooth etc etc. just take your time
http://www.fileplanet.com/dl.aspx?/planetquake/polycount/tutorials/video/zbrush2_max7.zip