OK call me stubborn but I still have my doubts on what's really new about this, and what GoZ can really do.
Most of the video shows edits on lowpoly meshes only. So that's nothing new at all, since this was doable since, huh, forever (merging meshes in Maya, yeah I can do that already)
What about preserving data from higher subdivisions? Near the end I see surface details applied on treeman ... but it looks alot like something coming from a simple displacement map (hence stored in UVs). The hole punched through the model near the end would not disturbed the 'fine surface' around it, because that fine detail info info is UV based.
What if the head and the trees where subdivided and highly sculpted before the merge? That's what I really want to do, but then again that video avoids that one specific step ...
Even if it is just that, isn't that still a good thing?
Obviously it'd be great if it did support multiple sub-d levels, but if you think about it logically, how the hell would you even do that? What happens if you, say, bridge a poly through the centre of a mesh - what happens to the subdivided sculpted geometry around it and through it? Where would that information come from? It's a huge and complex problem.
It seems like it might be using displacements based on UVs like Pior suggested, that is the only way I can see it working effectively with multiple sub-d levels while still being able to destructively edit the base mesh.
Any other method of preserving sculpted detail while allowing massive edits at the base level is going to be hugely complicated and slow.
I like the music will have it on loop for the rest of the week..Other than that it`s pretty sweet, no max version on the horizon makes me a sad panda though :<
From what I have been guessing, the reason it doesn't mention max at all is because so far, this has only been announced for the update for mac coming up, and macs don't support max...but they do support all of the other apps mentioned to be compatible. When everything is laid out for the windows version, I'm sure we will all see max sitting right on top of it all.
Yeah, being able to quickly change topology like that and still have the high poly in-tact is almost worth the switch from mudbox to zbrush for anyone.
I really hope this works as good as they say, and of course have it streamline 3ds max as well.
The current process of baking and importing displacement maps to regain your topology in Mudbox is a serious pain. This is one idea I hope mudbox copies from zbrush so I don't have to make the switch over to zb.
Yeah. Looks neat, but I'm still skeptical this will live up to the "OMG Zeebrush changez teh Wurld!" hype they seem intent on creating.
I would prefer a straightforward demonstration of new functionality and less marketing obfuscation.
agreed,
some clear facts and actual limits instead of what can be done would be helpful. But eventually the help file will resolve this once its all released.
I'm sure there are limits... But even just being able to go quickly back and forth is an awesome addition. I look more forward to the possibly limited functionality of GoZ more than I look forward to the spotlight and lightbox image editing stuff, for instance.
Can't blame them for trying to generate hype. I'm glad we're seeing stuff at all. We will get the full reveal eventually and there will probably be more features added in that we aren't seeing pre-release.
And considering they say it will be a free upgrade, it doesn't really matter if it's not groundbreakingly awesome - a simple speed-up in early stage workflow is well worth the asking price (if you already own ZBrush), I reckon
I'm kinda worried a bit too - remember ZAppLink? It has Photoshop integration... as in, it can put a screenshot into Photoshop and then project it back on your model in Zbrush. What, you expected PSD or layer support?
So I really hope it won't be implemented in the sort of usual Pixologic way...
I'm kinda worried a bit too - remember ZAppLink? It has Photoshop integration... as in, it can put a screenshot into Photoshop and then project it back on your model in Zbrush. What, you expected PSD or layer support?
So I really hope it won't be implemented in the sort of usual Pixologic way...
Are you suggesting that ZAppLink isn't useful?
Sure, it could be better and support more stuff, but even the basic implementation is way better than nothing at all, and I have found it very quick and easy to use.
I'm kinda worried a bit too - remember ZAppLink? It has Photoshop integration... as in, it can put a screenshot into Photoshop and then project it back on your model in Zbrush. What, you expected PSD or layer support?
So I really hope it won't be implemented in the sort of usual Pixologic way...
you must use a different version than me, becuase i use psds, and layers with ZAppLink, its great to save views and work on the psds or pass them on to concept artists for quick color comps, and then you just load the views into the file and project whatever work you pass out to the team.. also if you dont like anything after the projecting you can edit the psd and layers and reproject..
You guys seem to misunderstand me. I'm comparing ZappLink to Photoshop support as in BodyPaint, for example. Where you can paint with full support for the PSD file format, layers, even some of the adjustment layers; and keep the same texture file open in both apps at the same time, too.
This is what I'd call a professional implementation of the feature. Zbrush pales in comparision and that's why I'm cautious about GoZ - they tend to make a half job with all these features...
My question is: can you add geometry to a mesh/edit topology,get it back for further detailing, without losing everything in the sculpt back and forth ?
Thats my main concern right now, i want to know if there's a catch. If not, that's probably the answer to all zbrush sculpt related problems
Hey Rick! Cool stuff
Can you tell us how the highrez was stored? (the wrinkles and stuff)
Could you make the highrez sharper and cleaner, and do the same kind of test?
LOOKS COOL!
What is that tube anyways hehe
Will try it tonight too
Does zbrush create the uvs, or do you need to make a base mesh with uvs to get the thing working afterwards ?
Oh, and: if you modify the edgeflow somewhere on the mesh, is the sculpt saved or does the modified part becomes a "flat non sculpted area" ? (yeah I lied its two questions :>)
Hey Pior, it doesn't take the Hires into the external package - as soon as you hit the Goz button it drops to the lowest subd and exports that. It can export displacement and normal maps at the same time to fake the hires in the other app, but it's still low res.
When you bring it back it pops back to whatever level you were editing on.
And the tentacle is cos I dunno how to use Modo and uses Sketch extrude.
Rick, yeah yeah I know about the 'other package' part of things.
What I am wondering is : Lets say you have two meshes at level 0 (poly edit level) (like the head and the tree thing), and work them up in zbrush up to level 4 for instance. Usual sulpting stuff. How does it look like after export, edit/merge, and import, back in Z? Do the higher levels stay where they should, and look like the originals?
The reason I am asking this is because, this was never shown in their vids. If it works like I hope it does, it really is fantastic!
I guess it all comes down to how elegantly Z can manage displacements maps, in and out. My fear is that displacement maps cannot really reproduce faithfully what can be done through strong sculpting. Let's see!!
Hope to be able to reconvert back to 'levels' too! But I think Z has that built in anyways right.
Yeah re-projection was the only other way I was thinking it could work. Seems like it might be lossy or erratic if that's all it does though? For example even just re-projecting a highpoly mesh onto a very similar subdivided "smooth" mesh in ZBrush currently can have issues (especially if there are open edges anywhere) - so I wonder if they improved the projection techniques, or are using a slightly different method, or if it will just get glitchy on certain meshes
Beatkitano - I did some tests where I had a sculpt, deleted faces and remade the area, brought it back into Z and it was just a flat ironed area Subdivs were preserved but it didnt project it over the new topology which is a shame
Unleash : try to 'patch' the UVs of that one edited area where they are supposed to be (say, of you edited something on the cheekbone, make sure that your new edited polies have UVs properly located on the cheek). If you just did cuts and such, everything should be fine, but if you deleted and remodeled the cheek, there is no UVs on your new geo. Remapping that geo 'where it should be' should displace it 'semi' properly (might look a bit facetted tho)
(dont have the app yet, but from my understanding it should work?)
Thanks Unleashed, I hope pior is right, if he's not its the catch i was talking about, its exactly the same as silo (with higher polycount) with the sculpt/modeling combo.
When I get a change I'll try creating UV maps - I think that would be incredibly useful rather than the existing export-reimport pipeline.
I'm struggling with the Modo demo, but I notice that Cinema4D is half price until the end of July if you sidgrade from almost any other 3D app. Might be worth a look.
Yeah. This seems like what Silo does already only with Zbrush's superior sculpting tools.
I hope they add support for Silo or Max since I don't use any of the supported apps.
Rick: I'm still unclear...did your pants up there have UV's prior to this test? If so, is that a requirement?
Scooby, those pants had no UVs - well some random bits over overlapping UVs from the cube that I started the mesh from.
In Zb you'd fix that by exporting the lowest Sudb, mapping that and then re-importing. I suspect that GoZ works in the same way except that you use the Goz shortcuts to take several button presses out of the process.
well, I suppose you could duplicate the old subtool, and when you bring in the new mesh with goz, since it premasks the new stuff, simply reproject all the old details assuming the changes in the general form arent huge.
Are they just re-projecting the mesh back on to itself after you do the topology edits in modo? If that's the case then this is just an automated process of something you can already do with Zbrush with projectall (edit mesh in modo/max/etc. then re-import back into zbrush and projectall on subdivided mesh). Of course if the results yield something cleaner than what projectall does then this is pretty huge. Not having to manually mask out new areas would be nice too.
Replies
Most of the video shows edits on lowpoly meshes only. So that's nothing new at all, since this was doable since, huh, forever (merging meshes in Maya, yeah I can do that already)
What about preserving data from higher subdivisions? Near the end I see surface details applied on treeman ... but it looks alot like something coming from a simple displacement map (hence stored in UVs). The hole punched through the model near the end would not disturbed the 'fine surface' around it, because that fine detail info info is UV based.
What if the head and the trees where subdivided and highly sculpted before the merge? That's what I really want to do, but then again that video avoids that one specific step ...
Please prove me wrong ...
I need to play silly techno music when I work too, will make me feel alot more trendy and badass.
Obviously it'd be great if it did support multiple sub-d levels, but if you think about it logically, how the hell would you even do that? What happens if you, say, bridge a poly through the centre of a mesh - what happens to the subdivided sculpted geometry around it and through it? Where would that information come from? It's a huge and complex problem.
It seems like it might be using displacements based on UVs like Pior suggested, that is the only way I can see it working effectively with multiple sub-d levels while still being able to destructively edit the base mesh.
Any other method of preserving sculpted detail while allowing massive edits at the base level is going to be hugely complicated and slow.
I really hope this works as good as they say, and of course have it streamline 3ds max as well.
The current process of baking and importing displacement maps to regain your topology in Mudbox is a serious pain. This is one idea I hope mudbox copies from zbrush so I don't have to make the switch over to zb.
I would prefer a straightforward demonstration of new functionality and less marketing obfuscation.
some clear facts and actual limits instead of what can be done would be helpful. But eventually the help file will resolve this once its all released.
Can't blame them for trying to generate hype. I'm glad we're seeing stuff at all. We will get the full reveal eventually and there will probably be more features added in that we aren't seeing pre-release.
So I really hope it won't be implemented in the sort of usual Pixologic way...
Are you suggesting that ZAppLink isn't useful?
Sure, it could be better and support more stuff, but even the basic implementation is way better than nothing at all, and I have found it very quick and easy to use.
And all for free?
What a terribly good deal!
you must use a different version than me, becuase i use psds, and layers with ZAppLink, its great to save views and work on the psds or pass them on to concept artists for quick color comps, and then you just load the views into the file and project whatever work you pass out to the team.. also if you dont like anything after the projecting you can edit the psd and layers and reproject..
This is what I'd call a professional implementation of the feature. Zbrush pales in comparision and that's why I'm cautious about GoZ - they tend to make a half job with all these features...
I wonder if we'll have the ability to customize this though... we're not using any standard shaders in Maya...
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=072584
Cutting holes in meshes is extremely useful.
Thats my main concern right now, i want to know if there's a catch. If not, that's probably the answer to all zbrush sculpt related problems
It masks the original faces when you re-import too
Can you tell us how the highrez was stored? (the wrinkles and stuff)
Could you make the highrez sharper and cleaner, and do the same kind of test?
LOOKS COOL!
What is that tube anyways hehe
Will try it tonight too
worked just as i hoped it would..
Does zbrush create the uvs, or do you need to make a base mesh with uvs to get the thing working afterwards ?
Oh, and: if you modify the edgeflow somewhere on the mesh, is the sculpt saved or does the modified part becomes a "flat non sculpted area" ? (yeah I lied its two questions :>)
Thanks for the first answer it looks pretty cool.
When you bring it back it pops back to whatever level you were editing on.
And the tentacle is cos I dunno how to use Modo and uses Sketch extrude.
undo and redo both seem to work too
What I am wondering is : Lets say you have two meshes at level 0 (poly edit level) (like the head and the tree thing), and work them up in zbrush up to level 4 for instance. Usual sulpting stuff. How does it look like after export, edit/merge, and import, back in Z? Do the higher levels stay where they should, and look like the originals?
The reason I am asking this is because, this was never shown in their vids. If it works like I hope it does, it really is fantastic!
I guess it all comes down to how elegantly Z can manage displacements maps, in and out. My fear is that displacement maps cannot really reproduce faithfully what can be done through strong sculpting. Let's see!!
Hope to be able to reconvert back to 'levels' too! But I think Z has that built in anyways right.
So far high levels look correct, it looks like re-projection from geo rather then maps.
(dont have the app yet, but from my understanding it should work?)
I'm struggling with the Modo demo, but I notice that Cinema4D is half price until the end of July if you sidgrade from almost any other 3D app. Might be worth a look.
I hope they add support for Silo or Max since I don't use any of the supported apps.
Rick: I'm still unclear...did your pants up there have UV's prior to this test? If so, is that a requirement?
In Zb you'd fix that by exporting the lowest Sudb, mapping that and then re-importing. I suspect that GoZ works in the same way except that you use the Goz shortcuts to take several button presses out of the process.