Zsphere 2.0 in the new zbrush

nrek

This was just posted over at Zbrush central. Now you can paint zsphere volumes onto a zsphere rig/skeleton without completely relying on the zspheres adaptive skin to produce the volume you want. It looks pretty awesome.

http://zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=073956

divi

if it works as advertised then its a pretty good excuse to finally learn how to use zspheres properly.
it indeed looks awesome

Blaizer

Looks promising

renderhjs

they just keep pumping news,- I wonder if there are more deep down intentions there? - perhaps some client lost because of mudbox or some soon new price structure? I smell something I think.

MoP

renderhjs: Well, they say that 3.5 and 4.0 are both going to be free releases for license holders. So I doubt they're doing any major price restructuring.

I think they do just want to get a ton of features over Mudbox though, such as this new ZSphere 2 workflow, to try and tempt in more "artists" (maybe even traditional sculptors now that rapid prototyping is becoming more widely available), rather than just game dev and movie people. That's really the stuff which ZB does that Mudbox currently can't.

OpethRockr55

3.1 was a free update, too, but they raised the price up around $150 bucks for a new license. I'd expect the big jump to 4.0 to do similar.

Jeremy Wright

I've never really spent any time w/ ZBrush, (have been trying to get accustomed to Mudbox), but the part of the video where the operator was 'painting' on muscles was really cool and has me decided to spend some time learning it. I've been really offput by the complex UI, but this is to useful to ignore.

renderhjs

just looked at the video and like the smart idea of it,- even the colors of it are suggesting very well for what it is good for.
Anyway the way they do things now I wish them best luck with it - because they really do invent new stuff themselves.
Mudbox 2010 on the other hand seems to transform itself more into a texture painting/ render/ transfer tool with a solid pipeline integration (something zBrush lacks, mainly because of the GUI and different workflow).

Kovac

That's just awesome... thanks for the linkage.

El Burritoh

The new Z Spheres look amazing, even though I'm not sure what exactly was going on in that video. It almost looked like they were "painting Z Spheres," which would allow the accuracy.

And did I see that right...they painted on their Z Spheres? I wonder if that's polypaint or some new kind of paint mode. Polypainting being dependent on mesh resolution and all.

In any case, this will be a heck of a lot faster than fleshing out muscle masses from a low-level mesh.

verybad

Damn that's cool. If they updated the interface to a more conventional system it would win hands down over Mudbox (IMO). They really should look into at least providing an optional interface that's more inline with other programs.

AnimeAngel

Looks very promising, especially since I plan on finally buying my first copy of zbrush in the next few days. /cheer

TheSplash

Cool concept, I like how when they repose the underlying zpheres all the mass on top seems to deform pretty nicely.

jocose

That looks incredibly useful.

Frump

What's the point of GoZ if you're going to be able to get good results with just zbrush?

Zspheres as armatures is a cool idea. This will definitely help snag traditional sculptors and it's a workflow that makes sense to them. It also looks like they made it easier to tweak the position and rotations of the Zspheres, which is welcome.

Emil Mujanovic

I've never really liked using ZSpheres just because it would always get me varied results and they can be real jerks from time to time.
This new feature looks fucking ace though! It looks like something I would most definitely use.

rasmus

Now if only they would make the program usable to human beings...

konstruct

*drool

Jeremy Wright

rasmus wrote: »

Now if only they would make the program usable to human beings...

No kidding.

throttlekitty

Wow, that's really cool!

I was really hoping they'd show what the layered sphere-glob resulting mesh/wireframe looks. But they went straight to some shots of working up a little fine detail instead.

pior

Now we are talking!!
I think this is the first time we get to see a real basemesh-free workflow, that's kindof a big thing!!

I still have shivers down the spine watching the viewport navigation in action ... seeing great new features like Zspheres2 tend to stress Z's shortcomings more and more. Maya-style scene navigation, pleeease !!

GoZing this creature to add more hard surface geometry and holes would be awesome, can't wait to try it out!

Ged

this looks great but building hands out of zspheres always made me a sad panda, hope they have sorted something out so that the zsphere armature part of the experience is easier than before. The muscle zsphere shapes are truly awesome though.

I do wonder wether the process is non destructive? for example when they started doing detailing can they still go back to the zsphere muscle masses and adjust them and add to the armature etc? it could get quite confusing when you find "you can do this but not that anymore..oh wait you can but now you cant do something else"...you know the kind of crazy workflow which some of the zbrush features have.

mikezoo

rasmus wrote: »

Now if only they would make the program usable to human beings...

I never understood, the attitudes that zbrush is bat-shit-crazy-non-user friendly program. I have co-workers and friends who talk smack because of its UI, and then praise mudbox and autodesk as the second coming.wtf?

Dont get me wrong they are both good programs but,... yeah. . I always thought that being able to adapt to new programs is good thing, (technology advancing every year and so ) and as an artist you should always be looking for new ways to make yourself a more valuable artist. Each program has its pros and cons and its up the the artists to use them for their strengths.

I don't know. Just my rant. It seems with these recent announcements Ive been hearing alot of smack talk being thrown around.:)

vargatom

renderhjs wrote: »

just looked at the video and like the smart idea of it,- even the colors of it are suggesting very well for what it is good for.
Anyway the way they do things now I wish them best luck with it - because they really do invent new stuff themselves.

Yeah, but unfortunately most of their new features are only good 70% of the way in serious production work. Like this Zsphere stuff, the topology it creates is such a mess that it doesn't really worth the time you put into it, you'll eitherhave to export to max/maya for lots of fixes - or rather end up leaving Zspheres out of it completely.

Mudbox 2010 on the other hand seems to transform itself more into a texture painting/ render/ transfer tool with a solid pipeline integration (something zBrush lacks, mainly because of the GUI and different workflow).

Yeah, less features, but a lot more serious app. Haven't touched it in a while but plan to do some comparision soon...

vargatom

mikezoo wrote: »

I never understood, the attitudes that zbrush is bat-shit-crazy-non-user friendly program. I have co-workers and friends who talk smack because of its UI, and then praise mudbox and autodesk as the second coming.wtf?

My UI related pet peeves...
- always have to press the tiny smooth UV button right after you import your mesh, otherwise you're completely and un-repairably screwed with the displacement (Zmapper only does normal maps) - okay so this may not be UI related but still... just as V-flipping everything... why can't they fix this for 5 years??
- "viewport navigation" where you actualy move/rotate/scale the model itself instead
- endless scrolling side panels with even more tiny buttons
- super stupid layer system where you always have to go back to the level where you've created the layer to turn it on/off
- lack of vert/edge/poly selections
- folder navigation, absolutely no support for memorizing paths
- it allows you to open some files at startup, but... why offer the last file you've OPENED? Surely people would want to open the last thing they've SAVED...

And so on...

killingpeople

don't you find it odd the narrator in the video pronounces Z-Spheres, ZEE spheres?
suck on that, ZEDHEADS!

vargatom

So you call the app ZEDBRUSH? :P

Ruz

This could be a bit gimmicky though. Will it really be quicker than using an existing base mesh?
Might be better for doing fancy creature stuff i suppose

I am always suspicious about the usefulness of this kind of thing until i actually give it a go

SHEPEIRO

awsome

the UI is workflow based and can be a bit mind boggling at first but i find once you get to know it and know its "quirks" (see above*) then its quite good.

Ruz

vargatom - how do you get that zbrush is a not a serious app when it is used extensively in production both in games and film industry?

I though this was a discussion on the new features rather then banging on about zbrush interface.

BTW zeebrush sounds a bit shit - zed brush all the way)

elte

Somehow I feel PiXO is learning marketing the LuXO way.. slowly reveal features.

feels like ecorche...impressive!

vargatom

Ruz wrote: »

vargatom - how do you get that zbrush is a not a serious app when it is used extensively in production both in games and film industry?

It's widely used because it was the first app of its kind (highres sculpting), because a lot of pipelines are built on top of it and a lot of people know it, and because some of its features are working pretty well.

But it is an app first and foremost for the single enthusiast to create entire pictures in it, and not for a professional studio focused on its sculpting/texture painting abilities. That's why larger (feature film VFX) studios are already on Mudbox and many houses are using both.

mikezoo

You make a good point Vargatom.

I would hope that in like, seven years from now, there's another app, that would be giving both zbrush and mudbox a run for their money.

Competition baby! It leads to greater progress! I would love to see more of that instead of one company buying up all the competition.

On a related note, I cant wait to try out zspheres2. imo it will either kick so much ass or suck balls.

Asthane

vargatom wrote: »

It's widely used because it was the first app of its kind (highres sculpting), because a lot of pipelines are built on top of it and a lot of people know it, and because some of its features are working pretty well.

But it is an app first and foremost for the single enthusiast to create entire pictures in it, and not for a professional studio focused on its sculpting/texture painting abilities. That's why larger (feature film VFX) studios are already on Mudbox and many houses are using both.

This. ZBrush does innovate, but it would be so much better if they got rid of all the "2.5d canvas" bullshit. I haven't used it in years though, did they ever develop a better workflow than the model=tool thing?

ScoobyDoofus

I think you guys are all saying it wrong.

ceebee

I don't really have a problem with ZBrush's interface so I don't see what all the fuss is about. Watch some videos or something butterballs. All you really need is control, shift, and alt for everything. From there it's just a combination of where you're clicking, where you're clicking and dragging, or what keys you're holding down as you do so.

elte

This. ZBrush does innovate, but it would be so much better if they got rid of all the "2.5d canvas" bullshit. I haven't used it in years though, did they ever develop a better workflow than the model=tool thing?

maybe u got it wrong, 2.5d is the concept behind hi res sculpting, and did u ever remember using projection master? And maybe paintstop plugin is using 2.5d concept for their canvas and brushes, who knows what it can come up with in the future.. I remember back in few years ago when pirates of carribean making of was in cgtalk.. wasnt that serious enough?

Back to the zsphere2, watched it 2nd time and realized you dont have to really build base mesh in 3d app anymore.. I guess 1 more thing I would like to know more is how pixo deal with hard surface workflow.

on the other hand, maya and mudbox 2010 arent really impressing.. oh autodesk.

ooops btw, sorry OOT but look at this

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=13742166&linkID=9242258&CMP=OTC-RSSSUP01

Asthane

elte wrote: »

maybe u got it wrong, 2.5d is the concept behind hi res sculpting, and did u ever remember using projection master? And maybe paintstop plugin is using 2.5d concept for their canvas and brushes, who knows what it can come up with in the future.. I remember back in few years ago when pirates of carribean making of was in cgtalk.. wasnt that serious enough?

When I say "2.5d canvas bullshit" I'm referring to the whole system where the "Canvas" is a plane in front of a locked camera and you're supposed to deform and drop 'tools' on it (irrevocably) to create complete images. This is what ZBrush was originally created for and while they've done a good job of catering to their completely unexpected influx of people using the program for serious work, as of the last version I used (ZB2) a lot of the stupid crap was still present like the aforementioned 'tool' workflow.

ZBrush has a lot of awesome features. Maybe if it's your main program the interface is even good. I'm just picky. I like to work with multiple objects, with the controls and terms I'm familiar with from every other 3d program. I don't want to feel like I'm using a backhoe to do the job of a bulldozer even if it's in fact the better tool for the job

Rhinokey

i used to hate zbrush because of its wacky ape shit ui , even purchased mudbox to use instead, but after getting all good with mudbox i deloaded a demo of zbrush 2 and pchow, never looked back the ui is only a pain for the first couple of days, and by then any one worth their salt won't have any problems with it. really looking foreward to this update. hope spheres 2 and goz work as good in my pipeline as they seem. also hope GoZ will be workign for max