Zbrush vs Mudbox performance?

gamedev

Just curious if anyone else has noticed this firsthand - Zbrush 3.5 seems to be much more performant (I can get a whole lot more polys on screen) than Mudbox 2010.

Not sure why, but subdividing, sculpting, etc are all just much quicker in Zbrush for comparable models.

Maybe this is a driver issue / graphics card hardware thing?

-Tyler

MRico

It's completely different how they do it.

Mudbox use your graphics cards.

zbrush uses your RAM

doc rob

Zbrush can definitely handle more. It's the biggest reason why Mudbox never really got a foothold against Zbrush in the marketplace, and since then they've struggled to add features at a decent pace like Pixologic does. It's a shame because Mudbox has a great interface and some nice features. I think I would use it if it could handle the polies.

renderhjs

zbrush is the bigger monster but it has some flaws that mudbox tries to cover - thats even the reason why it was born besides making some cash.

What mudbox fixes:

• easy to use interface that EVERYONE understands
• proper UV mapping (i.e when painting)
• GFX card shaders (brings it closer to real time development)
• Projection and rendering/ bake tools that are logical to use

but mudbox has some issues besides performance or modeling from scratch and that is expensive updates and really nasty bugs. Zbrush has the more annoying interface but it can do way more.

gamedev

Thanks for the feedback guys. I initially was really excited about Mudbox because the UI was great and it has a quick learning curve coming from max. The projection tools also rocked, however as I started to use it this weekend it just tanked come time to really push some geometry. I'm sure I'm not using in the most efficient manner, but Zbrush so far seems to be screaming w/ 5+mil polys. The UI and paradigms are a bit strange, but they have plenty of training vids on the site to make up for it.

Cheers!

-Tyler

gamedev

Oh, one last question while we're here - how is ZScript? What is it comparable to? Is most of the UI built on this? Is it powerful? I'm coming from a maxscript / actionscript / javascript background.

pior

You also have to consider that Zbrush uses a lot of tricks when it comes to dense models. For instance when you zoom out it swaps in a lower res version, quite clever. Also when you zoom very close in, the viewport response might become very slow, yet the sculpting on tiny areas will still be quite responsive.

Mudbox deals with meshes in a much more simple way, if it's 3D it's here. So you might not be able to subdivide to crazy amounts, but the framerate will always be very consistent and viewport navigation will never slow down no matter the zoom ratio. It might be very crucial if you are used to rotating your meshes alot while working.

I notice that people coming from a traditional modeling background tend to rotate their models more because 3Dviewport navigation schemes are second nature to them ; whereas artists 'picking up' Z or Mud tend to just stick to one angle for a long time, sculpt it, then move to the next.

Also Mud can easily crunch out millions if you install it on a 64bit system, especially on a SSD drive as it seems to access the HD alot between subdivisions. Plus, 8 Gigs of ram, yeaaaah! It's actually a bit odd that Zbrush comes only in 32bit flavor since it is itself quite ram dependent.

oglu

i would say if you only working on one object mud can handle really a lot of poly...
but you need a clean quad mesh and much ram...

Neox

and a good gpu, i once worked for autodesk on a 32gig ram machine with sli quaddros, and well of course because of the native 64bit support mudbox could handle way more polies then zbrush could, but even with sli quaddros and only 4 gigs of ram, mudbox can handle more in one "tool" but on my machine with a "old" 8800gt, zbrush is the better choice mudbox starts feeling slow pretty fast on my own machine

Mark Dygert

pior wrote: »

I notice that people coming from a traditional modeling background tend to rotate their models more because 3Dviewport navigation schemes are second nature to them ; whereas artists 'picking up' Z or Mud tend to just stick to one angle for a long time, sculpt it, then move to the next.

Hi my names Mark and I'm a rotate-aholic. This is the hardest thing for me to get used to, especially in Z. Well that and the UI, but I've never really forced myself past the gag reflex, I hear once you do that everything is fine.

It's really weird that Z is still only 32bit does that mean it will only ever use 3.4gb of ram no matter what?

Disco Stu

Everyone good will rotate alot.
When you see a model that is flat and maybe works from one angle you can
be pretty sure that he has rotated very little.

MoP

Disco Stu: Yeah, but Pior's right, traditional sculptors tend to work a lot more in one angle with only the occasional glance at different views... while "digital 3d" artists always seem to be spinning their models round at every opportunity

BTW I'd say ZBrush!

Mark Dygert

As far as raw viewport performance goes, my personal experience leans toward Zbrush. I've only ever used Mudbox 1.0 and only trial'ed 2.0 in comparison to the latest installments of Z.I am also using dinotech video cards Geforce 7800's x 2 at home which is where I do most of the sculpting (which is very little).

The default Z shader seems to work better than some custom ones I've come up with, but the default drives me nuts.

System

MoP wrote: »

traditional sculptors tend to work a lot more in one angle while "digital 3d" artists always seem to be spinning their models round at every opportunity

Traditional means real artists, doesn't it?

edit: just got 20 million poly's with zbrush as a test but I heard you can get more with muddy, in the 100's of millions, Wayne Robson swears by it!

edit again: why we are on the topic, how the hell do you render in zbrush? Don't mean texture, just the model.

MoP

GCMP: Oddly enough, to render in ZBrush, you use the settings in the "Render" menu.

Calabi

But isnt that just the inherent problem of the pseudo flat 3d image.

With a real sculpture you are seeing more of the object, you know its whole surface way more clearly than a 2D pretend 3d.

MoP

Yep, good point.

System

MoP wrote: »

GCMP: Oddly enough, to render in ZBrush, you use the settings in the "Render" menu.

Seems obvious I know but I press the render button after setting best or whatever and the memory indicator moves then nothing happens, nothing in clipboard either. This was the same with my previous system too.

MRico

GCMP wrote: »

Traditional means real artists, doesn't it?

Everyone here is a "real" artist. I think the only not "real" artists are sculpters that make stuff with garbage...literally, garbage. Or the people that splatter paint and call them selves artists.

Shogun3d

Mudbox has come a long way since it first came out. And when it first came out, I mean it was horrible.

I like both programs I will use two. For some reason I prefer mudbox for small - medium assets because of the flatten and scrape tool, which feels a lot more like real sculpting.

cryrid

edit: just got 20 million poly's with zbrush as a test but I heard you can get more with muddy, in the 100's of millions, Wayne Robson swears by it!

Now turn on HD geometry?

System

AutopsySoldier, I was just kidding, I thought people would guess by the crying smilie, bad joke.
Cryrid, it was the slider in the preferences, adjusted that and maximised the sub d poly's then pressed divide. It shot from half a million to 20.
I haven't had the need to have over a million...yet...but then again all I do is mainly props and some environ stuff.

Neox

MoP wrote: »

Disco Stu: Yeah, but Pior's right, traditional sculptors tend to work a lot more in one angle with only the occasional glance at different views... while "digital 3d" artists always seem to be spinning their models round at every opportunity

now i'm confused, didn't pior say the exact opposite? o_O

MoP

Neox wrote: »

now i'm confused, didn't pior say the exact opposite? o_O

Nah, I think he just phrased it oddly
He said "traditional modelling background", by which I believe he means "3d artists used to max/maya/etc". Then used the term "artists" to refer to actual traditional sculptors.

I might be wrong but I'm pretty sure that's what he meant, given the context.