the best workflow btw maya/max/xsi and zbrush

Dastan

OMG! =o I recently started to learn ZBrush since I was using Mudbox and it was too slow and impossible to work with in my computer, and I found out that I can do all sort of things in ZBrush, it is so much easier to model characters and even some hard surfaces objects, I am amazed O.o First I was terrified by ZBrush interface, but after that I started to feel so confortable, much more than in Mudbox =P

It was love when I first got in touch with ZSpheres.. You can actually model the rough of the character base and them sketch the shapes and proportions and make that into a poly mesh and keep going as if you were really sculpting.

So Now I ask you: Is Maya, Max and other software still used to model characters? Ok, it is easy and fast to do a basic model of a character in Maya, but ZBrush takes you beyond, it gives you wings, it is sensational!

How do you handle Maya and ZBrush?

1- Do you sketch and model directly in Zbrush and use Maya to apply maps and work on the low poly mesh of the character/objects

2- Do you create a base mesh in Maya and import it into Zbrush and use Maya to apply maps and work on the low poly mesh of the character/objects

3 - Or what?

cryrid

It varies depending on what you're doing and what the general production pipeline is like for the project. If you just want to sculpt a bitching dragon for example, there's no harm in doing it either way.

With human characters in games on the other hand, sometimes life is easier when they are at similar scales and have similar proportions, so a basemesh goes a long way in keeping things on track.

Billz

The problem with modelling directly in zbrush is that the edge flow will still have to be re-worked in order to make it animate-able. For that reason alone I prefer doing bases in max.