How often do you use Zbrush as an Environment or prop artist?
polycounter lvl 7
This poll is for Professional Environment artists only please. I'm a college instructor and want to get a better gauge for how often other environment artists use zbrush during a project.
The studio's I've been to don't have heavy zbrush work most of the time. It's often occasional zbrush work and about 80% of the environment artist's work isnt using zbrush. This is a similar trend for other folks I've talked to and I just want to see whether that is a consistent trend or just a fluke.
To clarify, this is not judging the merits of Zbrush, at this point I think we're all aware the benefits of it. I just wanna how often other artist in other studios are using it.
The studio's I've been to don't have heavy zbrush work most of the time. It's often occasional zbrush work and about 80% of the environment artist's work isnt using zbrush. This is a similar trend for other folks I've talked to and I just want to see whether that is a consistent trend or just a fluke.
To clarify, this is not judging the merits of Zbrush, at this point I think we're all aware the benefits of it. I just wanna how often other artist in other studios are using it.
Replies
Naughty Dog's texture artists for instance use it all the time for their textures. And i'm sure that peeps at epic do to.
So without these exceptions, I would take a guess here and asume that ZB or MB usage is not more than ocasional for both env / prop artists.
Sometimes it can be really handy and help, others it may just be a waste of time, it really depends.
Now I'm doing more environment stuff and the weapons and such I'm doing both require a higher fidelity due to targets and are allowing me more resources to devote to them, so I'm finding zbrush creeping into a lot of the things I do.
Additionally, the hard surface tools have really taken off and I'm eager to learn to do more hard surface stuff in zBrush.
There is really no excuse for an artist at this point to not know how to use it, as the hard surface tools improve it will only become more useful, and while there will always be a place for subD modeling, it is going to be an essential skill.
It all just comes down to what way is faster and will yeild better results for the task you're working on. Sometimes the process of sculpting on something in zbrush isn't worth the effort if the details will never be seen (or your texture resolution is too low to pick them up).
Some use it all the time, other never.
HP: thats kinda what i figured too. just wanted some metrics to support that idea.
Ghostscape: that sums up my experience with it entirely. When more time and resources are available in both time and computing power, zbrush gets more use. Which makes me wonder how it'll integrate into the next generation on consoles. Maybe much more due to having more system resources for the maps you create with it (ei, more unique textures)?
timwiese: i find that a lot too.
Ace-Angel: agreed, hopefully folks from both ends of the spectrum get some responses in too. I'd like to get a better idea just how many studio's are heavy users.
For any heavy users of zbrush, what kind of project is it (if you can say). I'm wondering how much the art style will affect usage. Darksiders used it to get the great bold shapes that are hard to create in photoshop. But stuff like call of duty doesn't seem to make heavy use of it possibly due to "realism". Are you folks are heavy zbrush users and also making highly realistic games in a modern setting? Or does zbrush end up on other style projects more often?
I've just finished making Goldeneye 007 Reloaded, which we made in just under a year without using zbrush at all, saying that it's not the best looking game and was in the most part rushed to comply with publisher deadlines.
In the past I was doing more general environment assets, and I used Mudbox a good deal more, but not so much these days.
As others have stated, it depends on the studio and there work flow.
I'm curious how long you get per asset? Looking at a MMO like WOW and comparing that to Halo I wouldn't say there's fewer assets in Halo since WOW repeats a lot of things.
I've used zbrush/mudbox on things because it's better. Typically hand painting a normalmap seems to take about the same amount of time as sculpting. And you just can't get the same quality.
searlee: yeah it seems once time is heavily limited, zbrush seems to become no longer an option.
Autocon: I'm super suprised that the environment team at Naughty doesnt get zbrush at all! So your asset pipeline generally works around tiling textures then? Do you guys have seperate prop artists who have access to zbrush then? or do the texture folks work on the zbrush pass for those too?
sprunghunt: I totally agree, for broad shapes nothing currently beats a good zbrush model.
You'd be surprised - someone at Mythic did an asset count comparison between Warhammer Online and GOW - I don't recall the number but we produced alot, maybe 2-3 times the assets? Then again, we didn't have to deal with normal maps. Not knocking Epic's stuff, the amount of time they spend on each asset really pays off!
Everything I've worked on since then is still under NDA :P
Sorry for the intrusion, I'd like to know this: if your texture artists use ZBrush for texturing, I suppose the assets have a good polygon density in order to be well painted, right?
Are you modeling assets with that in mind?
Or texturing artists will divide meshes according their needs?
Thanks in advance
they use zbrush to create tiling textures.
here's some examples:
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?79141-Uncharted-2-Among-Thieves-art-work/page5
it does seem like a fairly different way to do things compared to other studios but it seems to work well.
I don't find less time working on an MMO to use Zbrush, you just have to become fast enough with it that it's not a time sink in your work flow. Also I've used it enough at this point that I have a library built up of objects that can be reused in all sorts of assets, so it makes the process go pretty quick.
Not all modelers are good at texturing and not all texture people are good at modeling. Sure many are in both areas. And texturing has also a lot to do with shading/lighting department as well.
The Environment Team is broken up into two groups, and Environment Artist and a Texture Artist.
Environment Artists models the entire scene, assembles and places all assets, works with the designers for flow of the level, the puzzles, collision, frame rate and all that technical jazz.
Texture Artists create textures that they then use to make shaders which they apply to models that they unwrap. They also vert paint everything for things like blending and such. They use zbrush for great sculpts and textures that are made are tiling type textures.
We also have Prop artists who focus more on unique mapped items that require zbrush/HP stuff.
As a Environment Artist no I never concern myself with even poly distribution for sculpting as we dont do that. I create models the most efficient way I can for our engine and that have the best ascetic look to the and my Texture Artist creates tiling textures for those assets. You dont need to sculpt a rock if you are just using a tiling texture
The reasons this is done has nothing to do with modelers not being good texture artists or texture artists not being able to model as they are fine with people switching from one to the other at the end of the project. The reason for it is, if you have 1 person only focusing on the creation of textures and shaders all day they will be the absolute best at that job.
They focus all there time making textures, learning tips and tricks and work arounds to get the absolute best results out of our tech. They don't have to worry about modeling, assembling the scene, worry about frame rate and design hurdles, they focus on making the best textures and shaders possible.
Texture artists and Environment artists have an extremely close relationship since there is 1 texture artist and 1 environment artist for an entire "look" of the game. Example, the main level I worked on takes place in the desert with rocks. Its quite a big level, at a normal studio multiple people would have worked on it based on what I know about other studios/experience. But every asset was created and placed by myself, and all shaders and blending were done by my texture artist. We fully own the entire level and look and got to create every aspect of it. It gives the levels a great sense of cohesion and the artists a real ownership of the levels they worked on.
It has its pro's and con's like other work flows where you make the textures for your models. I enjoy both methods but this is what we do here.