NEW Eat3d DVD - ZBrush Hard Surface Techniques 2
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I'm no ZBrusher, but I thought people might want to know about this. I recently got the facial rigging for games dvd from them, and I couldnt say more about it. Definitely the BEST trainning DVD ive ever seen. That combined with the fountain DVD i saw, I can only imagine what the rest of their stuff is like. Just as stellar, I would think.
http://eat3d.com/blog/eat-3d/new-dvd-release-zbrush-hard-surface-techniques-2
http://eat3d.com/blog/eat-3d/new-dvd-release-zbrush-hard-surface-techniques-2
Replies
Mike nailed it once again, his first DVD has been extremely popular since its release and we really wanted to do a part 2 from the beginning but to be honest, the first one just took too much out of us. It literally took many months of capturing and editing to get it right. The raw captures were over 60 hours long!! (mainly because Mike would try something for a while and decide to do it over!) Imagine having to go through 60 hours of video and find all the good stuff and get it down to something manageable. Its quite a challenge, lol. Thats why we put, at the beginning of the dvds, sections in real-time to explain what to expect in the creation of the character.
Anyway, we cant thank everyone enough for their kind words and respect for our hard work. If it wasnt for you guys, we simply wouldnt be able to do this. Thanks!!
And The Dozer part 2!
Mike goes through a bunch new techniques using some of the new features in r2 such as Dynamesh, the new slice functions and insert brushes.
Nice timing with the mech angel tutorial and the dom war winners being announced haha
EDIT: Seems like Andy beat me to it.
But after watching it, I kept thinking of the stuff they missed out or skipped because they assume that people wouldnt want to see it.
Starting stuff from scratch, and be thorough about it. (even if the tutor is just giving us half the stuff.)
Comments like "Yehahahaha...I didnt want to do that because...you know...." We really dont, and that is exactly why we bought this tutorial sir. (No offense)
There is a kickass female model that was already made(which made sense because the title was hard surface modeling, but if you go to digital tutors and look at some of their stuff, you will see why they start from scratch, I know you used one female base model from the previous project, and probably over layed a duplicate of it and sculpted the hard surface out and refined them later on, using zbrush's rigging tool.
Digital tutor uses some of the stuff from the previous project as well, but they lay it out for you and tell you what tutorial covered the modeling / sculpting of this female model.) You missed out on that.
He seriously missed out on how to optimize the mesh while doing hard surface sculpting in zbrush, I know that he has a god like PC and all, but not everyone here has it, He really should've covered on that. So it is less hassle for us students when we are transferring stuff from high to low.
He made one brush for us and showed us how to store it before he moved on in the tutorial and told us that he made the rest of the brushes before hand.
Another thing was, skipping through the documentation while he is in photoshop, he did tell us what he was doing in photoshop but elaborating on it a bit more could've been helpful.
Overall, this tutorial was ok, not exactly what I expected but, hay what the hell. I'll buy one more for this month, and save 2 for next.
Good for resources.
EDIT: I seriously wish I'd know the video card and RAM stick range he has on his PC for this type of work.
You have powerful hardware, you can dish out more polies, simple as that, ZB is still 32 bit, so you can't go over 3.8GB RAM usage, but you can cache the remaining memory through the options in the Memory tab as a quick form of access HDD. Cut down on layers whenever possible, don't keep all your tools on the highest SD, yadda yadda yadda, all basic stuff even written in the ZB wiki.
In the first video, they even show on how to optimize your model if the mesh gets too dirty. Relax/Polish or Project detail on a new clean mesh. All basic techniques from the first one are passed by here, there is a reason it's called #2 and not #1 and why they don't hold hands on all those previous points.
Again, I will say this, if they kept on going back on basic points like DT does in every single one of their videos does, you'll never get out of the entire "Introduction" phase of things, which is vexing to say the least.
ya...maybe I am afread of that " getting out of the introduction " part man. =\ Like I said, this was a start of me buying stuff outside the DT and see what the big deal is.
You dont really have to defend the person who made this tutorial. I liked it, and I recommend it to people who dont have a slightest clue how to work with crease tool, and zbrush topology tool and stuff like that.
And mind you, DT covers that "Introduction part, or guide you to the previous tutorial relative to the recent one in their first video which takes 5-10 minute. I just criticized it so the tutor would do a better job next time explaining stuff instead of laughing it away...(No offense again)
Sorry man, moving on from DT to stuff like this for me, is like... quit smoking weed and start smoking cigarettes... But I'll try. It'll take time...:(
Thanks for the comments
We really try to keep as much content in the final DVD's as possible because there is always the hardcore crowd that wants to see every stroke or vert. that is pushed, but it's a very fine balancing act between the contents flow and retaining a high quality product. If we left everything in the final cut, then in this case it would have been over 60hrs long and split over 10 DVDs with the downloads probably being be close to 8.5-9GB and split into 9 or 10 separate files, which is logistically and financially prohibitive for everyone (Also a large portion of people would find that much content quite intimidating and/or boring to watch).
Lots of the basic mesh creation aspect was covered extensively in the first ZB HS DVD and we really try to keep away from repeating content over and over if we can (we don't want to release the same tutorial over and over), but we tried to add a few chapters in the first part of ZB HS2 that goes over the basics so people can pick up the general techniques and get up to speed if they don't own the first tutorial in the series.
For example, in the first ZB HS tutorial there is around an hour explaining how to create and use custom alphas/stamps, so it's something that we only covered briefly this time around.
This release mostly covers new techniques that are pertinent to the ZB4 r2 release, with the first in the series concentrating on the tools that were /are to be found in ZB4+ (the content for that dvd is still extremely relevant however and the feature are still present in r2).
The performance of Mike's PC was greatly helped with the use of subtools (he used around 100 for the final model, iirc, so that might help out if you are getting any issues. Using 25 sub tools that are all 2 million polys each is much less performance intensive that using a single 50 million poly mesh
As far as optimisation goes, I'm not exactly sure what you mean. He retopos the mesh extensively throughout the creation of the model and uses Dynamesh to get an even edge/quad flow. All I can suggest is to use a lower polygon count/ Dynamesh res. and consider upgrading your CPU/Ram if that doesn't help.
If that isn't what you mean please speak up and I will try my best to answer
Thanks again, we really appreciate the feedback
For new guys I would highly recommend his stuff first and then the Hard Surface because we have to make decisions and assume people understand certain things while editing. We were confident that if you watched HS part 1, then part 2 would translate very well. Also if you are very new to ZBrush, the other DVDs have that covered in full.
Anyway, thanks for the feedback and in the future feel free to ask ahead before the purchase!
It doesnt slows down if I work just in zbrush, but if I export the mesh out by any means and import it in to 3d coat and rotate it while I am re-creating the mesh that is over a mil polygon, it will lag for me. GeForce GTX 260 1GHz here, with 6GB, but 2GB is used up by Win 64 so I think I am left with 4 GB. Thats why I said " I wish I'd known the tutor's pc specifications."
Also. optimization In the matter of ZB4r2 HS sculpting vol 2, he used dynamesh after creasing the object, but the inner parts that are not shown, he didnt bother with it. Which is ok. assuming when he was teaching us the dice and slice method on hard surface object in Dynamesh mode before he got started, he assumed that we would apply that very method for high res model optimization, by any means. Maybe mask the outer part of the object that is shown to the viewer reducing the resolution to the inner part of the object, or deleting it rather, after working with the object in dynamesh mode. =\
Which isnt really a big deal if you are working in zbrush and creating a concept, but it is if you are transferring the details from high to low.
I just wanted to know what the tutorial has to offer before I buy other tutorials like UDK introduction tutorials and cryengine tutorials that I have been keeping an eye on. I will see if I can buy HS vol 1 (even tho it isnt necessary since I understood this tutorial.)
I am not a new comer to 3d arts and game arts and game engine, but it was my first buy from Eat3d, and I thought I'd put some comments down in regards to it. This may give the artist an idea of how to improve his lecture while he is leading us through his project regardless of its difficulty level.
This HS 2 tutorial was great. It gave an insight of how one goes about sculpting the concept out before he actually refines them, also showed how to create brushes and what set of brushes one should make or have before start working on such sifi model. The tutor is working in dynamesh mostly so ZB HS vol 1 wont exactly fit to what I wanted to know since we all are working with ZB 4r2 today.
Overall, this DVD is ideal for those who have a hard time working with hard surface in Zbrush and maintaining the details while working in the dynamesh.
Anyways, I've said enough, I wouldnt want to get kicked out of Eat3d because I just start buying stuff from there
Once again, Awesome work, and sorry for any offense. Keep it up.
We really appreciate all feedback, so please don't think that we have taken any offence
I will try and find out the specs of Mike's PC for you if I can, and post them here.
The techniques in ZB HS1 are still totally reinvent as an alternative to Dynamesh many techniques still require a non Dynamesh workflow, so it's all worth learning
Thanks again!
Mikes system is:-
GPU Card: Quadro 6000
CPU: i7 2600k
RAM: 16gb
Hope that helps!
As for the Eat3d dvds, I'll wait for further tutorials to come out for ZBrush4release2.
Thanks again
You dont need crazy specs to run ZB well.
I have a i7 950, 12gb RAM and a GTX 460 768mb and everything is smooth as butter for me.
I would say that 8gb of RAM is the min. amount that you want to have though, so upgrading to that would help a ton.
What are your current system specs?
Model: Studio XPS 435T
Processor: Intel Core i7 920 @ 2.67GHZ
Current Ram: 6GB (but I think its only 4 since the OS is Win 64 Pro)
GPU: GeForce GTX 260
I was thinking of getting a solid PC for start ups like, Dell's Precision with Quradro and 12-16GB but I was told that I should go with lower specs for game arts and programming.
Zbrush does not glitch or lag on this computer, its just when I import it in to 3d coat and the mesh is over 800k, it would lag a bit.
But at certain point in zbrush, if I have too many subtools, it would give me this graphical error where it'll show me spikes instead of the actual mesh...(Tho it never happened to me in this recent Zbrush release so far)
Quadro cards are really not needed as often they are actually underpowered when compared to their consumer counterparts. You are paying for stability and better drivers (and more GPU ram) when you get a Quadro or FireGL GPU and no one really uses them in games tbh.
Your 260 is still a very capable card for 3d work, so there isnt much need to upgrade, unless you are looking better performance in games or something.
ZB5 will be 64bit, iirc.
@Nitewalkr,
One thing that might be worth checking is the value that is set for your Compact Mem in ZBrush. Go to Preferences> Mem> Compact Mem and set the value to the maximum amount of RAM that you want ZBrush to use at before it starts compacting to memory (mine is set to 4096/4GB).
IIRC, the default is set to 256, which means that ZBrush starts to compact memory at 256mb of RAM and writes a file to your HDD, which can really slow down everything.
Setting it to a value of 4096, or a high value that you feel is correct for your system (2048 or 3072 etc.) might help you out
Make sure you hit Store Config after you make the changes so that ZBrush uses the amount you set by default. Preferences> Config> Store Config.
I am just bound by Dell, and heard that I can not upgrade the specs if I have a dell pc unless it is by dell.
I mean, if I want to buy something from newegg.ca and replace the ram sticks, and / or replace any other spec. It wont work. I started searching reviews and talks about customizing dell pc by using other brands and stuff like that. Lets see. The 12-16gb and the upgrade to the GPU that I have, is pretty costly on dell's website, but it is relatively cheap on the newegg.ca.
So I gotta figure this out soon..ish.
Thanks for the tips Sir metalliandy.
I will look in to upgrading pc, and boost up zbrush's mem.
I hope your hardware isnt locked (im not sure how they could lock RAM etc.) but I know that Macs have a similar issue with GPU's so it could be possible.
Fingers crossed that it isnt
That's a good point.
Whoever told you that you can't upgrade Dell computers with third party hardware is full of it.
Actually it was my professor from computer architecture who told me that branded computers like dell, and few other brands lock their pc before sales so that, the customer who buy their pc ends up buying upgrades from them only.
He also told me that there is a program that allows you to unlock it. But we never got a chance to talk about this topic again.
If you say that Dell PCs are not locked, than thats awesome! All I need are the ram sticks upgrade and maybe a better power supply that supports any sort of upgrades. =\
Thanks.