zbrush to mudbox covert?
polycount lvl 666
hate to admit it as a long tme zbrush user but I am actually starting to prefer mudbox 2012 over zbrush purely for sculpting.
Visually I find mudbox easier to 'read' in the viewport and the normal maps I get back to seem to have more depth and pop more in max.
anyone have any thoughts on the two programs?
don't mind zbrush's weird ui personally but the shaders are hard to read somehow, mudbox reads more like max viewport.
pressure sensitivity seems to work properly in mud also , I have had awful probs in the past with zbrush in this regard
So purely on sculpting out the major forms whch is really important, (more so than details)I am finding mudbox the winner.
Visually I find mudbox easier to 'read' in the viewport and the normal maps I get back to seem to have more depth and pop more in max.
anyone have any thoughts on the two programs?
don't mind zbrush's weird ui personally but the shaders are hard to read somehow, mudbox reads more like max viewport.
pressure sensitivity seems to work properly in mud also , I have had awful probs in the past with zbrush in this regard
So purely on sculpting out the major forms whch is really important, (more so than details)I am finding mudbox the winner.
Replies
I've just transitioned from mudbox to zbrush. My main reason was increased performance, since I have a pretty weak rig. Where mudbox stutters at 4 mil tris zbrush is flying at 8. Also the whole 2.5 canvas thing is really way more convenient for tiling textures than mudboxs' tiling plane.
Other than this I find them pretty much identical if you disregard ui and navigation. And to be honest after years of mudbox it felt zbrush sculpting had a better feel to it, which is totally subjective and I guess has something to do with cognitive dissonance, when you're trying to convince yourself why one is better then the other:)
But! For sculpting characters on a powerful rig I honestly think that both would be good. Can't imagine something crucial that one can and the other can't, apart from the viewport thing, which is closer to max in mudbox for obvious reasons, but the bottom line is how stuff looks ingame, so I don't know if that's all that important.
Not saying anyone's a winner - just my two cents:)
I think the main thing is the whole readabilty issue, I am better at reading max style viewports and usng mudbox last night something just clicked for the first time.
The whole presssure sensitivity Issue is another area that's been giving me grief in zbrush, really irksome.
EDIT : Dammit, evry time my 19 month old daughter touches my keyboard she breaks something, the 'i' key ths time:)
These materials look great as final shaders applied for beauty renders, but they do ommit some details, and the whole 2.5D environment also distorts perspective in very unpredictable ways. Now there is always to possibility to regularly export to Mud or Max to check how things are shaping up, but nothing beats having real 3D feedback at all times.
It's a tough position to argue tho, since users of one program or the other tend to be very attached to it for some reason. But in the end, the best solution is, indeed, a combination of both.
My main art motto is that art is in the eye, not in the draftmanship. That's why I prefer Mud too, despite its limitations - it gives a proper look on shapes and depth, which is, I believe, the most important thing. Zbrush renders and screenshots can be very misleading in a production environment too. They can look beautiful, but they often hide surface problems that become very apparent when the object is later imported in a program with real 3D feedback. Zbrush also has a tendency to display models "up close" as opposed to Mudbox giving more of an overall view. Mud also favors quick object rotation in the viewport - something extremely important to assess shapes and silhouettes properly.
Good luck with your coming pieces! I think that using both apps at the same time can greatly enhance quality of work.
yeah I never use matcaps when sculpting and I am still finding the perpectve in zbrush odd. My only real soluton is as you say is to keep exporting to max/maya to check.
I normally send the level 4 subd to max , apply the WIP dffuse texture ony and then add a bit of spec to see how ts looking. No point to keep on rebaking normal maps ad infinitum
yeah zbrush renders are odd. for example if you add a projecton texture with spotlght , it may look great in zbrush , but by the time you get it back to max, the crisp detail has gone and it looks a mess overall. zbrush bleaches out the main forms somehow and it looks pretty , but only if you want it for an illustration
I really wish zbrush had proper normal display also. gong down the levels is great but if you just have that faceted look, it becomes harder to see how the lower levels relate to the smoother higher levels.
I do however find navigation a bit tough in mudbox, but perhaps I am just unfamilar with it and will get over that:)
btw, I actually find mudboxs' navigation waaay more solid. In zbrush I have to do a lot of *shift* to align my camera since it always seems to tilt the wrong way, while mudbox feels way more natural and I would've never thought there might be a need for such a thing.
It's nice to know some negative sides though, thanks for sharing.
film studios are almost all mudbox. the bigger ones are. the fact that mudbox is now on linux really cements that fact. mudbox was started as weta's in-house sculpting package to replace zbrush and grew from there. so lots of studios had input on the original feature set. it was designed to fit into the modeling dept workflow.
there is also a well supported api ie(by autodesk). this is a bit esoteric at the moment. but there are a number of things people would like to do both with shading and manipulating geometry data that require additional user software that has integration with mudbox maya and some other tools.
none of that stuff probably really matters to sculptors for the most part. but it is interesting if you have been watching these things for a while
I started using Mud more when AD released it for free to students and it's definitely my preference now. As soon as you switch the default turd-brown material everything starts to look better, and less 'squishy'. I think the matcaps in ZBrush sometimes make work look better than it really is.
I also love the stability and solidity of Mudbox. Even after 3 years using ZBrush I still feel like it could all go tits-up at any given second which results in me having a collection of four thousand .ztl's in a temp folder somewhere whilst working on a project just to calm my paranoia.
The painting tools in Mudbox are fantastic too, I love the simplicity of switching between texture channels and painting them in real-time.
So yes, Mud gets my vote by a large margin.
Zbrush is much better performance-wise, and also has MUCH smaller file-sizes. You can get the same navigation as mudbox , in Zbrush, so the whole "Navigation in mudbox is easier!" excuse is bullshit. I personally LOVE how you can shift-click to align your mesh properly, with an orthographic view. Makes things so much easier for certain tasks.
Mudbox has a LONG way to go in terms of sculpting. Dynamesh alone makes Zbrush blow Mudbox out of the water.
i think about these issues constantly. i hate to think that i might be a 'xyz-software' artist. its very limiting. but if you can keep a higher level idea about what you want as an artist then you can sort of dig into specific parts of a package that really work for you and not get 'stuck/dependent' on that package.
about 'pure sculpting' as you put it. this is important.
if you take away stamps, stencils zspheres brush effects like auto smooth and all the extra tools i think you have 'pure sculpting'. just the basic brushes with a falloff radius, pressure, spacing etc. now i think the more you sculpt the more control you get over your brush. just like drawing. and the better you get the tighter your control gets. the tighter you detail gets etc. the mud box brushes are more 'pure brushes'. they don't do any extra work for you. no smoothing or 'effects' the way the new brush engine works in zb4. personally i like the raw brushes because they give more cotrol. but they demand that you have a tight precise stroke. its unforgiving the same way a pencil is. you either have the control to do delicate shading on a drawing or you don't there's no extra help with the exception of a blender. sort of like how you use smooth to even stuff out in sculpting.
for blocking and creatures i don't think it matters much. I kind of like the extra effects in zbrush for really ripping stuff up. you get maximum effect for minimum stroke. aliens creatures lots of fun. but this gets really messy for very subtle work. on say human anatomy. so in that case i like the very raw simple brushes with a maximum amount of control in mb. where you can apply very fine detail with lots of strokes to build up a form. in mudbox the regular sculpt brush is extremity effective but you have to adjust your wacom pressure, brush curve and the other attributes to give you the effect you want. and you have to have the tight control. whereas in zbrush4x the sculpt brush is not very effective for me i always end up using clay, claytube etc. this has an effect on the style. so if you work with it and can use it then it helps you but if you need something different then your fighting the brush and that's hell.
so i think at a certain point you know how to exploit the brushes in these packages and you know that you can sculpt a certain type of object easier or more in a certain style with one set of brushes then the other. and at that point you can choose. but you have to be use to all the different software to be able to get to that point.
looking at your work which is mostly human characters i can totally see where your coming from. i agree with you that for that type of work. subtle character work. mudbox gives tighter and more subtle control. and if you generally like the more 'pure sculpting' style then you will probably in general like mb better.
Mudbox's texturing is it's strength. It's the one thing that it does much better than Zbrush. Ptex is also very, very nice to have. We're using ptex here in a production pipeline, and it's great.
Nobody here is saying Zbrush or mudbox is the end-all-be-all software. They each have their pro's and cons. I'm just saying which software I prefer, and why.
I used Mudbox for 2 years prior to Zbrush, and loved it.
Thing is, someone who is good at sculpting will be good regardless of whether he it using Mudbox or Zbrush. Someone who isn't good will suck, whether he uses either. There is no magic software with a "make art" button. Use whatever YOU think is better. Use the software YOU like, and that which gives you the best results. That's all that matters.
Like I said, I prefer Zbrush by a long shot, but use whatever you find is best for you.
for anyone who already has done a lot of work i think the only way to get a grip is to try to do a few pieces in it. maybe not in production but on the side. as you know the first time around its going to be slow learning where all the buttons are etc. but you will notice that everything is more obvious in mb. your not going to get lost in the menus. theres not really any fat in the the package and i hope it stays that way.
you can take a look at the texture functions here:
http://download.autodesk.com/global/docs/mudbox2012/en_us/index.html
You kind of get to thinking that your art skills are not up to it, but if you carefully analyze what exactly the issues you are having, then you can work around it.
My main issue was blocking out the main forms and TBH had become lazy about my reference ie not using enough ref side vew 3/4 front.
In zbrush and mudbox I find the best approach is a simple brush( standard or inflate) and then smooth, like real oil painting ie apply the paint then blend.
your initial stroke could be very rough even, some people work quite loose but you can still tighten it up by blending everything.
It's the same in digital painting/sculptng, paint then blend paint then blend, there is no real better way for me to do it.
You could probably paint with a mouse if it wasn't for RSI:)
I have given up on my wacom providing enough subtlety in terms of pressure sensitivity.
My best approach for that is to set the pressure to the firmest setting and have the brushes set to about 6 or 7 in zbrush( sometimes lower)
inflate tool seems to work best for me in terms of pressure sensitivity.
stll not great though .
With zbrush 2 and a graphire I got much nicer strokes and a lot of my work from that era is of a higher standard than now which sucks
I used to use a strength of 17 for sculpting then with my wacom on default driver settings.
I am leaning more towards building the main forms in max then detailing in sculpting packages.
That means a fairly detailed base mesh for me, pre uv mapped and a base texture slapped on.
I would not really fancy sculpting a head from a sphere, generally I would have to retopo it anyway. just takes too long!
my mindset is that the head object( or whatever i am sculpting) is a max object which goes in to zbrush for detailing and then is used back in max to provide a solution.
That's why mostly I don't pimp my zbrush stuff as to me its not art in itself, just part of a process to get a nice real time object.
i prefer mudbox though for the following reasons.
1. brush falloff proximity in mudbox is a hybrid of surface and volume proximity.
if you dont know the difference between surface and volume proximity then open up maya and ado a soft selection and then toggle through the different modes.
zbrush only have volume proximity.
why is it important to me ? i find it very useful for sculpting around multiple meshes and surfaces that are next to each other but far away topologicaly(fingers, lips, eye lids, etc). in zbrush i would have to use topological mask every time. i save a lot of time in mudbox since i rarely need to mask out anything in mudbox.
2. navigation. as mentioned by pior it is similar to maya and i am a maya user so it just works fluidly for me. mudbox ui is also very simple and allows me to sculpt in a far bigger canvas than zbrush.
3. multi object sculpting. i can sculpt on multiple objects at the same time without needing to switch between subtools and i can still lock/hide separate elements.
these are the main 3 reason, although there are quite a bit more i can get into.
now given all of that, i love zbrush as well for all the innovative stuff it has.
however, i never had any practical use of most of the cool features zbrush has but find it fascinating to play with now and then.
in short, mudbox to me is simple, fast and more stable as a dedicated sculpting tool.
btw, i can actually work on a 50+ mil quad mesh in mudbox at reasonable speed.
a few things from what you posted.
reference and blocking.
if your working from some good ref and you match some cameras in max or maya. you can export those as xbf files and bring them into mb. that changed my whole workflow actually.
for blocking in mb atm i try to get close to zb style brushes. i first do a mesh in maya that has just enough geo to get the full form down. ie if it has 5 fingers my base has 5 fingers. eye holes, simple ears etc. subdiv that without smoothing and export. then in mb i use 2 brushes,
wax with #5 falloff strength around 20. no stamp
flatten with #5 falloff strength at 100. no stamp
the key is to get the pressure of the wacom so if you give a light stroke it just barely show but if give it a stiff stroke you get a massive buildup or chop down. so this is generally 50% between soft and stiff of the 'tip feel' option in the wacom setings.
i try not to use smooth and do a rough once over with this brush setup. the mesh needs a few subdivs so it can hold some detail but not to much. its a lot like doing a pass with clay buildup, very fast no pressure, fun sculpting and i get some nice volume buildup and a rough block. then after i cover the whole mesh like that i start to go in with sculpt smooth inflate etc. smooth and pulling out more detail and refining the shapes knocking down chop from the first pass. then i tend to do a lot of adjustment with move then really start to hammer out the details with all the brushes and res up as needed. for humans i also have a few body's that are sculpted with nice uv's that I can start from and refine. and try to focus mostly on detail.
zb brush engine 2-3 was not much different from mb 1. mb2 brush engine is a bit different from mb1. but zb4 was quite a radical shift from zb3. if you try and strip a zb4 brush down to just a pure standard brush with no effects it generally does not give a good stroke. not like how the 2-3 standard was. the huge brush pallet kind of makes up for that in some ways. but not for all cases. so that could be part of your problem if your not happy with what your doing now compared to 2-3. and again the mb brushes might be more what your looking for.
d1ver: have you tried changing the viewport rotation axis to Y? You can find the button for that on the right side between the viewport and the tool palettes. It's set to XYZ by default, but Y makes it behave more like Maya/Max which is maybe what you're looking for.
The biggest issue in zbrush i have is the lack of perspective, the checking in max or maya is very annoying overall.
Texturing in mudbox is pretty much the same as in 3dcoat and as i do almost all my retopo in 3dcoat i don't think the update costs of musbox do it for me.
Yeah like perspective and not this fake whatever it is
I think it is based on the bounding box of the object, so the same fov results in different perspective dependend on the scale of the object,
I guess I should really hold my judgment to myself until I get to know zbrush better. Though I have to say it get's more and more impressive as I go.
It's the simple things I always miss isn't it?
I'm going to try that as the camera moving was always something that annoyed me. Thanks!