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XMD Custom Zbrush / 3D Coat / Substance Brushes

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  • MikeDunnam
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    MikeDunnam polycounter lvl 12
    Can everyone tell me which brushes they are having problems with and if they are using the package download or individual brushes?

    Use this form so I can trouble shoot it
    just answer each question simply, yes/no or N/A or the info it asks for :)

    1. I am using ZBRUSH Version -

    2. I have tried re-installing Zbrush -

    2b. Re-installing worked! -

    3. I have tried Upgrading to version R3 -

    3b. Upgrading worked! -

    4. The following brushes do not load alphas -

    5. I am using the packaged versions of the follow brushes -

    6. I do not see alphas at all -

    7. I get the following error when loading brushes -

    8. I have used other custom brushes with no problem. -

    9. Are you using the "trial"?

    If you have anything you want to remain anon on here email me your info at mdunnam@gmail.com


    I need this information from everyone that is having problems to fix it :)
    So please fill this out if you have issues.

    And if anyone has installed all packages and not had ANY issues. Please let me know as well.

    -Thanks,
    Michael
  • jeremiah_bigley
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    jeremiah_bigley polycounter lvl 15
    Hey man! Got them working! Upgrading to R3 did it for me... who knows though uninstalling and reinstalling might have worked also.


    I figured I would give you some real feedback now. :D Hope you don't mind.

    Stroke Set 01
    - Awesome. I liked them all. Deep 1 however has a pretty hard lag on undos.

    Stroke Set 02
    - Once again awesome. Glob is really cool but can become destructive on geometry if not careful. Just wanted to say that your stylized brush gets a similar effect as Orb's Crack brush, but! Your's is a bit sharper and more forgiving on sharp curves which is really nice.

    Skin 29, 32
    - These were nice out of the skin pack. I do agree with what was said earlier about the others pushing out geometry too much.

    Bulking 02
    - Had a nice effect. Really hard lag on undo.

    Blob 01, 02
    - These out of the Drag set I really liked. Reminded me of the noise fuction but with controlled placement. Honestly a whole pack of these would be really cool.


    Wasn't big in to most of the others because they are very... stampy? Almost like stamp brushes in photoshop. That and I normally don't do tech stuff. ;)

    Awesome stuff man. Keep up the great work. Like I said a blob pack would be pretty amazing. ;) But I can understand if you are tired of making them. And honestly I don't think you can go wrong with more stroke packs. Really appreciate the time you took on these.
  • MikeDunnam
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    MikeDunnam polycounter lvl 12
    Hey man! Got them working! Upgrading to R3 did it for me... who knows though uninstalling and reinstalling might have worked also.


    I figured I would give you some real feedback now. :D Hope you don't mind.

    Stroke Set 01
    - Awesome. I liked them all. Deep 1 however has a pretty hard lag on undos.

    Stroke Set 02
    - Once again awesome. Glob is really cool but can become destructive on geometry if not careful. Just wanted to say that your stylized brush gets a similar effect as Orb's Crack brush, but! Your's is a bit sharper and more forgiving on sharp curves which is really nice.

    Skin 29, 32
    - These were nice out of the skin pack. I do agree with what was said earlier about the others pushing out geometry too much.

    Bulking 02
    - Had a nice effect. Really hard lag on undo.

    Blob 01, 02
    - These out of the Drag set I really liked. Reminded me of the noise fuction but with controlled placement. Honestly a whole pack of these would be really cool.


    Wasn't big in to most of the others because they are very... stampy? Almost like stamp brushes in photoshop. That and I normally don't do tech stuff. ;)

    Awesome stuff man. Keep up the great work. Like I said a blob pack would be pretty amazing. ;) But I can understand if you are tired of making them. And honestly I don't think you can go wrong with more stroke packs. Really appreciate the time you took on these.

    Thank you very much for the feedback. It helps a lot :)

    I did find one thing that might fix the problem with the brushes. Apparently originally 512 was the max size for alphas according to Pixologic's site. It can now support higher resolutions, but I think there is some residual effects of just upgrading to newer versions. I think that uninstalling and reinstalling gets rid of these effects as well as upgrading to R3 although I used R2 to make them. And they work for me on multiple computers, so I have no idea. lol. One other thing I can do is to downsample all of the brush alphas to 512 and resave every single brush. This will take a while, but I think would fix it for everyone. I did submit a support ticket to Pixologic asking about the issue. But nothing back yet of course :).

    As far as the brushes. I personally use stamp brushes quite a bit for stuff so those are most of the ones I made. But I am totally into making some stroke and spray brushes as well. Right now I am making a set, but it will be a while before it's done. Did you check out the bulking brushes from the terra pack? They are somewhat like the blob brushes you like.

    I think the issue with the undo might be the resolution of the alphas as well. I have a beast machine at work, so it doesn't lag too bad on mine, but at home on my laptop I get some lag issues. What I might end up doing is going ahead and downsampling all of the brushes to 512 eventually and save all of my alphas at 2048 and give them away as well. So people can use both if they wish. I don't really want to save all of the brushes in 2 resolutions. So if anyone has any suggestions for this I am all up for it :)

    As for the skin pack. I didn't really mess with the settings too much on those. So if anyone has any suggestions or wants to tweak the settings and send them to me, I will definitely update them and give ya full credit for the help!

    And Jeremiah, I have taken notes of all of your suggestions and truly appreciate them. So in time, you will get your brushes :)

    Peace!

    -Michael
  • MikeDunnam
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    MikeDunnam polycounter lvl 12
    Ok so here is what I know. Apparently Z4R3 is compatible with 2048px alphas. Which a lot of the brushes are using.

    So far this has worked 100% of the time from what people have told me. Upgrade to R3, if that doesn't work. Uninstall and upgrade again.

    Another issue. The lag issue. I might at some point... Downres all of the alphas to 512 so they are backwards compat with all versions of Zbrush back to 3. This will take a lot of time to do, b/c I have to downsample each alpha, reimport and resave each brush. Then reupload to the site and repackage etc etc. I have tested it and I believe it fixes the lag issue as well as the back-compat issue.

    If I do this I will package all of my alphas in 2048 to give away in a separate package.

    I am going to do some more testing before I go through all of this trouble. So if anyone else could test upgrading to R3 if you are having alpha issues and post. This would help me very much. Remember I am doing this for the good of the community. I expect nothing in return. So a little help would go a long way :)

    Thanks!

    -Michael
  • nyx702
    I might be able to write a Zbrush script that automatically re-saves the brushes with the downrezed alpha....

    No promises but I will look into it. Maybe it will save you some time.
  • MikeDunnam
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    MikeDunnam polycounter lvl 12
    nyx702 wrote: »
    I might be able to write a Zbrush script that automatically re-saves the brushes with the downrezed alpha....

    No promises but I will look into it. Maybe it will save you some time.

    No promises... noted :) Although that would be fantastic!

    -Michael
  • nyx702
    Ok. So after trying 15 different ways and running into weird roadblocks here is what I got.

    - First. Back up your brushes with the High Rez Alphas if you want to save them cause this script overwrites the loaded brushes.

    - Then save all your new lower rez alphas in the same folder as your brushes. Make sure they have the same name as the brushes they are paired with. This is very important. I am not sure how you have your alphas named... so hopefully their wont be too much renaming. You can use this action to batch (Automate>Batch...) resize and rename them if you like.

    - Then save this in your Zscripts Folder.

    In Zbrush go to Zscripts>Load>AlphaReAssign.TXT and the script will make a temporary menu in Zplugin>Temp. When you press the button it will ask you to load a brush. It will then look for an alpha with the same name as the loaded brush and save over the brush with the new alpha.

    - You have to click "Load" for each brush. It's annoying but I couldn't figure out a way around it. You can set a hotkey to it and it will go much faster. As long as you dont save your config the Temp menu and hotkey will be gone next time you load ZB.

    Hopefully this will save you a small amount of time? I was trying to batch load them all at once but since they are named different things it was taking me more time to write the script than to just manually re-assign the alphas myself.
  • MikeDunnam
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    MikeDunnam polycounter lvl 12
    Ok so here is what I am going to do. Pixologic was not able to recreate this issue on their end with any of the brushes. They even got them working in Z2,Z3, and Z4. This seems like a local issue and who knows what causes it. So I am going to take Nick Miller's script that he created for resizing and saving alphas. And thank you very much for this! I will batch them all as 512's and set a package for each set in 512. So anyone that wants can have a smaller version. This will take some time, even with the script. So it might be a while. I am also planning on saving the alphas out in hires for anyone that wants them and give those packages away. So this will give an option to anyone that wants to keep the hires alphas. Also Z5 is supposed to support very high res alphas from what I am told. So everyone keep an eye out for this. And thank you Nick for your help. This will save me a lot of time!

    -Michael
  • Donavonyoung
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    Donavonyoung polycounter lvl 6
    Excellent share.
  • MikeDunnam
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    MikeDunnam polycounter lvl 12
    Update! I have packaged each Brush individually with the highest resolution alpha that was made to create the brush as well as the icon. Just click on the icons and download the brushes again if you want them individual. Each one is RAR'd. The Packages have also been updated to include all of these RARs. This took a ton of time. So please be kind and enjoy! :)

    I will eventually include an alpha only package for those that just want the alphas!

    I will create some new brushes soon!

    As always, Enjoy!

    Michael
  • timspanjer
    Thanks Mike! Looking forward to the new brushes.
  • z0ltan
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    z0ltan polycounter lvl 14
    dayum! Thank you for sharing!
  • cptSwing
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    cptSwing polycounter lvl 11
    Y U NO USE MUDBOX?


    (sorry ;) )
  • MikeDunnam
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    MikeDunnam polycounter lvl 12
    cptSwing wrote: »
    Y U NO USE MUDBOX?


    (sorry ;) )

    Why play in the dirt? J/K. I personally prefer zbrush. But you can grab the alpha packs and try them out in MB :)
  • BlvdNights
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    BlvdNights polycounter lvl 8
    Oooo very nice :D
  • Andrew Mackie
    It's safe to say that I love you for sharing these :D Thanks a bunch!
  • MikeDunnam
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    MikeDunnam polycounter lvl 12
    XRevan23 wrote: »
    Wow thanks
    - You are quite welcome!
    This is fantastic, gonna try em out

    Thanks!
    - How did they end up working for you?
    DuPz0r wrote: »
    Thanks Mike, very nice of you to share these. :)
    - Anytime!
    zicoV wrote: »
    Thanks for sharing man :) Gonna go try these out right now :D
    - Get any good results?
    MikeDunnam, thanks for the Nature brushes! It all helps. If you plan on expanding this set, more Plant detail brushes would come in handy. Tropical, Tree Leafs, etc.

    Thanks!
    - There are more of these to come soon!
    Cool, I'll trying uninstalling and re-installing then. I can't quite update since I'm in the middle of a project, but If re-installing doesn't work, I'll try updating later on. thanks again though!
    - Did you ever get them working? If not have you grabbed the alphas at least?

    Cool! I came here to see what the deal was. I was having issues with them as well... Might just have to upgrade to R3. Been lazy. I was only able to get the Stroke 1 set and the drag brushes working.

    I will upgrade and let you know. ;)
    - Ever get them working?
    Excellent share.
    - Thanks!
    timspanjer wrote: »
    Thanks Mike! Looking forward to the new brushes.
    - More coming soon!
    z0ltan wrote: »
    dayum! Thank you for sharing!
    - You're welcome!
    BlvdNights wrote: »
    Oooo very nice :D
    - Thanks!
    It's safe to say that I love you for sharing these :D Thanks a bunch!
    - ha! Anytime

    There are many more brushes to come soon! Just working them into my schedule as I can :)

    So look forward to a few surprises as well.

    I am also working on some matcaps for a scene I am working on. These will most likely get released as well. So until then!

    Later on!
    -Michael
  • MikeDunnam
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    MikeDunnam polycounter lvl 12
    I created a small set just for fun.

    zbrushbrushes_clothset1.jpg


    Let me know what you think. Some of the settings for the fabric might need to be played with a little to get the desired results. They work fairly well with a wacom. I used a few pen pressure settings. Adjust what ya need :)

    As always!
    Enjoy!

    -Michael
  • Andreas
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    Andreas polycounter lvl 11
    That zipper will be real handy, as will the wrinkle brushes. Nice one.
  • MikeDunnam
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    MikeDunnam polycounter lvl 12
    I am in the process of making more clothing brushes. I will be making several new stitch brushes upon request :) If anyone needs anything clothing wise, such as a specific stitch (each stitch will be originally vector to get very high resolution images), type of fabric, or anything, let me know. This set might take quite a while to make. So keep an eye out!

    And thank you very much everyone for your continuing support.

    Also I will be starting my blog soon. You might have noticed I added a blog and tutorials section to my site. So those will be up soon.

    And lastly; I would like to thank Phil Nolan - Modeler / Animator
    www.philnolan3d.com. He has generously taken the liberty of converting them to 9 .PenPack files for use in 3D-Coat. So he sent them to me. Run over to the site and grab them if you would like. There is also a thread to follow on there as well.

    Thanks again Phil!

    And everyone else, keep an eye out for updates asap!

    -Michael
  • ErichWK
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    ErichWK polycounter lvl 12
    You know.. what would be a super sweet brush.. Burnt Wood. ^__^ Otherwise, I've been loving these brushes. I use them all the time
  • MikeDunnam
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    MikeDunnam polycounter lvl 12
    Burnt wood has been added to the list :) I am actually going to do a small package of wood brushes soon. Right now I have run into a snag with the stitch brushes. So currently I am finishing up a set of mech insert brushes. I think they will be a hit. Then I am going to make som mech panels. Thanks for the comp. I am happy you are enjoying the brushes. Many more soon to come. I am also going to reorganize the free stuff page to be easier to browse. Until then!

    Enjoy!


    Michael
  • MikeDunnam
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    MikeDunnam polycounter lvl 12
    New Set of Brushes are now available! I have created some long awaited Mech Insert Brushes! Sorry these took quite a while to create. I am still in the process of making the stitch brushes. I just ran into a snag along the way. Stop on by and grab these new brushes. They work fantastic as additive or subtractive brushes. I hope everyone enjoys these new brushes. Leave some feedback on my blog or one of the forums posted! :) And please follow me on twitter or my blog so you know when I post new brushes.
    zbrushbrushes_mechinsertset1.jpg


    Enjoy!
    -Michael
  • nyx702
    Very cool! I am excited to try these out. I am sure we will see alot of Mech stuff popping up on WAYWO very soon.
  • MikeDunnam
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    MikeDunnam polycounter lvl 12
    Next week I will have a small set ready. It will compliment these Mech brushes very well.
  • timspanjer
  • SniperStealth
    Thanks for these, they will prove useful!
  • MikeDunnam
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    MikeDunnam polycounter lvl 12
    Sorry for the delay. I am still working on a small set to compliment the Mech Brushes.
  • MikeDunnam
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    MikeDunnam polycounter lvl 12
    Here is my new set. Sorry alphas only this time. I had problems getting the stitches to work like the zipper brushes. If anyone would like to give it a try and send them back if you get them working correctly, that would be awesome. I would give full credit of course!

    zbrushbrushes_stitchalphas.jpg


    Hope everyone enjoys!

    -Michael
  • Moosey_G
    Ah, thank you bunches for bumping this topic! My jaw dropped when I saw what was being offered, free of charge of all things! This could really take my pieces up to the next level. Great work Michael, this work is much appreciated!
  • Donavonyoung
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    Donavonyoung polycounter lvl 6
    Thank you good sir!!
  • nyx702
    Ah great! You can never have enough stitches. I was really getting tired of the same ol' ones I was using.
  • Kot_Leopold
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    Kot_Leopold polycounter lvl 13
    Those stitch alphas are going to come in handy. Thank you!
  • MikeDunnam
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    MikeDunnam polycounter lvl 12
    Now available! My first set of Premium brushes. Do not fear though, not all brushes are going to cost you from now on. These brushes took a long time to make and are well worth the $2.00. More free brushes coming soon! I am now working on another set to follow these that will be free! Enjoy!

    zbrushbrushes_mechinsertset2_premium.jpg


    Enjoy!

    -Michael
  • Moosey_G
    MikeDunnam wrote: »
    Now available! My first set of Premium brushes. Do not fear though, not all brushes are going to cost you from now on. These brushes took a long time to make and are well worth the $2.00. More free brushes coming soon! I am now working on another set to follow these that will be free! Enjoy!

    Enjoy!

    -Michael

    I enjoyed all of your other sets a lot, two bucks is a steal! :thumbup:

    Unfortunately, Zbrush does not like to load the brushes for me, but the alpha's are ace.

    If you end up making bullet hole alphas/brushes in the future, I don't think I'll be able to resist those either. :)
  • Bubba91873
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    Bubba91873 polygon
    I voted for bullet holes.

    Personally I'd like to see some vehicle damage and weathering stamps the latter being used with the noise brush and spray stroke for myself. Dents dings deep gouges etc..
    Maybe even a tank shell hole....

    Another idea would be some nice panel lines that can be quickly stamped into hp geometry with "recessed" lines and nice rounded corners. For military vehicles of course.

    I'd buy them as they would be highly useful to me.
  • Bubba91873
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    Bubba91873 polygon
    Also a zimmerit coating patterns would be great too. Even the waffle pattern.
  • MikeDunnam
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    MikeDunnam polycounter lvl 12
    Update! I have had a TON of requests for this. I have created a bundle of all of my brushes in one set! I have them hosted on a new website www.vfxmill.net for bandwidth reasons. I will be posting a new set in the next few days! Please stay tuned and check out the new site in the meantime :)

    As always I will post updates and new brushes on my portfolio site. www.michaeldunnam.com. Once you click on the new brushes you will be redirected to vfxmill. Enjoy!

    go to vfxmill

    go to my portfolio site

    As always!
    Enjoy!

    -Michael
  • MikeDunnam
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    MikeDunnam polycounter lvl 12
    Here is a small set of screwheads I was just playing around with. They are hosted at www.VFXMill.net. And will be from now on. Take a look! I hope you enjoy.

    -Michael
  • Macrow
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    Macrow polycounter lvl 8
    Thank you kindly, Michael.
  • Andrew Mackie
    Thanks for all the hard work :]
  • Karmageddon
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    Karmageddon polycounter lvl 7
    Thank you for the brushes, I've had a lot of fun with them! :)
  • beaver_knight
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    beaver_knight polycounter lvl 9
    Thank you for sharing, nice work! I wold like to see more clothing\stitching brushes! :)
  • bobmartien
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    bobmartien polycounter lvl 11
    Thanks dude.
    Very usefull
  • GhostDetector
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    GhostDetector polycounter lvl 10
    Is the site down?
    I'm getting a 404 error.
  • solarSailor
    why do I have to find the alpha after I select the brush? why cant I just selct the brush I want and the proper alpha is automatically selected, these brushes are a pain in the ass.
  • MikeDunnam
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    MikeDunnam polycounter lvl 12
    I have a huge announcement! All premium brushes have now gone to absolutely free! Grab the Premium sets now! I would also like to add that the Screwhead Brushes are now available once again. All current and new brushes will be hosted at VFXMill.com once again. They now have a permanent home there. You can also check out the HDRI which are also absolutely free!

    www.vfxmill.com

    Enjoy!
    -Michael
    new_banner.png
  • mats effect
    Spotted some very useful ones for my current project. Thanks very much!
  • Dilkesy
    very useful thankyou
  • NyneDown
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    NyneDown polycounter lvl 11
    So glad you created these and shared with everyone...I've been looking for some good mech and skin brushes/alphas, these are awesome man..thanks!
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