Is there an equivalent to the Eat 3D old pillar Mudbox tutorial for ZBrush?
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Hey, we are trying to decide whether to use ZBrush or Mudbox for our next project. With the exception of one person on the team, nobody has any production experience authoring high to low bakes, or even normal maps for that matter.
Mudbox seems a lot easier to use, but I've found it has performance issues. Is there a ZBrush tutorial that goes through brushing an object similar to the Eat 3D old pillar tutorial. I need a 1-3 day lessen to get the team up to speed, if it's longer than that we might have to use Mudbox purely based on the fact you can learn it in one day.
Mudbox seems a lot easier to use, but I've found it has performance issues. Is there a ZBrush tutorial that goes through brushing an object similar to the Eat 3D old pillar tutorial. I need a 1-3 day lessen to get the team up to speed, if it's longer than that we might have to use Mudbox purely based on the fact you can learn it in one day.
Replies
This is a promo for a Gnomon Master Class that happened at the end of last year, looks like what you are looking for, but I don't know if they have a DVD of it online video of this out yet though.
Mudbox is great in that you can open it up for the first time and be sculpting in 30 seconds without someone telling you how to navigate the ui. That being said, once I learned the basics of Zbrush (through the 3.5/4 eat3d dvds), I found my self using that more often than not.
We do have one artist here that is proficient in ZBrush 4.0, so perhaps he could fill in the gaps where the tutorials are out of date.
I mean why would they not sell these after the fact for a premium?
I imagine they would sell VERY well.
I Use zBrush, but with mudbox you can move between the Autodesk apps, just as easy if not easier than goZ.
I don't mind using more than one tutorial if that works best.
The biggest differences from the 3.5 dvd to 4 is going over things like shadowbox, the interface is largely the same aside from masking selections. Still, I recommend getting both.
The Fountain would work to a certain extent in that you can see what Riki's doing and he gives some tips and insight into techniques, but it's goal isn't to teach zbrush, so I think someone new to the program would still be rather lost in getting comfortable with the software with minimal frustration.
If your artists need to learn the basics of ZBrush then I would recommend going with the ZBrush 3.5 Intro DVD as it covers all the basics related to starting to sculpt and learning the ins and outs of navigation etc. It covers things like the brushes, documents, the canvas, masking, working with symmetry, projection master, polypainting, ZSpheres and Morph targets.
The ZBrush 3.5 Character DVD is slightly more advanced and covers the whole process of sculpting a character from a base mesh all the way to a detailing and doing a final polypaint. There is content that is still relevant to both disciplines, and sculpting in general (decimation, more detailed polypainting tutorials, plugins etc.) but it's definitely geared more toward character artists, rather than environment guys, so you are probably better looking towards one of the other DVDs if you want information that is more specific.
The Fountain High Res DVD goes over a ton of really useful sculpting techniques in both Mudbox and ZBrush (Damage to stone, sculpting detailed relief etc.) so I would definitely recommend that you pick it up, though the Mudbox Intro is up to date in regards to the Mudbox side of things as it uses the latest release.
The ZBrush 4 Intro DVD goes over all the new features were in the v4 release and covers things like the new brushes, zprojects, modifiers, subtool updates, shadowbox, layer updates, spotlight, newer plugins like UV Master and BPR. It assumes that the user is at least reasonably familiar with ZBrush and though some basic stuff is covered, it doesn't go over the more basic aspects of ZBrush in great detail, as all that was already covered in the ZBrush 3.5 Intro DVD and nothing really changed to a great extent in that regard.
The training found within the ZBrush Hardsurface DVDs also assumes a reasonable competence with ZBrush and as such, it doesn't go over the more basic stuff like navigation etc. I wouldn't say that either of them are 100% tailored towards character or environmental artists per se, and though the mech in the first DVD and the armored female in the second are human/humanoid, they were used because they provide a visually pleasing and dynamic subject matter, that lends itself easily to hardsurface creation.
Both DVDs focus on the techniques used for sculpting hardsurface objects in ZB, rather than things like anatomy, human form and more character focus tuition. They both could have been vehicles to the same effect and it was purely an artistic decision to go in that direction.
The first DVD covers concepting the character, customising the UI, mesh creation, the new hardsurface brushes and using and creating aplhas. The second goes over custom brush creation, Dynamesh (which is used extensively), complex hardsurface mesh creation and detailing the surfaces. The DVDs both show a different way to create hardsurface assets within ZBrush, which is great if an artist doesn't feel 100% happy with one technique or something
So to summarise, I would probably recommend the 3.5 intro and 4 intro DVDs along with The Fountain High Res DVD, as they would give the artists a solid understanding of the basics of using ZBrush right through to detailed env. asset sculpting.
The 3.5 intro DVD is still a great way to learn the interface and general usage of ZBrush as the navigation and general application usage has remained pretty much the same between 3.5 to present day ZB4 r2b, with only relatively minor changes/updates to the more basic functions being added with each release.
Yes, the new features do add an extra layer of complexity to specific tools and advanced features, but the brushes still work in the same way and the techniques shown in the fountain are as still as useable as they were when the DVD was first released, so artists would be able to pick up the fountain DVD and start sculpting with the same techniques Riki used for the floral relief and get the same results. (though there are a ton more brushes now than back in 3.1
Once they have the basics down, then they shouldn't have a problem working on the hardsurface DVDs and learning all the new stuff like Dynamesh etc.)
All that being said, the techniques found in the Pillar DVD really wouldn't be very hard to transfer across to ZB (or any other sculpting app) once the artists have a grip on their application of choice. Sculpting is sculpting is sculpting really...It's the same with modelling in Max vs Maya. Once artists are happy with the theory, then it's all transferable to other applications with only slight modifications to workflow and compensating for differences in tool names etc.
Mudbox seems to have a faster learning curve than ZB and you can get some amazing results with it, but IMHO, ZBrush is a much more powerful and versatile application that can do things that Mudbox just cant. Plus the fact that I don't think Pixologic have charged anyone for an update for the past 8 or 9 releases, even though its cheaper than MB.
Hopefully that will answer some of your questions
Sorry for the wordy post!
3.5 intro
4.0 new features
fountain part 1 and 2
old pillar
No problem
That video changed my life.
same that completely changed the way i work in zbrush,
same that completely changed my life,
it's a little confusing, but if you want to sign up your studio you can contact them toward the bottom for a discount.
Argghh . Why is it so hard to give Gnomon my money?