Is there any point in learning Zmodeler if I know Maya?
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Hello, I'm a beginner 3D artist and I know a bit about Zbrush and Maya. I enjoy using both and I'm trying to find my own pipeline to use them both to their full potential. After practicing box modeling for a couple of weeks I decided to pick up Zmodeler and so far I find it nightmarish. I can't get anything to behave exactly like I want it and something as simple as aligning vertices together becomes extremely hard or impossible.
So my question is, if I know box modeling in Maya do I need Zmodeler? are there things Zmodeler can do that Maya can't? Or should I focus on box modeling in Maya and then import to Zbrush?
To make matters worse, the GoZ doesn't work now in Maya 2017 because it requires Mental Ray for some reason...
Thanks for the help
So my question is, if I know box modeling in Maya do I need Zmodeler? are there things Zmodeler can do that Maya can't? Or should I focus on box modeling in Maya and then import to Zbrush?
To make matters worse, the GoZ doesn't work now in Maya 2017 because it requires Mental Ray for some reason...
Thanks for the help
Replies
You can use it in conjunction with zspheres or zremesher to build fast basemeshes. For anything complicated I would use something other than ZBrush.
Largely though, I think ZModeler was made for people who use ZBrush exclusively, like concept artists or hobbyists.
I've seen some amazing things made with ZModeler, but any time I've tried to watch a video of someone actually using it, it takes them an obscene amount of time to make anything.
That was the experience I had with it as well; extremely slow and lacking accuracy.
Of course it's not meant as a direct competitor to Max/Maya/Modo modeling. I often get the usual 'oh, but I can do that faster in - insert trad modeling package - and it gets tiresome. This was never the intention. This might sound like a prick thing to say but ZB is almost a 'mindset'. And once you get into it by experiencing how all the tools work together in conjunction, and non-destructively, you really see the power and cleverness behind it.
To use ZModeler Brush, one needs to master at least the transpose tool and the Clip Curve to really get the best out of it. And one also should forget some of the usual low poly modeling ways of doing things. During m first days jungling with the ZModeler UI I was trying to optimize the mesh as I was doing it, and was frustrated by the lack of edge extrusion, for example, but it was a mistake.
ZBrush explodes barriers and give new ways to think 3D and comparing it with other softwares is a mistake. ZModeler should be thought as a first high, very high poly step :
1/ ZModel / Sculpt using the heavy topology that ZBRush manages perfectly.
2/ Then create a clean topology using ZBRush Retopology Brush or ZSphere, and/or other better softwares for that in my opinion like 3D-Coat.
Zmodeler in 4R7 was already amazing. With 4R8 Live Boolean, ZBRush becomes (kind of already was) undoubtedly the most powerful and FAST way to model hard surface or organic meshes.