How much of ZBrush do you guys actually use?

Noth · Apr 24 2026

Really curious if how much of ZBrush people actually use. There's a lot in it.

I'd say I get a way with a core subset of brushes. DamStandard, Clay, Standard, Inflate, Pinch, Move, TrimDynamics, MoveTopological. Maybe something else I missed, not much though.

Subtools, Subdivisions, Decimation, and sometimes DynaMesh if I haven't brought something decent into ZBrush already (which I usually try to do)

Curious what else you guys use. I know ZModeller is big with some people but I didn't get into it myself.

iam717 · Apr 28 2026

My view of things: (i could be wrong..)

Suppose things like extra detailing can still be done, if people like to keep those anatomy muscle memories thriving due to repeated "recreation & brush-up", then it can still be useful.

Not a big "make-art-button", guy as others of late have been by promoting it, so i would still use it (zbrush), its decent for quick stuff like conceptualizing an idea, comes to mind, i used the cloth sim once for a wrap to a shield & i thought it was pretty quick.

As for zmodeller, its been hit or miss, haven't tried the "updated stuff", stopped updating after about 2021/22.

I subd model & you could probably get away with some, "shader stuff", i saw a wrinkle shader the other day & was like that kind of works.

Think some back rooms game used the very same shader to fake the big yellow suit wrinkles for realism, super lazy but it kind of worked.

When i get back to sculpting things i use the same things you mentioned, i try to find uses for the other brushes & any "new/old" ones i can find, someone posts or come across.

Would like to think zbrush is still really useful for (Écorché) base mesh creations, eventually also adding in the skin, now that i think of it, if a shader like the wrinkle shader could be used to "generate" a skin "wrap" to the muscle anatomy models, might make for a good skin base over top of them. Hhmm, can't fiddle with that one atm maybe someone looking for something to do could do that one for the rest of us, show us eventually if you do, ha the cloth sim can probably do the same thing (skin tight bodysuit).

Just wanted to give your thread some traction, sry been busy fiddling with learning shader stuff. Another tool on the belt as it where.

gnoop · Apr 29 2026

I use mostly variations of seam brush with custom ribbon like alphas , trim smooth border and a few other custom trim brushes beyond usual clay brush + lots of custom multimesh insert and Tripart curve brushes. Fibermesh and polygroups. That's all.

Noth · Apr 29 2026

@iam717 cheers! Nice, so you're old school ZBrush like me when you're in it.

@gnoop cool, you mentioned some things I missed and would definitely include. Polygroups are pretty useful. You mention a lot of tools I consider coming later in the process, ribbons, trims, etc. Are you bringing in characters to "finish" or detail up only with ZBrush are you doing the entire pipeline for asset/character creation in it? Fibermesh eh! Where have you found that useful? I haven't tried it much, it felt kinda hard to control when I tried in the past.

gnoop · May 1 2026

Noth

I don't do much of a character modelling lately , more of environment stuff: walls , rocks , tiling surfaces , etc and use Zbrush more like a manual touch to SDesigner. To fix taste related things. To weed out some obviously procedural looking things like slope blur produced erosion or curvature edge masks. Once abandoned Zbrush entirely for years and lately found some of my old Zbrush stuff looked better actually including edge masks and color textures vs what SPainter makes . Something where hand intuition and pen pressure works quick and reliable vs hours of non stop sliders tweaking.

SPainter added ribbons recently too , a great addition btw, yet they still look mechanical there , lacking pressure variations and subtlety or Zbrush touch imo, even having vector spline nature . Fibermesh is cool for a moss on rocks IMO but makes too much troubles for transfer and render properly so yeah maybe not so good.

Noth · May 5 2026

@gnoop for sure! I've found the same, leverage procedural stuff for quick results but polish there is brutal, it's just so much easier to finalize in ZBrush. I'm usually sending things back and forth. I really enjoy starting tileables with sculpted heighmask chunks from zbrush. Then I'll usually have to paint stuff out. Wish it was easier to bring a tileable heighmap into zbrush edit it and export it again without breaking the tileable.

How much of ZBrush do you guys actually use?

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