ZBrush 3 Beta Images/Mark Burgess - subtool experiments

[marcus_civis]

My name is Mark Burgess and I work as a freelance illustrator - as well as a few other things ;). I have really enjoyed testing out the ZBrush 3 beta. I find the new subtools feature particularly useful. For example, it is great for adding clothes to a model. I really like the flexibility of working that this feature brings.

The new materials and MatCap tool are also great for illustration work. The quality of real-time [Preview] renders in ZBrush3 is simply amazing.

Eleanora01.jpg
Eleanora02.jpg
Pulcinella01.jpg
Pulcinella02.jpg

[Marsyas]

Great clothing!

[AgentSmith]

The absolute miniscule detail must have drove you to insanity....and then back again.

The layers of clothing and adornment, just blows me away. Thanks for sharing your work!

[Dalton_Muniz]

Marvelous work Mark! Thanks for the tips about the use of zbrush 3 in ilustration ways! I´am a ilustrator too, and a few other things..;), and is good to hear your testimony about the new amazing stuffs that is coming around! Congratulations! Best regards! Dalton

[feureau]

They're so beautiful. Look like figurines. Well crafted ones. Amazing. :tu::tu:

[Plakkie]

Oof!! It's so much to take in... awesome detail.

[Antropus]

You're a rare combination my friend. A great artist with great eye but also a VERY helpful and talented script/plugin writer that surely helped a lot of people in this community already. You rock!

-Kris

[gpepper]

The princess is amazing ! Thanks for this and your cool scripts !

[Digits]

Wow Marcus, I didn't know you were so accomplished creating as well as writing scripts, well done.


Don't know what you are allowed to talk about but since you guys are mentioning other aspects of the new version, such as subtools etc.. any new revalations, advances, neato new abilities in the zscript side of things? Do things seem to be backward compatible?

[SolidSnakexxx]

both models are exceptionally well done...The subtool feature sure is the greatest savior for us all !

[Pigumon]

Wow, i'm getting more and more excited about the new zbrush!
It seems the few shortcomings it had are gone with version 3!

To see all these great clothes that you made... I can't wait!

I also like the render you did... it almost looks like they are made out of Sculpey!

:tu: :D :tu: :D :tu: :tu:

[marcus_civis]

SolidSnakexxx, gpepper, Plakkie, feureau, Dalton_Muniz, AgentSmith, Marsyas,
Many thanks for the comments guys, much appreciated. You're all gonna love ZB3.

Kris,
You are too kind. Your work is an inspiration for me and everyone else on this great forum.

Digits,
Thanks, pal. On the zscripting side of ZB3, I'm afraid I can't say anything much just yet but from the little I have played there are exciting zscripting possibilities.

Pigumon,
Thanks, I'm glad you like the clothes and the render. All the pictures are Preview renders and the material is one of the new ones especially created by Ralf Stumpf to imitate sculpey. The new materials are brilliant.

[Yari Jindou]

o.o breathtaking! i cant wait for the next masterpeice!

[boozy floozie]

Fascinating and captivating demonstrations of great charm and warmth.:tu: :tu:


What pray tell are subtools?

[yfchild]

Always time, i thought you´re ONLY a very cool/big/chulo/super/ zbrush coder and i see you re a great artist;)

I love the dress and clothes.

In spanish we said "enhora buena"
In french we said " Bravo, chapeau, "

i hope read your new posts, see your new images, try your scripts for a very long time.

Best regards,

[TVeyes]

I love them both Marcus. The dame for her details, beauty and demure. The dude for the smile he brings to my face. In fact it is just like friday night down the pub :)

[vedanta]

You bring the Renaissance characters to life...What is the poly count of the female figure,, if you don't mind me asking?

[marcus_civis]

Yari Jindou, yfchild: thank you for your kind words. :)

Boozy: many thanks. :) Subtools are a way to add separate meshes together, rather in the same way as the old multimarkers but with much more flexibility. One of the big advantages is that you can create a new subtool from an existing mesh, making clothes creation easy.

TVeyes: curiously, the inspiration for the princess was our local landlady. :lol:

vedanta: thank you, I'm glad you like them. I get a lot of inspiration from looking at rennaissance pictures and sculpture. (The lady is based on a painting of Eleanora of Toledo by Bronzino.) The full meshes (comprising 12 - 18 subtools each) are about 7.5 million polys for Eleanora, about 8 million for Pulcinella. Here are the full meshes:
Eleanora-full.jpg
Pulcinella-full.jpg

[boozy floozie]

Marcus -fantastic updates and thanks for that explanation.:tu:
When you export these meshes I'm presuming they maintain mesh groups for the subtool components?

[vedanta]

Would there be a cloth tutorial in the makings?

[mrjAnim]

Detail. . .detail. . . detail. . . all I see is countless hours of intricate detail.
Amazing stuff you must be so proud to be an inspiration to others to put more time into detailing.

Congrats :tu:

[marcus_civis]

Boozy,
I'm glad you like them. Yes, subtool groups are retained on export.

vedanta,
Perhaps I'll do a clothing tutorial after the release of ZB3...

mrjAnim,
Thanks for your comments, I'm glad you like the work.

This is an attempt to get a clay/terracotta sculpture feel, partly inspired by the work of Houdon. It's modeled using a sphere (based on a subdivided cube) and I've experimented with various of ZB's new brushes. Things start to get a bit iffy behind the ears and the shirt line but all in all the mesh held up well, I think. About 1.8 million polys.

boy.jpg

[vedanta]

Can you give us some kind of indication of the modeling time it is taking for each of your models...has ZB3 increased your modeling speed significantly? Thanks for your latest post of the child,, very inspiring.

[marcus_civis]

vedanta,
It's difficult to be precise over modeling time because I've worked on these at odd moments when I was free from other commitments. Eleanora probably took the longest, perhaps twenty hours, but some of that time was experimenting for the best working method and also drawing a stencil of the dress pattern in Photoshop (which took ages). The boy took the least time, perhaps 2-3 hours.

ZB3 has certainly increased my modeling speed and, perhaps more importantly, freed up my artistic expression. The different approaches and working methods possible with the update are amazing. For example, the ability to sculpt directly using alphas is a tremendous time saver but also makes modeling in ZB a very natural and intuitive experience. The real-time materials greatly add to this feeling: the pictures here are all exactly what I see while working.

[vedanta]

Thanks for giving us a look into the magic of ZB3 and it is very heart-warming to see by your work that it doesn't take weeks and weeks of painful modeling time to come up with great work. By all descriptions ZB3 is the closest thing to THE natural artistic experience.....can't wait to try ZB3
Thanks again for displaying your work.

[Frenchy Pilou]

...classical modeling! :tu:

[marcus_civis]

Hello Pilou, and thank you!

[Buckie]

Great work Marcus its refreshing not to see a monster or something...

[marcus_civis]

Hello Buckie,
Thanks. Yeah, the monsters are all stuck in the cupboard. I keep the door firmly closed...

[billrobertson42]

The different approaches and working methods possible with the update are amazing.

Once you are able to talk freely about the differences, I would really like to hear more detail if you have the time to do so.

Thanks.

[marcus_civis]

Once you are able to talk freely about the differences, I would really like to hear more detail if you have the time to do so.


I will do.

[billrobertson42]

Fantastic! Thank you very much.

[Atwooki]

Hey there, Marcus - Great cloth work!
What a combination, (as pointed out before) - highly accomplished script/plugin writer, AND skilled modeller/illustrator - the world is your oyster ;)

I guess with the advent of subtools, there will be a huge rash of clothed, accessorised and decorated characters posted here :) Can't wait!

cheers

Chris

[marcus_civis]

EleanorB&W.jpg

Thanks for the comments. :)

Rather later than I intended, a bit more about the flexibility of ZBrush3. I guess many people will have realised some of what's possible having played with the update but I thought I'd add a bit.

The image shows just one way that MatCap materials can add a tremendous amount of flexibility to image making. I'm still experimenting but I think quite a variety of 'natural media' effects are possible too. For Toon materials, there is a nice example in this thread (http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=47524).

From a point of view of modeling, what's great is that you don't have to worry too much how you start, you can get the result you're after in a variety of ways. As demonstrated in this thread, I am a fan of subtools, mostly because I can quickly add elements despite a pretty low-end machine. Some extra functionality is needed, particularly when posing, but mostly this can be achieved with zscripting if it's not added in by Pixologic.

Ultimately I'm keen to test ZBrush's animation capabilities. This may seem silly, given the wide variety of animation software out there but Zbrush's big advantage is its render speed. Certainly features like soft body dynamics would be near to impossible but for certain types of animation (think hybrid 2D/3D cell animation) I believ there is great potential. I hope to post something at ZBC at some stage in the future.

Cheers,

[feureau]

Totally awesome coolness much! :tu: :tu:

I thought you were working for pixo with all those plugins and stuff. :lol:

Love it!!! :tu: :tu:

[piz]

Marcus_Civis...

Awsome work... ! I like very much the Princess...

Congrats :)

[marcus_civis]

Thanks for the comments guys!

[dionisis21]

Amazing clothing details, how many subtools did you use to create this?

[shambaking]

Wow. Thanks for sharing. You've painted a pretty awesome picture of what matcap can do.

:D :D

[henrysouth]

fantastic. cant wait for the ruff to come back into style. i can get my neon one out of the dresser. great cloth. i wet myself with the new subtools. great stuff. Z3. not wetting myself.

[claudiogen]

sumptuous models, like the new subtools as well.

[spaceboy412]

i try to avoid this thread cause the work is so good it makes me want to crawl into a corner.
a subtool experiment that gives me strange results is this:
make a cube
make a sphere and put it inside the cube
hit the subtool projection button.
sphere does not become a cube. weird.
i love zbrush and all its weirdness, always surprising me!

[marcus_civis]

Thanks for the comments guys, much appreciated. :)

spaceboy,

The subtool project all button will only work when the meshes are quite close in shape - you are pushing it beyond its limits with your test.

Cheers,