Lessons In Zbrush 3 (videos)

[cannedmushrooms]

Ok so I really try to stay away from making a new thread and usually just stick my videos in the new features Thread.
However I wanted to keep these new lessons a little more organized.

So ya these will start a 16 lesson set (based on 16 weeks of class)
Your like wow thats a small task! Trust me these workshop videos saves me thousands of hours inside a classroom so for me doing them really does pay off throughout the school year. Especially since the Class is broken into
3D Modeling/ Film / Traditional Artwork. I'm Running around Alot ;)
So hope you enjoy the series. I use Maya alot in later lessons, But these first Videos will probally be good if you are just cracking open Z3.

If you like the series I have already finished my Maya section of the 16 weeks. Its located Here (http://www.houseoftutorials.net/page3.html)

The server has been a little busy lately so if you want to check out the videos they are also located here
http://www.veoh.com/channels/houseoftutorials

ANOUNCEMENT ANOUNCEMENT
Friends Romans Countrymen Lend me your ears.
Ok put them back thats gross!!!

Well after fighting the crime for a good day. And I'll admit it was sorta fun watching all those forums freak out over my links being no good. (thanks to google translator;)

I hearby Declare A new day.
For the three years I have been doing this I have been pushed out in the cold with my videos so many times I cant count. I've used resources online that suck to manage. Half a dozen hot fixes that would make any nerd shune.

So the day of enlistment is almost here!!!

I have hired a hitman called CCbill to take care of my business. So now I can sit back teach and they do all the dirty work.

To access all the videos for 1 month Free heres your username and password for this forum!!!!

username: pixologic
password: members



Not to worry for the price of a cup of coffee after that you too can learn stuff.
details on the lead page of
www.houseoftutorials.net (http://www.houseoftutorials.net/)

More information to come but use the one month free access until ccbill sets me up.


Right click save target as on the videos or you will have to use the password again. (this will fight streaming)

Lesson 1 (http://www.houseoftutorials.net/page2.html)
leeson1_ZbrushC.jpg (http://javascript%3cb%3e%3c/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%2764622%27,%27leeson1_ZbrushC.jp g%27,1,0%29)


Lesson1 Recap for the 3.1 upgrade (http://www.houseoftutorials.net/page2.html)
Basically like lesson 1 but a little more in depth. And using 3.1
lesson1_ZbrushC_recap.jpg


Lesson 2 (http://www.houseoftutorials.net/page2.html)
lesson2_ZbrushC.jpg


Lesson 3 (http://www.houseoftutorials.net/page2.html)
lesson3_ZbrushC.jpg


Lesson 4 (http://www.houseoftutorials.net/page2.html)
lesson4_ZbrushC.jpg (http://javascript%3cb%3e%3c/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%2764767%27,%27lesson4_ZbrushC.jp g%27,1,0%29)




Lesson 5 (http://www.houseoftutorials.net/page2.html)
lesson5_ZbrushC.jpg


Lesson 6 (http://www.houseoftutorials.net/page2.html)
lesson6_ZbrushC.jpg (http://javascript%3cb%3e%3c/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%2764932%27,%27lesson6_ZbrushC.jp g%27,1,0%29)


Lesson 7 (http://www.houseoftutorials.net/page2.html)
lesson7_ZbrushC.jpg (http://javascript%3cb%3e%3c/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%2764933%27,%27lesson7_ZbrushC.jp g%27,1,0%29)


Lesson 8 (http://www.houseoftutorials.net/page2.html)
lesson8_ZbrushC.jpg


Lesson 9 (http://www.houseoftutorials.net/page2.html)
lesson9_ZbrushC.jpg


Lesson 10 (http://www.houseoftutorials.net/page2.html)
lesson10_ZbrushC.jpg

Lesson 11 (http://www.houseoftutorials.net/page2.html)
lesson11_ZbrushC.jpg

[mphilip]

cool, first link seems to be broken though :tu:

[Plakkie]

Awesome!! So generous. Looking forward to the other lessons. ZCentral truly is a classroom. :tu: :tu:

[Sebcesoir]

Cool to share dude:cool:

[cannedmushrooms]

links repaired was trying to get fancy with the html ;)

[Avan-AMS]

:p thank you

[dougt]

Jason, Wow! Thanks!! These are great!!! :)

[cannedmushrooms]

So ya ever want to get that comic character look?
Next video Is making a low poly hero;) (From Zspheres)
I practiced this like 3 times to make sure I got the flow right.
Heres a sneak peak at
Lesson 4

preview.jpg (javascript:zb_insimg('64752','preview.jpg',1,0))

[Freewaldo]

Woohaa ! thanks for this lesson, it never passed my mind to make a lowpoly mesh from Zspheres, i should have known better.

Cheers

[artstudio3]

as my natural language is not english...i really appreciate theses videos i may play back again and again to finally understand...
thank you a lot for that...
merci beaucoup...;)

[BCEmcke]

Cool videos, just managed to watch them all. :tu:
Thanks for sharing.

P.S. Did anyone notice that Jason sounds a bit like Dane Cook? :D

[cannedmushrooms]

Lesson 4 added
Thanks for the C&C ;)
I think this movie tailors to everyone. I model a litte differnetly with the spheres so you dont have to know the adaptive skin settings or be a total geek to get it. I also cover proportions and balance of the character;)

[godlyzombie]

i'm excited to watch lesson 4, sadly there seems to be a 3 hour download time. wait! just as i said that it spead up now i'm at an hour 20. woo! thank you for your hard work Cannedmushrooms.

[daddymack]

If I ever grow up I wanna be like you Mr Mushrooms;)

Humble thanks

[dione22]

Jason, Wow! Thanks!! These are great!!!

[RaelNorth]

Great and interesting way to model with Zspheres! Can't wait to get a bit of free time to try it. Lesson 4...I missed a little bit around the six minute mark...because I was laughing too hard....no pun intended. ;)

[cannedmushrooms]

lol ya that was a really tuff part of the video. At least I know now not to do that infront of a Live audience;)

BTW ding!
Time to do those UVs?
And your asking yourself UVs? Who needs UVS! I have Poly Painting!
Poly Painting on a good set of UVs opens the door to all sorts of great tricks.
O but I guess thats lesson 6;)

[Francis Bezooyen]

Every time I click on one of those links to house of tutorials my web browser freezes up.

Check your links Cannedmushrooms.

Same thing happens if I just type in the URL.

[cannedmushrooms]

weird they work good here
they do stream so what are you playing the videos in. Media player?
I would try the Right Click/ Save Target As and save the video to your hard drive..

Is it both the video and the project file links that freeze?

[cannedmushrooms]

a hah the link is fine but the file was 1 kb short on the last project file.
since it was a zip that would corrupt it. Its only 10 megs give it a min to upload.
Is that the link thats broken for you?

I took away the link till it uploads the project file this will stop confusion.
I will put it back when done and update this post

[Francis Bezooyen]

I've only just stared downloading the videos. They seem to work fine, though they are HUGE. How long are they? 118 megs seems unusual. I'm not picking up something unwanted am I? After my experience with the other links I'm feeling a little paranoid.

The problem link are the ones in your signature. These ones:

Come Visit the
http://www.houseoftutorials.net (http://houseoftutorials.net/)
http://www.houseoftutorials.com (http://www.houseoftutorials.com/)
And
http://www.schoolof3d.com (http://www.schoolof3d.com/)

Francis

[cannedmushrooms]

I keep the videos at a high quality. So ya they might seem big sometimes.

As far as the links on the bottom in my sig you are the very first person, after a year to say they freeze up their computer up. But for good sport I did try them on the computer in the other room. Which is older than the land before time and they work good. So if the atari 2600 can open them I guess thats a good test;)

[tez]

Thanks for you time to do these, they look interesting, il check them out fully later on. :tu:

[Francis Bezooyen]

It must be a firefox thing. I just tried the links in explorer and they work fine. Very very strange.

[spaceboy412]

jason, just wanted to say thats a sweet zsphere mesh, i've made one like that before as well and now with retopology this workflow is so much nicer.
oh in your vid you say that modeling is different than maya, i believe that you can do maya-like modeling with the deformation palette/transpose and the edgelooping feature, of course not as easily.

[-CainiaC-]

I'm using the latest version of FireFox and I haven't had any problems with the links.

Thank you Jason for sharing these great tutorials. :tu:

[cannedmushrooms]

Thanks guys and gals.

Space Sorry i havent been on skype much. Been doing alot of home improvement touchups at night. Trying to get my house ready for sale.
miss our little chat room;)

[cannedmushrooms]

Sneak peak at lesson 7
This lesson will show methods in sculpting your base mesh to get complmentary curves and balance in your design. No reference was used for the character I show you basically how to curve muscles so they make sense. And then sculpt high res scales on the form;) Of course I show you how to make scales also.;)


PREVIEW7.jpg

Lesson 6 is coloring and masking techniques

Both are in the renderomatic cooking as i type;)

[Razzums]

Wow, thank you so much! I would have never learned so easy with out you. Keep it up I can't wait for the next lessons.

[Ghostly Specter]

Great job on the tutorials. Thanks for putting all the time you have been into them. :cool:
(http://houseoftutorials.net/)

[dionisis21]

Thank you for your great lessons. But the lesson 6 video is not full, it is 6 MB and 81 minutes video.

[goodrichm]

Confirmed here too, Lesson 6 only lasts about a minute. The others 1-5 & 7 play fine here.

Thank you so much Jason for sharing these awesome tuts with us! You ROCK! MG

[cannedmushrooms]

ya i'm re-uploading it now
its weird the server I use does not support resume upload
its a beast of a lesson (no pun intended) started uploading 5:32pm est

[blindmice]

Just wanted to say thank you for all these great tutorials! They are very easy to follow, and jam packed with great information and tips. I've really enjoyed watching these, and have this thread bookmarked to check for updates :D Thanks again!

(Side note: Have you thought about uploading these to www.stage6.com (http://www.stage6.com) ? It's not a huge issue, but my download normally takes 2 hours to complete most likely due to all the traffic. Stage6 would still allow users to download the videos, or allow them to stream but at a much faster rate allowing your site to not take a beating.)

[cannedmushrooms]

lesson 6 done its a big file and ya I'm going to divide it into two files.
But until I have time to do that, I will leave the link to the one big file. Confused yet?
heh

Stage 6 looks like a band site But I have a veoh site already so I think I'll go with Veoh;)

I'm uploading them now. Might be a couple days!

But honestly the server was donated to the community by a Peter Campbell which has given us a well over 2 gig pipe for bandwidth;) and over 150gigs of space. So if your out there peter, seeing this thank you again.

[ChillWill Graphix]

Killer tutes - glad I got these before you get a deal with somebody and end up selling them ;-) Thank you for sharing!!!


Later and Keep up the Great Work!


Mike

[dionisis21]

Thank you for fixing the video. :) I want to ask something. When will you have the whole collection online? because i learned a lot from the videos. :D

[cannedmushrooms]

I think I will take Pixologic's approach towards that question.
"Soon"
"Possibly"


Still many many things to cover

Posing
Subtools
Box modeling (non organic modeling)
Deformation Pallet
Layers
Projection Master
Topology
Materials
Also need to start going over to maya towards the end for displacement and normal map workflows.

Of course any update will change that list and I'm still sure I'm missing a few items between lesson 8 through 16

I will be doing this after 16 but these 16 have to have an end objective so students will actually say they have walked away with somthing.

[SNARK]

Hey, Jason,

Another great batch of tutorials. You give so much. A natural educator. Your vids have audio and are crisp to the point that the text in the ZBrush interface is always legible. So many other vids lack audio and are so fuzzy you can't 'read' what buttons are being pushed. Anyway, thanks for the effort and a big shout out to your buddy Peter Campbell for donating the download bandwidth.

All that having been said, I have a few questions:

- I notice at the very beginning of lesson 7 you call up a floating menu of icons, one of which is a ZBrush icon with a square around it. After pushing this, the computer’s desktop taskbar appears at the bottom of the screen. How do you do this? How do you keep the computer desktop taskbar always visible at the bottom of the screen? On my machine, ZBrush covers that taskbar, meaning extra keyboard taps to find and maximize other apps.

- In lessons 4 & 5, instead of waiting until after the polymesh is made (to lower the resolution) why can’t I just lower the zsphere preview resolution and make a polymesh of that?

- Do you know about Marsyas’ Smart Divide process? He uses the Cage button to maintain volume through subdivision. Svengali made a plugin of the idea that places a ‘Smart Divide’ button at the bottom of the tool palette. Here’s the hotlink to the thread ‘Proportional Subdivision’ :
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=26639 (http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=26639)

- How do you make those intersected image planes?

Thanks!

~S.~

[xgraphics]

you are the best ya man :tu:

[cannedmushrooms]

question 1
"- I notice at the very beginning of lesson 7 you call up a floating menu of icons, one of which is a ZBrush icon with a square around it. After pushing this, the computer’s desktop taskbar appears at the bottom of the screen. How do you do this? How do you keep the computer desktop taskbar always visible at the bottom of the screen? On my machine, ZBrush covers that taskbar, meaning extra keyboard taps to find and maximize other apps."

This is more of a windows trick than a Zbrush trick.
While you in Zbrush hit ALT-TAB and you can hot link over to another program
To keep the task bar up in Zbursh Right hand corner click the Restore button. you can now see your task bar. (restore sorta next to the unlock button)

question 2
"- In lessons 4 & 5, instead of waiting until after the polymesh is made (to lower the resolution) why can’t I just lower the zsphere preview resolution and make a polymesh of that?"

Just another way of doing it I guess. I guess Since the goemety pallet is closer I just use it rather than digging for the adaptive skin.
Its like changing the channel on the TV with remote even if your sitting 1 foot away;)

question 3
"- Do you know about Marsyas’ Smart Divide process? He uses the Cage button to maintain volume through subdivision. Svengali made a plugin of the idea that places a ‘Smart Divide’ button at the bottom of the tool palette. Here’s the hotlink to the thread ‘Proportional Subdivision’ :"

Played with it for a whole 2 minutes I think. I should give it another spin however. Especially since im doing alot more sculpting lately.

Glad you like the videos. Great seeing some questions for once also;)

[SNARK]

Thanks, Jason! Looking forward to the next lessons. Especially Subtools and Layers.

I gotta tell ya though, no matter how many times I press that restore button, I don't get my taskbar back.

UPDATE: Actually, if I press the Restore button and then take the extra step of moving my cursor to the bottom of the screen, I get that double-arrow cursor that means expansion is an option. Clicking here restores the taskbar.

~S.~

[dc2r]

really appreciate for your time man! Cheers!

[Seul]

Hi Jason! Thank you for the tutorials, I find it VERY useful (as a newbie).
I've got one question. In the end of the fifth lesson (about UVs) you told that you're gonna to finish the painting - maybe make a spiderman or something. Are you going to make that lesson? It would be also very useful.
Regards
Seul

[cannedmushrooms]

Thought about somthing like that I'll go back and make extra credit videos. Like Coloring the guy. And Coloring the lizard. All the color stuff is pretty easy and is more talent based than knowledge based. Sure there is techniques but but the science is easy.
Zbrush is so huge. I was worried when I did my maya modeling videos that I would run out of material (modeling topics that is). With Zbrush Its so big that time will be the only thing I'll run out of.

The new videos should pose some new questions and answers;)
hint hint

[SNARK]

Thanks, Jason. Great vids. Have you noticed whether the new 3.1 upgrade affects any of the techniques in your new lessons?

~S.~

[cannedmushrooms]

na its cool wish they droped a hint that they were going to Un-Fugly the interface. But other than that just means I have displacement and normal map vids to make now;) a Topic I have always enjoyed

[cannedmushrooms]

ouch no tweak tool
Cant say that i'll miss that one!!!!
I'll have to do a recap on the interface

2 hrs into it and wow there alot of stuff!!!

[n-drew]

its the "move" brush now.

[piz]

Cannedmushrooms, thanks a lot for your very helpful Video Tutorial about ZBrush... a great contribution for my studies.

:tu:

[Joe-B-Wan]

Well, the first four videos were fantastic, but I've not been able to dowload anything except the Lesson Four video since early this morning. After I got the video, I was unable to download anything else, including the file I had already downloaded. :( :rolleyes:

[SNARK]

Hey, Jason.

Question about lesson 9 :

At the 23:55 mark, there is a pop in the vid (where you can glimpse the Firefox page) and then suddenly you have Pants Man set up with an IK rig. The vid (as downloaded) is 29:05 where you end the lesson - but apparently the part you did in Maya is gone. The lesson pops from the finished zsphere rig to the finished IK rig. Will the Maya part be on another vid or is it on this vid, I just need to download again?

Question about lesson 10 C-2 :

At the end, when you re-import the Maya (posed) .obj, I notice the pose is actually reversed. Instead of the left foot and right hand being forward, it is the right foot and left hand that are forward. Why?

Thanks!

~S.~

[cannedmushrooms]

Im redoing lesson 9 snark I feel I did not cover the lesson very well.
That Zbrush rigging stuff IS VERY FICKLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
yes I used the word fickle!!!

Lesson ten make sure the import flip x is off under import preferences and it should not flip your pose;)
I'll recap it later but for now use that hot fix.




Read anouncement at the top of the post I am suffering from a bit of a crisis.
Lets just say my videos have managed to fall in the world wide popularity slot.
I was happy just being pixologic wide. So I am fixing a few lose ends here at house of tutorials in the next couple days.
Its a shame too I really was doing a nice zmapper full breakdown with displacement video but it will have to wait a few days until I fix this issue.

[acmepixel]

I must chime in again and thank you for the very, helpful tuts.

(btw; the link for the ztl download for lesson 10 is the same link as lesson 9).

Many hours of useful training here. Your students should be most appreciative.

(btw#2; Veoh would indeed be a good solution to your bandwidth and hotlinking problems).

[SNARK]

Hey, Jason.

No complaints. I ask questions for answers. That's it. You da' man. At your own speed and in your own time. I'm here.

~S.~

[cannedmushrooms]

lesson 9 and 10 files are the same it uses the crashtest dummy guy;)

np snark you guys are the greatest thats why I share here at pixologic;)

now off to fight crime!

[McFly_]

Hey Jason,

I haven't downloaded your videos yet but after reading the first post, I thought I could help you out with the hotlinking issues (forums pointing to your videos).
Use a .htaccess file at the root of your web site to display an image or something whenever someone tries to hotlink your videos.


Write the following in a file named .htaccess (the dot at the beginning IS important):
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(.+\.)?houseoftutorials\.net/ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(.+\.)?zbrushcentral\.com/ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteRule .*\.(wmv|zip)$ /images/nohotlink.jpg [L]


This should:


allow domains houseottutorials.net AND zbrushcentral.com to link directly to your videos and zip files
send nohotlink.jpg (or whatever you decide to display) to anyone else.
You don't need to change the folder name anymore. :D

Hope this helps!

[cannedmushrooms]

Thanks Mcfly but I went the route of hireing a hit man;)

Read the anouncement at the top of this post for details.

After a couple days the anouncement will not be there and only the username and password will.

Snark lesson 9 is fully repaired and alot better.
(i wont mention how much i love those posing spheres)


And the next lessons will be out in a couple days. It deals with a complete breakdown of zmapper and displacement exporter. And every map I could think of and how to make them;) And how to apply both 32 and 16 bit displacements in maya correctly.
Very fun stuff

I'll be out of town until later 08/10/07 but I wanted to make sure I did not leave you guys in the cold before I left;)

[ByteDreams]

I just got zbrush and this is a whole new world for me! I'm very excited, and very appreciative for the tutorials. I got through most of the first one, and looking forward to catchng up to the other ones this weekend. :tu:

[joyster]

oh please, i really want to see how you handle displacement exporter 3. I am used to MD2 and i tried to use the same quickcode in md3 that i used in md2 but it doesnt look that good. So if you have a nice quickcode i would really appreciate that.

Joyster

[SNARK]

Thanks, Jason.

The zsphere rig is much clearer and I have gotten that to work but the IK Maya rig is still unadressed. Nudge, nudge.

~S.~

[cannedmushrooms]

I would fix it snark but it seems the brain behind Pixologic has made it so it crashes now when you try this. I am still working on why.
I would love for an actual official person from pixologic to explain to me why the level of flipping stuff has to happen in the first place.
I mean come on we have to flip maps, Worry about scale, and flipped models.
What form of bizaro world do you take us users from anyway!

That Maya thing was way cool I will get it working again!!!!!

o and dont try that use the import export flip button speech
still crashes;)

[cannedmushrooms]

OMG IT WORKS!!!!

Ok if you dont want your model to flip the pose heres what was wrong.

When I made the video I had zbrush 3.0
So thinking that I exported a model from 3.1 into maya and sure enough they changed somthing that scales it in -z

Even though the same setting are on from 3.0 import export preferences!!!!!!

Whats even cooler that there is not one trace of scale difference. betwen programs now.


Ok so anyone following the video for lesson 10 now in 3.1 will be ok as long as they start from the beginning of the movie.
Because they export the model then add bones in maya then export to zbrush and it works without flipping the pose.

But if you started the video in 3.0 and finished it in 3.1 it will either crash or flip the pose.

Snark if you get bored and wanna try this I would love to see if my theory stand correct but heres my pose after redoing everything.
(note if you are maya savy just rotate your root bone in maya -180 y then rebind character)

So I dont know what to blame 3.0 or 3.1 but all I know is Y is up;)

pose.jpg

just so you dont think im playing a Criss Angel on you
pose2.jpg

[Sazdum]

Thanks!!!!!!

These are great for me because I prefer to watch and listen rather burn my eyes out reading text on a monitor for long periods of time....

[Net_Raven]

Thanks for putting them back for free ;)
Great tutorials, really appreciate time and effort you spent making them :tu:

[judee]

As a beginner, I am very grateful to have access to these tutorials. I just have one question - should I first try following the tutorials in ZB3 without updating to 3.1? Or is it fairly easy to find things even after the interface changes?.

I have 3.1 downloaded, but am in no hurry to install it if it's going to make the tutorials harder to follow. Remember, I am a very very very novice beginner! (And yes, I noticed the beginner tutorials you have on your site, and plan to download them too!)

Thanks especially for making these free to forum users for this month. Greatly appreciated!

judee

[cannedmushrooms]

All the features are the same its just the buttons are a little more flashy.
Maybe do lessons 1-3 then upgrade.
I'm going to have to recap the smooth brush because right now its a little wacked out.
So that will give me a chance to make a recap vid.

I'm going to make a small character first so I actually explain stuff from a person that actually uses the new 3.1 brushes;)

[cannedmushrooms]

Ok well I think I have made a decision about 3.1 I will not be using it anymore in the videos. Sorry but it is insanely broken. I covered Displacement and Zmapper
And as far as personal use I am trying to install but 3.0 and 3.1 on my machine by any means I see fit.
But as far as teaching 3.1 My students would never be able to sculpt with the brushes the way they are.
It took me like 4 hrs to figure out some workarounds for the way the move and smooth tool works with no solution.
Move tool will not work correctly on double sided or double walled polys at all and smooth well I wont even go into how janky that tool is;)

[judee]

Well, I guess that answers my question about updating to 3.1 better than anything. ;) If you say it's wonky, then I'm not touching it!

I'm surprised though - aside from interface changes, it sounds like they changed (or broke) some major elements. Is it that they are actually broken, or is the way of using them so different that they seem to be broken? Don't they have competent people testing these things before releasing such an update?

The ZBrush approach is known for what it is, different, and brilliant. I can't imagine why they would want to change any of the major sculpting elements, especially how the brushes work. So surely this is a glitch, an error that got past testing somehow, something they will hopefully patch with ZB 3.1.5 or whatever number they want to give it.

Jason, have you reported these problems to the Powers That Be? Surely they are working on a solution. Until then, I'm not updating, thank you, I'll stick with 3.0

Thanks for posting this - you just saved me a lot of headaches! :tu:

[ByteDreams]

well, that explains a little why I was having trouble finding th tweak brush. I'm on lesson 2 with the skeleton using 3.1. One thing I was looking for in 3.1, and maybe someone can tell me this outright, is how to center and straighten the tool in the document window. I had a hard time with this, and maybe it's covered in another lesson down the road.

cannedmushrooms, I love your tutorials, and wish I had a cat like that. your photoshop tutorials will come in handy too. I wonder if you have any or would consider creating some drawing tutorials using traditional media - like pencil and/or charcoal. I'm thinking about purchasing the creature drawing dvd from gnomon, but am afraid of ordering something that might be a bit advanced. Although I did have a couple of drawing classes a couple of decades ago... I don't remember most of them.

[xgraphics]

the site ask me for downloading password dude
can u tell me what i can do pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeez :confused:

[Joe-B-Wan]

the site ask me for downloading password dude
can u tell me what i can do pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeez :confused: The passwords are on the first page of the forum and are good for about a month.

Big thanks fir these great videos Jason! Being a complete beginner, I would not be as confident in going in and "putting my fingers in the clay" if it weren't for your efforts.

[cannedmushrooms]

password username at beginning of this post
and here

username: pixologic
password: members

[rachel]

Hey, Zbush is 500 bucks, but you wont pay some guy 3 for his tutorials

[cannedmushrooms]

Sorry judee (http://209.132.96.165/zbc/member.php?u=37665) You got swept away in a few msgs

I think the number one thing that will confuse an artist is the move tool.
It gets confused on backfaced culling. The smooth tool can be repaired with a few curve tweeks. But all in all its very unstable. But really besides Zmapper and Dispexporter I was pretty happy with 3.0.
When I test drove 3.1 as a person that was very well used too 2.0 and 3.0 sculpting was one of those thing I barely thought about. It was like sketching.
It is important for a creative individual to have this. More and more as Zbrush gets upgraded this has gone away.

I will be test driving it again with another character too see if it was just me or it was Zbrush. But ya pretty much not looking forward to another 4 hour rumble.

What really is ashame is besides the sculpting being goofy and a few crashes the topology tools really do tend to work alot better. Especially projection.

Reporting Bugs to the higher ups is sorta hard.
We have a wonderful site person that looks over the forum but really I dont see many Higher ups ever in the forum anymore. I see alot of top artists but programmers tend to stay in the shadows.

They will see many people with their bug reports in the Q&A forum however.
I have a pretty big one there myself;)

[judee]

Thanks, Jason, for clarifying what I need to watch out for. I do think however that I will stay with 3.0 until these little glitches get worked out. I imagine if the bug reports in the Q&A forum become numerous enough, somebody from programming will have to come take a look, lol.

Anyway, I like to take my time learning something this new, so even just the first few tuts will be plenty for me while waiting for them to get that smooth tool working smoothly. :D ;)

Thanks again,
judee

[spaceboy412]

jason i'm getting a 404 on two of your maya tuts
directional lighting and
light linking
seems like a few other maya vids wont work either.
maybe its just me, i am pretty tired, hehe.

[rachel]

well, that explains a little why I was having trouble finding th tweak brush. I'm on lesson 2 with the skeleton using 3.1. One thing I was looking for in 3.1, and maybe someone can tell me this outright, is how to center and straighten the tool in the document window. I had a hard time with this, and maybe it's covered in another lesson down the road.

cannedmushrooms, I love your tutorials, and wish I had a cat like that. your photoshop tutorials will come in handy too. I wonder if you have any or would consider creating some drawing tutorials using traditional media - like pencil and/or charcoal. I'm thinking about purchasing the creature drawing dvd from gnomon, but am afraid of ordering something that might be a bit advanced. Although I did have a couple of drawing classes a couple of decades ago... I don't remember most of them.
If your looking for a really nifty little drawing program I can highly recommend pixarra twisted brush. Very cheap lifetime updates, lots of different mediums like japanese paint brush, pencils, felt, chalk, and a whole lot more besides, with programable effects too.

Excelent programm.

Regards

[SNARK]

Jason,

I might sit out this Z3 nonsense for a bit. Since downloading 3.1 I keep getting error messages about my license and now I can’t open either 3.0 or 3.1. Pixologic has been available and responsive just not effective. Two phone sessions have failed to allow me continued, uninterrupted access. I have run the system diagnostic ‘dxdiag’, saved it to text and sent it to Support and maybe I’ll have good news today but I haven’t been able to open anything but 2.0 for three days.

Anyway, I thought I’d spend more time with your Maya lessons and had a couple questions about workflow for buildings. I want to build a small desert Western town with typical buildings: Saloon, Jail, Wheelwright, Blacksmith, Train Depot, a couple of Victorian style homes, etc. I want to build the town as a set with interiors and exteriors to be used as backdrops for a series of ZBrush character illustrations.

Should I simply stack primitives, cut holes in them and texture with photo reference? Is that too simplistic? What's the deal with UV's on models made up of many separate parts? How should I structure the file tree to keep track of what will be a lot of geometry?

Thanks!

~S.~

[DerLandvogt]

Could anyone please upload these movies to an other host? As a rar or zip , ready for download?
Would be great, because I can´t download them from hp (to much traffic?) nore look at them as a streem video at veoh.

Thanks in advance!
Hilmar

[cannedmushrooms]

Snark I would go primitives with textures as TGA
This way you can add the alpha channel to make windows.
For buildings with interiors use boxes and with buildings that are just there to look at use poly planes.

About the files being uploaded somwhere else
Wow do i really need to answer that.
I gave you a few on veoh and a free access pass for a month.
Right click save target as on the vids it really does help.
it serves out 50-100 kbs right now so to stream that it would be 25kbs
In a couple months if it grows I will buying another server;)
Im going to be messing around today with the img files because there all over the net also. That will speed things up a bit.

[SNARK]

Thanks!

~S.~

[cannedmushrooms]

WOW

well I think i found the source of the speed drain.
i renamed the image directory and WALLA this killed all links nation wide to everyone that has ever posted the files in other places.
The pictures being linked were affecting speed also.
Learn somthing new everyday;)

Couple peeps try and download a vid and report back see if that helps

[Lucky_1]

Thank you very much Jason.

I saw you had problems to frame your object after it went gone (trying to select a bone-zphere)... just hit "f" on your keyboard...this shortcut will frame your mesh (easier then alt + click on empty space on your canvas with your pen...)

Lucky_1

[rachel]

I trying literally, right now. Still quite slow but much better that yesterday.
Time for down load lesson1_zbrushc.wmv is now down to 30mins which shoud be 6 mins for my broadband, but given the extra traffic now the tuts are in 3+
cant complain.

great tutorials, appreciate haveing, with next to no docs from pixologic.:-(

Rachel

[monday1313]

hi, i'm downloading them now, getting between 60-100 kbsec.

i haven't watched them yet, but thanks in advance. i've been doing 3d for four years, but zbrush for about 4 days...needless to say, there's alot there to be understood...

luckily, i like a challenge...

[RabbitRun]

Great job,
thanks a lot,
Cheers

[cannedmushrooms]

I'm making a crash course video now sort of a recap to lesson 1
I think it needs to be made because alot of questions are poping up on just basic things.
It will be a 3.1 video;)

[acmepixel]

I think this may have been said before;

URtheGR8est

Bears repeating ;)

[spaceboy412]

to everyone who's saying the downloads take too long, the other day one video took 5 hours to download, which i dont mind cause i just start downloading it and go about my business. Jason rocks for sharing his knowledge for free and soon to be a cup of coffee as he says.

[gendragon]

Wow! Thanks very much! Great tutorials

[cannedmushrooms]

lesson 1 has now a little brother called Recap.
Even if you havent yet upgraded to 3.1 I would watch it.
Right now I'm working on the move brush trying to get it working.
I never noticed this before but when you mouse over the buttons with cntrl has anyone ever read these. They remind me of fortune cookies.
Some are very hard to decipher. I swear they read sorta like this to me
"when active you will find a change in the ratio of the orientation of the maximium number of units the object can translate from one end of the given axis to the other end of another axis based upon the mouse movement"
This would be a great example of what the move tools cntrl discription would be.

Gees.

[cannedmushrooms]

wow some very very very intresting stuff on brushes coming up next lesson.
After opening up 3.0 and 3.1 side by side I really see how things have changed.
The name of the game is accucurve also brushes work more relevant to curves than ever before.
Alot to think about as an artist.
So certain brushes need certain curves in order to function the same or better.
The problem is now however you cannot save that curve. without program crash. I think when I first tried using 3.1 I was to busy powering out a character and getting flustrated when I was doing the details.
Trust me the details are there but you cant think as an artist in order to get them to work.
I guess you have to be a little bit of a scientist half the time in order to use zbrush.
3.0 was proof of that. But 3.1 really nailed it.

[judee]

Lol, if you can decipher that and others, we will all be eternally gratefull! Thanks for the re-cap, I'll be sure to watch it, and decide later about changing to 3.1.

You are really great to be doing this! :D

Oh and a note to Firefox downloaders - I was having really slow downloads this weekend and then suddenly it was literally hanging - couldn't get into the site. Turned out to be a Firefox problem - I removed all of my addons and when I returned to the site, the downloads were up to the levels mentioned above, and everything downloaded much faster!

I don't know which addon was bulking up Firefox - I just deleted them all! :p but it worked! ;)

Edit: Erm.. okay, well, the new one is downloading slow, around 14 kbs, lol, so I spoke too soon. Just giving you the info, not complaining - these are definitely worth the wait!

[ByteDreams]

Thanks rachel. I wasn't looking for a software program, but art lessons that won't break the bank, like a dvd or book. I'm thinking about the Hovarth (spelling) figure drawing book, or is it Hogarth -- and maybe I'll hit the bookstore today, but wonder if there is a dvd out there. Perhaps this belongs on another thread, but just thought I'd squeeze it in here :D

[cannedmushrooms]

For art lessons I really dug these dvds
I have the whole set and it really breaks down the human body some.
http://the-structure-of-man.blogspot.com/
I think color, lighting and depth of field are probablly the three most used things next to anatomy.
If I could go back in time I think would have liked to start painting in photoshop at alot earlyier of an age.
You learn alot about color because you can experiment with color so easily.
If you sketch somthing. Scan it into photoshop and start painting it with a wacom tablet. You will start opening a new level of creativity. And the greatest part is you really dont have to think all that much with photoshop. Its alot more like painting. There is also a program called corel painter 10. Its also really good getting your feet wet into digital art while still trying to learn traditional art because all the brushes use terminology based on traditional painting.

I think if you said what sort of art I think I could send you into a better path.

Like painting with oils vs digital = Gnomon dvd with Pudden Head (yes thats his name) and painter 9 Amazing techniques on that dvd. Any artist should watch it really inspired me.

this one is the drawing
http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/dvds/kll01.html

this one is the painting
http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/dvds/kll02.html

Pudden Head is one of the really good instructors from gnomon I like his techniques.

Just be carefull the vids are rather expensive.
Pudden head
Alex A.
and Meat M.
These instructors are great if your new at gnomon.

[rachel]

Hi There, I'm not sure if it's hogatth or not either, but if drawing is what you're looking to do, the perhaps, a pad and pencil will help, nit being funny, but the more you do it the better you get at it. I was and stil am in the same situation, so i purchased a little bundle of software call the virtual figure drawing studio by cloud star. 1 prog each for face with expressional changes, same with hands, male and female torso's. Excelent little programss, as the screen can be grided once or twice for more acuracy and each product can display in either doll mode(you know the old wodden doo, skeleton, cartoon,sketch like or normal human, even transparent to arms behind the torso. Very cheap too. really, and again a full lifetime of upgrades.


Regards

[SourceDecay]

Jason, I've gone through more Zbrush instructional videos than I care to admit (both free and pay), and these, by far, are the absolute best I've ever seen.

Thanks so much for your generosity and brilliant guiding hand!

[cannedmushrooms]

Marcus I know you are watching;)
You think I might have the ability to edit my first post back so I can keep this thread organized?


Anywho
I think I have patched the lessons up so they now make sense with 3.1.
Brushes are totally broken down to how they work so watch them in order and they should lead you to the path of polygons;)

I had to stick this one here because i cant edit my first post anymore.

lesson2_ZbrushC_recap.jpg

So I would watch this one 3rd (before lesson 2)

[dougt]

Downloading Lesson2Recap now. As always - AWESOME!!!! :tu: :tu: :tu:
Thanks for all your work!!!

[JesseGraffam]

Thanks once again Jason for this awesome tutorial. I haven't had too much time to experiment with the brushes in 3.1, but you show off their uses well.

[spaceboy412]

Jason from my own experiments, reproject higher subdiv seems to work better if you actually do it at the lowest level.
also i want to say i love this brush tut, thanks for showing the side by sides of the brushes, you're absolutely right about the layer brush.

[judee]

Thanks again, Jason, you are fantastic to keep this updated!

Now I have a general question about the Maya tuts (sort of off topic, I know, but where else can I ask you, lol)

I don't use Maya. I know there is a PLE, but I figure if I like it and get used to it, what then? I cannot afford the full version - probably never will! But I do have a couple of other modeling programs, so I am thinking that, aside from interface stuff and how widgets work, etc, there may yet be some valuable lessons in there.

My question is - what other 3d programs would Maya be closest to in terms of type of modeling. I have TrueSpace 7, which does have quite a few modeling options. I also have Hexagon2 (lol, the $2 modeling program, but hey, it works!) and I have Shade 8.5. I know there are also some free programs out there.

So, would it benefit me as far as concepts of modeling in general, and if so, which programs would be most similar?

Thanks in advance! (And maybe someone else knows the answer to this too?

:)

[rkanyama]

Thanks for taking the time to create such great tutorials. I just signed up for an account. Keep up the good work!

[cannedmushrooms]

judee well theres one thing I would try first Goto www.academicsuperstore.com (http://www.academicsuperstore.com)
I really dont know your situation but if you are a college student or a highschool student or even taking adult ed classes anywhere that you can prove with a student ID you can get Maya for like 289 complete version or 389 for unlimited.
These are non commercial versions. Only meaning that you cannot use to make money from output. (Luckly Zbrush is Commercial So render in it).
The other two programs you might wanna try is first Silo
http://www.nevercenter.com/ Not bad at 159.

And Last Blender.
http://www.blender.org

Only bad thing about blender is that you have to be a Hardcore Geek to get past the fact that everything is a shortcut key. And you think Zbrush is bad at writing down directions. Boy you havent seen anything yet.

So ya that said watch the silo videos on their site I think youll love that program. Besides all you really need at a starter level is a low level polygon modeler program. So you can produce low level assets for Zbrush

[judee]

Thanks for the links, Jason. :D

That academic one is tempting, but it's my daughter who is the University Student, not me. And knowing she has no interest in 3d art (strictly 2d and manga art for her!) I doubt I could justify using her student license to purchase, lol! Tempting, yes. *sigh* Sometimes I think I'm too honest for my own good! Lol, I do keep trying to talk her into Photoshop CS3, but she is comfortable with Painter 8 and doesn't like to change what works for her.

Anyway, I'll definitely check out Silo, sounds more in my price range than some applications. I may skip the Blender - I'm only low level geek, haven't made it to hard core. ;)

Anyway, thanks again for being so helpful. Lol, can I adopt you? :D

judee

[goodrichm]

Jason,

Thanks so much for sharing these tuts! You're an awesome teacher!

I watched your Lesson 2 recap and in it you say that ZCurve & Maya box files were included. I can't seem to find these files. It looks like the recap file download is the same as the original 3.0 Lesson 2 files (ie ImagePlaneXball tool).

The Zcurve file looks like a definite piece of gold since we can't save out the curves without crashing 3.1! Could you please post a link to the file?

Thanks again for everything...MG

[cannedmushrooms]

should be ok now;)

[KindredSpirit]

Superb tutorials...Thank you but site seems to be down now

:confused:

[cannedmushrooms]

I offered this in another thread but I'll place it here also.
This is my smooth brush.
Goes in your brush preset directory under startup
there is also a curve, under brush smooth curve load and load the curve.

This is a very strong smooth!!!

[cannedmushrooms]

wow busy little beavers we have been havent we
this is for 2 days
Hits 31285
Files 31262
KBytes 323155684

BTW this is only the free members stats not registered

Registered users ;) your in good hands

I'm going to have to seperate some files lesson1-11 zbrush still free but the rest of my site needs signup.

I really dont wanna do this but my host is pipeing out some huge file downloads. I think peeps are freeking out and downloading everything at once thinking that they wont be able to afford the 3 dollars or somthing.

The membership only protects the service from leechers thats all.

Going to have to laydown a new ground rule but it will take me a couple days to zip up my entire server 1 I think thats my number one priority right now.
Just know that no matter what happens I promised you 1 month of the files listed on this thread and I am not the type to ever go back on that part;)

[cannedmushrooms]

I need a secretary lol

[judee]

You've gone really over the top in generosity Jason! :D But of course, you have to protect your files and keep them online and available - won't do any of us any good if the site blows up from overheating, lol! ;)

[SNARK]

Hey, Jason,

Thanks for all the hard work.

I made a simple helmet shape from 3 ZSpheres (using a Jason Belec technique) and made it into a polymesh and did a little basic pushing and pulling and put it away. This morning when I loaded the tool it appeared to have ‘creases’ all over it. I don’t know why. I never touched the crease button. When I open the geometry subpalette I notice the crease value is set to 15 and that neither the crease nor uncrease button has any effect, either in high-res or low-res (there are 3 subdivisions).

My first question is: how can I correct this? (I attached an image and the model file.) It is simple to redo but I sure would like to know what happened and if there is a fix.

My second question relates to Judee's issue: when you say the educational versions of Maya are 'non-commercial', do you mean to say they are the same as the commercial version but we are trusted not to use them commercially? Or is there a watermark system in place that prints all renders with said watermark? I ask because I am enrolled in some adult classes and this interests me. However, I don't want to wind up with portfolio images that have a watermark.

Also, for Judee: there is a wonderful and powerful little animation and modeling program called 'Martin Hash’s Animation Master' that I believe is $200 at Siggraph and $300 online. Used to be called 'Playmation' when it was briefly associated with the claymator Will Vinton. Available from Hash.com. I used this all through the nineties and had no problems moving models back and forth from ZBrush when I finally decided to pick up 2.0. It is a spline and ‘patch’ based system that allows .obj’s to be imported and exported. They also have a good forum community that will answer questions and direct you to pertinent posts. A fellow named 'Vic Navone' made a modeling and animation reel with this program and now animates for Pixar.

Instead of using 5-point spurs to change direction around facial features such as eyes and mouth, Animation Master uses 5-sided patches. In the 'old days' I would take the models into Maya to retopo the patches into spurs but that can be done in ZBrush now. Also don’t forget to check eBay for someone looking to offload outdated versions.

Thanks!

~S.~

[el-d]

Very very genorous of you. Many Thanks. Just the one small critisism ...

some of the videos aren't indexed so you can't scroll through them.

but the brief scan I've had , looking good. :D
El-d

[WailingMonkey]

El-d, I found this out as well, and instead use cyberlink PowerDVD player
to view these...you could try another player instead of Media
Player and be able to scroll as well. :)

cheers.


WailingMonkey

(by the way, Jason, thanks for hosting and sharing these vids for the
community...got some good nuggets in there. :) )

[goodrichm]

Thanks Jason for looking into the Lesson 2 files. Looks like I was too slow on the draw to download it before you shut down access to your server. Server maint doesn't sound like much fun, hope you get back to Zbrushing doon!

Thanks so much for sharing your super smoothie brush! MG

[battlesmith809]

i can't watch the videos, it says server not found.

[-Gulch]

Hi there, I'm new to everything in ZBrush, all I did so far was change materials, and make blurry stuff all over the place. I have absolutely no idea of how to work this amazing (it's amazing if I see the artwork around here) program, and I would love to learn. After searching a bit, I found these forums. Too bad for me none of the links in your topic here work. The save target as.. doesn't do anything at all, and the other link to ...house... can't connect to the server. Help me?

[cannedmushrooms]

My host has been experiencing huge file transfers and you will experience down
time on the videos on and off.
I have been working on re-encoding the files so ya boring work just keep trying.
Until I have fully stablized the system most of the videos can be found on veoh;) read first topic of this thread closely

[spaceboy412]

SNARK,
i've had this creasing issue as well, the geometry doesnt really act diffferntly at the higher levels but heres the fix i found, just SHIFT click UNCREASE, you may have to hide part of your model and then do that part separately, i dont remember.
oh shift click on the lowest leverl of course.

[SNARK]

Thanks, SpaceBoy.

Shift/Click on Uncrease did the job.

Is there an issue with Topology and 3.1? In 3.0 I could attach a mesh to a root zsphere and Shift/Click and draw out new topology. In 3.1, even if I use native polymeshes that come with the program (like the star tool) I can't get new topology to draw out. I have brush size set to 1, x symmetry turned on and am in edit mode.

Thanks!

~S.~

[-Gulch]

I CAN SHAPE CRAP WITH THE INITIALIZE TOOLS YEEEEY!!!

This program is gonna be so much fun :p. Nice tutorials btw.

[rachel]

sorry for reply post,

Cannedmushrooms, do you know if your site is down, as i cant get access to the web page...

Rachel

[cannedmushrooms]

yep its getting old here also rachel.
The finger on the button is not me.
Cant test any of my new media here. Only thing I have is ftp access.
thank god for veoh in this time of need.
This will pass once we get this sytem up and running with individuals that have there own account.
I know you signed up but until this free thing is over with my host has had to shut down the server off and on.
Not to worry i have 4 machines pumping out the new media. Once that is uploaded We will be close to live;)

[rachel]

thanks for letting me know, hopefully it'll be up agian soon. :-)


Thanks again.

[SNARK]

Hey, Jason,

Good luck with your server issues. We all support your efforts.

I’ve been playing with the retopo tools in 3.1 and got them to work as far as being able to re-draw topology on a polymesh. I’m having a problem, though.

Let’s say I retopo part of the mesh but can’t finish in one session. Through the tool palette I save out the mesh with the partial retopo and come back to it later. When I re-open the file and draw out the tool I see my mesh with the previous retopo work laid out where I left it. But it seems to be baked on. I can’t seem to affect it. The move tool doesn’t work (or appears to not work). I see no movement on the screen but the tool icon updates showing that something must be moving because the formerly ordered preview of the retopo now looks all deformed.

So, I figured I can’t just open the file and work on it. I must have to rig the mesh to a zsphere. When I draw out a zsphere and try to rig the partially retopo'd mesh to it, the palette shows the proper mesh but it is greyed out and unavailable.

My question is: How do you continue retopo on a mesh that has been saved unfinished?

Thanks!

~S.~

[cannedmushrooms]

ya anytime you reload the tool it lays a mask on it.
Not sure why it happens but if you goto masking / Clear you be able to pick up where you left off

[X-TrEmE]

Jason....Should I say anything?

This tutorials are by FAR the best free training for ZBrush...Heck it's even better than DT's one.. I mean I like to watch you 'cos you're talking like regular guy, you don't necessery want to look like pro, you don't have a list of things you're going to say..etc..and I like that..something like if my brother was to come to my place and show me a few things :)

About file size, well I like it that way, even me - probably the guy who has the worst internet connection(Wireless 128Kbps/sec) in this forum :D , because you don't want to follow tut orial and then ask your self - err what button did he just press ? Just put download in quene while you're having lunch, go out etc..and enjoy later :D

About 1 month only, well that's the life..Everything today is bussines and I'm suprised you didn't block download already..And paying soo little for something so informative and fun isn't big deal ;)

Soo keep up greatest work bro and have fun!
(err to tell you the truth I kinda took a break from ZBrush for a while, and when I saw this thread...ehh you know it)

[SNARK]

Hi, Jason,

I made a zsphere helmet that involved moving one zsphere inside another to create a hollow effect. This seems to have resulted in a polymesh with its pivot somewhat offset which is affecting how the rotation gyro works.

Is there a way to move the pivot or automatically re-center it?

I took the model into Maya and used 'center pivot' to center the pivot. I saved this out as an .mb and also exported it as an .obj.

I went back into ZBrush and imported this new file with the new pivot and ZBrush won't recognize the new pivot. It still posts the older, offset pivot.

Any ideas how to relocate pivots in ZBrush tools?

~S.~

[cannedmushrooms]

Hey snark try using

1. the L/sym button on the right hand column menu
thats a quick way or centering around an object works good for subtools

2. For single geometry like your helmet I would goto transform pallet S/pivot
and if you want to clear it C Pivot

Both will work

There is a third option but it will ruin the pivot and is not really reliable unless you have a steady hand. Geometry preview window you will see a red + click and drag the Plus anywhere and that will be your new pivot.
Again not recomended
Of course I will have those peeps that swear by the deformation pallet that like the red +

but to each his own;)

hope that helps

[SNARK]

Transform > 'S/Pivot' did the trick.

Thanks, Jason!

I don't suppose you know why ZBrush wouldn't recognize the
Maya pivot?

~S.~

[cannedmushrooms]

Did the zbrush geometry have sub levels?
If it does use the first method I posted above always.



If its a fresh object in zbrush no levels
export helmet to maya
maya change pivot
Export to Zbrush
Zbrush SWITCH TOOL to a ball
Zbrush import helmet

By switching the tool it prevents zbrush from using the old helmets pivot;)

[-Gulch]

In lesson 2 you start with opening a file you had premade, how do I get to that file? And others you maybe premade in your lessons?

[cannedmushrooms]

here made ya a map
map.jpg

lol

life is too short to give a straight answer;)

[judee]

Lol, you are too funny Jason! :lol:

[dionisis21]

Great map :lol: . Sorry i am asking but when will you post your next lesson?

[SNARK]

Thanks, Jason.

All your suggestions worked. The 'Switch Tool To Ball' trick before importing the new pivot is my favorite.

~S.~

[CaptanHook]

Are the links down or am I just too late, not been around for awhile and the vids sound to cool to miss. Seems I have no links work.........for me ? Help

[X-TrEmE]

Umm yeah..
It seems houseoftutorials.net is down, .com is kinda "still wip, back off", and schoolof3d is for his students only (right?)..

BTW each tut is 130mb on average..if a person downloads whole package 11 (+/- 2 parts..etc) that's already 130mb x 11 = 1,39GB..I'm pretty curious if it's a bandwidth issue.. And judging by number of posts..a lot of ppl downloaded it :rolleyes:

Anyway good luck on fixing this problem JW..
Cheers

[X-TrEmE]

It's working now! :cool:

And I have one question, I don't know if this has been asked already but I don't feel like going through all 10 pages right now..So here I go..In the Zbrush 2 ReCap lesson, at the end you say like have fun, play with them before starting next(lesson 3) tutorial in which we will form the skull..But ZBrush lesson 3 (next one) talks about portfolios and Zbrush lesson 2 (not recap) talks about forming skull but it's in the old Zbrush..So did you refered to old zbrush lesson 2 or ? :D

And yes sorry for double post!
Cheers,
X-TrEmE

[cannedmushrooms]

ya I guess lesson 2 recap would be called a prequel to lesson 2.
But george lucas went that route and I didnt feel like I wanted to go that way;)

So ya do the lessons in the order I have them posted. (follow the pictures)

My host and I are coding a stand alone application that is flash driven for the videos before I make anymore. My part is to re-encode all the videos and hes helping with the stand alone app.

So it will work like this hopefully, You launch the stand alone and it will see the new videos you click on them it will ask you for username and walla instant video.

WMV files really kill server speed!!!
Of course not being a total nerd I did not know this until I got to like 50 lessons into my video tutorial business.

It is really pretty cool. And all I will need to do is update a xml document when a new video comes out.
;)

This keeps everything cheap easy and I can go back to being an artist that teaches rather than a teacher that does art.

After I get that all that squared away I really need to go over one of the hardest concepts and thats multi mesh- muti UV which is a very touchy subject because of the whole vertex reordering thing becomes even more unstable. What it allows you to do though is make maps on several meshes all at once.

I'll keep you updated;)

[cannedmushrooms]

here is a very rough beta of what I'm coding in flash to give you an idea;)

http://www.houseoftutorials.net/ZbrushC.swf

[X-TrEmE]

Ok no problem on skull..
On that flash thingy however, will videos still be able to download? Because I for example (sure there are a few others) have really piece of sh** instead of internet :lol: so only way for me to watch your tutorials is to start downloading them when I go to bed :confused: ..Will there still be chance for me to watch them or am I cursed to suffering ;)

Cheers,
X-TrEmE

[Sifis]

The link www.houseoftutorials.net is broken for now. What's going on?

[JHalton]

Links or sites not working for me!

Looks great though. Hope I get to see them, new to ZBrush so...

[cannedmushrooms]

A long day of repair

Ok so I havent heard any news from my host and the site looks like is at the mercy of being shut on and off like a light switch.
So for now I put plan B into Effect.

Always have a backup plan if you do video tutorials!

Ok Houseoftutorials.net has become the most unstable thing I have ever seen

So welcome to Houseoftutorials.com

http://www.houseoftutorials.com/

And its all veoh driven;)

So the only thing on this site is the lesson files and links.;)

Lets see how veoh likes a new 4 gigs of traffic from the peeps at pixologic.

enjoy;)

Not every video are uploaded but close
I am the nomad of the internet;)

[judee]

Very nice solution! And just so others don't ask - the menu to find the tuts is across the top of the site. not the smaller menu on the side. I'm only saying this because silly me didn't see the top menu ar first... :rolleyes: :lol:

Nomad is good. Thanks Jason! And I'm actually enjoying Voeh - seems like a lot of tutorial makers are beginning to pick up on them.

[cannedmushrooms]

I removed the Pixologic username and password. That way members that did sign up can use my site at full speed.

For everyone else
www.houseoftutorials.com (http://www.houseoftutorials.com)

[thedust]

Hi Jason,
and thanks for all those tutorials.
I've just seen a part of lesson about skull modeling and I was impressed by two things: the result you get and the time of your life you put to share with us useful and wonderful ways to do something with ZB !
Thanks.
Ok, I have a question for you.
I made a registration on houseoftutorials.NET, but now I don't know what to do, so should I use houseoftutorials.COM or VeohTV ?
Thanks in advance and thanks, thanks, thanks.
A student :D

[cannedmushrooms]

Well now that I kicked all the peeps from it dot.net will be alot faster.


Later it will be the choice of subscription vs download

but that wont be for awhile

1. Subscription = previewing the videos at 3 dollars for 30 days or so
2. Downloading at 2 dollars to keep always;)
I want to go lower on downloads but veoh in minimium 2 dollars. And they handle everything.
But even at a dollar times whatever peeps watching that would be enough for my equipment and time.

This is the only way I can think of so that the peeps with the slower connections dont lose out.

I went the route of DVDS once and wow that was a huge mistake.
Nothing like burning dvds and shipping them everywhere to put a end to your artistic career. I had to sell the video rights to another place so they could take it over.

Now that everything is at hamony though I can go back to producing some lessons;)

Got a nifty weapon making tut coming down the pipes
and multisub-Multi uv range too

[cannedmushrooms]

Next up! making this thing!

(slams down jpg)
Geees this thing weights alot!

aXE-dONE.jpg

coming soon!

Topics
Deformation pallet
Masks
Topo tools
Cooking eggs in the microwave
ect ect ect

[dougt]

Woo Hoo!!! Great Jason!
Can't wait for the next video!
(popcorn popper starts up in background). :D

[thedust]

Jason, thanks for your answer.


Well now that I kicked all the peeps from it dot.net will be alot faster.Well, it seems to be down or I go to wrong site ? :D


Later it will be the choice of subscription vs download

but that wont be for awhile

1. Subscription = previewing the videos at 3 dollars for 30 days or so
2. Downloading at 2 dollars to keep always;)
I want to go lower on downloads but veoh in minimium 2 dollars. And they handle everything.
But even at a dollar times whatever peeps watching that would be enough for my equipment and time.Yeap !


I went the route of DVDS once and wow that was a huge mistake.
Nothing like burning dvds and shipping them everywhere to put a end to your artistic career. I had to sell the video rights to another place so they could take it over.Interesting, in the end, time is money.


Now that everything is at hamony though I can go back to producing some lessons;)Go ahead, Captain !


Got a nifty weapon making tut coming down the pipes
and multisub-Multi uv range tooWHAT ?!?! I'm waiting to watch it !
Jason, thanks again.

[judee]

Cooking eggs in the microwave - now that will be a useful lesson! :lol:

I would like some clarity about the sub, etc. A 30 day subscription allows you to only view online, is that correct? No downloading.

But one can download for $2 per lesson? Yet you mentioned the download as coming from Voeh. Who do we pay? I'm subscribed to you at Voeh, and it automatically downloads anything new you put in there. Am I cheating the system somehow, or have you not yet put the pricing in action?

I'm perfectly willingh to pay, you certainly deserve it for all the work you've done - I just need to know how and where. And when. :D

[luxelectric]

hello mr mushrooms,

your tutorials are great! I just finished the uv mapping one. My uv map after export back into zbrush doesnt have a grid on it. Is this correct?

[SNARK]

Hey, Jason,

I have some 3.1 ZSphere questions.

1. In lesson_4 you set up the modeling session with the zsphere model at the top of the subtool hierarchy, with the image planes and polymesh appended. You said keeping the zsphere model would allow it to be used for ‘other things’ later. What other things? Rigging?

2. Also, you don’t deal with Morph Targets. Aren’t they necessary to preserve volume through subdivision ? (BTW - Marsyas/Svengali’s ‘Smart Divide’ plugin works fine with 3.1).

3. In your older tutorial you were very specific about Ires values (Intersection Resolution) on the root zsphere and on resolutions for the hand and feet zspheres. In your more recent 3.0 tutorial you say using the defaults is sufficient. In the earlier tutorial you instructed the proper way to determine the Ires of the root zsphere was to determine how many projections would branch from the root. A typical human would have a torso and two legs branching from the root, meaning the root Ires should be ‘3’. That would suggest an animal with a torso, two legs and a tail would require a root Ires of ‘4’. An octopus would require a root Ires of ‘9’ to accommodate eight tentacles and a head. What is different now?

4. ‘Six-Point Spurs’. In your previous lessons you have made hands that had a space of one polygon between each finger. The new lesson has no such space which results in six-point spurs between fingers. What are your thoughts on 5-point vs. 6-point spurs between fingers? Especially if the intent of the model is animation?

Thanks for the hard work of clubbing us noobs into line.

~S.~

[spaceboy412]

Snark, as cool as the Smart divide plugin is, i believe the Crease Divide plugin is even better cause you have more control over what happens and can even adjust the layer intensity.

[cannedmushrooms]

Good questions snark As with all things the more you do things the more you learn. With my modeling a biped videos (last year) for exsample we had to model a biped in a very weird way only because you could not pose it very well so the ires really was important. And we also had to be concerned about topology because there was no real way to fix it fast. But Now we have the ability to pose after the fact so Modeling with a resolution that flows throughout the body is a better thing to do. If you use an Ires of one throughout your model you will find that poseable symetry will work every time also. Because of the fluent edge loops that carry from arm to arm leg to leg. Even when you add subtools that are on only one side of the character poseable sym will work.

The way hands are now done is even more correct because of the way the arm flows into the hand instead of that big freeken mitten we had to make in 2.0. As far as animation is concerned I am more of an illustrator than an animator. My main concern is does it read well as a still. Its hard to say what would move right as an animation. But I would have to say as long as you have those edge loops in the fingers at the base on finger 5 6 9 or 22 points really dont matter because its the finger that moves the hand just rotates and squishes (in worst case senerio).

The videos are not on sale yet not till the beginning of sept. Veoh will handle all the tranactions its more of a u set up your veoh acount and if you like the video you can choose to download it at 2dollars. I'll probally be doing a video on the setup. but its easy.

Ouch my hands hurt. lol Thats alot of typing ;)

[Nemoid]

Hey Jason ! thanx for your cool videos i am currently downloading em all and i have watched some of em.

i have a simple noob 3.1 question : is it possible in Zbrush 3.1 to have an object with subtools with different materials and different textures painted and applied all within zbrush ? i tried to do that in several times, but while i reach to assign to every subtool different materials and over all color, i seem to fail when i try to paint/assign texture as per subtool basis

ZB seems to use only 1 texture and 1 UV per object not 1 texture and UV for every subtool?

[cannedmushrooms]

If the subtools are seperated as subtool they have there own UV text cordinates. So ya you can add textures to them its a little weird how its done.

Hide all the subtools that you dont want to apply texture to (using the eye in the subtool pallet)
mount a texture
and hit the magic button

balls.jpg

Of course in 2.0 we used to have the ability to paint textures on through a brush realtime. But sombody took that away in 3.0 ;(
Now we have to use projection master. If we want to locally place texture.

For locally placeing texture just make sure one subtool is visible then use projection master

balls2.jpg

[SNARK]

Hey, Jason!

Thanks for the reply.

I have a recurring problem with zspheres in 3.1 where I will make a simple three ball mesh and try to sculpt the preview using the Move Brush with x symmetry turned on but I don't get symmetrical sculpture. The two little red dots appear as if the program is responding to the x symmetry but when I click and drag on a point only that point moves, the corresponding point on the mirror side does not. Even if I convert the tool to a polymesh I get the same behavior. What up, Dude?

Also, when I move one zsphere inside another to achieve that hollow effect, I am no longer able to scale the 'invisible' zsphere without scaling the entire sculpture. Thoughts?

Is there a better way to create this hollow effect in 3.1? I want a helmet shape with some thickness as well as inside and outside geometry.

~S.~

[Nemoid]

hey man thanks for your reply!
if i understood well its like copying the texture colors to polypaint.

so i assume that, if i have let's say a character with different parts as subtools(teeth, eyes)
i'll have to first create textures for every tool and then reload all subtools and apply the textures using this magic button, am i right? (btw i just tried and it works) ;)

[cannedmushrooms]

Snark after you turn it to a poly mesh goto the deformation pallet and hit UNIFY.

I get that alot when I do low polygon modeling.
Unify brings it into a good brush range.
Also remeber the move tool is running on a curve system now so ya the draw size of one is practically the same as shutting the brush all together.

[SNARK]

Thanks, Jason.

Where is the file with the brush curve you saved out of 3.0? I thought I had it in one of your lesson files but I can't find it.

~S.~

[cannedmushrooms]

its in this zip i just checked again also to make sure its called zcurve


http://www.houseoftutorials.net/membersonly/lesson2_ZbrushC_recap.zip

[cannedmushrooms]

btw
lesson12_ZbrushC.jpg

lesson13_ZbrushC.jpg

are up at house.net which is fully functioning now;)

also on veoh
lesson 13 starts 3 secs into it and looks cut off but its not

[isaac_sweden]

Hello Jason i have been starting to look on your tutorials and on houseoftutorials.com renderpass zbrush and photoshop cs2 seems not to be there?

let me know if it will come online:)?

/Isak

[sadicus]

Greetings, I have a question about the encode:
:b4: lesson12_ZbrushC1.wmv
:b4: lesson12_ZbrushC2.wmv
:b2: lesson13_ZbrushC.wmv (this is working normal)

I noticed using WMP, and also tried Real Player that i could not skip forward or backward thru the tutorial.

I don't know if this is intentional, just thought i 'd see if anyone else had the same issue.

Thank you for the tutorials, i look forward to the AXE!

[calum5ZB]

cannedmushrooms,
Thanks for making the video's .
I just dont know where to start!
I got the year subscription so I have all the time to learn everything lol!!

Thanks so much!

cal

[SNARK]

Hey, Sadicus.

You are doing nothing wrong. Your experience is common and the result of massive traffic on Jason's site due to his generosity in making all this superior documentation available for free.

All you need to do is try again. What is happening is that the download is stopping before the entire file is transferred. I had to restart download on one of the lessons 14 times before I got the full download. Watch the download window. It tells you how many MB's need to be downloaded. If that number does not match your final download MB total then you don't have the full file. The test of this is to try to scan through the lesson. If this is not possible, then you need to download again. Patience. That is the way. Persevere. Just keep re-starting the download. Eventually you will get it and, 'trust me', it's worth the effort. These lessons are far better than paid-for CD's.

~S.~

[sadicus]

Thanks Snark,

I have the complete downloads on my HD. The Entire video will play, but it's like there are no "position" markers in the video timeline to jump ahead, or behind. It's one long continuous playback.

[cannedmushrooms]

calumn thats why I have a veoh channel also. Incase you dont wanna pay the 3 dollars for the time. Goto veoh I priced everything out to what I thought it would be worth so some vids are free on veoh and a couple of the really good ones are 2 bucks;)
http://www.veoh.com/series/houseofZbrush

If you need to pause the video or skip forward you'll need to download it fully, streaming a video wont allow it to keyframe correctly in some cases;)

[cannedmushrooms]

sadicius give me a sec im going to try downloading it from house dot net because the master does have keyframes every 10 frames

[SNARK]

Hey, Sadicus.

That's exactly what I mean. If you are unable to scan through or pause that means the complete file failed to download. You might only be missing two seconds at the very end. It's frustrating but enough to invalidate the download. You just have to try again. I have the best luck at downloading late at night or early in the morning. Again, be patient. Computer utilities are extremely finicky. We are all lucky that anything works at all.

~S.~

[cannedmushrooms]

Thanks snark ya exactly I downloaded it and it worked fine.

lol alot faster download without half the world on the server;)

[sadicus]

Ok. Thanks for the info. thant makes more sense, missing just a bit of the download would cause that.:)

[calum5ZB]

cannedmushrooms,

Sorry if I didnt explain myself clearly.
Ive PM'd you
Warmest regards
cal

[cannedmushrooms]

I see now cal, ya the veoh will work in that case.
I have a company that handles my billing for me so buying lessons on house.net individually could get a wee ugly.
heres my main site with a donation link on the front

[cannedmushrooms]

sweet figured out how to go into my account setting and manage my price list without the help of the ccbill people.
If you subscribe i have a better setup now different pricing options ;)

hope that helps;)

[X-TrEmE]

Hey Jason thanks for updating link, however I couldn't send you PM

cannedmushrooms has exceeded their stored private messages quota and can not accept further messages until they clear some space.

So I'll ask you here:
In the video part 3(lesson9_MayaC-2) you say we're going into rather detailing the head in next part and the image representing tutorial also show much cleaner-poly head..So am I missing anything?

Cheers!

[cannedmushrooms]

Thats just a base mesh, so in this I show the student what they will see in the modeling 2 class.
Its teaser film.

That lesson 9 is super hard compared to my modeling in zbrush with topolog videos.
Mayas sculpting tool is amazingly weird. so dont try to hard on clean up just clean it up in Zbrush smoothing wise;)


http://www.houseoftutorials.net/membersonly/lesson9half_MayaC.zip

[X-TrEmE]

Oh I got it way ago, but I through of that lesson like a bonus, etc with Zbrush add-on..and is it also completed because I didn't hear anything for conclusion ;)

EDIT: Yep, nvm..You edited your post in meantime..

Cheers!

[calum5ZB]

Thankyou cannedmushrooms ! I'll be over tomorrow to grab some :) (03:20am here yawnz).

I cant say thanks enough to you for the great help to my learning of zb and other things.I definatley recommend you to anyone I know converting to Zbrush like myself.
Cal:tu:

[SNARK]

Hey, Jason.

I have that recurring problem with 3.1 zspheres. The first time I used your 'Unify' suggestion it worked fine, but today it didn't work. However, I found something else that also works.

Before 3.1, you could make a zsphere model, toggle the preview mesh, activate x-symmetry and sculpt the preview in a bilateral fashion. Both sides would update in a mirrored way. That's how it worked.

When I tried this in 3.1, I found that (sometimes) even though I could activate the x-symmetry and see the two little red dots (that meant zbrush recognized the x-symmetry) the mesh would not update properly. Whatever point I pulled was the only point that moved. I discovered, however, if I went to the deformation subpalette of the tool menu and hit the 'Smart ReSym' button, then I could actually use the x-symmetry. Then, as I sculpted on one side, the mesh would update in a bilateral fashion on the other side.

Just thought I'd pass that along.

~S.~

[calum5ZB]

Hi cannedmushrooms,

Thanks for your messages,

I decided to go over a JOIN for the year !!:tu:

Thanks
cal

[cannedmushrooms]

SNARK (http://209.132.96.165/zbc/member.php?u=43104) are you sculpting on the Zsphere preview when you hit A on keyboard?

I know some people like doing that. Just a warning however somtimes a series of events will occur where you will loose your sculpt working that way.
making it a poly mesh is the best bet ;)
Havent had any issues with zspheres yet except the outer space bug. Where you click on the 2nd zsphere next to the root on a complex ZSphere model and the model will be shot to -100000000000000000 Z axis way off in the background.

Very Very annoying!!!

[-Gulch]

How do I save a document so I can still edit it after reopening it? The skull lesson is 2 hours, I get interrupted most of the time, so I never get past about minute 20... And if I save it, I can't tweak it anymore or edit the document.

[blindmice]

Hey Gultch, to clarify why you can not edit what you saved: In order to save a 3d sculpture you have made (in your case, a skull) you can NOT go to File - Save Document. Save document saves whatever you worked on in 2.5D.

To save your work, and then go back to it later, on the right hand side in your Tools pallete, click on Save Tool. When you wish to retrieve it, click Load Tool, select the file, and drag out your Skull onto the canvas and IMMEDIETLY press the "Edit" button. Now you can continue working :D

Hope this helps! If you need clarification, I wouldn't mind upping a few pictures to show you step-by-step.

[-Gulch]

Thanks, I'll let you know how it works out.

[U_L.]

First time I've posted here.
Many Thanks for the excellent Zbrush video tutorials cannedmushrooms.

One question:
Should I poste a attachment of the completed skull tutorial here?

Cannedmushrooms is a true Zbrush master!
:)

[U_L.]

Here is my finished piece
Skull-Composition-194K.jpg

[judee]

I have a question about the lessons at Voeh - I was watching one recent one, 13 or 15, can't remember (no I'm not that far, I just wanted to watch in direct, lol!) and I remember you mentioning something about including a file with the others (project files, apparently.) So it made me wonder, where would we find the project files for lessons watched or downloaded at Voeh?

Thanks again for everything!

[Kiya]

*Waves hi to judee* :D

And as a another new ZBrush user, I must say a huge thankyou cannedmushrooms for these excellent tutorials. :tu:

[judee]

Waves back at Kiya, Fancy meeting you here! :lol: Looks like we've found a new addiction!

And of course, cannedmushrooms makes it so much easier! :D

[cannedmushrooms]

judee you find the files ok?


www.houseoftutorials.com (http://www.houseoftutorials.com)

Links are at the top of the page just goto the zbrush section.
Files for veoh are located there;)

[judee]

Found them! Thanks so much Jason! :D

[Midicon]

Your a saint these are essential to anyone who wants to get the most out of zbrush or maya OR MAX.... its the gift that keeps on giving

thanks a million

Midicon :eek: :) :D :tu: :tu:

[Cinderella]

I want to thank u again and again.
Virtue is its own reward :lol:

[joyster]

hi i have a request, i would really appreciate if you could do a videon on how to work with marcus civis image plane 3.1 plugin to texture with photographs.

Joyster

[Santis]

Is it too late to download the tutorials now?
Just wonder becaus I need one (mine is broken), but i cant.
Do I have too buy them now?

[Santis]

Nvm, I can download now.
And thanks, for theese vids, they are all great!

[Kassar]

Thank yoy very much for this excellent share

Cheers dude :tu: ;)

[renochew]

Hi, Thanks for the incredible tutorials, it help me a lot!

But I can't download lesson 12 (4,9,10 also), it said the video is not found,is it not available anymore?

Thanks again for making these tut.

Cheers

[cannedmushrooms]

on veoh or houseoftutorials.net?

[renochew]

Hi Jason, its on veoh, the others downloaded fine. Just the above mentioned video are shown as "The video you requested is unavailable."

[cannedmushrooms]

download the veoh player
subscribe to the series
Those videos are on sale at veoh
Sorry i forgot Since those were the best vids in the series i though they could generate some bandwith payment;)
One of these days I should get an agent
The house has some 2 day subscription deals also

btw I was waiting to post this but both on veoh and house UI have some new stuff.
lesson14_ZbrushC.jpg

lesson15_ZbrushC.jpg

I think this ones only on house.net
lesson16_ZbrushC.jpg

On veoh there free;)

Coming soon to members you should check out my photoshop section
Digital painting classes will be available soon;)

[EB Designs]

Hi. I'm new to ZBrush and the forums. I was looking for some beginner tutorials, and found this. However, none of the links seem to work. I went to both the .net and .com sites, and every lesson I click on, it just says Internet Explorer cannot display the web page.
I must have missed something, because everyone else here seems to be able to access them.

[-CainiaC-]

:D
Your tutorials are very easy to follow which is great as I have just recently started doing 3d modeling and I will recommend them to all the beginners out there.


I have also finally finished watching all the tutorials from 1-13 and based on what I learned from them I have started working on thish model. It's still a WIP. :)

[JesseGraffam]

Hey Jason. I'm really interested in that lighting tutorial, but when I try to D/L, it asks me for a password. What's the deal? Are you closed for Labor Day weekend hehe..?

[cannedmushrooms]

canian is that your very first figure based on the lessons?
Because wow nice job for a character made with Zspheres and topo clothing if that is your first. Tuesday I start some new students inside the classroom on these videos So I'll get to see how they stack up and where students get lost.

Jesse that is in que to my veoh but veoh is slow on the que and its number 3 in line to be uploaded. Its on my site but I had to make it subscription only on my site the bandwith was just way to insane. 2 TBs last month. The server has been donated but ya anything over 2 TBS and there is a sur charge from the host. Veohs been taking up the slack but its slow uploading. Just to give you an idea that light video actually was released a week ago to my members

[EB Designs]

Nevermind my last post. Found everything on Veoh.
Just finished lesson 1.
Awesome, Jason. Thanks for the Pro Bono lessons.

[-CainiaC-]

canian is that your very first figure based on the lessons?

Yes it's my first one and thanks for the kind words :D .
Up until now I've only tested the different tools to see how they function so
this really is my first actual model that I've started making.


In the lesson where you make the displacement map you use the DSubPix value of four and so did I. The problem is that though you said its well worth the time it takes to generate map it just takes too long on my machine.
It took me about 2 1/2 hours for the program to generate the map.


So the question is what is the best DSubPix -value? Is it based on the polycount of my model? Lets say I have a model that has 2 million polys. Is a DSubPix -value of 2 enough for that model or is it always best to use the value of 4?


(I hope it was called DSubPix. I have a lousy memory :p )

[cannedmushrooms]

The subpix value just analyzes the difference between lvl 1 and say lvl 8 on a
(8 level monster) in that if you have too much change between lvl 1 and 8 it will take FOREVER.

But sub pix 4 scans the whole model for detail.

Adaptive only works better in just the areas that have detail.


I really dont want Zbrush saying "hey look, detail, lets work better in this area"


But you are right somtimes the model is just to big for a lvl 4 scan.

So thats where you have to ask yourself is there skin pores all over the model?
(then wait for a subpix4)


If there is only high detail in the head
(then adaptive)

At least thats how I look at it and its worked for me so far
I would not do a lvl 2 scan they always lack detail.

Either adaptive or 4;)

hope that helps

[mohack]

Hey there Jason. Been trying to buy some of your Zbrush Vids.

I am registerd and have downloaded many of your free vids :tu: .

After I log in and track you Vid down I click on the purchase link I get a another purchase log in screen.

I try to log in it just gives me a "Invalid username and/or password, please try again." message.

Ive tryed a couple of times now and cant seem to get it to work. What am I doin wrong? :o

I would'nt be asking, but I cant seem to find a support link at VEOH?

BTW: Great fun in your tuts :D

[-CainiaC-]

:) Thank you for the answer.

...At least thats how I look at it and its worked for me so far...

I understand that you've been doing 3d modeling for quite some time so I bet your way of doing things will work for me too. :D

[cannedmushrooms]

anyone else experience the issue mohak has on veoh.?

My account wont let me purchase since im the author

[judee]

Just a thought - mohack are you using your account info from Jason's site to log in? I think you may need to sign up for a Voeh account to be able to purchase there.

And just a question for Jason - if we do the membership thing at your site, do we still have to go through Voeh for the downloads? Or can we then download all files directly at your site?

And if we do the membership, can we pay for three or 6 months at once, and not have the recurring thing on the CC - it's too hard for me to keep track of my CC as is, lol, when I have recurring charges it gets complicated!

:D

[renochew]

Hi, Jason, yeah I have the same issue of unable to log in when I want to purchase a video. It would be great if there is another option to buy the video :)

Thanks.

[EB Designs]

Hey, Renochew. I had the same problem, so I contacted Veoh, but they haven't got back to me. But the next time I logged on, the vid. I tried to buy was on my home page pending my approval for purchase.
It's some kind of bug in the website's code.

[cannedmushrooms]

renochew Ihave added a non sub deal at house.net 2 day pass deal thing incase you want to goto my site. www.houseoftutorials.net (http://www.houseoftutorials.net) look for the link on the left dealing with getting a password.

Sorry been sorta busy the last couple days work started back up and fall classes in full swing. This week is going to be insane;)

[EB Designs]

I just finished lesson 3, and I'm pretty happy with this.
Jason, you rock.
Anyone willing to share their knowledge, to the extent you've shared it, for free (almost... But who cares about a measley couple of bucks for two hours of phenominal, comprehensive lessons?), is pretty awesome, in my book.
I hadn't planned on posting anything, for a while, but I think this is worth posting, for my first project in Zbrush.
Kudos, sir. Keep up the fine work.
Final_Comp.jpg

[cannedmushrooms]

Good sculpt on the skull EB.

and thanks for the C & C :cool:

[cannedmushrooms]

House.net has been updated with a few new videos that are ready for the masses.

A nice relaxing scuplting the human head video, then re-topoing the head and finally taking the head and glueing it to the lesson 4 body;)
Very cool stuff.
Will take a few days to update veoh but just thought I would give you peeps the heads up;) on the house

lesson17_ZbrushC.jpg

lesson18_ZbrushC.jpg

lesson19_ZbrushC.jpg

[mohack]

Thanks so much!
:tu:

Respectfully, James

[Santis]

Cool tut man, your the best!:D

[zsub]

good videos

[Sky_Eagle]

Nice video tutorials! thx alot for all the time and effort you put into making them.
I only have a question: do you play the videos with Windows media player cause i can't seem to fast forward ?

[cannedmushrooms]

if you cant fast forward it means that your missing a little of the file after you downloaded it.
playing them via stream fastforward and rewind wont work either

best thing is to right click links save target as and download them. I think sombody else was having that same issue a few posts back.

glad you like;)

[-Gulch]

Hi, having a problem here, after doing the first steps over and over again while messing around with stuff to get to know the program a bit, I got stuck at minute 23.

You smooth the harsh lines from the eyes and nose out, but if I do that it doesn't smooth at all. Do I have to turn off the mask? Do I have to increase the intensity? What is it exactly that you do before you smooth it? And yes I did hold shift ;)

[cannedmushrooms]

Not sure what video but

Mask /Clear
Make sure your on the right subtool
Do you have Zadd button on?

Zadd-smooth
Zsub-Rough

[X-TrEmE]

Hey Jason, nice stuff so far!
I'm curious what will we see next?

And have you ever think of creating a video tutorials (few) on achieving realism..Like pick your favorite actor/actress and then try to achieve same look..etc..I think that will take your tutorials to the next, more advanced level..But ofc I never tried that, so I have noo idea how hard is that..
Whenever or not, you're doing superb great!

Anyway,
I'm off
Cya

[judee]

Hi Jason,

I got a sub for the .net site, and ever since I haven't been able to get in. It's the same whether I click on the direct link, or if I go to the .com site and click over from there. What happens is this:

The page hangs, blank, the loading bar gets to maybe halfway and gets stuck - and then none of my other open links work. In fact, I have to close firefox completely because it won't work after I click the .net link,

Then when I try to re-launch ff it says it is still running. So I have to go into the task manager and close it from there.

This happens every single time I click on the .net link... :(

I'm not in a rush - I got the years sub, so I've plenty of time to pick up the downloads I need. Just wondering if it's a problem others are having or if it's related to Firefox or what.

..... okay, nevermind ... :o I just read what I said and checked it out in IE7 - works fine.

So I guess the question is no - does anyone know why the site would have a problem with Firefox? No big deal, since I can get in - I just need to remember to use IE.

Boy do I feel silly, answering my own question. But I'll leave this here in case anyone else is haveing problems - at least they will know to switch over to IE to see the site.

:rolleyes: :lol:

[cannedmushrooms]

Actually X-treme I am doing a course on digital painting in phtoshop right now.
Same speal as before some free videos in veoh and the rest either pay on veoh or subscription on house.net
I know it has nothing to do with modeling but you might pick up some composition tricks, color, lighting and all those great core 2d things we should all know;)

Im going to be doing a render paint over soon also. sort of a Zbrush to Paint look;) As backwards as that sounds. Just getting sorta tired of not having lighting work on any of the mat cap materials so some painting skills are needed in the render postwork to fix that.

http://www.veoh.com/series/Houseofphoto

[cannedmushrooms]

Ok so I'm officially running on empty on the band width o meter for the month on house.net but I really did wanna release this video before the end of the month.

so here ya go on veoh

Part 1
http://www.veoh.com/videos/v1217478q5G5Hxqb
Part 2
http://www.veoh.com/videos/v1217479s84aEhMW

[zenus]

OMG!

thanks your help!

[mrmcpicklestein]

Jason, your classroom videos have been super helpful and have really helped me understand zbrush better. Much thanks and keep fighting the good fight!

[mohack]

Thanks for the help.

[cannedmushrooms]

wow mohack nice skull.

I like how you took the time to flaten the major bones.

Well I have not released a video in awhile because ya Zbrush is like crack basicaly and I have been modeling like a mad man for the past few weeks. But i did come up with somthing intresting I wanted to share in a brand new shiny lesson 20. ewwwww ahhhhhhh

I want to thank all the new members at the house, it is because of your memberships that help me through insane times as I battle servers and uploads and rendering.
My poor artist side does however like to give away free stuff, so never feel that because i do give free stuff to non members I dont apreciate my house members. It's only because I know how tuff this program is to learn;)
(Wipes Eyes)


Ok enough with the teacher speach IN the video I cover the following

Alpha shapes

Layers!!!!!! which are freeken amazing!!!

Projection master
and a plugin by marcus called imageplane 3 I use it for probally not the right reason for which it was made, but ya you should really download it and check it out.
And a speedy way to model stuff;)

Members link (http://www.houseoftutorials.net/membersonly/lesson20_zbrushC.wmv)
lesson20_ZbrushC.jpg



Veoh is still in the "Processing video" state but look for lesson 20
http://www.veoh.com/series/houseofZbrush
direct link
http://www.veoh.com/videos/v12503232REBz9d8

[Cral]

whats about the retopo video?
where can i watch it?

[cannedmushrooms]

Look at lesson 18 on veoh I run through topo there and on my site with the axe lesson. there is a workflow series also on veoh. I'll post the links to topo videos when I get home.

[cannedmushrooms]

heres that list a few days short;)
http://www.veoh.com/series/Houseofphoto
http://www.veoh.com/series/mayaworkhouse
http://www.veoh.com/series/houseworkflow
http://www.veoh.com/series/houseofZbrush
http://www.veoh.com/series/houseofmaya




Ok so I have been experimenting with differnt ideas on how to quickly make a series of monsters very quickly, all these heads were made at once. Yep at once.
That means in about 30 mins I made about 12 ish heads (some are not shown) ;) More to come later when I show the video;)

I call this Devil taking poo

for-thumb.jpg

[piz]

Tnx for the links Cannedmushrooms :cool: :tu:

[Nate Owens]

Hey Jason...

You trying to kill me?
I 'bout fell outa my chair laughing at that title you gave it.
Appropriately fits his expressions!! :lol:

Check yer PM.... I had a question about your tutorials and the subscription process...

Keep-em coming, man!

[cannedmushrooms]

lol thanks nate

I like those elf things on your site. They are far less creepy then the traditional serial killing yard gnome things thats for sure. Great illustrations too. Wow you really need to get into zbrush full force cause it looks like you have a intresting style that most Zbrush artists don't have. I see not one zombie or alien in your collection;)

welp heres the video on the devil head guy

I put all my links in my sig its on the house and on veoh
veoh is still in the "Processing Video " stage doh pink! um grrrrrrr
Test

test

Sweet ok ya anyway heres the video
lesson21_ZbrushC.jpg (http://www.houseoftutorials.net/page2.html)

[Nate Owens]

Hey, thanks mush!

When I wuz in high school (before dirt was made) I drew all sort of monsters and gutz and stuff... did lots of t-shirts for other kids and even painted a dragon on the dash of a vintage '31 chevy. I kinda moved on to other things since.

I'm working on learning Zbrush... so I'm planning to do stuff with it before long hopefully. :b4: :: :b3: :: :b2: :cool: go, dude.... lights turniing green... life in the fast lane

[hyper1]

Jason,

Whee, thanks for the head slap! How long has ZB3 been out? I still hadn't tried out layers till I watched your vid 2O. I'm working on a new character now and using layers as a non-destructive place to play with some ideas before committing to some serious detail sculpting. I see now just how powerful they are because even after the detail I can still fool around with expression. If I were doing this any other way, whether drawing or making physical models it would take forever...

I'm open for any more abusive enlightenment you want to throw our way, and I seriously hope the effort your putting into this stuff is paying you some well deserved dividends!:tu:

[SNARK]

Hey, Jason,

Layers tutorials rock. After you have created all these different versions with the layers, how could you export each one as a separate .obj? So that you could get them into Maya for facial morph targets. Also, where would reTopology fit into this? I guess you would reTopo first, before layer sculpting. But it seems that things like the snake-hook fx would still need additional reTopo.

Thanks!

~S.~

[cannedmushrooms]

Retopo probally comes after you make the guy as a straight character with horns and blank expression. Then after you retopo you can make an expression layered face that has serveral layers of eye winks and gins that you can blend between. Export your like level 3 each time to maya and do some blend shapes on the maya character based on the Zbrush exports. Just remeber in maya to turn on world space under blend shapes or your blend will not be a pretty sight within maya. It will look like the exploding meshes we see in Zbrush if we change the point order.

[Seb Castilho]

Hey Jason! I couldn't find your email adress so I thougth I'd post here instead. Thanks for all the tutorials man, they're amazingly helpful. This is the first time I've properly had a go at a 3D program, but Zbrush makes things so much easier.
I've just finished the 3rd tutorial and here is my result.
http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/2969/skullfinalte2.jpg
It's not as accurate as yours, but hell, style over realism as you say :cool: