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Zbrush 5.0 optimized for WINE?

If a native linux version of Zbrush is now impossible, you can at least try to optimize it for WINE ?

i’m a linux user

Best Regards

That would be freakena awesome

Another linux user

I add my voice to the request.

I work on Houdini and Mari, all on Linux. Zbrush is my only deterrence to ditch my Windows partition.

Forget it. Count me in though.:roll_eyes:

Forget it. Count me in though.:roll_eyes:

What optimizing for Wine even mean? If there are bugs in Wine, they should be reported and hopefully fixed. It would be pointless to change application itself to workaround Wine bugs. And reporting bugs is up to the users, so if you want better Wine support, please test ZBrush in it and report unknown bugs to Wine developers.

It would be much better to see real Linux port of ZBrush some day. But for now, I run it with Wine. I ditched Windows many years ago and dual booting just because of one app is out of the question for me, so Wine is the best option for me (virtual machines are the last resort, I prefer not to use them if possible). I’m mostly happy with how it works in Wine.

In case somebody has a problem running ZBrush 4R7 in Wine, this is how I did it:

  1. I installed Wine Staging 1.9.3, in winecfg Windows version is set to 7. I have mfc42, vcrun6 and corefonts (Microsoft Core Fonts) installed in my 64-bit Wine prefix.
  2. I have installed ZBrush, choose not to run it after installation.
  3. I ran ZBrush64.exe. I had trouble with normal activation so I choose phone activation, it is annoying but it worked for me.
  4. This is it, I can use ZBrush and almost everything works as expected, performance is good.

You can do all the above in PlayOnLinux, if you wish, but do not forget that if want to report bugs, you will have to retest with vanilla Wine / Wine Staging.

What does NOT work as expected:

  1. ZBrush start up time is very long, about half an hour in my case. It could be even longer on weaker computers. So if you started ZBrush and all you get is busy “disk” cursor, just wait for a while. This is the only performance issue I have encountered. This is known bug in Wine so no need to report it. And not really an issue for me, I have plenty of RAM and very rarely reboot, so I just keep ZBrush running all the time.

  2. Some icons in the Lightbox are not visible (they are clickable though). But I rarely use Lightbox, and everywhere else images and previews are displayed correctly as far as I can tell, so I can live with this isolated cosmetic issue.

  3. Sometimes tooltips or dialogs disappear quickly. But sometimes the same tooltips/dialogs work as expected. Fortunately, in most cases the latter.

There are maybe more issues I do not know about. I did not test ZBrush.exe (because I use ZBrush64.exe), I also have not tried yet with vanilla Wine (Wine Staging contains some hacks/fixes not present in vanilla Wine).

I managed to solve long start up time by checking in winecfg Graphics > Emulate a virtual desktop (I have set resolution of Wine desktop to my display resolution minus title bar height, so for my display resolution 2560x1440 and title bar height of 36px, “perfect” resolution for Wine desktop was 2560x1404).

Thanks to this workaround my ZBrush start up time reduced from more than half an hour to just about a minute. Could not find a way to fix the Lightbox, but overall ZBrush 4R7 seems to be mostly usable in Wine.

I add my voice to the request.
Another linux user.

zbrush not being on linux is starting to become a huge hindrance and let down… Many of the studios that I work at are switching to linux and that means all work done in zbrush is outside of a pipeline. If I need to use it I have to either have to lug my personal workstation to the studio and use it, which leaves me dealing with the pipeline team in how to transfer assets securely into their file system,. Or there is usually a crappy workstation set aside to run it. Pixologic please please make a linux version for zbrush 5. We shouldn’t have to go through WINE. As of of the most commonly used sculpting apps used in VFX,Advertising etc… it is also one of the most out of touch and out of the pipeline.

Linux, no…but try WINE it may work. Alembic, no but we just gave you fbx… actual cameras? lol…
I cant tell you how being able to import an alembic of geometry and shot cameras into mari is helpful. You can actually see your work in the context of the shot without needed to setup test in another 3d package. Imagine if we could do that with zbrush. Sometimes when you’re sculpting details on an object you’re not sure how they will be presented in the layout of a scene.

+1. Zbrush is so close to working well in Wine that it hurts. Would love to have real native support instead, but streamlining the Wine process would be very nice.

zbrush not being on linux is starting to become a huge hindrance and let down… Many of the studios that I work at are switching to linux

Same here. People around me and myself are looking into Linux-capable alternatives for sculpting, like 3D Coat.
I’m not sure that I want to stick with ZBrush over the upcoming years if we’re not seeing any first party Linux support there… :frowning:

Yes please. Even Substance Designer is already being ported to linux…

Is it? Where?
On https://www.allegorithmic.com/buy I can only see Windows and Mac options.

@Chris Offner

I said that its being ported, not that the port is done. So its still work in progress. They said that its hard, but they are working on it.

Source: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Substance-Designer-Linux-Portin

Zbrush appears to now use Qt for its ui, and is ported to Mac which is nominally a unix. Just make it a statically linked executable and give it to us on Linux. Shoot, make it steamOS and distribute it through the steam store instead of the weird licensing scheme it currently uses.

sigh Windows 10 is marginally more tolerable than windows, but Mac has never been a workhorse OS.

macs want to make me gouge out my eyes. My Intuous 3 no longer works under win 10 for various reasons.

Also with ZFS / BTRFS on linux, and the fact that even EXT4 outperforms NTFS and HFS+, zbrush should run faster too.

It works, even web registration though you need to manually type in the code!

You also need to install VCrun2008.

It even starts faster than on windows 10!

All I did was copy my zbrush install over my playOnLinux wine 1.94 install, and set up a shortcut to the app and set the windows version to 7.

Sigh I clobbered it just as I got it working and it ate up a license. Need a manual deactivtion… :stuck_out_tongue:

Got it to work great, startup is a little slow, but its snappy and my old wacom tablet works better under linux then it ever did under windows. I also zipped up the whole wine directory as a backup in case I ever clobber it…

I have been using Zbrush since 3.1 and have since been using Zbrush as a central tool for modeling more and more. Recently, I’ve been wanting to transition completely over to Linux for performance and stability reasons. My laptop runs only with Linux while my desktop machine uses Windows 7 (I’ve been avoiding Win10. I have to use it at work, don’t want to bring that home). I plan to try out these tips mentioned earlier with Wine. They sound promising!

I fully endorse the petition for Zbrush to have full Linux support! Please take it into close consideration, Pixologic. We all love you! :wink:

Can somebody explain to me what the “if a native linux version of Zbrush is now impossible” in the OP is referring to?
What about ZBrush would make a native Linux version impossible? Has any of this been confirmed by Pixologic?