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Gnomon: Introduction to ZBrush 3 dvd is wonderful

Gnomon Workshops Introduction to ZBrush 3 dvd is just so wonderful if you haven´t used Zbrush before Zbrush3. After 1/10th of the dvd I was able to use Zbrush3 ten times better then what 24hours of reading 23 tutorials and messing around, had given me. Just amazing.

There is a thread called “Meats dvd” but I never clicked it because of the name. This is the same dvd made by Meats. Please change the name of the “Meats dvd” thread so it becomes less confusing.

Best 49$ I have ever spend. Me so happy. I have to check out their other dvd´s too now. Are they as good?

I think Meats Miers Intro to Zbrush 3.0 is a worthy purchase, but I hate to sound like a prick, and even though he’s a fantastically talented bloke and seems like a decent enough fella, his voice grates so much don’t you think?
Maybe it’s just me thinks this!?

He sounds just like William S Burroughs!

I watched the first few parts of Digital Tutors Intro to ZB3 also, terrible compared to Meats, terrible compared to anything actually. The Digital Tutors Sculpting Techniques in ZB3 is great though.

ha ha maybe a little like William S Burroughs. I really like Burroughs so for me that ain´t so bad. The new trend of making video tutorials on the web have forced me to endure some really annoying voices. I guess I´m slowly becoming imune to them.

Ya somtimes its hard to produce that voice that people like to hear What we need to do is sit a great narrator down and teach him to 3D model. It would be more like a great bedtime story that way.

Meats did do a great job though.

It would be easier than that, as a decent (and pleasent sounding) voice actor could just read from a transcript (and listen to also get it in sync) of the actual persons dialoge as they were working. Also, why do tutorials not have subtitles? This would eliminate the irritating voice effect AND be helpful to those who are hard of hearing or totally deaf!?

To my knowledge I’ve never seen an actual tutorial with subtitles for any product, nevermind just Zbrush. I’ve seen flash demo’s for products with subtitles, but I suspect that wasn’t to benefit the hard of hearing, only conserve data.

I’m not hard of hearing by the way, but I do think it’s a bit of a crap situation if your deaf, don’t you think?

This is almost totally off the original posters topic I’ve just realised! :lol: :smiley:

I do believe it is also a good suggestion to have subtitles. I am not deaf however it is not that far off. Ive worked a hard life/ with many jackhammers and amongst other things so I have to crank up any tutorial. I have often found that many programs fail but one that doesnt leave me hanging in the sound department is VLC media player…google it and youll have another equalizer on top of your other software. Hope this helps.

AND GREETINGS…wow my first post :cool:

Meats has one of the better voices I’ve heard from a video tutorial… he speaks clearly, with a very neutral accent, even tones, and plain vocabulary… all qualities which I find to be usually lacking

his first Intro to ZBrush DVD is what inspired me to stay with CG Art… after watching that, ZBrush just clicked with me… like a paradigm shift… and I’ve been comfortable with the application ever since, unlike any other… I value Meats as a teacher more than any I’ve actually studied with in person

I just got the DVD yesterday, but haven’t got’n a chance to get into it. I was wondering if it covers (in detail) how to do retopology of a model?

Yes it does. Meats explains it so well too, and gives some nice tips and tricks.

Glad we’re not the only ones to think so :lol: No disrespects to Meats who i know visits these forums. His coverage of tools is very good, he did a great job of exposing every facet of zbrush in a very deep way. On his teaching skills i can say nothing but good, just like all Gnomon dvds.

But yes his voice is a small source of frustration. The problem is that his overall tone is very monotone and mellow, which makes you want to turn the volume up to better undrestand (and frankly not fall asleep cuz it’s kinda hypnotic). But when you do raise the volume, his S’s stab into your ears. So you’re stuck listening at a volume that’s low enough to not overblow the S’s but almost too low to be able to concentrate on the rest of the words.

Could be the sound compression making the S sounds so sharp and stabby… But one way or another it would be great if the sound had been filtered out a bit to tone it down.

While on the topic of voice critique, Alex Alvarez is the best video tutor voice I’ve heard so far.

I just finished watching the first 2 chapters. So far it’s been really good.

I’ve had no problems with his voice. He speaks clearly. Trust me, I’ve seen training videos where the people are trying to act cool. That is WAY worse then a cracky voice. For example; “This is the bomb feature! You’ll dig it when you use it”. I can’t stand that kind of language on a training DVD.

Anyway. I was 10 minutes into the introduction chapter. Bored out of my mind! I know how the menus work. Yes, I know how to click buttons!

Then he starts dragging and dropping controls around on the screen. Creates his own roll up interface. My jaw dropped! I’ve been using ZBrush since version 2.0, and never saw anything like that.

You’ll constantly have these little “Eureka!” moments where you discover a new little feature that makes your life easier.

I just don’t have the time to sit there watching the videos. I think it will take me a couple of weeks to finish the set.

Really good value for the money.

So when is volumn 2 coming out? I want to buy the “ZBrush 3.1 - Advanced Methods”. This always gets me frustrated. Someone does a really good introduction training DVD, but never follows threw with the next level.

I hope that doesn’t happen with ZBrush DVDs.

Really ??? I’m just shy a few chapters before I’ll have gone over the entire tutorial, and I have greatly enjoyed it … but then again, I’m a novice, so I don’t really know any better :wink:
One thing that does “annoy” me though, is that it seems like theres a big difference between 3 and 3.1 - and I’m on 3.1. Maybe some features have changed between the two, or maybe I’m just doing something wrong (most likely, I guess) - but, fer instance, I can’t get Projection Master to work. Oh well …

I have heard Meats before, and he sounds like he is recovering from a long fun night on the town, with too many cigarets and booze… lol But I’ll see if I can check this tutorial of his out.

I will add my reccommendaton for the Meats/Gonom DVD. The instruction is excellent and I learned more and learned quicker than I ever could with a manual.

MY ONLY complaint is the quality of the actual DVDS. 1) They are not VIDEO dvds. I was looking forward to popping them in the dvd player and setting the computer where I could follow along. 2) The setup/player program used to make these dvds makes my computer DVD drives grind and fuss like no other dvd has.
Once I quit a tutorial THE DVD DRIVE IS NO LONGER EVEN RECOGNIZED BY MY COMPUTER!!

I went so far as to rip the video off the disks in order to easily play them on my computer, rather than fuss with the problem causing dvds.

I have to do the samething. These are DVD-ROMs with QuickTime files on it, and my computer spins the drive at max RPM for ROM’s. If this was a normal DVD video disk. The computer would run the drive in quit mode, but since it’s a ROM I can’t enable the mode.

I have to copy the files to my hard disk and watch them.

After watching these things for several hours I’ve got’n bored out of my mind. There are no work files included on the disk. Meat’s just keeps talking, and talking, and talking. There isn’t anything for the student to do. There is nothing about these videos that I would describe as tutorials. It’s 100% lecture after lecture.

It would have been better for Meats to have included working files. You load the working file and follow in the tutorials to procude the same results. This way you learn by doing.

I’ve started running ZBrush at the same time, and just play around with what Meats is talking about during the lectures. This has helped me get threw the DVD’s better.

I was also hoping that he would produce something of interest. Like walk the student threw the process of sculpting a character, texture it, and render it. But, he jumps from one project to another constantly. He also draws quickly on simple objects, and the results often look terrible. For example he draws a head starting from a sphere, but the head in the end looks really bad.

It’s still a must have for any beginner ZBrush user, but there are rooms for improvements.

I have to politely dissagree with you, mustan9.

:large_orange_diamond: After all DVDs are there to teach you something new and expand your knowledge, and it’s better to show you in-depth of what each tool can offer
:large_orange_diamond: Then just show you how to create some killer sculpture…
:large_orange_diamond: Because after you create that sculpture you will have hard time on your next! But if you know how each tool respond and what can it do, it will all be easy!

Eh that’s just my 0.02$ and the way I think about it!

The title of this DVD is Introduction to Zbrush3, not Sculpting a human head with Zbrush3. Most introduction courses are Tool-based tutorial, not Project-based, I believe the reason is that if you dig deep to a particular project, you will prompt to be unable to cover all the tools systemically.

I am completely new to zbrush when I watch this video, so I found this DVD very comprehensive and systematic, when I start doing my own project, I usually come back to the video and watch it again when I felt I need a particluar tool, say, the masking chapter, or subtools chapter, I found it very handy and I believe it is the whole point of this DVD. (If it is project based DVD, it will be very difficult to do that)

I agree that if I now watch another DVD that use the same approach, I am pretty sure I will feel bored by it, because I have already knew the basic of Zbrush, I will expect a more project-based tutorials.

What I want to say is that you feel bored by this DVD not because something wrong with the instructor, but simply because you are not the target of this DVD in the first place. You may already know something about Zbrush and want to know MORE about it or want to take one step further. That is something this DVD not intended to do.

Finally, for the same reason, I don’t think a project file is necessary with this DVD, you can follwoing every thing Meats said by just dragging a cube/sphere to the cavas and do want Mead do. Of course, I do want to have some project file form Meats :wink: but it would be a bonus.

I’ve only viewed a couple chapters, but so far I like Meats’s first Intro to ZBrush better.

Since I have his first Intro to ZBrush, I’ve only downloaded a couple of chapters that cover stuff new to ZBush 3. The chapters I downloaded are subtools and transpose. If any one highly recommends any other chapters for working with new features in ZB3.1 let me know.

Hello to everyone,

I am a newbie to the forum as well as to 3D and ZBrush.
i have just downloaded all the chapters of “Introduction to ZBrush” and am delighted with the content of it.
It shows clearly what can be done and where everything can be found in the program. Ideal for a beginner to find his way around!

:+1:

Downloaded???

Let’s traces his IP address, and notify the company that we caught outself a DVD pirate.

gnomonology has each chapter for sale for zbrush3 depending on if you only want to learn one specific thing.