ryankingslien

DAY 1
Monday, July 31st 2006

Alright. So the fun begins! I'm in Boston. The booth is up. It’s a cool booth. Some great images from ILM and Electronic Arts. Also, Damian Canderle, Sebastien Legrain and Jeff McAtter's images are up on the top banner and they are huge! Thank you so much for the images guys!


Today, we are going over the presentation and I think you will be very happy with the new features that have been added to the new ZBrush which is a free upgrade for ZBrush 2 users.



ZBrush strives to be more than a leader in digital sculpting, it strives to bring the future of digital art to today’s artists. We, as artists and developers, do not stop at creating tools for today’s artists. We create tools for tomorrow’s artists as well. The future of digital art is getting better and better and Siggraph is the time for all of us to celebrate how much computer art has advanced.



In this post and following posts I will highlight some of my favorite features of the next ZBrush. Here is a first look.



Speed, speed and more speed.

SubTools – millions and millions of polygons and support for multiple objects and multiple textures.

3D sculpting with an alpha, texture, and stroke – the power of Projection Master in full 3D.

Mesh Extraction – a fast and incredibly powerful way to create new geometry from existing geometry.

3D Layers – store sculpting and texturing in 3D layers for a non-linear workflow

Topology Projection – transfer high-resolution sculpting from one model to another without loosing the hi-resolution details.

Poly Painting – paint directly on your models surface without any UVs.

ZCasting - Broadcast your ZBrush session to the ZBrush community.


The new ZBrush is significantly faster and capable of handling much larger polygonal models than ever before. The new ZBrush is optimized for 32 bit systems as well as 64 bit systems, taking full advantage of the processing power, multiple CPUs and available RAM.



I have made two short movies of the new features using a model I am working on in the new ZBrush. Everything you see is 100% pure ZBrush.


DOWNLOAD MOVIE HERE

The first movie is about our new SubTools feature that allows artists to work with multiple objects and multiple textures. It also allows you to work directly on models with a staggering number of polygons. The model you see here is twenty two million polygons!

DOWNLOAD MOVIE HERE

The second movie is about Mesh Extraction. Mesh Extraction is an incredibly fast and powerful way to create geometry. Mask a part of your model and simply extract it. Poof! Instant geometry. ZBrush automatically generates a new SubTool with clean edges. Check it out!


Also, one more feature I want to mention here is ZCasting. ZCasting will enable ZBrush artists to connect with each other and broadcast their ZBrush session to the community. Look for more information on this soon. Oh and perspective? But of course. More on that later.


Now, a little about the show tomorrow. Our first demo is around 10 am. We will be doing one demo every half hour or so. We have Alex Huguet demoing his ZBrush workflow in the afternoon. A schedule will be available at the desk in the booth. See you guys tomorrow!


DAY 2
Tuesday, August 1st, 2006

Wow! Thank you for the amazing show of support guys! Today was an awesome day! I am extremely tired from all the presentations.

For now, I have two more videos for you guys and I think you will be excited.

Enhanced 3D sculpting
DOWNLOAD HERE

Texturing in full 3D.
DOWNLOAD HERE


DAY 3
WEDNESDAY AUGUST 2ND, 2006

All I can say is thank you to everyone who came out to the booth and everyone who came to read this thread. I am very happy and it is very motivating.

One thing you should know about Boston is that it is HOT right now! OMG! That and the humidity is pretty crazy. We had an even better day today. I want to thank everyone for sharing their opinions, their thoughts and their feedback.

One thing I would like to clarify is that ZApp Link will work with Poly Painting and that Poly Painting is an extension of the vertex coloring that is in ZBrush 2 right now. The addition is the huge increase in polygons that allows Poly Painting to effectively compete with texture mapping. Also, as someone mentioned it can easily be converted to a texture map for use outside of ZBrush.

Also. today, Alex Huguet demoed his zbrush skill and was also at the gurrilla studios showing off zbrush and looking at 3D printers.

On another note, Taron was demoing a new plugin that connects ZBrush with After FX. A really cool plugin that connects the abilities of the ZBrush canvas
with After Fx's animation tools! Its an amazing tool for previsualizing effects, digital matte painting and just playing with AFter FX and ZBrush! Thanks Taron.

Tomorrow we have Zack Petroc demoing his ZBrush sculpting skills and Alex Huguet! I should also be stopping over by the Wacom booth to show off ZBrush which has been installed on all their PCs.

We are having internet problems at the hotel I am in so I can not get a new movie to you but it should be fixed by tomorrow. We will see.


DAY 4
THURSDAY AUGUST 3RD, 2006

The convention center closed at 3:30 today. Alex Huguet demoed his ZBrush skills and how he creates his awesome models. Zack Petroc presented his designs and thinking process behind the amazing digital works he creates. We presented ZBrush 2.5 and all the features you have seen in the movies save for one more movie that I have uploaded today - 3D Layers!

I should mention that layers also store RGB information so that as you, say, add scales to a layer you can store the scales texture as well. This can then be turned on or off with the layer. Pretty cool!

The entire trip was alot of work and went off incredibly well. Alex Huguet, Taron and Zack Petroc worked really hard demoing ZBrush skills and their working process. It is much appreciated! Thanks Alex! Thanks Taron! Thanks Zack!

Many people came up to say how happy they were with the new features. The Mesh Extraction always seemed to get people attention. I could see their eyes kinda look a bit confused at first and then relax and open wider as they realized how simple it really was.

I often repeated that ZBrush 2 and 2.5 all use the computer for what it does best - augment our own creativity and give us outlets that would have been difficult to do without it. The new Mesh Extraction is one of those pure ZBrush features that look to the future of digital sculpting and creates ways for artists today to work without the limitations of today's tools.

In every demo I repeated that ZBrush 2.5 is about artist-centric workflows. it is about getting the idea out and into some kind of form as fast as possible. It is about enabling ZBrush users to realize their vision in a non-linear way so that spontenaity and creative passion can have their day. Digital painting has this ability. It is time that digital sculpting has this ability and I think ZBrush gives us this. At least that is my perspective!

Thank you all for listening and have a safe and happy day wherever you are.

Best,

Ryan

DOWNLOAD HERE


DAY 12
AUGUST 11TH, 2006

The first week back in the office since Siggraph has been a busy one. We have wrapped up the ILM interview and are just waiting for some movies. Get a first look here. The newsletter is near done and we have created a Siggraph recap on ZBrush.com. Check it out here.

I have one more video for everyone. This video shows the new Mesh Projection feature. Mesh Projection is the next step in the non-linear workflow of the next ZBrush. Mesh Projection allows the artist to shrinkwrap one model to another model with completely different poly count and topology. This allows the artist to not have to commit to one edge flow layout and to adjust it on they fly while sculpting or at the end when you are developing your animation-ready topology.

Thank you Zack Petroc for the use of your model!


DOWNLOAD HERE

__________________
Comprehensive Introduction to ZBrush 4 Workshop Released!

huanglan

nice

__________________
I love ZBrush!

Meats Meier

Wow, the new features look amazing.
I can't wait to play with the mesh extraction

I wish I could have gone to Siggraph....

__________________
Meats Meier
3dArtSpace.com

Erklaerbar

dang, just second post. great, thanks for the update ryan,
Gonna let my brain swift away to imagine what that all means exactly

--E--

holy crap holy crap holy crap!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

__________________
Eric Blondin
Lead Character Artist
www.ericblondin.com

Zbrush Workflow Scripts
World of Warcraft Zombie

Roja

Sounds awesome! Can't wait to try it

If Zbrush ever supports painting on photoshop file layers then I'll die happy

solomon

Omg Omg Omg!!

Omg Omg!!!!

Omg!!!

__________________
"There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, the rest of their voyage is bound in shallows and in miseries.On such a full sea are we now afloat and we must take the current when it serves or lose our ventures." Brutus

Soreel GraFX
www.sowl.com
http://solomon.cgsociety.org

sparty

Awesome!

__________________
Eric Provan
New Animated Short Blog - wip
Animated Short Blog - finished
Website
Dec. 2008 Demo Reel

Angelstein

I think I shat my pants!

Great stuff

apexpriest

I'm really amazed by the new tools, can't wait.
Great job guys.

Sincerely

Edwin Sumalave
www.edwin3design.com

Sebcesoir

THATS SO GOOD TO GET COOL NEWS!

__________________
Sébastien Legrain A.K.A Sebcesoir

http://sebleg.free.fr


That would be damn cool to have Zbrush caps!

Whistler

Impressive. even layers, dang!

voodoomonkey

Hey Ryan.
Damn I wish I could be there.
Love the demos you posted up.
Have a great week, may it be as successful
as you all have envisioned.
Cheers
Cesar Dacol Jr.
Aka, The Voodoo Monkey