ZBrushCentral

Advice, will Zbrush work for me?

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#21

I can say one thing for sure. I can tell already the Zbrush community is full of good people. You guys have gone way beyond my expectations in regards to getting answers.

It’s clear to me not to expect ANY results from ZB over the next SEVERAL weeks. If there was a good time to plunge though now was the time. Our new product cycle always shoots to ship before the holiday season so my mad rush to get things out the door ended about 2 weeks ago. It’s so funny because now it’s the polar opposite I have some scrap work to do but that’s about it. Bossman has given me the thumbs up on all this stuff and even buying the tutor DVDs :+1:

Yesterday, I had our industrial designer try to export out a .dxf file of a knob from one of our guitar amps. No luck. Solidworks is such a lame program. He even had to try a freeware add-on to export .dxf format. The only other format he can do was IGS and that appears to be no good as well. Too bad, if I could import his files I’d be able to focus on rendering for now and eliminate a lot of model work on my end. It would have been cool to render out future prototypes from ZB as well. He hadn’t heard of ZB until I told him and now he wants to see about a license :stuck_out_tongue:

Marcus - thanks for the script!

#22

I just found these, so it appears there is a Z3 practical manual, but its probably a work in progress, and some of the tuts still reference older interfaces.

http://www.zbrush.info/docs/index.php/Downloads

#23

there’s the ‘sweep-profile-3d’ tool in zbrush, would be useful to get the initial shape for those amp dials. it also gives you the option to create ridged/knurled edges quickly.

knowing what you want to use it for (I’m a happy toneport user!), I suspect zbrush would be more useful for you than a traditional 3d package. others have mentioned zbrush’s roots as an illustration tool, which sits well with the existing gearbox look and feel.

there have been a few people over the years that have pushed the ‘airbrushed mechanics’ look, you might find it interesting to see some images, read how they construct them. a lot of these come from v1.x, well before the lumpy monster head brigade pushed zbrush to where it is now… :slight_smile:

ztevie ray waaay back when did lots of this style:
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=000387

here’s a few posts explaining his techniques:
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?p=82102#post82102
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?p=107663#post107663

good post showing how to make tyre treads quickly, it would easily apply to ridged dials:
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=001440

mechanical robot bits, script included (curious if it’ll work in z3!):
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=001965

tricks to fake booleans:
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=009776

using simple alpha images to construct 3d shapes (guitars in this example!) get too close and they don’t look good, but would be fine for a gearbox UI:
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=010952

and another one:
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=21517&page=2&pp=15

this airplane is a good example of something much easier to model in something like silo, but shows you can do more than most people expect in zbrush (there’s a certain macho pride in keeping it all in zbrush too… :slight_smile:
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=020370

more crazy detail revolved surfaces:
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=5574

for rendering rotating dials, I think it might be easier to render all your elements seperately, then composite them in after effects. you won’t get highlights or reflections properly moving over surfaces as they rotate, but i doubt people will notice much. if it really bothered you then use marcus’ script to render out the rotating dials, and import those to AE. While you could definitely do all your finished work in zbrush, it’d be faster to composite externally.

-matt

ps: new products eh? cmon, spill the beans! an updated variax would be nice… hint hint

#24

I think zbrush is an awsome tool for design, Ui etc…
Like people says, you have to take in consideration the budget and the learning time required…
but you can achieve really great design, depending on your skills, mixing mechanical and organic shapes…

button.jpg

#25

As Seb says its perfectly possible to do hard surfacxe stuff in Zbrush, really it sjust amatter of getting used to the hard surface workflow then its actually pretty easy really. This does take into account that your aready comfortable with the program though.

It takes time to master any applicatin in 3d, and Zbrush is well worth the effort in my view.

Wayne…

#26

Thanks Matt!

Lot’s of helpfull info there for sure. I’ve been going through meats DVD and getting a little frustrating because he hasn’t really covered any hard surface stuff yet…but I’m sure it’s he’ll get to it. Your links will definitely help.

Glad your enjoying TonePort too :+1:

Updated Variax would be cool, I concur.

best,
J