Ok I’v really only used Zbrush when it comes to 3d (I tried lightwave once but it was too confusing) anyway, I was wondering just how unique this program is.
Is there anything like Zspheres for other programs? how about projection master, is that the only thing of it’s kind? alphas? 2.5D paint? scripts? do other apps have similar things?
What does Zbrush lack? is there something I’m missing out on by restricting myself to one app?
I don’t plan on tossing out my copy of Zbrush, just curious 
Well i haven’t seen anything like Z-Brush before… Maya does have a sculpt geomatry tool, which kind of resambles z-brush but it is crap compared to z.
Perhaps deep paint comes close to texturing, i haven’t tried it ever though. So can’t say for sure.
What it lacks well… proper traditional polygon modelling tools, cut faces/ extrude faces / spily poly’s etc… as far as i know you can only do edge loops.
Oh yeah and a animation package would be on my wishlist.
Yeah I heard something about a future version of Zbrush that will include an animation engine that uses zspheres, wouldn’t that be fun? 
I’ve read that zsphere are like “metaballs on steroids,” but I don’t know what a metaball is. This about the most informative thing I could come up with through google on that: http://www.corelmag.com/1103/overview/Metaball_Modeling.html
Metaballs are great fun. Basically, imagine a lava lamp. You’ve got globs of substance floating around, and when they get close to each other, they merge into a larger glob. (Sort of. You can still move the source objects around, and the globs will seperate as they get far enough apart.)
I used to work in a program called Organica, which hasn’t been updated in years but was one of the more advanced meta-modellers out there and may still be. It let you see your results in something close to realtime, which was pretty revolutionary.
That’s pretty cool. I can see how the characters in the winged tiger example are pretty much naturals for metaballs.
I couldn’t find much on organica on google. The closest I could come was a 3ds max plugin.
That’s the one – they’re lying about that little detail – it’s a self contained program which happens to export .3DS files.
I don’t recommend buying a copy at this point – the company behind it (Impulse, makers of “Imagine,” which was actually a competitive little 3D app back in the Amiga days) seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth. And even while they were around, they never put out a single update. Their website URL was coolfun.com if that tells you anything – they weren’t taking themselves too seriously.
In fact… There was no copy protection of any kind, and the manual was a PDF right there on the CD. At the time, I thought this unusually trusting, but in retrospect, I think they knew they wouldn’t be around to create reg keys for too much longer.
I suspect they’d do much better selling it now that it’s so easy to spit out a new topology using other software. Bad timing for them.
Anyway, I found this and this. But that’s about it. The official website, I think, was the only place you could even download the demo from. Which is a shame – it was quite enjoyable, and the hardware’s come so far since that came out, I have to imagine it’d run like a dream now.
…but, does it produce quads?
I may have to dig up my old CD and look into that. Hmm.
Yeah, seems pretty much like a concept that didn’t make it.
Amorphium 3 has some similar features to zbrush but so far I have not been able to get great detail with it, but I have only been messing with it for a week.
It is a very good program and being a beginner in 3d imaging at $130.00 it fit my budget. It has Biospheres that works similar to zspheres and also some thing called tin that makes modeling basic shape very easy. The whole program is a snap to master. Amorphium is to zbrush as Paint Shop Pro is to adobe Photoshop or Corel painter.
I still say zbrush is the best but until I can justify spending $500 on something that is just a hobby for me that I need a lot of practice to master, I stick with Amorphium.
The program has not been updated since 2002, but in a German test of 3d imaging software it still came in 4th.
for me…it’s kinda hard justifying ONLY paying $500 for zbrush. It’s worth our collective weights in gold. As a hobbyist it would be the one tool I would pay for…the rest of the stuff you can find a free version to do somewhere.
MHO
Here’s a funny story about Impulse, these guys I used to work with bought it and were trying to use it to make commercials in the early 90’s, and they had some trouble figuring out how to make a certain kind of material, so they called the company and asked, and the advice they got was “you just have to be one with the software.” I think Impulse is just one guy.
Actually I still use Organica, and on my four-year-old system, it DOES run like a dream. Drag a metaball and everything only seems parly transparent, the redraws are so fast. Its just fun.
It doesn’t produce quads though, thats its major drawback. The topology that it produces is more like Zbrush’s unified skin than anythng else. Nothing like adaptive skin exists in any other app I know about. And if you want to model without regard for topology Zbrush allows about the most freedom you could want. Want a blob made out of several things? Bring them together with multimarker and make a unified skin out of it.
There was a Max plugin called Meta-reyes, that had some really advanced metaball features, such as a spline with a variable sized area of influence along its length, but it couldn’t produce quads either. And I found a program online called Softy 3D, which was based entirely on meta-splines. It allowed you to mesh only a part of the surface, if you wanted to, and enabled the export of much higher poly-count models than Organica. But that company isn’t around anymore either.
If such a thing were combined with something like today’s topology brush in Silo, then it would be much more powerful. But again, I think we just have to wait for Zbrush 2.5 to draw topology on the surface with the new zspheres.
That makes Zbrush pretty unique.
It lacks: a quad layout, (but there’s a script for that) camera perspective, and the aforementioned polygon modeling tools. But get Wings 3D, which is free and you’ll have that. You still won’t have animation though. Maybe try Blender, its free, or was, if you can find it to download. I think Hash Animation Master is the cheapest full 3D package. Its modeling system is based on something way different from Zbrush/Wings, but I think you can import polygon-based models anyway.
Last time I checked, Animation:Master was simply not set up for displacement rendering. You could do it, but you’d wish you hadn’t bothered. This may have changed, or be changing soon.
That said, Messiah:Studio is in the same pricerange, offers spectacular animation tools (which are at LEAST competitive with A:M for ease-of-use) and handles all your ZBrush-exported details beautifully. (It didn’t do hair or cloth simulation last time I checked, though.)
For a 3D Hobbiest who doesn’t need the best image quality, you can probably get by on Animation:Master and not need anything else. But if you’re obsessed with pushing the envelope, money shouldn’t be an object. We invest in our lifestyle – that’s just who we are. And for THOSE people, ZBrush + Messiah:Studio are really the way to go. With Silo thrown in for good measure, at least until ZBrush 2.5 comes out…
(that’s a less valuable combo if you’re in it for the job prospects – the ZBrush-wielding studios one hopes to work for are still Max/Maya/XSI based)
EDIT:
I should also mention that, having grown used to ZBrush, I don’t use quad view in ANY software while I’m modeling. It’s handy for compositing objects into a final scene (so you know they’re not intersecting), but wastes valuable screen space the rest of the time. And, let’s face it – if one othographic view distorts your perception, three’s that much worse.
The strategy is thus:
Stay in perspective where possible, and keep moving the camera around to maintain the illusion of 3D space. Unless you’re building something to mathematically precise specifications, this is the only thing that ever works!
Within that, it’s worth mentioning that you actually do have a perspective option inside of ZBrush. It’s automatically turned off whenever you try to edit your mesh in the PC version, but you can and should toggle out of live editing mode i to rotate your model around i with perspective on (the “persp” button in the “draw” pallette) every few minutes and get a sense of what you’re actually building.
(on the Mac, you can toggle this on and off while modeling by pressing ‘u’. I believe Windows will also have this in v2.5)
Oh do not get me wrong, I will be buying Zbrush. You see I am just begining this wonderful thing called 3d. As for the free stuff yes I could do the same thing with it if I really felt like fumbling with the interface. Amorphium 3 is easy, great for a beginer who has fumbled with the free stuff but still hasn’t got it.
It is not a crayon, more like a good watercolor you could find at an art store. Where as Zbrush is the fine oils with the best pigment on earth you need to ask Leonardo da Vinci where to get. I am just not there yet.
This is the 4th model i did with Amorphium 3. I could not do that with the free stuff. Don’t know why. Just me. When Zbrush 2.5 comes out I hope to do better.
That’s good advice. I’ve never actually tried to use Animation Master, or Messiah, and my experience in lightwave is limited to helping a fellow student figure out how to place a camera one time.
In my circles, the consensus is that Max, Maya, Lightwave and such are just tools, you should be able to do what you want with any of them and that it makes more sense to focus on the art and the underlying principles.
Toggling perspective on and off might be a valuable hint. I’ll have to try it. But I do think its a bit disorienting to have to model in orthographic perspective.
I think quads would actually come in handy when trying to get a complex Zsphere model straight. If it helps in composing object it helps in arranging components of an object. But you’re right, that you don’t use it all the time. Wings 3D defaults to a single perspective viewport, and Max and Maya have quick toggles between quad and single views.
Manixolated, or gottsbett- If you’re serious about this hobby you really should give Wings 3D a try. They are a lot of help for anything that isn’t organic or where topology is an issue, and its basically the same workflow you would use with Max, and probably XSI.
I’m more of a polygons and 3DS Max kind of person, and my impression of Maya isn’t very favorable. Compared to Max or Wings it just isn’t a modeling program. Its polygon tools are cumbersome and behind the curve, and nurbs are so cumbersome as to be beyond belief. Time was when Max was at version 2.5, and people criticized it for having materials that look like nothing but plastic. As if anyone ever used the Maya default renderer in actual production! It was slower than molassass and not greatly sophisticated. But now they are both using Mental Rays, with SSS, caustics, Ambient occlusion, and Maya’s remaining claims to greatness seem to amount to some superior dynamics and a few rigging tools. That and the big studios like it because its what their used to. They have the small armies necessary to actually make it work, and people are stubborn about what they’re used to, kinda like I’m stubborn about prefering Max.
I begin my third Maya class next week. Wish me luck.
Amorphium has…
Composer… where you do your rendering with light and camera view. Also where you deside what material to work with.
Tin… Where you work with basic shapes. The edge, vertex and loop stuff. Simular to blender way of modeling but very easy.
Wax… You work with a basic shapes and melt wax on or off then smooth for detail.
Biospheres… very simular to zbrushes zspheres. Its ok but will admit Zbrush is better.
Material… Rendering color, ambient color and stuff like transparency of model.
Mapper… Fine tuning how materials (textures) are mapped to object
Paint… Where you paint directly to your model. Can not paint texture through. RATS!
Morph… used for morping an object to another. Think for animation.
Height… Simular to bump mapping. Can be used to change to surface geometry. From what I have seen this would be used for creating details like pores on skin.
FX… Apply effects to object like noise. Also for appling paint effects like noise.
Tools… This is where you model just like zbrush. Zbrush allows for much better detail before needing to worry about subdivisions.
Mask… used to mask parts of an object so their geometry can or can not be effected when sculpting.
Task… So you can record what you did to a model so you do not have to do it again if you want a twin later on in a new project.
It has no scripts or plugin suport like Zbrush. Rats!
Hope this answers some questions to at least another piece of software.
I love Max’s default scanline renderer. Haven’t found the “low quality” setting for Mental Ray when you just want a quick test animation, and I haven’t made anything so good as to justify that kind of wait. But, I can make the material editor produce any kind of look I’m going for, and it renders in no time with default scanline. Haven’t tried to transfer these skills over to Maya yet. I’ll admit the prospect makes me nervous.
Maya has more than a few rigging tools. What it has is an interface built out of it’s own scripting language. Which means absolutely everything is open to customization. The plugin API is even more open for C++ programmers. Big studios build proprietary tools, and Max doesn’t make that easy. (their code is held together by duct tape)
This means nothing for the home user, but Maya’s a technical director’s dream. There’s some truth to the statement that studios use what they’re used to, but it more applies to the slow adoption of newer programs. I remember a time when it was just common knowledge that “Maya’s pretty exciting, but if you want a JOB, that means 3D Studio Max.” So, I’m not sure the statement that they choose Maya over Max because they’re used to it is terribly accurate. The reverse was a hurdle they chose to overcome.
Personally, I’m starting to veer away from Max because it’s kept me rooted in MS Windows for too long. I want the freedom of cross-platform applications, 'cause I don’t feel good about where they’re going with OpenGL. But that’s just me, and I’ll freely admit that I’m being irrational about it.
The other thing is, big studios don’t have to choose – they can afford to bounce back and forth between several platforms to leverage the strengths of each. Money’s not so big an issue as time for them. If you’re stronger in Max or Silo or Wings or ZBrush for modelling, great! I don’t think that’ll ever be a strike against you. Just make sure you can export cleanly into whatever they’re using to animate…
And speaking of time, I’m going to be late for work now. Yikes!
Well to make the point a little finer, it’s Hollywood that’s used to Maya, they’ve been there since Maya 1, and before. Because they used its predecessor, Alias Wavefront. In those days it was 3D Studio, not yet calling itself Max, which ran in DOS. The biggest thing I’ve ever seen made with that was the cyberspace scenes in Johnny Mnemonic. That was about the same time that Alias Wavefront was helping them render Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park. So, yeah, it’s what they’re used to.
Max means a JOB because thats what a lot of NON-entertainment companies have been used to working with. Like architectural visualizations. Because 3DS grew out of Autodesk, and is originally a close cousin of AutoCAD, the drafting program. And its what THEY are used to. The reason why this is important to the job market is that there are vastly more non-entertainment animation jobs than there are Hollywood jobs.
And for them, the small companies, customization isnt as big a consideration as ease of use and speed. To make Maya easy to use, you have to customize it. It isn’t designed to let you do anythign quickly or off the cuff. On the other hand, I think that getting things like Jurassic Park or The Incredibles, muscle-deformation system going in Max would be almost an insuperable challenge.
And the thing about it being held together by duct-tape, well I’m sure there must be some issue that causes people to choose Maya over Max, but My impression of them is that Maya doesn’t crash any less often than Max does, so I think that such accusations are a bit overblown.
Now that we’ve gotten the subject completely off of Zbrush, maybe I should mention that my two new favorite rendering option from Max/Mental Rays are Ambient Occlusion and Subsurface scattering. Now, I’ve seen a lot of renderings done strictly in Zbrush that appear to have a good subsurface scattering thing going, and I’m almost happy with this global diffuse lights and material I downloaded from this forum, but I think I could use some hints to bring the quality of the materials I have to play with in Zbrush up to par.
Meant. I was speaking in past-tense, of a situation which no longer is. Likewise, I said a job meant Max. Not the other way around. No platform will ever mean a job – it’s all the other stuff you bring to the table which gives you value in this very competitive field.
There are jobs in Max. There are jobs in Maya. I remember a time when this last part wasn’t true. Perhaps I remember falsely – I don’t know. But that’s the point I made, and we’re about to argue a point which I didn’t.
thats what a lot of NON-entertainment companies have been used to working with. Like architectural visualizations. Because 3DS grew out of Autodesk, and is originally a close cousin of AutoCAD, the drafting program. And its what THEY are used to. The reason why this is important to the job market is that there are vastly more non-entertainment animation jobs than there are Hollywood jobs.
Architectural visualization is a relatively new development for Max. It comes out of abandoning 3D Studio Viz, which was specifically tailored for the task.
But actually, the bigger problem in your argument is that you’ve mistaken the entertainment industry for Hollywood. Max is a significant force (then and now) because it’s arguably the best tool ever devised for game development, particularly when optimizing for mobile devices.
(this said, how on earth did we make it through so many revisions without ever fixing the booleans? that’s just crazy!)
Non-entertainment 3D is usually proprietary software. Mathematical simulations and real-time medical imaging. They might use something like Max to export objects, but that’s essentially game-engine integration again.
And for them, the small companies, customization isnt as big a consideration as ease of use and speed. To make Maya easy to use, you have to customize it. It isn’t designed to let you do anythign quickly or off the cuff. On the other hand, I think that getting things like Jurassic Park or The Incredibles, muscle-deformation system going in Max would be almost an insuperable challenge.
The learning curve on both is about equal, and that level of muscle-deformation is very much doable in Max once you buy the right plugins.
Besides, those considerations don’t lead a person to Max. In this day and age, they’ll get Sketchup Pro, or something more specialized for rapid prototyping/stereo lithography.
And the thing about it being held together by duct-tape, well I’m sure there must be some issue that causes people to choose Maya over Max, but My impression of them is that Maya doesn’t crash any less often than Max does, so I think that such accusations are a bit overblown.
Overblown, or well-informed?
I didn’t say it crashes. I’ve used it for years, and never had a problem except those I was asking for. But, logically, that shouldn’t be. I’ve been miraculously lucky. Truth is, the duct tape comment was generous – I think it’s held together by chewing gum!
Go through Discreet’s site and see what it takes to develop a Max plugin. They’ll specify a compiler to use – I haven’t checked Max 8, but can tell you that past versions pretty much required a previous year’s version of Microsoft Visual Studio, which you aren’t able to buy anymore except by arranging a special downgrade directly through Microsoft.
Inconvenient, but if that’s the requirement, whatever. Except, why is this required?
It’s required because that’s the compiler Max itself used, and if you use anything else, Max and your plugins won’t be able to write to each others’ memory space.
If you’re a programmer, that last sentence should have made you bolt upright in your chair. They’re not passing information back and forth; they’re sharing memory directly.
What does this mean?
It means that any plugin you install can potentially cause unpredictable behavior in other plugins, as well as Max itself. Nothing is protected.
This is, in a word, stupid. If we were to arrange a list of unprofessional coding practices, that’d be pretty close to the top.
Plugins are written this way because Max is written this way. It’s a giant collection of objects, minus encapsulation.
They have a unique opportunity to fix this, however. Discreet owns Maya now, which is, from a programming standpoint, infinitely cleaner. They could scrap their whole codebase and build the same interface (losing none of the functionality), in MELscript. Sell the base product with a Max skin or a Maya skin, or allow the user to toggle back and forth without ever leaving the application.
Ridiculous? Sure. But very much doable. And then Max would be every bit as extensible as Maya, 'cause it’d be Maya. Sort of a cross-dressser’s approach to 3D.
:lol:
The other thing this means is that each time Discreet upgrades their compiler, the previous generation of plugins stop working. And if the company who produced those went out of business, your investment is lost forever. Meanwhile, the longer they hold on to maintain compatibility, the harder it is for developers to write new stuff.
Avoidable? Yes.
Forgivable? Less so.
Now that we’ve gotten the subject completely off of Zbrush, maybe I should mention that my two new favorite rendering option from Max/Mental Rays are Ambient Occlusion and Subsurface scattering. Now, I’ve seen a lot of renderings done strictly in Zbrush that appear to have a good subsurface scattering thing going, and I’m almost happy with this global diffuse lights and material I downloaded from this forum, but I think I could use some hints to bring the quality of the materials I have to play with in Zbrush up to par.
The best examples I’ve seen are always five or six renders, composited in Photoshop. If I understood what components were needed for a good SSS render, I’d write you a tutorial, but it’s all way beyond me right now.
This means nothing for the home user, but Maya’s a technical director’s dream. There’s some truth to the statement that studios use what they’re used to,
or a TDs nightmare. youd be surprised how many things are 1/2 working in maya. so going around issues, takes so much time. id say that houdini is probably a tds better friend
I put it in present-tense merely because as I understand it Max still has a much larger market-share than Maya. But I get your point that knowing a software package doesn’t mean that you will get a job.
