ZBrushCentral

Need recommendation

ZBrushCore Usage Questions
#1

I’m a 2D traditional and digital artist looking to switch to 3D sculpture, modeling and animation. I’m looking to use all my own assets into the Unreal Engine for cinematic short films. I’m currently setup and have both a tablet and a cintiq from my 2D art. I’ve dabbled with Zbrush and Mudbox trials in the past. I can’t afford to do the full version of Zbrush right now so my question is: how does Zbrush Core fare in comparison with 3D Coat? I’ve been trying to research about the possibility of getting both programs but I’m not experienced enough for that to make sense yet. I know some of the major features of Zbrush Core are missing for hard surface modeling and other tools, whilst 3D Coat is kind of like the jack of all trades program. Would it make sense to pick up Zbrush Core for sculpting, then do hard surface modeling and texturing in 3D Coat? Or is Zbrush Core’s export file types not compatible with 3D Coat? Sorry to be long winded, but I need someone who has more experience with 3D to guide me along with their recommendations.

Thanks in advance,

Lonestar

#2

You can export OBJ files from ZBrushCore so you could use those files in any program that imports them. But I should point out that ZBrushCore is aimed primarily at those wanting to sculpt fairly high detail models, primarily for rendering within ZBrushCore or KeyShot (using the ZBrush to KeyShot Bridge), or for output for 3D printing.

Character and game asset creation requires a rather different toolset. You could import a low polygon model into ZBrushCore for detailing but you would have to export the high resolution model , as well as the low res, to another program for the creation of displacement or normal maps and texturing. (There’s vertex color in ZBrushCore - “polypainting” - but export is limited to the STL format and a non-standard tag in the OBJ format - xNormal can read this data but I don’t know which other programs.)

HTH,