Hi everyone, I used to use Zbrush in 2009, a long time ago yes, but I stopped using it a few years later. I’ve come back to it recently, and I’m wondering a few things about modern best practices and how it’s used these days.
Back then, what I primarily used Zbrush for was to detail a model, like add cracks, wrinkles, etc. and then export those to a normal map to be used by either a retopologized model or, because I disliked retopologizing, I planned way ahead and imported a model with roughly the right shape, with good UVs and then after detailing in zbrush, exported the lowest geometry level of the subtool. What’s the recommended way to retopologize these days?
What’s the best practice for subtools? Is it generally by materials of each item in your model? Like say each piece of clothing, accessory, etc. gets their own subtool?
What are the most recommended plugins for zbrush these days?
Does anyone have any suggestions on tutorials that would be good for someone like me who’s trying to get back into ZBrush after a while away? I was never a professional but I feel fairly comfortable doing sculpts.
The biggest changes in ZBrush over time, is that Zbrush now has very robust tools for creating meshes itself and does not require an external application to easily create a base mesh. It is no longer necessary to create complicated models in another program before importing into ZBrush for detailing, though you can certainly do this if you choose to.
Sculptris Pro allows you sculpt anything from a simple sphere by adding geometry in real time to keep the polygons from stretching. ZModeler adds very useful low poly modeling tools. Features like Dynamesh and Live Boolean allow you to easily recombine meshes to form complicated shapes.
Most importantly for you, ZRemesher adds an auto-retopology solution that can very quickly create a retopologized mesh with adequate topology for most sculpting needs. This process can be almost instantaneous for simpler meshes, though more complicated forms may require more guidance. It will always be faster than retopologizing the entire mesh by hand.
Perhaps the biggest change is the addition of many tools that only work at a single level of subdivision, and are generally intended to help you quickly build form. This means subdivision levels are usually something that happens later in a workflow once your form isn’t drastically changing any longer. The general idea is to use those form shaping tools like Sculptris pro and Dynamesh to build the form you want, use ZRemesher or otherwise to retopologize it, then subdivide that for detailing.
Because the topology of the model changes so quickly and frequently, especially in the early stages, we don’t actually recommend working with UVs until later in your workflow once the topology is stable. This would lock you to that topology and prevent you from using the most powerful tools in Zbrush’s tool chest.
Color information can be stored in the mesh itself as Polypaint, completely independent of any UVs. That color information, like sculptural data, can be projected to other versions of the mesh with different topology or UVs. So generally, you actually paint the mesh without having to worry about UVs at all, and only create them when it is specifically necessary.
Generally you want to keep any section of mesh that must be able to be sculpted on at the same time as another section of mesh in the same subtool. So this means you would probably keep a character’s body as one unbroken subtool, whereas clothing or accessories could be separate subtools.
The DemoSoldier file in Lightbox will give you a good idea about this.
I recommend the plugins that come with ZBrush as these are the only ones we officially support. Other users may have additional suggestions.
I definitely recommend ZBrush Live, for our regular streams as well as videos by our streaming partners. Ask ZBrush is an instructional goldmine for difficult Zbrush questions. Michael Pavlovich is an excellent instructor with a wide range of instructional vids.
Thanks for your reply Spyndel. I’m also interested in getting more productive in how to pose characters, in particular things like hands. I found it a challenge to pose a hand convincingly into say a fist, because once I bend the fingers incorrectly it’s hard to bend them back out straight, especially if the hand has things like rings on the fingers as subtools. Any advice on that?
