I contacted Zbrush but no response, so I thought I’d make this an open letter instead.
I reviewed Core’s feature list here http://zbrushcore.com/features for quite a while before deciding to purchase. The no layers thing was my biggest hang up, since they are pretty essential in most sculpting workflows if you want to retain some kind of non-destructiveness. I figured I would use Morph Targets instead, to revert changes I didn’t want or to lower the opacity of some features back to the base mesh.
There is absolutely no mention on this page that Morph Targets and the MT Brush don’t exist in Core, and the seeming exhaustiveness of that list would make anyone assume that it’s a full feature list. I actually still don’t see Morph Targets being noted as not included in Core in any of Pixologic’s own info, and in my opinion, after layers it is the most important feature of Zbrush.
I’m starting to feel that Core is supposed to act more like a paid demo than a Lite version, which I knew to an extent before jumping in, but felt all the included features would be fine for my use (before I found that MT is not supported.) I actually thought I was getting a good deal since I used to be a professional Zbrush user, and knew what features I used the most and what I didn’t use so much in my workflow, so I felt like the included features would just about suit my needs.
Here’s my actual email to Pixologic 7 days ago -
Hey Pixologic,
I recently purchased Zbrush Core and found it doesn’t have Morph Target support. This is one of the most essential features of almost any sculpting workflow; the ability to revert changes to sections of your mesh to the original base mesh, using Store Morph Target and then using the morph brush.
Is there any way to do this in Core? Currently, the sculpting workflow seems totally destructive with no way to have a non-destructive workflow.
I’m also very concerned that Morph Target support isn’t listed on your website as being not included in Core: http://zbrushcore.com/features. It is nowhere to be found on that page.
I used to be a professional Zbrush user at my workplace, and have since gone indie. Frustratingly this feature is the one I used the most and yet it’s the one not included in Core despite there being no mention of it.
I really do not want a refund despite this, IMO, being borderline false advertisement, because I need Zbrush and can’t afford the full version. All I really want / need is the morph target workflow back.
What are my options?
Thanks for listening!
Kind regards,
Like I mentioned in the email, I actually don’t want a refund, because there’s no real alternative to Zbrush. I really want and need to be able to use Core, and I feel like the Morph Target feature’s omission from the official feature list is more of an oversight than an intent to mislead, because I know that Pixologic isn’t that kind of company.
But now I don’t know what to do, since I just dropped $150 on something that I really can’t use as it currently is, and would have certainly looked into other options if I knew that such an important feature was missing.
Is anyone from Pixologic going to take responsibility for this? Do Core users have any rights as consumers in matters like these?