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Mac & Zbrush 3 Thread

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1201

I am also a PC user of ZB3.1 and I have been watching this forum to see what Pixologic is doing to satisfy another group of customers.

At first I watched this thread like a bystander watching a car wreck…it was not affecting me personally but I wanted to see how it is being handled by Pixologic. :grimacing:

I too find it potentially troubling when I try to imagine what it would be like if I was a Mac user having to wait for ZB 3.1. Being told to pay and use ZB2 and wait until we get back to you is an unsatisfactory answer. :angry:

Also, not meaning to hijack this thread, but the Mac/ZB3.1 issue it is very similar to what is going on with ZB and 3D controllers, like Connexion’s Space Pilot. It seems so obvious to us sitting in front of our systems…awesome potential and an opportunity for a developer to show support for a piece of hardware but for whatever reason Pixologic refuses to show or demonstrate any public support or interest. If you talk with Connexion, they say its the software developers fault. If you try to talk with Pixologic, at worst you get no response or at the most an obtuse response.

I know we all love ZB and of course its popularity has exploded. :smiley:

Maybe Pixologic’s development process for Mac and 3D controllers is a victim of ZB’s own success and they are too busy to even post a reply to either issue.

In the meantime, I will keep on watching and waiting with my fellow ZB’ers. :frowning:

#1202

WOW< it is nice to see this place really is a community rather than some of the old tired posts in this thread. Thanks PC users for chiming in. Even that makes me feel a little better to know that their are people out side of the Mac base that realize there is a real problem with the handling of this situation.

I bought ZB 2 with the promise of a free upgrade to 2.5, it is ridiculous to think that it may be 4.0 that I actually get. As a company, they could have made smaller strides, charged for nominal updates and made alot more money AND kept it’s users happy.

-Jim

#1203

I believe that Pix is the most rational, benevolent and generous entity I’ve ever encountered. I’m certain that if Pix could really say anything that would cure the deep seated solipsist delusions/agendas that fuel this thread they would.

#1204

As I said in my last post, I’ve decided to sit back and wait a bit longer until making anymore judgements on this matter. And, though there has been plenty of room, time, opportunity, and encouragement for wild speculations, and unfettered frustration in this thread, I’m just not sure if that last remark wasn’t an unnecessary, and unsympathetic slap in the face to many of us here with real, and legitimate concerns regarding news/progress on ZBrush for the Mac. At least, I hope it wasn’t.
Personally, speaking for myself, my only “agenda” is to have the same version of ZBrush that windows users have had for some time now.

#1205

…

#1206

LOL! Troll!

#1207

Simply put, Pixologic is selling a product. Consumers have the choice of what to buy…right now its ZB or Mudbox for the functionality we love in these products. Sadly, Pixologic’s product site DOES NOT say anything regarding WHEN ZB3 for Mac will be ready…only the pay now…get it later “This is a temporary license which will remain in effect until the release of ZBrush 3 for the Mac, at which point your Mac license will be upgraded to a Mac ZBrush 3 license and the PC license will be discontinued.”

That is not benevolence or generosity. That’s a classic “the check’s in the mail” marketing plan.

I used to own a Chevy, I got treated like a POS by them and so I traded my new Chevy in for a newer Honda. I still get mail from Chevy asking me to buy one of their cars/trucks/SUVs. Now after paying off my Honda I am in the market for a sports car. Even though I could easily afford a Corvette I am looking elsewhere. I will NEVER again buy one of their products…I have been burned once…never again.

Don’t get me wrong…I love my ZB3.1 and its support…just saying that Pixologic would be well served by watching the demise of GM and other products - CONSUMERS DO NOT HAVE TO BE LOYAL when it comes to spending their hard-earned money for a product. I see this thread as an ignored warning that a sector of Pixologic’s customers are not very happy and Pixologic appears to be taking their current (or prospective) customers’ patience for granted. I don’t think they are purposefully being arrogant…but the signal they are sending (or not sending) is not good for any of their current or future customers or products.

#1208

I think its unfortunate and I want 3.1 to go native as much as anyone - when I look at how companies like NeverCenter treat the subject of unreleased and delayed software I would have to say they are a million times better at PR. If things do get delayed they just say ‘oops sorry we are late because bla bla’. They post regularly explaining where they’re at even though there is no product announcement, just because the silent periods might get too long. That’s good, no-one ever complains.
But in any case I’m sure its been already said Pixologic are taking this long now to ensure future mac updates will not be delayed as much in the future. If that’s the case, fair enough. If not then I fear as more and more apps begin to approach ZBs funcionality people will move on. 3D Coat is apparently about a week or 2 away from a mac release despite a difficult transition to OpenGL. I see it as a future alternative and will support it now simply because I have absolutely no idea what is happening with ZB. It is an infant, but it appears to be capapble of enough fine detail sculpting for most work I do and its Leopard native. If Pixologic aren’t worried about that it simply means they don’t have a big enough mac market to care - which is also fair enough, why should they if its not financially viable? Nobody has a divine right to anything, mac users know that more than anyone!

#1209

That is not benevolence or generosity. That’s a classic “the check’s in the mail” marketing plan.

Well I’ll barbecue my baiji if you’re not wrong oR-Creeper.

#1210

Hi, rather-frustrated newbie 3D artist here

zBrush is by far not the only app having problems on new Macs. Pick a 3D-related app, and theres a major problem with it. My venture into 3D has been more of a venture into QA. Probably in 6 months, I created 2 or 3 basic objects, thanks to bugs in just about every 3D app out there (that I can afford, at least)

I just scraped a few hundred bucks together and built a PC just so I can get by. A little depressing using a $50 AMD CPU when my mac has dual quadcore xeon’s. Forget bootcamp or any VM’s. Instead im using lots of thumbdrives and network fiddling. (Adobe isnt going to give me a temporary licence for windows for the sake of zbrush)

Seems every 3D software developer has to take a couple steps back before they can take a step forward. Pick a component in the mac and there’s a problem with it… GPU’s, CPU’s, OS components…I know apple has a lot of management technologies built within the OS that software companies are having to rewrite to allow those to be used instead of their own. I’m not bashing my mac…Iv’e heard plenty of comments about Vista as well (im running XP SP2 and wont go any further).

Hoping by christmas, maybe we can all be happy

#1211

Hmmm … not trying to start something here, but for the most part, most beginners to 3D think there are a lot of bugs in the 3d apps they are using. I have found that there are very stable apps out there for 3D, ZB2 being one of them as well as C4D and Modo. Most of the problems beginners have is sometimes just hitting the wrong keys etc. and it sends the app for a loop and either crashes or appears to crash. Now, stepping back for a moment, maybe those could be considered bugs, however as your experience level grows with a given app, so does the amount of errors you force the app into and all tends to go much smoother.

-Jim

#1212

I have ZB 3 on my Windows Laptop and am looking forward to being able to use it on my 24’ iMac when it comes out and my old G4 Powerbook if it is a Universal release. I check this site periodically and at times obsessively for news of the Mac release. I have considered going down the Bootcamp route or trying Parallels or VMWare for the iMac but will likely just continue to wait and hope… :slight_smile:

#1213

I understand what you mean, but i meant true bugs. The same version app, running on both machines, but one crashes from simple operations and the other does not.

#1214

Yeah, there are some bugs out there with certain apps. ZB was always solid while it was supported. Which apps do you mean? I know for one, SolidThinking, beautiful interface, incredible technology, but I could never get that thing humming on a mac … grrr.

#1215

My 3D suite isnt large at all, and rather patchy as I’d been going at this on my own at first–zbrush being the first significantly-priced 3D app I have purchased (for the same reaons as most, it ‘feels’ like clay). I purchased the Daz 3D suite that they had on blowout-sale for while, whcih includes Carerra and Hexagon, Bryce and a few plugins. I also purchased AC3D, one of the first apps i did purchase (it was cheap and kind of cool in an old-school way). I home-beta-tetsed Rhinocerous for a few months.

As I write this, I am downloading the Maya PLE to learn, while my offshore swiss bank account in dubai accrues enough interest to afford an actual purchase should I succeed :wink: . I’m eager to see how it works on a mac pro.

I have not had a lot of success with the Daz products on the Mac-- seemed they would be the best ones to learn with, given the supported community and demographic. They work flawlessly on the PC however. On the mac, Hexagon “drops” interactivity of the interface if i leave the app to go to another one then come back. Bryce and Carerra quit out altogether. The Daz developers seem to be focused on making it work tho. As well, AC3D has some scripted workarounds that have been implemented that allow it to finally run ok. Rhinocerous was early in beta development so its not fair to wrap it up with actual releases. I mention it anyways because it crashed in the same fashion as the other apps…

Interestingly, all these apps display very similar crash reports when they do crash, and in my opinion, thats a good thing–allows for better collaboration and communication when all these software and hardware companies have to work to gether to make the fixes. I can only imagine the challenge of getting 3 companies to work together to make a bug fix.

I also have tried a couple MMORPG’s on my mac (so shoot me), and even those clients display similar reports.

I have lived thru the good and bad days of Apple, and am confident that this is the last round of nasty fixes for a long time. OSX is an official brand of UNIX now, and i’m sure that involves tasks beyond what most can even imagine. (howver i have to say that building a reasonably-powerful PC for $400 to use in the meantime for 3D almost ticked me off, given how much i spent on this mac pro!)

One thing that eases the pain is that these 3D apps have their own GUI’s so I dont have to deal with the pains of a Windows interface too much. Zbrush’s GUI is to say the least, a work of art on it’s own.

#1216

I never heard of SolidThinking until you just mentioned it, 3dj.
How does it compare to modelers like Modo, and Lightwave?

#1217

You’ll certainly find that Maya, is several orders of magnitude better than the Daz apps you mentioned. Both, functionally and stability wise. The watermark on the ple version, I personally find overly intrusive. Houdini is much better in this respect. I’ve been trying it out the past month. I really like it. Just as powerful as Maya for animation options, and they have a great policy towards personal and education usage.

For modeling, texturing and rendering of stills. Both Maya and Houdini, feel awkward to me. Having used Lightwave for about four or five years. My only real issue has been the availability of plug-ins for the Mac. I’d say, if your budget is tight and you need a full featured modeling, rendering and animation package. Lightwave is worth considering. Currently at version 9.3.1. With version 9.5 in Beta at the moment. Any owner of version 9 can have access to the beta updates, and the beta forums. Where an excellent dialogue exists between users and developers. Especially on the Mac side.
Give the 30 Day Demo a try.

I have lived thru the good and bad days of Apple, and am confident that this is the last round of nasty fixes for a long time. OSX is an official brand of UNIX now, and i’m sure that involves tasks beyond what most can even imagine. (howver i have to say that building a reasonably-powerful PC for $400 to use in the meantime for 3D almost ticked me off, given how much i spent on this mac pro!)
I must say. It’s very surprising that you went to the expense of an extra, low cost machine. When you already have a top quality box, that can dual boot into Windows or OS X.

#1218

I have a MacPro as well and I can assure everything works well under Parrallels or VMWare. Particularly ZBrush …
But yes it bother me to use Windows, I don’t feel confortable with it, and I definitely hate this permanent virus threat.

#1219

Well, I am not familiar with how LW works. sT is a nurbs modeling program that looks unreal in the examples, but again I could never get it to purr on any mac I have had. It is slick and feature rich, interface is just beautiful too. But damn you can crash it in a heartbeat unfortunately. As for comparing with Modo, Modo is solid and compares well, I guess I mean as far as a SDS modeler goes, it has some very unique approaches. Which I prefer to do most of my modeling in Modo these days.

-Jim

#1220

I have a MacPro as well and I can assure everything works well under Parrallels or VMWare. Particularly ZBrush …
But yes it bother me to use Windows, I don’t feel confortable with it, and I definitely hate this permanent virus threat.

Michel, do you use a pen tablet with Zbrush under VMWare or Parallels and if so have you had any issues with setting the pens pressure sensitivity? I’ve read its fiddly with VMWare Fusion in particular and this is one of the things that has put me off going down that route.