The current VMware Fusion Beta supports tablets and is pressure sensitive in ZB. It works quite well, depending on how desperate you are to run ZB3 on a Mac now. Zmapper (which uses OGL functions not supported in VMware) is still dodgy except in Bootcamp. (IMHO.)
I’ve been sculting in VMware for about a year and switch to Bootcamp when generating maps. Not the best workflow. Here’s hoping for a native Mac solution sometime soon.
-K
Thanks for that Kerwin… you may just have tipped me in favour of giving Fusion a go.
I here ya! boot camp for me, no problems at all! sweet and lightning fast! the same renders on my macbook pro were 20 minutes are now 2.14 seconds on a macpro. vm ware fusion can access more ram that parallels. I have used all three ways and by far bootcamp is faster.
i’ve been following this thread while i patiently wait for the release. i come from a long windows background and i’ve noticed a lot of mac natives inflicted with viruses and the like, simply because these concerns aren’t something they are used to dealing with. coming from experience, i want to recommend two free applications that are all you need to stay protected while you enjoy the use of ZBrush through bootcamp.
avg free edition - for anti-virus
spybot search & destroy - for spy and adware
Actually what you need to do if you’re using it through Parallels is follow these 6 easy steps:
excellent advise and funny! Made me laugh!
A couple of other very useful applications for cleaning crap off of Windows:
CCleaner - http://www.ccleaner.com/
Lavasoft Ad-Aware (Free) - http://lavasoft.com/single/trialpay.php
I used all four (AVG, Spybot and above) on a polymorphic trojan virus that someone had installed on their machine. I got his machine running correctly again after a few hours. It still needs to be wiped though because the virus keeps copying itself and changing.
A place I’ve found that documents some essential freeware:
http://brilliantignorance.blogspot.com/2005/08/essential-freeware-for-pc-user.html
And, for those of us not going the dreaded installing windows on our mac route, there are now 19 days and counting until siggraph. Here’s hoping we mac users finally get to see something from the folks at Pixo other than their backs.
…since Aurick closed down the “Mac News (Unofficial)” thread and OVER A YEAR since the Windoze version was released. I’ve stayed away for a couple months, having pretty much given up on ever seeing a native Mac version of ZBrush 3 at this point. sigh Maybe I’ll check back again in a couple years, but I will most likely have lost all interest long before then.
I posted an article last July on my blog which gives a relatively detailed step-by-step for setting up ZB/Fusion/Wacom properly. It works, and you may be able to skip editing the VM’s configuration file if you try Fusion 2.0beta. Please note, this is a workaround at best–it is not meant to replace a native ZB3 solution and in my view, is inadeaquate if you job depends on ZB3. I haven’t had any problems with this “temporary” (14 months and counting) solution, but YMMV. My hardware is all realtively new and stable. 
http://www.lovecraftforest.com/blog/2007/07/06/using-zbrush3-in-vmware-fusion/
Contact me through my blog if you need help.
-K
Hi all, My PPC mac died (the last desktop machine from apples abandoned philosophy of quality, usability, and stability even at the cost of quarterly fanfare; the dual 1GH g4 quicksilver) so I registered for windows ZB3.1 today to use on my mac pro.
I’ve used boot-camp a lot, not a fan of the virtualization software because it has some performance and usability issues (but windows XP using boot-camp on a 64bit machine only finds 2GB ARG!).
I also happen to have a cross platform Lightwave setup and have given in to their refusal to create a VM based plug-in architecture, so booting to the windows version for certain plugins and zbrush. Lastly I’ve used mac Painter since long before Corel purchased it and put so much effort in to completely destroying it and it’s reputation. Well i’m done with anything corel. I might keep painter7 (aka 5.2) for my 2d work and touch up in MacOS as it still works. I’ve already found a solid but simple natural paint app replacement that costs $40 (artrage2) and that’s for both platforms.
So now my modeling workflow is pretty much windows based when it used to be macintosh only. Unfortunately Apple makes decent OS and hardware, but short of a planet-wide OS switch most application developers in this market will never understand the concept of portable design, no matter how it benefits them financially. For me MacOS is little more than painting, mail, web crawling, and a good game of Go for me… I miss the days of having my three main apps open and swapping work in-between on a rock solid likable system (those days might still be if I hadn’t dropped C4d, but i could buy a new house for the ‘upgrade’- aka bugfix and porting prices), but now many companies are abandoning their mac customers for windows support.
I feel for the users that have to restart to switch data between apps. No workspace should be that way. Maybe when the the VM packages get better I’ll be all macos again, but I’d rather just replace old apps from companies that support macos natively.
Anyway, one point about windows either in boot-camp or VM, you don’t have to even turn networking on. Although virus issues are common in windows the main problem is trojans and exploits. If you disable networking entirely and only use macos for networking then you eliminate pretty much everything unless you put some effort in to installing untrusted apps. For boot-camp it’s a bit of an issue but it is an option. I happen to have an old g4cube that is in excellent condition for web email etc., no internet access from windows (except when I play a certain addictive MMO, and even then only through the ports it uses).
Another point. I use FireWire hard disks a lot, and all of them can be formatted to fat32v4 (by formatting them in macosx disk utility) This makes it very easy for me to back-up my junk and access it from either OS. Alternatively you can use macfuse to access your windows drives (and if you formatted them as fat32, MacOSX 10.5 can do it without 3rd party software). The same can be done with USB flash sticks, and they are almost always fat32 off the shelf.
Anyway those are some suggestions if you end up using windows. My next move? Looking for a Zbrush alternative, possible a mac one. When the competition comes forth it will be like corel painter, one of many options. Now if only wacom had some competition 
its all very nice, but you still need to dig out the wallet for an XP or Vista license…
I agree with you Carsten, Pix has broken faith with the Mac community and is seemingly unrepentant for it. I don’t recommend the “solutions” I’ve worked out for professionals (I send people to other products.) But since part of my function is stay abreast of developments, I went ahead since I had an XP license already in hand on my Mac. (I won’t go in to the number of times I’ve had to call Microsoft to reactivate this license since every VM change seems to make XP’s copy protection–and ZB’s–think it’s a new, unlicensed machined.)
The VMware solution is merely sufficient for learning the features and doing some (better than ZB2 on an Intel system which almost never starts for me) minor work. I’ve largely given up on the promises of “soon” from Pix. I’ve already been burned in the ZB 1.55 -> ZB2 delays on the Mac (where Pix representives assured me that they had learned their lesson, the remain “commited” to multiplatform offering, and that in the future there would be simultaneous releases.) Since this is now the second time Pix has left Mac users in the lurch (three if you count the fact that ZB2 was NEVER updated for Intel systems), I’m now going with the with the “once bitten, 2.5 times shy” philosophy. ZB is no longer in our pipeline, I no longer teach ZB to my private students, and it is unlikely that Pix will ever win my recommendation again because their platform support simply isn’t up to the grade I expect for commercial work.
-K
Yeah, I really don’t know how they expect to recover from this situation. They are pretty smug to think that what they will offer up will erase all of this. So let’s say we get a release @ Siggragh, not a promise or preview, but an actual release. Are we to return and use it knowing that when they release a new version we will most likely be in the same boat we are in now.
You can’t trust them on their word anymore. Too bad.
It’s been FAR TOO LONG!
Pixologic officially suck now!
I was wondering what would happen if Siggraph comes and goes without a single word from Pixologic about the mac release. There’s gonna be a lot of unhappy people around here.
Excuse the expression, but I will never use windows all the time I have a hole in my @r$e, so a mac alternative will be my only option.
Here’s hoping for something at Siggraph…
That’s the only hope I’m clinging to right now. If SIGGRAPH comes and goes with no word, than I will pretty much lose all hope of Pixo ever resolving this mess.
not long til siggraph 2008 
i’m sure we’ll be more informed on the ‘mac status’ by the end of day 1 at siggraph 2008
I actually read the entire thread a few days back when I discovered ZB2 still has no patch/update/workaround for rosetta. I didn’t expect a 3.x release as I have plenty of experience with evasive app developers. Obviously I already have windows on my mac pro. My info is (again obviously) for others in a similar situation of wanting to use ZB3 but unfamiliar or unsure of windows.
Some people (was it a pixologic claim?) cited carbon as the delay issue, but carbon was implemented and developers were told it will be EOL ‘soon’ before MacOSX 10.0 was even shipped back in 2001. Even then it would have to be a poorly maintained CFM binary with PPC emulation dependent routines (used to assist the motorola CISC based mac apps to PPC WAY back!)to have difficulty porting to a cocoa binary.
I might be wrong but ZB2 appears to run over a private VM. A smart idea ten years ago when some operating systems had poor memory/math/API libraries and support. It can also shorten the porting process significantly because only the VM system is rewritten. This would also be the reason future ZB updates are immediately available ‘cross platform’ as claimed before. One app, two VMs. Now if they are completely rewriting a private VM to support their unique application layer in MacOSX universal binary, then they have definitely painted themselves into a corner as someone theorized earlier in the thread. A corner that can only be escaped by throwing tons of development time and money in to a big black hole.
Oh well it’s all hypothesis anyway, but my guess is that there is no ZB3 port for Mac problem because there is no specific MacOSX version of the ZB3 app, only the propping up of a defunct private VM layer that requires more development investment with a bigger performance hit than maintaining a portable application code base. Anyway…
I’m not so confident, I am feeling the same as all the above. I know many potential ZB users who use Macs that have found alternatives due to this situation, tis a shame… 
I am soooooo stealing that phrase, hope you don’t mind… 