Gasoil… you seem to know what your talking about, do you have links to lesson on this… or why not do one for the community… I have spent hours not knowing what I am doing and then when I think now I have it… I fined there is so much more to it…
Thanks for the input…
Ziggy
Gasoil…Sculpting with chicken wire…Beautifully put statment…
For animation there will never be an auto-retopology tool. With tools like topogun you could easily create patches of geometry and stitch them together, but you cant draw a series of curves and expect them to all jive together with a setup you will find acceptable.
Unwrapping will be a thing of the past in my opinion in favor of ptex… the process is UV-less, who will need uv anymore? If there will be an unwrapping process it will be for readable purposes so that you can edit it in 2d but if you plan to texture fully in 3d, you wont need to do that at all.
Well, actually there is a tool for Blender that makes the job soooo much more easier when it comes to retopology, it’s called Bsurfaces and is pretty close to be the perfect tool for retopology. I’m no professional and don’t have real experience in the industry, but I’ve tried a lot of the packages that offers retopology tools and this was by far the coolest.
Check it out
http://www.bsurfaces.info/
A little introduction here
I’ve been using Sculptris for 3D sketching since it’s first alpha, but now with Dynamesh finally I’ll be able to do it in Zbrush!!! I’m sooo happy 
small_orange_diamond:D:D:D:D
Empire never ended.
Democracy never ended as well, but you have to search.
Fireworks never ender too.
WOWs won’t help us. For sure.
Well, auto-unwrapping can get you far closer results than Auto-Retopo. 3Dcoats tool is like ReMesh, except you can draw in lines that direct the polygon edgeflow. The problems start when you need it to match the definition or the desired flow in particular regions.
Couldn’t agree more. Still think it can be a useful tool though in the right scenario.
You’re not the first person to make this claim. No disrespect to the developer or you, but I couldn’t disagree more. Bsplines are interesting, but a stroke heavy approach is just not as efficient. The real core of the retopology process happens at the polygon level and tools to just draw blocks of polygons in don’t exactly help with that.
Of course though, I am probably a bit biased here given I havemy own solution. In my mind the perfect re-topology tool should be as streamlined as functional. It doesn’t take lots of buttons or options to do it well. Wrappit and NEX also to some degree show this to be true.
Well that is a load to think of, I too was thinking of an auto retopo as a
magic bullet of sorts. That all adds some sobering logic to the game;)
Live and learn. Hey, free is in the budget.
That Wrapit looks handy btw
Bsplines are interesting, but a stroke heavy approach is just not as efficient. The real core of the retopology process happens at the polygon level and tools to just draw blocks of polygons in don’t exactly help with that.
Agreed +1
From a blender user
Now from a 3dcoat user as well.
zbrush provides an efficient and fast retopo tool. What is happening in pixo and they provide such useless tutorials isn’t my concern. How many zb users believe that this tool is broken in r4? So
Append a zsphere with your original mesh and click under topology palette “edit topology”. Choose the bump preview shader and work. See how clear and fast tutorial I just posted? LOL
This way ONLY!!! backfaces are invisible. Eh
I don’t think it is a coincidence that Dynamesh and booleans are debuting in the same release. My thinking was that the new code for the former probably helps with the latter. When you combine two Ztools (using symmetry no less from what I saw) to form a single mesh rather than two or more subtools, the calculations required to generate not just a good clean weld, but also topology that isn’t messed up (which booleans are known for) is very important. I imagine combining two Ztools consisting of radically different poly densities requires more than a bit of programming magic to get just right too. I’d be really surprised if the new Dynamesh code, whether in part or whole, isn’t called upon when doing certain boolean operations. This is what I meant before.
Regarding vector displacement, I agree that booleans would be superior when talking about brushes. That isn’t the only way to use them though. Zbrush can already generate both normal and displacement maps. Adding the ability to generate a vector displacement map for use both in and (especially) outside of Zbrush isn’t too much to ask I think. That is why I posted the Youtube video, so that people would get an idea of what I was going on about lol. :lol:
Working with a million plus polygons is great, but just try exporting that to one of the traditional 3D applications, like 3ds Max. More than likely your PC will freeze up. It did last time I tried anyways. Creating a new low poly cage by using Zbrush’s retopo tool, then using that along with the high resolution sculpt to generate a displacement map, is an absolute requirement. Good edge flow is also important if you plan on animating such a mesh. And if we’re going to be generating displacement maps for use outside of Zbrush, then why not make use of the latest technological advancements in this field, advancements most renderers support these days? Video games already make use of normal maps in realtime. Before that is was simple bump maps. I don’t think it is a stretch of the imagination to believe these will some day be replaced by vector maps (or some form of it), which will allow artists to render details that just aren’t possible using previous methods.
Regarding retopo, I think a lot of artists use Zbrush this way. They either use it to block out and detail a quick idea (which it excels at), or use it to detail an imported model that will eventually be taken back to the program it originated from. If the resulting mesh is high in poly count and/or lacks good modeling technique right from the beginning, doing retopo at some point will become inevitable. When you compare Zbrush’s current retopo tool to pretty much any other application that sports such a feature, you’ll find that the one in Zbrush is pretty meager. Naturally this makes it the most labor intensive and time consuming to use. I know people will say to simply use another app that can handle high poly counts, like 3D-Coat and Topogun, but that isn’t always an option available to everyone, especially where costs are concerned. A lot of artists are still struggling to pay off their student loans, lol.
I only brought retopo up for the same reason someone else did recently. If anyone can blow the competition away and surprise everyone with cutting edge tools that no one has even dreamed of before, it is Pixologic. These guys are amazing folks. Not just highly intelligent, but also charitable. They could be charging people for these updates, but they don’t. That shows you just how amazing they really are. We don’t have the right to demand anything from them, but I also don’t think it hurts to discuss desirable features many of us hope to see in a future version of Zbrush. The idea behind a public forum is to share ideas so that everyone can benefit. I’ve benefited from others, and others have benefited from me (I hope). In this way we are all enriched, and it is Pixologic who deserves the biggest thanks of all for making that possible. Thank you!
PS: I did say I could be wrong about it all in my last post. Seeing as mistakes are how we learn, I hope to never stop making them. For what it’s worth, I’m mostly just making educated guesses based on what has been previewed. We’ll all see what’s what come September 20th. Tick, tock, tick, tock…
That’s what Decimation Master is for. Max and Maya (with viewport 2.0) are also both getting faster with more polygons, but even still it always a good idea to decimate before retopologizing. It would be great if Zbrush improved its retopo toolset, but it is not exactly a requirement for us to take advantage of the dynamesh.
Besides, there are definately situations where doing retopo in a standard 3D app makes more sense. Say for instance hard surface sculpts where you would also likely want access to all your standard modeling tools.
I cant wait, it looks to me like I will be able to work without thinking and THAT will be wonderful.
I am constantly amazed looking at ZBC that the things I see here are possible, people with fingers! armpits that are not all torn up randomized polygons… I don’t bother making bodies because I simply cannot do it, but it looks like with dynamesh I will be able to.
When I have to plan every little thing I do like my drawing is a chess game or something I lose interest VERY quickly and that kills a project very quickly.
I dont want RE-Topo, I want NO-Topo, I don’t care about or want to know about the wireframe, it should be an invisible thing that if it exists I only see it when I want to (and I do sometimes, wireframes can be lovely).
The things I see on ZBC and tools like Sculptris are why I have Zbrush, I am perpetually astonished and thrilled at what you people make and what I find I can do, but this last video showed me I haven’t seen anything yet and that what is coming is going to be wonderful and a hell of a lot of fun.
I have no clue how you guys make this software but I love it, its dramatically altered my life and in my opinion for the better, I can make stuff and its your doing!
By the way, there’s only 19 and 4.5 days left!
Thanks!
Mealea
I cant wait, it looks to me like I will be able to work without thinking and THAT will be wonderful.
I (almost) completely agree! The way that Pixologic has chosen to rotate your view around an object, inadvertently allowing you to turn your object sideways drives me crazy! This is the biggest plus with Autodesk products such as Max, Maya, and Mudbox in my view. Half the time that I’m trying to model in Zbrush, I’m fighting to keep my view from turning upside down and constantly hitting shift to get the object re-oriented in view. That lessen’s the experience for me. Other than that, of course I am reeeelly looking forward to what it appears that Dynamesh has to offer.
Well, you seem a bit biased, considering that the demo video of this tool is showing exactly what has been in Blender since 2 or 3 older versions, the BSurface addon jus adds functionality to an already awesome feature.
I don´t mean to disrespect you either, 'cause obviously is an amazing solution specially for maya users, but I really think you should give Blender a short drive test… Well you and all the people that struggles with this specific task. You’ll be surprised!!
In fact, since the Sculptris release i’ve been playing around a lot with this, sculpting without worrying about polycount or topology or any of that stuff and then, imported the model in blender and start the retopo, which is as easy as extrude and move vertices around keeping all the geometry “glued” to the original sculpt’s surface. Is really pretty fast.
I´ve always wondered why this huge awesome program called Zbrush didn´t had that two things already? Sculpt for the sake of sculpting and then start the technical part of it. Now it is a reality!!!
I (almost) completely agree!
hehehe!
I have that problem too and my habit of ignoring it has led to me working with most of what I’m working on being upsidown, sideways or even way off to one side where its almost off the screen, messing with “local” makes it more confusing.
The cool thing is my sense of up and down goes away after a bit, the bad part is trying to do anything in another program later. Or riding a bike.
My biggest gripe about Zbrush is not about Zbrush at all, but about my ignorance of Zbrush, its not just a wee itty-bitty bit of ignorance, its FLIPPING HUGE and I don’t mean flipping.
As for Max, Maya, and Mudbox I haven’t a clue, I have never seen them, just stuff people have made with them and mostly here on ZBC… one of them has some stuff I think I want, reflections and hair and something I cant spell but that looked cool in a post I saw here… I have no idea what it was any more.
Oh… Someone said that Pixologic was torturing Dr. Peter for information, I would suspect that if you look at what they are doing they might be torturing him with luxury and money (and a seriously awesome computer) or he wouldent be doing it.
Another guess I would make is that Sculptris is not only not dead but is gazed upon as what it is: the ultimate gateway drug leading to Zbrush.
Oh this is gonna be fun!
MealeaYing-
Ahh, I guess I just need to just give myself more time to let my sense of up and down to go away 
. I hope that the new update will pull me further into the zen of Z and let me lose all sense of direction and time.
Yup.
Yes, I know that. Not everyone is using the latest version though. There are still folks using Max 9 for example, and viewport performance in the 2010 and 2011 versions is…shall we say lacking? Max 2012 performance is pretty decent with the new Nitrous rendering, and is actually why I was playing (er, umm… testing) with a million plus polygon mesh. I wanted to see just how much it had improved. It actually worked for a while, but got steadily worse until I couldn’t do anything.
Anyways the point I was making was in regards to something another commenter had said. There are users here that have no experience outside of Zbrush, and I just wanted to point out to them that a high poly mesh (even a decimated one) cannot be animated without doing retopo first. I also wanted to chime in before my first post got quoted out of context and misconstrued as being incorrect or stupid.
Frankly I don’t understand the resistance to improving the retopo feature. Isn’t evolution what it’s all about? I can’t help it if I’m passionate about Zbrush and its future, lol. 
I never said it was. What I did say was that it is a requirement if one is doing animation outside of Zbrush. I believe I was also trying to point out a one point that Dynamesh is not a retopo related tool, even though it has dynamic retopology (it was confusing some folks). It would be fantastic if Zbrush was the only tool one would ever need, especially for those with limited incomes, but that really isn’t feesible (yet). I wouldn’t hold my breath on that happening anytime soon either. Pixologic tends to focus on the artistic side of the toolset, preferring to do things at their own pace and in their own way, which I think is perfectly fine. It is the reason we have such unique tools in the first place, and Dynamesh and booleans are definitely a step in the right direction. I’m even looking forward to checking out the new rendering system too, something a lot of folks don’t seem very interested in. I’m guessing it’s because a lot of artists use Zbrush in a production pipeline, and not as their sole 3D app.
I completely agree. Hard surfaces can be done in Zbrush, but it’s not exactly easy. For example, trying to create creased edges with edge loops can be difficult and cumbersome at times, and there isn’t a whole lot of precision either. Organic modeling is what Zbrush has always excelled at. Hard surfaces? Not so much. The tools have improved for sculpting high res meshes so that parts of your model looks like it has hard surfaces, but technically they’re not. Doing inorganic models in Max is quicker and easier, plus they don’t have to be retopo’d afterwards since they were done correctly from the start, thus saving time (which equals money for some, or so I hear).
Couldn’t have said it better if I tried. Unfortunately at some point thinking does have to come back into the equation.
And you’re free to work that way, especially when Zbrush is the only application you use. The reality for some is quite different however. It would great if polygons didn’t matter, and we could all animate such creations with ease. Unfortunately that day is not here yet, and likely won’t be until long after my bones have turned to dust. Until that day arrives, a lot of us will have to make do with the extra (boring) step of doing retopology with good edge flow. It sucks to have to come back down to earth, but that’s reality for ya.
Precisely! When you look at some of the features in Zbrush, and then compare them with a lot of other apps, you begin to wonder. You wonder not only why Zbrush can’t do all those nifty thing others can do, but more so what it would be like if it could, especially with the folks at Pixologic standing behind it. This is why I would like to see them address features like this, as well as others. Zbrush has a history of breaking new ground, and anything others can do, Pixologic can probably do better. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have some ideas rattling around in their heads for a novel new approach to doing… well, just about anything you can think of. As Walt Disney once said, “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.” Please don’t view my posts as complaining. Rather, see them as challenges to be overcome. 
Anyone coming from a “traditional” modeling application tends to have that problem. Once you get past the interface and navigation hurdles, working in Zbrush becomes very simple, almost zen like. I still remember the first time I tried Zbrush, which was back in 2003. It was truly a frustrating struggle, and confusion regarding edit mode didn’t help matters at all. I’m glad I stuck with it until the little light bulb in my head turned on though. Eventually it becomes as natural as breathing. I still wouldn’t mind seeing improvements to the navigation system though. It doesn’t seem to matter how long I’ve been using Zbrush; I still make the same mistakes after working in 3ds Max for anything length of time and have to readjust. I feel sorry for anyone that uses more than two applications in which they cannot change the navigation scheme lol. :lol:
PS: Hopefully I’m making sense and not rambling. My comments do tend to end up rather long, especially when I’m trying to respond to a number of different people. I’m at home right now with medical problems, and the medication my doctor has me on tends to make me babble which also doesn’t help. On the bright side it has given me some free time to enjoy what I’m passionate about.
Fair enough Zeddicus on most accounts. I do want to respond to these two comments however:
I don’t think anyone is resisting, we are just being realistic about what is going to make the ZR2 release. If they surprise us great, but considering the complexity of everything else going into this release it is a bit unrealistic to hope for it right now.
Doing hard surface in Zbrush is more than anything not polygon efficient which means it is not practical for immediate use in a production. That said it has some excellent tools to create and design a hard surface sculpts. That’s where re-topology in a standard 3D app can shine, using that hard surface concept sculpt as a base to create clean and efficient geometry in multiple pieces.
A number of artists work this way already and for good reason. It beats trying to conceptualize by extruding and cutting polygons. The most recent example being Mike Nash’s Hard Surface Bust. You simply cannot use this workflow efficiently inside Zbrush alone or even TopoGun. They are just not tailored to this sort of hybrid retopology poly-modeling workflow where Max, Maya, XSI, etc can be.
I look at topology as a spatial/spacial grid…If the computer can see a landscape from orbit in outter space, and then convert that same view to one that lets you see the same view as if walking through it on a horizontal ground plane, …like the technique the millitary uses at present just for an example,…then the computer can also do the same thing for a sculpture that needs retopology…The computer can, and should be able to pick up and desern every nook and granny that’s in the sculpture, especally when that sculpture can be seen from every angle as ZBRUSH now is able to allow…thus making manual retopology obsolete and a thing of the past…Never underestimate the capabilities of the computer, or it’s programmers…Once they set their mind on something,…the limits and limitations seem to vanish…
The technology for precise automatic retopology is already here and now, and is not something that should be considered a thing of the future.
Hi zeddicus
I was just clarifying what the true potential of a tool that behaves at least like the real world counterpart (clay)if not better brings
I’m not against retopo at all and if pixo finds the ressources for that it will be more than welcome I’m just pointing out at the fact that unlike other devs they have the great taste of focusing in delivering the core solutions first rather than your usual autodesk attitude of changing the ui color andcalling that a release…
Vector displacement will also be a great addition and generally speaking the more options and tools the better.
Regarding vector disp for instance it’s a relatively old technique available in renderman for some time what is new is the ability of realtime painting them like in mudbox…but mudbox to me is more of a finishing tool where zbrush can integrate with pipes but also deliver stand alone art where mudbox is very limited in this respect.