ZBrushCentral

Making Time For Art #3 - "Clay Time"

ZBrush Announcements
#222

Here are two reasons for that. First, the demo video is old and lacks a number of additional features you can see on the main page. Second, functionality is only half the equation. The ease and efficiency that everything works together is just as important. That of course is a lot harder to convey in a video when you can’t see that I’m basically hitting a single hotkey for the entirety of it ;).

I have used the standard retopo tools in Blender as well as just about every other retopology tool under the sun. Every tool has advantages and disadvantages, Blenders is it is free. I’ll leave it at that.

#223

Show me an auto-retopo face than can match the best work done by hand and then I’ll believe you :D. Like I mentioned earlier, I still think it is useful in 3Dcoat, but you have to keep your expectations realistic. It’s not the replacement workflow people are hoping for.

#224

Just because you can’t,or haven’t seen it, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t, or won’t exist…It just needs to be applied to art is all…When you say people, I hope you are not speaking for everyone…like myself for example…I think that making something easier would be welcomed by all, except maybe a few who would rather not have it that way.:smiley:

#225

@spiritdreamer - i’m not sure if you know something i don’t, but I think the landscape technology you are talking about is just DEM (digital elevation models). DEM’s are just top down x,y,z coordinates with no undercuts, which is exactly what we already have in zbrush.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_elevation_model

that spline displacement that handles undercuts that was posted earlier looks awesome though.

what i love about this field is how the craftperson’s assumptions are always being stood on end by talented toolmakers( ie. the programmers).

#226

Zbrush is now a complete high density mesh editor with the possibility to create displace or normals after the mesh editing is done
It is only then that the truely x y z edited mesh becomes only elevation
Vector displacements afaik requires the mesh to be totally locked otherwise if the vertex order changes it won’t work
Keep also in mind that it will produce color map tearings and other artifacts
Also very important in the retopo debate is that if you are planning to deform the mesh vector displ is not that great as you won’t have control on it’s deformation Which limits it’s use dramatically
Regardless you still need to actually model the things that you want to vector displace later for all these reasons you still rather have it that not but it’s far from being magical

#227

Magbhitu…My brother inlaw was one of the programmers who designed that program in the link that you posted .He works at NASA now as a Photogrammitry expert…I never can figure out what he is talking about half of the time…way above my head for sure…:smiley: But as you say, and I think I said also…never underestamate the programmers…If the will is there, they will find the way…:slight_smile:

#228

Is this handy also in high frequency details?

#229

For my only answer to all this techical discussion, I have to use a quote from Mark Twain, from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court:
“Never having no need to know this thing, I abide barren of the knowledge.”
:smiley:

#230

I totally agree with you dude, I think these new tools are the best thing that happened to artist in the cg industry and I soo encourage more to come, this`ll allow us to explore even further new and unique ways to create variety of art forms. Its really normal that some would fear the new and easy tools since it replaces an important aspect of the modelers job such as the high demand of retop and cleaning meshes skills.
eventually cg artist will get over that change and appreciate the more convenient and less stressful workflow, which leads to further creativity and a new type of complexity. for instance (Avatar) wouldn’t have been achieved if it wasn’t for the technological development, and the Artist creativity. really the most important thing to keep in mind is no matter what tool you have, its how you manage to use it effectively to your full advantage that matters.

:+1: :+1:

#231

Is this handy also in high frequency details?

It doesn’t look like.
“It is exhilarating to freely shape the mesh and quickly explore many ideas until you arrive at a concept worthy of progressing into finer detail.”
Pixolator commented…
After so many wows, take a closer look on this announcement.
We’ll put it to the tests soon. :wink:

#232

Autoretopo is the holy grail yes, i also saw some Siggraph papers about these technologies some time ago.
Can be valid to optimize and speed retopo workflow. However i think that organic shapes can be very complex, and it also depends on the level of detail you want to keep into final model. And the more detail you want to retain, the more complex autoretopo could be.

Topology: Usually a good topology is useful for 3d animation in traditional 3d apps, since the mesh doesn’t deform well if polygons don’t follow correctly muscles/bone structure of the model. This allow to optimize the mesh reducing amount of polygon where is possible, and most important allowing a good deformation during animation. So when the model is rigged, the rigging work is also easier and you can handle deformation of the mesh in critical areas better.
Polyflow btw is used also in high poly models as well.

This is why retopo is needed; basically if you start your model entirely in Zbrush, optimization is needed-
In production, tho, it’s also possible that you do the opposite, detailing a pre modelled character. (in this case retopo isn’t forcely needed as is may be editing of the base mesh instead)

Right now the best retopo tools i’ve seen are the one in 3D coat and Blender. and then Topogun which copied some 3d coat tools as well.
Zbrush has its workflow, but compared to the mentioned apps it is now old.

Now , Pixologic could also enhance greatly current retopo toolset, or find other innovative solutions for it, or, we simply could use some polygon toolset in other packages. :slight_smile:

I think in the near future we’ll see some good retopo solutions for Maya, Modo or other packages, just because the workflow for organics is becoming more and more: design it in Zbrush----> create the base mesh for animation in other 3d app.

As for hard surface, yes you can design hard surface in Zbrush for sure, but i think it will never be as precise as into a traditional app with numeric input, and also, there, you have total control of polygon amount.
So in this case, i see Zbrush more as a fantastic concept art app, great for designing new shapes freely and quite rapidly, rather than a precise instrument for final production purposes. :slight_smile:

#233

Good Topology is just as much informed by the definition as your knowledge of the way muscle moves underneath. Adapting that to the current Auto-retopology solution is just not possible in more complex organic shapes because it lacks the precision necessary. My point is more or less, we are simply not there yet and some people, of course not everyone, are setting expectations a little high. It’s actually not too different from what happened when Zspheres were introduced. Some though Zspheres had potential to replace doing a final model by hand, so went to great lengths to try producing topology results it is just not capable of. Of course we all know now that it is better to use as a simple sculpting base.

I’m not saying there never will be such a solution, just that Pixologic would have to pull some serious magic to make it replace building topology by hand. Not that Pixologic are not capable of pulling miracles, but lets not allow our hopes to run wild here and turn into expectations for a release already pack full of innovations.

Hit the nail on the head.

#234

for that bit about turning the cursor blue when in symmetry mode … +4

#235

Zbrush is in for a treat

#236

I vote for green but any color will do. Great Idea!

:lol: I like how you flipped it! Nice!

#237

I had a reply that touched on all the things people commented regarding my previous posts, but it quickly became a huge wall of text so I gave up. :stuck_out_tongue:

I’ll say this though; going through this video one frame at a time in fun! Besides the cube, cylinder, and sphere boolean brushes, I also see an ear, mouth, nose, hand, and three heads. Welcome to the Mr. Potato Head version of Zbrush lol! :lol:

#238

If you go frame by frame you will also see by watching the tool preview on the right that initially the ears are separate subtools (They are shaded differently to the rest of the model) but then it all becomes one model. So it does look like it all merges together nicely even if put together with multiple objects. Nice.

Mike

#239

GRIN!!!
I do that too!

#240

Congratulations! That’s a kick-ass demo…I’m excited…
So that’s a WOW from me :slight_smile:

#241

Wow. It’s so hard to imagine that this will be another free update.
With money comes greed, but somehow you people at Pixologic keep
your minds away from the love of money. You will be blessed for doing these things.
Wealth will be yours for the taking. Thanks so much.