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ZBrush Announcements
#321

Yes just like they didn’t use zbrush to replace their lame concept art, modeling, sculpting, morph target, texture painting, pipelines in the past.

Just like a few years back when I used zbrush to sculpt a statue a day and get normal maps in time for a pressing E3 demo deadline, zbrush is again going to alter how we do technical stuff. No longer will you need a TD to setup a morph (blend shape) system in order to test various poses you have created. Nor do you need to get the final rig in order to make those belnd shapes. You will be able to setup a character from scratch test your topology for animation, make all your morph targets and test them and lot’s more.

Just the ability to do this will make things like blended normal maps for games really shine, not just two basic normal maps blended as is the “norm” today. Finally we might see an awesome werewolf transformation sequence, full scale, full scene, without edits, because the sculptor will be able to sculpt him and animate him as he always wanted and not through some lame pipeline. Yes in the end it will go through render-man or mental ray, who gives a damn, up until now every pose and it’s morph targets/displacement maps had to exported checked, refined, exported, checked refined, this is no longer the case (well after zbrush 4 hits the virtual shelves that is).

Pre-production will be awesome. Live concept art. Hmm a concept artist with awesome drawing skill also testing out a motion, no we don’t want that, he won’t be able to do it, he should pass through exporting, rigging and animating in maya or 3dsmax to do his test. NOOOOOO THAT IS LAME, THAT IS NOT PRODUCTION, THAT IS JUST FRAGMENTATION for the sake of fragmentation. If somebody can draw something cool, he can most oftenly sculpt it and in my experience move it too. Producing motion proofs, or motion guidelines would be a great addition from the imagination of the artist that created the creature in the first place.

All I see are a bunch of cry babies not seeing the point: pixolator video… top row… bug fixing!!! awesome!!! we fixed the “something” bug come out and cheer.

Bug fixing is routine, it’s what they do all day long. It’s time for Art and revolutionizing the way it’s being made, even if some of you can’t handle it.

Pixolator do your thing, don’t listen to these guys, top row is for cool stuff, not bug fixing, we know.

#322

hmmm. it would be awesome but i’m skeptical about transferring rigs from ZB to different apps, just because every app has its own methods to rig /skin the model. It would be like transferring a Maya rig to a Lightwave one…
fiinal animation could be exported through .mdd maybe with help of GoZ though.

#323

Hey pixolator,thats too cool and keep on going your way, its is a verry good one!
I look forward for the new features that gives creativ Poeple more possibilitys
in creating Art.

#324

while full fig transfer from Zspheres would most likely be impossible…but if you could simply export them as nulls to your package of choice you could reconstruct your rig from that in your app of choice

Although now that ZB has a timeline what might make the most sense for most things is do your rigging in your 3d app of choice to on an exported obj. Then do what ever animation you want and then export that as a sequence of Objs into the timeline of ZB…that way your model inherits your motion from your 3d app.

Being able to export Obj sequences from ZB will be a must to make full use of this new feature in production.

I can see if they can get this OBJ seq thing going between apps going along with the new animation features a whole new world of real world applications that a lot of you are simply missing what it could bring to a pipeline like, bringing in a sequence of objs to fix and enhance the deformations, exporting those sequences back out at a higher res with new added details and subtle tweaks that make your characters more realistic…and like I said before a whole new world of innovative mograph work could come out of this as well.

#325

I had not thought of that Greg. I can see that it might be useful in certain regards. I’m not sure on the mo-graph stuff but know you guys will probably create some wild stuff with it upon release. At any rate, I hope the Pixo team didn’t feel their toes were stepped on too hard, as that was totally not my intention. It’s because I actually care that I voice what i feel are valid concerns. I’m sure with the release of v4 I’ll be blown away…yet again.

#326

Zebra brush remark yea cool brush would like to have it again

from 2000 with zebra brush

Attachments

Zebra.jpg

#327

A comment on the descussion a few pages back about MARI vs. ZBrush
…its seem very logical to add animation to ZBrush for the same reasons Mari has it. Now with UV master one could use the animation new features to texture characters in a certain animation pose to check for texture seems or stretching. And! ZBrush allows for HD-sculpting and HD-vertex painting so the 32K texture argument is almost moot.

For me, this give me no reason to ever buy Mari …no offense the bloaks over at The Foundry.

#328

Well I am a BIG ZB supporter, but to be fair there are still many reasons to get MARI if you are doing SERIOUS TEXTURE work for high end hi res imagery. its not that it just allows 32 k textures…its that it allows you to paint on hundreds of 2-8k maps at once in different UV spaces…and on multiple channels at the same time…with PS style layers…

Its not a this vs that situation here…ZB is the best sculpting app at this moment…that lets you do decent texture work for med res work on a single UV space…MARI seems to be everything I ever wanted in a 3d paint app, but in no way replaces ZB. I do most of my concept texturing or quick one offs in ZB and until MARI comes out I use Body Paint when I need serious control over my textures.

Its knock at all at ZB, I like using polypaint for tons of stuff, its just sometime I need things like layered textures to get what I need…MARI is focused entirely on doing this kind of work…from my point of view its good to have these different tools with different approaches to solving problems. That’s why I am glad ZB IS different…it gives us another angle to solve creative problems.

#329

I myself find the new feature cool, if it is an animation rigging thing, with color layers and stuff. Sure I havent used ZBrush for a long time, and I have alot to learn, and I’ve barely scratched the surface of it. Everyday I find new stuff, either bugs or features I didnt know it had. And if i’m not wrong this is also a free update? Pay once ( ZBrush itself is quite cheap ), get upgraded for free. Nice, but I cant see how they can make much money out of this :slight_smile:

This will probably make it easier to see our creations in motion. A motionless creature in a nice pose is always good to see, but seeing it in motion looks so uber. And this will probably mean you can also see if the mesh is actually working correctly etc.

I know this probably isnt an issue in a pro environment, because you have the sculpters who sculpt, painters who texture and animators who rigg and animate. But for a single man, freelance or hobbyist I cant see how it’s not a nice add.

#330

hummm…yes I agree thank you for reminding me of those

#331

big thank! :+1:small_orange_diamond:+1:small_orange_diamond:+1:small_orange_diamond:+1:small_orange_diamond:+1: zbrush4 …animation new feature
YES!! YES!! YES!!
thank you dev team and marketing team and pixologic:+1:small_orange_diamond:+1:small_orange_diamond:+1:small_orange_diamond:+1:small_orange_diamond:+1:
i can’t wait to see…

// i hope zbrush 4 it’s has feature compositing(render pass to final image) inside and easy to manage light direct on the model too .
// concept umm zbrush can do anything :D:D
however now you are nextgen!! program for digital sculptor artists

#332

I along with many other artists will be joining the celebration! Frothing at the mouth for Zbrush 4! This video helped stave the hunger just a little!

#333

Who does the music for this?

#334

Impressive and exciting!
I was wondering about the music too. Sounds like JB but I’d never heard it and I can’t find a reference for it.

#335

Wonderfull! Don’t listen to any of the naysayers, moving into new areas is the only reason we are sculpting in zbrush to begin with. New ideas to animation are long overdue.

I’ve been playing with CG for a long time now and Pixologic is by far my favorite company. Free upgrades alone make you unique. A company run by artistic needs instead of business degrees. Congrats on winning over this hard cynic.

#336

well a zsphere rig can be nothing more than a matrix in the end, so I can’t see that it’s imposssible, just because you see spheres it doesn’t mean you can’t transfer it. Your limited knowledge doesn’t make things impossible.

We also thought transfering sculpting from one mesh to another without identical vertex numbers was impossible (well I knew it wasn’t, but I was wondering who would do it, since the data is stored per vertex, vertex ordering is not important if you can match vertices another way (distance from original with tolerance or whatever)). Of course when it was done we were all wow! Finally!

Before zbrush we also thought that digital will never surpass analog clay and I think we can all see what ctrl-z and a wacom can do.

unwrapping was also a chore in which at the very least for workable layouts we had to define seams. We can all see know how it is faster to just mark the layouts by painting them on the model…

Just sayin… maybe we should keep an eye on pixolator cos he thinks out of the box and people end up following him instead of the other way round.

Of course I expect the retopology tool to have some improved stability and I would also like some tweaks and corrections, but this stuff is the stuff that allows amazing amounts of detail and realism to be created.

Remember everything is just data, all we have to do is figure out how to transfer it from one app to the other, so nothing is useless (did you know for instance that it is possible to use matcap balls in mental ray?)

#337

Animation is the last thing Zbrush needs.

There are so many weird workflow and interface issues that need to be addressed that adding in totally random features like UV mapping, and animation now are just plain silly.

you guys need to remeber what the tool your making is for. Zbrush will NEVER be a stand alone application. so i dont see the point of adding in more features, that other software does better. Instead Zbrush needs to foccus on doing what it does best, and improving that expereince and workflow.

anyone who does any type of professional level work knows that you use the best tool for the job. Zbrush is not the best tool for animation, or UV mapping. so ill use tools that specialize in those areas… kinda like I use Zbrush for sculpting and texturing.

stick to sculpting and texturing and making life easier for artists, and you guys will rule the roost. taking your programs off of that wastes resources and development time.

#338

get a grip you whining xxxxx…its a free tool upgrade for zbrush artists. This software is designed to allow creative freedom. Go immerse yourself in technical nerdome if you want a hard life or embrace the zbrush concept of creativity.

This app changed my life.

I lurve you zbrush xx…lets have babies

#339

LOL, so what is the best tool for animation?

#340

also please reade about the major apps that are out there now. do you think that they started out as an all in one app?