I’m curious, what’s the maximum size of a high-rez render from pixels. It seems like it’s around 13".
If I wanted to generate a piece of art that was poster size is there a way to get ZB to render something larger?
ZBrush’s maximum resolution is it’s maximum resolution, but you can always render pieces seperately to composite elsewhere, or export your models for outside rendering.
The largest image is 4096x4096, and ZBrush outputs at 72 dpi.
If you would like to have a handy tool to calculate your canvas sizes for various finished resolutions, check out the DPI ZScript by Pixolator.
“The largest image is 4096x4096, and ZBrush outputs at 72 dpi.”
A lot of high-end graphical programs use 72 dpi as their image density, and I’ve often wondered why this is. I frequently have to product high-quality 3D still images that will be printed in poster size, and it’d be nice if I could generate output that was natively at a higher rez. But 72 dpi seems to be the standard across the board. Does anyone know why? Is this some kind of de facto industry standard or what?
If there was a way to set a user defined -/+ Zdepth range, say -500/+500, I bet we could get larger X,Y renders. If I understand correctly we have 8,192 pixols of depth info available. I bet we could skim alittle from this…no?
jiw2,
72 dpi is simply a default screen resolution. Monitors and setups vary but this is the [implied] resolution that you’re looking at when your monitor is displaying pixels at their actual size. If you displayed an image at (say) 150 dpi on your monitor it would effectively be resampled to display at 72 dpi. This is what ZBrush does with its AAhalf-size setting and this happens anytime you zoom out of an image so that it fits on your screen. There’s always a loss of color information (from the display) so there’s no advantage in having a default any different from screen res - monitors couldn’t display it. The expressions dpi (dots per inch) or ppi (pixels per inch) are really more about print output than monitor display.
That’s what I’m talking about: print output. When I Export a ZBrush document to, say, .PSD format, it’s at 72 dpi. And it isn’t just ZBrush – many other 3D modeling environments are the same way.
Regardless of screen output resolution, I wonder why the image file export resolution always defaults to 72 dpi on so many 3D modeling software packages.
Well, because print output depends on the device you are printing from. It doesn’t make sense to output at 300 dpi unless that’s the resolution that your printer uses. ZBrush, and 3D apps in general, aren’t used solely for print output. I guess that it’s assumed that if you are using ZB for print then you’ll be using companion software like Photoshop in your pipeline, where it’s easy enough to change the resolution. As I said, while the things in your computer it is simply a display issue and it’s easy enough to calculate what pixel dimensions you need for what print size at what dpi. And if you need to resample your image then a dedicated program like Photoshop has more options.