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Need some convincing to use ZBrush!

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Greetings all!

I need general help from the ZBrush community out there regarding my reluctance to present ZBrush as an option for my workplace. I and my supervisor would like to start using it for our everyday work, however, both of us are unsure as to whether or not ZBrush would be a good fit.

We work for a decoration/party supply company as illustrators in a strictly 2-D environment at the moment (primarily PS) but strive to make most things we produce to look 3-D. This may or may not be “photoreal”. Often our product walks the line between photos and pure illustration. So naturally ZBrush is somewhat attractive as a source to streamline our workflow and make things more efficient…i.e. we’re freakin’ getting tired of recreating every little thing in Photoshop!!!

This may have to be somewhat of a running dialogue, but here’s the start of some basic questions we need answered:

  1. Can a ZBrush model be manipulated in ANY way (pose, expressions, clothing, shape, etc.)? If not, what are the limitations?

  2. If I build an object or character in ZBrush can I go back at ANY time to alter or change that object or character to fit my new set of specs? In a TIMELY manner?

  3. Our budget most likely will not include the opportunity to purchase any other programs besides ZBrush. Will this be an issue?

Alright, well, these questions are kind of nebulous at best but hopefully someone will know what tree we’re barking up. If these need to be clarified in any way let me know.

Thanks for your time, this forum has already been a source of inspiration and help and I look forward to your answers!!!

#2

1.A ZBrush model (called a Tool in Zbrush) can be manipulated and sculpted as long as it remains a tool. Once the Tool is dropped onto the canvas, it converts to pixels and can no longer be rotated in 3D Space (although it can still be sculpted, textured, lit, etc.) ZBrush Tools cannot be posed in the traditional 3D way (ZBrush has no bone system, although one is in the works for future release). You cannot, for example, generate a walk cycle within ZBrush.

  1. No. Once a Tool has been dropped onto the canvas, you lose the ability to rotate that object in 3D space.

  2. If your budget allows for the purchase of only one 3D tool, purchase something else. Based on your questions, ZBrush is not your ideal tool. Try SoftimageXSI, or Blender which is free (XSI runs $495 for the Foundation version, which is more than capable of handling your 3D needs).

ZBrush is a fantastic tool. If you do end up purchasing it, you will not be disappointed (although you may become frustrated for the first few weeks).

#3

Actually, you CAN go back at any time to change the model or its texture. The catch is understanding the difference between a Tool and pixols.

When you draw the model on the canvas, it’s drawn as pixols. Immediately after drawing it, you can enter Edit mode and sculpt/texture/whatever. Otherwise, the pixols are permanently a part of the canvas and will interact with anything new that you add to it. At this point, they’re just like paint in Photoshop – they’re an integral part of the scene.

The model still exists in the Tool palette, though, and can also be saved for use in other projects. It can be drawn and edited any way you please before you save it again or snapshot the new version to the canvas as pixols.

If you draw each object on a separate layer, you can also use those layers as an organizational tool. Let’s say you draw four separate objects with each on a different layer and now want to change the first one. Simply clear that layer and draw the object again. You can now make whatever changes you want before you snapshot the model to the canvas again.

ZBrush was designed for illustrators, and is a very powerful tool for needs such as yours.

#4

This is great seeing answers so quick! Keep 'em coming gang, all and any feedback is being read and processed!!! Thanks again!

Here’s a scenario that tries to flesh out a question we had…of course this is in generalities…

Say you have a barbarian wearing a helmet. When I shift and deform his face to a desired expression the helmet will warp and bend with the face/head unless I mask it from moving. But what I really want to know is can I model the head and helmet separately, change the expression and placement of the head, and yet have the helmet remain unchanged but following the limited movement I input?

And that makes me think of one more thing, what about clothes in general? Can I model clothes on top of a figure and have them move and flow with the figure’s movement? Or must I “re-model” the outfit to fit my new pose and/or specs?

#5

If you have a barbarian wearing a helmet, you could approach the project two ways - model the head and helmet as seperate objects; or model the helmet atop the head mesh. With the second option, you could mask the helmet to prevent unwanted sculpting, etc., with the first option, you would, ideally, place the head tool in ZBrush in the desired position, drop the head tool onto the canvas thus converting it to a 2.5d flat image (no longer 3D), bring in your helmet tool, position it accordingly, and when your happy with how it looks, drop this as well. In ZBrush you can only have one active, 3D object at any one time. For a truly detailed and instructive look into using ZB for Illustration work, pick up Gnomon’s ZBrush for Illustration by the great Meats Meier.

Your second question implies that you will be working with multiple, independent 3D layers, which is not the case with ZB. Ideally, you would not model a clothes object over a figure, but rather sculpt the clothes out of the existing geometry. In ZB (as well as other 3D packages) you could not move an arm covered by a sleeve and have the sleeve behave as if it were sliding over a real arm - you would always need to tweak your geometry (or, spend oodles of time setting up constraints, etc.)

If your looking to do still illustration with a 3D flavor - go with ZB. ZBrush is an amazing tool. Sure it has limitations, but what tool doesn’t? Download the demo and work through whatever tutorials you can find. But I still say, if your budget allows for only one 3D tool, choose something which offers the greatest flexibility - especially if you’re using someone else’s money. If your looking to do any type of animation, pick something else.

#6

I have no doubt I will regret this but here we go.
I am a basic hobbyist as far as zbrush is concerned. I have made money with it by accident, but not on purpose.
In the past year I have convinced 5 individuals ( companies) to purchase and use zbrush. With four of them no problem, with one their fault ( get to her in a minute)
From this point on I will direct myself to the person spending the money.
You there?
Good.
Other people in this thread will give you polys, ngons, displacement maps, normal maps. maps to get to South Carolina.
I will assume money is an issue or we would not be debating about five hundred.
Dirty word=animation. If you are interested in animation, close this thread down now.
Still here? Good. The woman that I talked into buying said no animation, three months later she thought she was running Disney
One of Zbrushs selling points is it’s ability to work with animation programs through maps. texture etc.

But it is not an animation program per se.

Now, you do have another program, Photoshop. Assume people there can work well with it.
Fantastic. Photoshop and Zbrush play nice together.
Now some good news and bad news.

Zbrush, on its own, can create some startling images entirely on it’s own and without help. 2d images.
The bad news is that you don’t see that many here.
Orcs, ninety year old man, deformed monsters.etc. They grace the thumbnails daily. If you are going to do a remake of Lord of the Rings,
this is the place. I was advised by one gentleman that he could see no commercial value in producing the work he saw here.
One of the resident artists here, a gentleman named Meats Meir has a dvd out that I suggest you borrow. In it, he creates a scene entirely from zbrush. Unfortunately you have to buy it.
I showed it to one of the people we discussed, it was a major selling point.

I have one more note to make and it will be a downer. If you are still thinking about purchasing zbrush,I would suggest you add in about a hundred or so dollars for a program called Silo.If we are lucky and you meet more honest people here, they will advise you that zbrush can make a 2d image that sparkles. You can make it almost immediately in conjunction with Photoshop. But there are certain things it does not do. Don’t forget that an update is coming (free) that might correct some of this.
You will never regret the money spent.

Figure five hundred for zbrush. about 100 or so for Silo, Two hundred or so for dvds.Books aren’t a problem. There aren’t any out at the moment except the manual. As a matter of fact our moderator is coming out with one

Money well spent.

For 2d images.

Edit, apologies, click the top row thumbnail of the butterfly
to see what zbrush does for 2d. It is a prime example of what
the program can do

#7

You are a very good salesman :wink:

#8

Thank you all for you input so far, it’s helped to clarify and also verify some questions I had. Let me set up another scenerio…If I create a complete skeleton with color and texture for example and I want to use it many different ways ie; as a grim reaper, as a zombie, and as a pile of bones can I do that? My goal would be to create it once and use it many different ways. Even tougher would be a leprechaun character that I would create once and be able to modify his weight, expression, outfit, colors and accessories many times from the single model. If I want three leprechauns in a picture, using photoshop I would create one with many layers, dupe the character and change elements to creates a new one in the same picture. The limitations are obvious in that I can’t rotate the head or change features without re-airbrushing the new character from scratch. The company will sometimes latch on to a specific character and ask us to create 4 seperate pictures with this character in different poses in different situations. Thanks again for all of your input!

#9

2d remember…
Create a character (or import him from another package
say for instance Poser,)save him, call him tool1.
He is now saved.
New document.
Load him again.

Take this tool and rearrange his face to look older, create a beard,
bags under the eyes. send texture to photoshop to add more wrinkles
Takes a minimum amount of time.
Save this as tool 2

New document
Set up scene.
Import background from photoshop. Ireland landscape for instance
Load in tool1, arrange him,perhaps looking in profile to the right.
Load in tool 2, at this point tool 1 is dropped to document as pixol
he cannot be touched again.
Tool 2 rearranged to look to the left.
Now have two separate characters looking at each other.
You can proceed like this for as many as will fit. Send the scene to
Photoshop for logos,image enhancements, etc.
If you keep them, you will have a cast of characters based on one
tool.
You can even take one tool and change the texture map on him/her
to change their appearance. Adding grey, wrinkles, less hair.
(perhaps father and son combo)
All these tools can be saved at the end of the project and be
brought out again to be used with as many variations as possible.
Take out the skeleton you saved this year, next year and make
him older. We are talking seconds now
With photoshop and zbrush all is possible, quickly and economically.
Create basically a family, Male, Female, boy, girl.
Do it once. You have the basis for many possible scenes for years to come.
each looking different, each already made.
If your work is seasonal, think of the possibilities.
Makes character actors weep.
The time spent learning the program pays for itself at “crunch time”
No more 16 hour days.
Will repeat once more,for 2d.

#10

Runcible,

I use Zbrush for Illustration/Advertising work. I have migrated to Z for what your last question inquires.

What you need to wrap your head around with Zbrush, as opposed to say, Painter or PS, is Zbrush items are referred to as ‘Tools” (.ZTL). As with any tool, once created and saved as a tool, you can use it over and over, and just like any ‘file’, it can be modified and a new version saved, used ect. So, say you wanted to create a scene with three leprechauns. You could create one, save it, and then modify that tool into as many others as you wanted. Many people here, myself included, will modify a base mesh into a new tool rather than start from scratch on every project.

Zbrush works a bit different with layers than PS and Painter. Since you have an added value with Depth (X axis, Y axis, and Z = depth) , your ‘Tools’ when added to different layers will interact with each other ie: you can place one behind or in front of another, or even within another. Think of it as occupying physical space. Just remember that when you are working with layers, only the tool that is active is able to be rotated, and can be moved about the canvas. Although you can sculpt and paint and effect a lot of things on any layer, active or not, you are limited to certain rules.

Simple rules, save your mesh as a “tool” (ZTL) , save your scene as a Document (ZBR).

Hope this helps

Word.

#11

5 minutes start to finish.
( used a skeleton from Poser)

Untitled-1.jpg

#12

Hey thanks for the Skeleton example!!!

Wow this is all very helpful! It’s all coming into focus a little more now. It seems that Zbrush may be very helpful with the addition of Poser into my workflow.

I assume I would create the basic character in Poser unclothed and bring it to Zbrush to refine the mesh and save it as a tool first. Next use that same tool to extrude the clothing from the existing unclothed character mesh in affect making the clothing part of the tool. Repeat the process to create character #2 and so on…Is that considered a correct procedure?

What about creating the poser character first, bringing it to zbrush for detailing/refining and then back to poser to add clothing/hair, and again back to zbrush for clothing tweeks and posing of the character? If that is possible I can experiment with many different outfits on my refined zbrush character before I make a final wardrobe choice. It would also save me from resculpting my tool every time I want to try something else.

Sorry to be a “Pain in the Zbutt” but this is helping a lot.

#13

All that you mention possible, with work.
Questions for you.

  1. Are you in the New York area?
  2. You originally mentioned having Photoshop,now Poser.
    Can you give me an idea of what you have?
    Zbrush can fit into basically any pipeline, but it helps
    to know the size of the pipe.
#14

We are strictly Photoshop and Illustrator…that’s all right now. I 've considered Poser before I even knew about zbrush just to help with character creation etc.

I create characters that are basically airbrushed to immitate a 3d effect (basically a character with the illusion of dimension and textures) but I am growing tired of starting from complete scratch and having to fake everything in the time alotted for any given project. I will sometimes steal layers from old jobs like a nose or ear or something. but that gets old quick… BTW I am located in PA.

#15

Reason for New York question is that I was thinking
along the lines of seeing how the “other kids” do it.
Pa. be a waste of a trip. Besides you would have to buy lunch.

Will get off of the subject for a minute and go into a pipeline.

Vue Infinite ( makes indoor, outdoor scenes, fantastic renderer, makes Poser
people look great. Makes zbrush objects look fantastic) cost about
500. Comes with animation, should the need arise. Learning curve is great,
Import objects, do renders the day installed. No need for scouring the net
looking for" reference images"

Poser for reasons discussed and more. Company called Daz sells figures
and costumes and objects that can be used again and again.
Cost of the program about two hundred. Again the dirty word animation is mentioned, but you can bring in and animate objects from outside the program. It can put hair on an object also, but it doesn’t render well in Vue.

Cheap 3d program ( or free ones) Silo etc. This is needed for a few reasons.

  1. zbrush does not have, as we speak, the standard four views. So merging
    objects into one are a bitch. Thanks to scripts by Marcus this is less of
    a problem than it used to be, but still a bitch.
    2.Modelling things like buildings are done here.

You have Photoshop and Illustrator which ties them together nicely.

I would also like to point out something that is extremely valuable about
zbrush which noone has touched on. You are sitting in it.
Go to any of the programs that we have touched on, throw in Maya,
3dMax, Xsi, etc. You will not, repeat not, find a nicer group of people anywhere.
I personally think that the nature of the program itself, because it is
so much fun to work with, brings out the best in the people here.

Whatever your decision ( or the guy with the money) I hope that we
see you here again. Preferably as an owner.
Best of luck.

#16

Thank you for the kind words and acceptance into the group. I agree, this has been a very pleasant experience thusfar and I am impressed how quickly people step up to help. With all of the great art I’ve been seeing with zbrush you would think the artists would not be so forthcoming with so many positive comments and help. Thank you to all who have been a part of my learning process.

#17

Two apologies and a Ps

  1. apology number 1: the name of the image is Grow by Froyd, who
    posts some amazing images, the type you would be interested in.
    Who also makes large contributions to this forum.
  2. There is a program callled Carrara, inexpensive, renders are great.

Ps you might look up the images of a man called marcel, who
does this for a living and does it well.

Sorry for the oversight.

#18

While you were lookin for reason to learn Z-brush i already got in it’s soul…

So stop that,and start workin…

I promise you will love it…

Good luck Bro

#19

Hello again

Thank you bicc39 and no apology needed. I checked out froyd and marcel and I see what you mean. It is more down the path we want to follow at the moment.

STAVREV, I only have the demo so I’m only able to scratch the surface so far…no Zsoul-digging yet

So far I have only created what can only be described as…well there is no description for what I’ve created. I think Dr. Frankenstein would drown my “creations” and hook ME up to lightning rods to punish me for such unspeakable horror! Well maybe that’s too far, but I will say that I am impressed with where I am now compared to where I started from. That being said, I am refraining from going too far in demo mode since I can’t save my tool. I’ll just need to get the full version to find my true potential (if there is any ha-ha). After seeing everyone elses fantastic work, it is much easier to appreciate the efforts the artists have put into a piece having experimented a little myself.