ZB3.5 = MB2009 killer
heheh
there’s surely other features to be unveilled I heard talking about texturing too. it will be interesting to see how MB will deal with those things, and how Pixologic will reply.
Anyhoo, i saw nothing that ZB can’t do right now. MAybe MB workflow will be more streamlined , who knows.
I aslo didn’t hear about things like retopology tools and tools similar to zspheres to build up geometry from within the app.
what i think is Pixologic should streamline ZB even more,
make grow tools to build geometry within the app and also to
retopology /rig it
also, IMHO, painting should be resolution independant and have layers. 
they also shoud start to take animation into serious consideration.(one can always dream)
conclusion is
very happy there’s some competition in the sculpting /painting and more field! this will make apps better !!
Zspheres need to go the way of the Dodo. They generate bad topology, and they are finicky. Give me some metaballs, and a way to retopo over them. If Blender ever fixes its klunky UI, I will be using it for this. You can bulk out a model with metaballs, and then retopo a nice mesh over it.
Please, just give up on the Zspheres, and give us something more flexible.
I don’t even use em’. I always find a work around.
To retopo a zsphere model without skinning it, hit the Edit topology button on your ZSphere model and start laying out edge loops, or, set the resolution of the Unified Skin to it highest the machine can handle, and export the .obj to blender or silo or Maya, for more precise and robust retopo tools. This way, ZSpheres are still vastly superior to clunky metaballs.
Back on topic, it seems like a significant advancement in technology for MB2009. Hopefully, the next ZB update will keep pace.
Also, considering the app Topogun has been in “beta” for so long, I wonder if the developer is just waiting to cash in, and have Autodesk gobble up the software, and install it as Mudbox’s default retopo system.
If that’s the case, ZBrush is in need of a serious overhaul.
Another competitor, 3D Coat, will be offering Volumetric sculpting by the end of the year, and already offers layered painting, and more robust retopo tools, for one-third the cost of ZBrush and one fifth the cost of mudbox, and development is proceeding at a remarkable pace.
Really, both MB and ZB need to step it up a notch. Independent developers are catching on to this 3d sculpting thing, are moving faster, and offering their work for much cheaper.
Hopefully the competition will produce some new technology that makes everything we see today seem like scratching stones with sticks.
Where Zbrush still rocks is it’s efficiency. I use it on a cheap little laptop with a dual core and 4 gigs of ram, and it smokes. The cruddy little ATI card though is a bit laggy using 3D-Coat. And you definitely couldn’t run mudbox/claytools on it.
All I am saying is tighten up the retopo tools, and give us something besides Zspheres to quickly bulk out a model. Zspheres have a lot of restrictions in how they can connect to each other. With metaballs/solids, you’d just lay a bunch down, they’d ‘stick’ together, and then you’d topo over them to get a nice mesh.
With zsphers, I am always dinking with connections, and it is too much ‘paperwork’ to bulk something out with them. It would also be nice to have a painting system that treated specularity seperate from colors/materials, so we could make specularity/etc maps inside Zbrush. The Materials system is still limited and clunky wrt how people actually use the assets in external systems.
I am seriously looking into 3D coat though for the volumetric sculpting tools. A quick way to bulk out a model would be awesome.
Right now the perfect modeling application is impossible to create because of the amount of key patents in several hands. A good example are the meta balls. The only efficient algorithm is in excessively greedy hands and the same goes for other key technologies. Many obstacles we are facing here are not dependent on the inability of programmers but the difficulty to navigate the patent and rights landscape and still deliver something half way usable. While we are experiencing daily re-topo pains others are sitting on a patent for the ultimate tessellation algorithm waiting for a high bidder.
Lemo
Metaballs have been around for at least 20 years, and even the dumbest algorithm for skinning them is still blindingly fast. Polygonlization of Metaballs is sometimes done by Marching Cubes, which used to be patented. But that is not the only method to do it.
From Wikipedia:
“This algorithm was the prime example in the graphics field of the woes of patenting software, patented despite being a relatively obvious solution to the surface-generation problem. Another similar algorithm was developed, called marching tetrahedrons, in order to circumvent the patent as well as a minor ambiguity problem of marching cubes with some cube configurations. This patent has recently expired, and it is legal for the graphics community to use it now without royalties since more than 20 years have passed from its filing date (June 5, 1985)(Marching Cubes, US Patent Office entry).”
So Marching Cubes has been patent free since 2005.
3d coat programmer is planning to apply this technology(volumetric sculpting) for sculpting in 3.0 3d coat version 
about z spheres i find them good!
Hi, i downloaded the demo of bodypaint a while ago, but i have found ZILCH documenting it… no tutorials, nothing… i know this might not be the right place to ask for help, but everyone here is so helpful i was wondering if anyone knew where i could learn about bodypaint? just a few links? or maybe even some beginner information, because i have gotten nowhere :S
thanks
Just to say 3d coat version 2.10 is here now for mac and win.
http://www.3d-coat.com/index.html
version 3.0 with volumetric sculpting (marching cubes technology) is in the works yet, too.
I’m using it besides with zbrush. It a complementary tool, has a lot of unique features and it’s really worth the price.
THis guy’s a genius . first examples of implementation of volumetric sculpting in 3d coat here
take into account this is really early alpha version !!
http://3dbrush.kriska.hvosting.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=1412
Someone LISTENED to me!
No more zspheres!
actually i do love Z spheres a lot. the problem of them, if i understand well is being forced however to geometry, and polycount to then subdivide and sculpt.
But i do like the base concept that with z spheres you can build humanoid or whatever structure shapes into an easy way. you can also save your base ztl structure and obtain different models from it hehe.
I don’t know actually what will be the full process for volumetric sculpting ( i guess giving life to some shapes that can be merged together, then sculpted)
however i hope that, before sculpting, it will be quite easy to build up basic shapes as you make with z spheres 
Wow, I just downloaded the 2.10 trial of 3D coat, the geometry tools are NICE. They actually WORK, unlike the ones in the Topobrush beta, or the continually beta state of the Silo 2.0 tools.
It’s so blinding easy! Drawing quads, sketching lines, and extending them, and then generating the mesh!
When I have a few spare quid, I’ll be buying.
Also, if you browse 3D coat forums you will find an early 3.0 alpha with volumetric sculpting, now!! it could be worth the try and give some feedback to andrew to develop it further…
The volumetric sculpting in 3D Coat, although being in a conceivable alpha stage, does really show some great potential. The feeling of actually adding material and creating volume from thin air (as oposed to creating volume by stetching polys) is great and something I would love to see in ZBrush.
Given the fact, that ZBrush already is pretty close to this feature with it’s Unified Skin function I would definitely expect something like that in a future ZBrush version.
Have you seen the new mudbox 2009 demo vids here
http://area.autodesk.com/mudbox_preview#interview
Looks like ZB finally has some worthy competition at last - never a bad thing in my opinion.
Bet you’ll need a monster PC to do half the stuff shown.
I also wonder if the next version of ZB will also incorporate some of this.