Boom.
[edit: so I guess the acronym for the Zbrush Keyshot Bundle version is KS4ZB? ]
Great Aurick you have eventually intervened, I just think the suspense of waiting is getting to the ZBrush supporters… another teaser/sneak peek will keep them in their seats for a bit…
Suspense is running high here too…
Keep up the good work…
Ziggy
“The output resolution of this special ‘KeyShot for ZBrush’ will be higher than the KeyShot HD version!”
That’s great to know. 
Thanks for the clarifications Aurick. 
> aurick wrote: Please Note: The output resolution of this special 'KeyShot for ZBrush' will be higher than the KeyShot HD version!
Thanks aurick for that important clarification.
A few notes about KeyShot itself. Am speaking about KeyShot “normal” not the Zbrush version.
I am a “fan” for hdri lighting, have been so for years. Have a huge collection of HDRI images, both downloaded
and made.
It has gotten to the point that I almost don’t do a render anymore that does not involve HDRI to some extent.
In other renderers that use HDRI lighting the only way to see the final result is at the end of a few hours of render
KeyShot is basically a renderer for products using hdri as the main lighting source.
I have had great success in rendering human skin in it (did not use the KeyShot suggested settings for skin)
Since you can rotate a hdri image and see the results in “real time” it is both fast and lends itself to lighting creativity.
You are also able to see the final results without waiting hours.
KeyShot itself enables you to add lights of a different nature (spot, area, emissive).
It ships with a wide variety of premade materials.
Through the addition of maps ( texture, bump, spec) materials are able to be manipulated to a good degree ( would hope for more work here by KeyShot).
Because of the memory it consumes, you cannot have a few programs opened at once. Zbrush, KeyShot, Photoshop
would make a system cry. ( I have 24 gb ram)
Before this announcement if I had to choose between KeyShot and Zbrush, KeyShot would have won without a lot of
thought by me. It does have a draw back of not having anything like the Zbrush Central/ support setup
The fact that Zbrush decided to “mate with” KeyShot is a win win for me.
Have always considered ZBrush to be a valuable “addon” to other programs.
The fact that they are together and being released in a new version of Zbrush has started me gathering
Zbrush books, videos, downloaded ZBrush Classroom tutorial ,etc.
The mention that Zbrush material can be rendered in KeyShot also has me intrigued.
Will repeat what I had mentioned previously. In the many years I have owned it, Zbrush has given me updates, addons. tutorials advice, a place to come with with problems, at no cost.
Anything they ever decide to sell, I will buy, I owe.
Although I have been assured I do not need it, will purchase the Zbrush version of KeyShot (with bridge) to keep things simple.
Plus now we are getting a higher res version.
It has some of the easiest SSS I’ve worked with. And one of the default drag and drop skin balls gives good ballpark results right out of the gate. Good skin in under 60 seconds, and not a convoluted shader tree in sight.
I’m sure I could find out with a bit of google work but as people with experience are here I’ll ask my question:
I’ve had very little experience with renders outside of zbrush, I am really excited by the coming update, all the new features look great and the fact that Zbrush is working with Keyshot makes me think it is probably a good choice to take the next step into external renderers.
I come from a tradition sculpture/modelling background, so I imagine the process of rendering similarly to how someone mentioned earlier: as if I am taking a photograph of a sculpture I have just made in the real world.
What I really want from Keyshot is the ability to position a camera to get the angle/shot I want when rendering my zbrush sculpts.
This can be a bit tricky in zbrush as it seems to disort the perspective in odd ways, I sometimes have to place a small object way out of shot to keep things looking right. Like I said, I have little experience with rendering outside of zbrush, so please forgive my ignorance about such things.
I know in Blender for example, you build your model then position a camera to take the shot and make the render. Which is exactly what I want from Keyshot.
Could you please tell me if this is the case?
Thanks in advance for any help or advice, and many thanks to Pixologic for what looks to be another amazing free update. No idea how you guys manage it.
Aurick, thank you for the clarification. Great to hear about the resolution being higher than the keyshot HD!
What I really want from Keyshot is the ability to position a camera to get the angle/shot I want when rendering my zbrush sculpts.
Download the demo and try it out. In my understanding, you have the ability to control distance, focal length, field of view, f-stop, asimuth, twist, and a few other things as well. Zbrush’s “camera” always confused and vexed the crap out of me. I mean, it works in a pinch but I like the easy, intuitive control KS offers. You poke a slider and things change pretty much according to what you’d expect.
With this new revelation that the resolution will be higher, I don’t know if there are words to describe how happy I am. I’m reluctant to let myself get tooooooo happy because “larger” could mean a lot of things. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. But hearing that, suddenly I went from “I dunno” to 'PLEASE, GOD, TAKE MY MONEY! TAKE ALL OF IT. I WILL SELL MY INTERNAL ORGANS IF I HAVE TO. Starts throwing money at the screen.
Yeah, I know, I need to pipe down but I’ve only been wanting something like this inside Zbrush since, oh… forever.
Suggestion:
Including A ZBrush T-Shirt, Key Chain or three pack of underwear might spur additional sales
of the bundle.
First 10 customers could receive a free trip to Pixologic.
Thanks for the info, I’ll give the demo a try. Just saw a little video and looks like Keyshot will do the trick, time to have a play before the Zbrush update I think 
i just had a thought. if you have a stand alone copy of keyshot 5 and you decide to just buy the KS bridge- will the functionality of being able to send over and render zbrush materials and poly paint without UV’s be a feature, still?
Mr. Sammich:
You have touched on an issue that is of some concern to me.
I am sure that the Bridge that is coming from Zbrush is not the same as what I am describing but…
In a previous version of KeyShot (4), a public beta of a bridge from Zbrush to KeyShot was made available.
Remember this is over a year ago, and before this announcement ,and was from KeyShot
The KeyShot people released this in good faith and there was an announcement that a final would be coming.
Then for months, nothing, no followup, no reply to posts etc. Until this
There were issues with the beta bridge.
The object was sent to KeyShot with a default white material.
If you polypainted, the polypaint was included as part of the material (but not a map!!!)
Any Zbrush material information except for the white default was not sent.
Also, if you had subdivided your model, the bridge lowered it automatically before sending and Zbrush kept the
lower subdivision upon your return to Zbrush ( not a big deal, unless you did not know it)
In the Summit Videos we see Zbrush being sent and received by KeyShot with Zbrush Material ( I hope )
One of the unstated reasons for me buying the Zbrush Version of KeyShot is that in the back of my mind
any “bridge” issues will be firmly resolved.
Which brings up another interesting issue.
I am assuming that Zbrush and KeyShot are remaining two separate companies.
If a problem arises in the Zbrush KeyShot Version who do you go to Zbrush or KeyShot?
Although KeyShot is an important program to me, there are certain problems that exist in contacting
them, as opposed to the fantastic group at Zbrush.
Fingers crossed
This is SOOOO Exciting!!!
I’d have to disagree with you there. While the skin shader sort of looks nice, it is oversimplified to the point that it cripples what results you can get out of it. There is only a texture input for bump and overall diffuse. The other 2 sub-surface parameters are simply color swatches, but humans are not a solid color under their epidermis. Their skin shader drastically needs texture input for subdermal and a thickness parameter for the epidermal, or something similar to the Fast Skin SSS in Mentalray. Even real-time skin SSS in games have more detailed input than that now. Right now there’s no way to vary the SSS strength across the surface.
I’d have to disagree with you there. While the skin shader sort of looks nice, it is oversimplified to the point that it cripples what results you can get out of it. There is only a texture input for bump and overall diffuse. The other 2 sub-surface parameters are simply color swatches, but humans are not a solid color under their epidermis. Their skin shader drastically needs texture input for subdermal and a thickness parameter for the epidermal, or something similar to the Fast Skin SSS in Mentalray. Even real-time skin SSS in games have more detailed input than that now. Right now there’s no way to vary the SSS strength across the surface.
Even so, the surface and sub surface colour options provide a good deal of control over the final SSS result with very little effort.
Right now there’s no way to vary the SSS strength across the surface.
That is actually one of my very few complaints with KS. I hope someday they will allow for SSS maps. Until then, as an illustrator, it’s not tooooo much of a problem to fix by hand in Photoshop. It’s a little bit of a pain but it can be done. The way I accomplish that is by doing two renders; one in SSS and one in hard plastic or whatever other material works. I put the SSS on the top layer and the hard plastic on the bottom layer then I erase out whatever parts I want to be less SSSy. It’s quick n dirty but it works for my needs.
I’m thinking the keyshot version that you can get with the bridge will be the same resolution features as the pro version of key shot or will have addittion features? I’m so excited for the new modeling tools, multimesh and other features that you guys haven’t told us about!
“Can’t wait to kill 3ds max modeling”
Man do I hear that!!
I’ve been learning V-Ray in Max 2013 as I patiently wait for ZB4r7, and it takes FOREVER just to set it up!
I too can’t wait to set Max on the back burner…