If you’re judging people pending how many posts they have, then you sir, are truly an elitist, I knew and used ZB since version 2.0, just because I waited only a few month back to make an account doesn’t make anything I say have less value then someone who has 2,000 posts.
you said it…
zbrush is still the best sculpting program (brushes) but if they don’t take their competition seriously, mudbox will be a far better solution for proffesionals real soon.
The must funny joke i ever heard.
i’m using Autodesk’s softwares from 11 years ago and i hate their way to update their softwares. They have killed my favorite compositing software the Combustion and replaced it by pitty one the Composite. Currently i’m started to use Fusion 6. The 3ds max, in every new release became slower, biger than that must be and with more bugs. Even that maya i know in 2012 release have many bugs and users of it are angry about it. The mudbox 2012 is full of bugs and they will release Hotfix for it.
I’m thinking now to change my base 3d software, and the Houdini is the only one out of autodesk’s hands.
I don’t think the mudbox can be good as Zbrush.
seriously now…judging someone by the number of posts… maybe the less posts the most likely busy in production you are? i have 20 something posts in 7 years maybe because i tend to speak up only when something is really happening instead of using this forums as a social presence…
We had a demo of Mudbox 2012 the other day at the studio…look is not a bad product but seriously it feels more like a complement to Zbrush than a serious replacemnet to me…i personally use Zbrush mostly for concept modeling wich is just as important as “production” modeling if not more…it is concept that saves so much time down the pipeline and it is concept again that puts the bread in your table at the end of the day…MUdbox has very limited capabilities when it comes to shape creation wich is the core of well…modeling…duh!
Vector displacemnt looks sweet and indeed a nice feature …this said there are still shape creation tools that need to be implemented and improved that vector displacemnet can definetely not solve…and yes btw you can vector displace things on a mesh but in order to do this you have to …well model the vector displacemnet source and this cannot always be done in Mudbox…duh!
Now Autodesk new releases ,as nDman, said are far from being great and really all this feels more like rants before even trying the announced features.
Mudbox is certainly more production friendly as in “Maya-Renderman” production ready…this industry is unfortunately too polluted by name dropping and wannabies that as soon as they read Pixar in a thread or Maya in a sentence they start weting their pants.
This are only tools and there are many features missing in this tools and in production many artists with different Backgrounds pest all day about how using this or that tool they could get the job done much faster.
Zbrush is not designed around any particular pipeline wich makes it both more innovative and more difficult to please everybody at the same time…it is definetely a tool that requires a bit more handling and experimentation and everyday i realize how there are some features that i never used before and that some artists dont even thought it was possible to do…
obviously if you are going to be scared by the idea of learning a new navigation as some in this thread mention then really i feel sorry for you because trying to work in a production environment where by definition we need to come with a problem solving attitude this anxiety is not going to play well.
definetely Zbrush could use many improvements…never said the opposite but if you guys think that the grass is greener on the other side think twice…
Autodesk obsession with realeasing a version 2012 when we are not even mid 2011 is really looking like Apple policy of realesing a new Iphone no matter what every year …and the rest is history…this products seem much more based on emotional value, hysteria, fan based propaganda as rationalization as the ridiculous line up of Iphone junkies waiting hours to buy a WHITE Iphone 4…come on now it is just a Phone and ahem just white!!! seriously it is pretty obvious that you have to be very bored, unemployed and hysterical to line up for something like that…i really draw the line there and i wonder how many guys need to post less and create more maybe…
@ ITS ALIVE…not true…turning voxels into Polygons is one press of a button…it will be a trinagulated mesh or quadrangulated auto depending on your options…this mesh wont be deformation friendly but will be as long as you comply with 3d printing constraints 3d printing ready and definetely render ready …so its absoluately not true at all…plus as you might now if you really are in need of a specific edgeflow 3dcoat has an awesome retoplogy tool that allows u to bake Voxels to polygons in a pecific way as well.
Triangulated meshes are not the exception in fact they are the norm as every single Nurbs Solid or parametric modeler out there used probably to design and create the Keyboard you are using or the car you are driving will spit out a triangulated mesh…renders can be done of this without any problem and will even render faster as many triangulated meshes are way more optimum than a quadrangulated mesh were edge flow even in areas that do not need detail.The idea of triangulation on the fly as in Sculptis is indeed the most efficient and elegant solution for mesh creation as far as a polygonal approach goes.
I have posted a reply on page 6 and read some replies that seemed to be a response to ( parts of) my post ( could be wrong of course ;).
I see that there are a lot of people who are very happy with the new stuff that is announced, which is fine of course.
I am not unmoved by the " different approach" Pixologic is maintaining throughout the years, but I think it is a bit unfair to say of people who are not wholly positive about everything and suggest changes to a more industry common sense, that they are newbees, lazy, ignorant and what not.
I for one have never said ( or at least not meant to), that they should copy an interface of an existing package and paste it onto Zbrush, I merely suggested that they conform the interface a bit, getting it a bit organized and logical.
I realize that not everyone uses Zbrush in a larger pipeline and mainly stay in ZBrush, but for people who are using it in a pipeline, I think that the layering system needs a boost ( sculpt/paint layers, being able to paint specular/transparency channels and so on).
And sure there a lot more “markets” than Games or Films,which are relatively small to other marketgroups, but this small percentage influences the rest very profoundly, a lot of people wanted to learn and use Maya because it was used in filmwork, for instance, a piece of compositing software called Nuke is being used more and more each day because it’s production proven ( and the fact that Shake was discontinued 
).
The border between Games and Films is slowly fading as well ( Film wants more efficient workflows and because of technological advancement game engines and PC’s and consoles can handle more and more each day).
Also saying that Mudbox doesn’t even come close to Zbrush is in my opinion complete rubbish, utter nonsense even.
They both have their strengths and weaknesses and excel on different area’s, but please don’t make the mistake of underestimating other packages like Mudbox ( or MARI, modo or any other sculpting/modeling app that is out there), because even if Zbrush is the better tool, it doesn’t have to mean they will end on top( Back in the “old” days there was a “little” package called Softimage XSI, which was better than Max and Maya overall, but is now only used by a few):
Mudbox is easier to step in to, it is a part of the Autodesk suites, which have educational versions, which are even cheaper than an EDU version of ZBrush, which could mean that ( in the future) a lot more students will be learning to work with Mudbox than with Zbrush, which leads to a bigger adoptation in pipelines all over the world.
Another thing is the fact that pixologic doesn’t charge for their upgrades and Autodesk get’s “flamed” for doing the opposite.
Although I find the new 2012 releases of Autodesk rather weak and feel that they care more about revenue and shareholders than their customers, I think Pixologic is a bit too nice for their customers and hope they realize that there will come a time when the growth of new customers will decline or seize and if they keep their model of free upgrades they will lose by default to their competitors.
I am not saying that they should introduce maintenance, merely that people should be paying an amount ( even if it is a small one) of money for a full release ( ie Zbrush 3/4/5/6) to ensure the existence of pixologic and the development of Zbrush.
@ Mastone,
i think Mudbox is a great tool i dont think it is bad at all just think that his strenght is also his weakness since it relies heavily in what is done before and what will happen next…since Zbrush wasnt built around any particualr pipeline well it is the exact opposite.Modo is a fantastic modeler and a beautifully fast render too…i love it.
Again it will be naive to think that what will end up “on top” is a proof of quality or “standard”. We cant be so stupid to fall in what basically is a marketing line…There are many many ways to skin a cat.It is also a bit of a shame to be waiting for what the big guys say about a toll before using it.
Keep in mind that the Polygon-CatmullClark subdiv is a workflow based on a technology that is now 32 years old…i am sure that you agree that is very hard to believe that neither the limitation nor the benefits of this technology hasnt been improved since! well the truth is that there has been parallel developpments and some tools were still kept as standard not necessarily because they were the most adavnced but in fact because they were the most reliable and boringly stable wich is an asset in production.
32 years man…there is probably nothing else around you that has survived that long…form phone technology to cars…i dont think it is bad to at least have a go at new paradigms like Voxels or whatever else is out there.
Film Pipelines are very often old and clunky…they are efficient due to their monolithic simplicity and easy brute force handling of data…this is also why implementing new technologies in those pipelines is tricky and expensive and that most of the time we adopt a “wait and see” approach to implementing new tools…
This is what explains why it took so so so long to Pixar to implement GI solutions and raytracing…first remember that Pixars pixel output is not that realistic despite what people think and many of their frames dont rely heavily in refraction or reflections or things like that…tehrefore they didnt urgently need the implementation of those algos…the fact that a company doesnt see the use for that particular workflow or algo IS NOT a guarantee that everything they say or use should be considered like gospel or made a “Standard”.
To give you an example of very different ways to approach a problem i will mention a special Effect that i saw again the other day and that is probably one of the most spectacular to date even if it was mas now more than 12 years ago…the scene where Ed Norton shoots himself in the mouth in full Frame and slow motion…there is everything in that shot from a realistical digital double head of a lead Actor in full closeup and slomo plus realistic shading and hair etc…as far as can remember this was made by BUF compagnie without relying on subdivs nor UV mapping and was rendered on Mental Ray…
So the use of the word “standard” or “production ready” should be taken with a lot of care because it is a very fragile concept.
For what it is worth I agree with you completely – 3D for too long has been stagnant… I refer to it as the “tyrannical reign of the polygon”.
Personally I see for the future more and more developments moving towards much stronger particles and simulation softwares and less and less resources directed towards polygons and brute force animation… but the tyrannical reign of the polygon is strong and it will take some time to crumble under it’s own decayed weight.
That said I think the next big innovations will come from outside – all the current big players are too invested in what they already have going to make that big leap. In the meantime we all have to suffer with the limitations that exist today.
Aurick, any hope of Zbrush 64 bits in the near future?
There is nothing wrong with ‘polygons’ considering that a ‘model’ needs to be triangulated in the memory cache inorder to rendered.
If you’re speaking about limitations of sculpting in realtime as actual life clay, I agree, if you’re talking for everything from Renders to games to movies, then no, sorry, read up some theory and try again, and you’ll see why tessellate is the answer for the next while.
Actually you can voxelize before render too – particles voxelized on the fly (or similar) is what I was speaking of.
Best,
Jason.
In the meantime we all have to suffer with the limitations that exist today.
Well, I can live with these polygons but
I mostly agree 
I’m still excited about the upgrade and have nothing to gripe about… oh wait, I do have a gripe, I out of coffee, I think I will make some more.
GRIN!
PS, One question: If I run voxels through my coffee grinder will I’m get particles?
PS, One question: If I run voxels through my coffee grinder will I’m get particles?
I suppose so, though today 3dcoat uploaded a new beta, featuring dynamic tessellation over voxels! What you’ll get from the coffee grinder, I’m not sure. :lol:
hi…
what do you think of a way to save a color palette? it is bad to
by setting exact color when doing such a texture and a palette would
interesting.
I think of something simple, something like this:
[attach=253308]Color_Palete.jpg[/attach]
is it valid?
cheers 
Attachments
well i dont know if you have tried 3dCoat and Voxels but although the overall experience is still a bit more pleasant to me in Zbrush i must say that Voxels allows some shape creations totally impossible at the moment in Zbrush
As you can see it doesnt take that much more thinking outside the box to come with a new approach …voxels plus dynamic tesselation …of course it makes sense…lets see how good this feels in real life.
But at the end of the day this is a healthy, motivating competition bewteen developpers…and only good things can come out of this for us…
to all artists stuck in their own mental blocks this are also good news as we are lucky enough to have the real smart guys doing us the favor to experiment this things…this is why i was insisting that while retopo is a good thing to have at the moment it wasnt the most exciting feature yet.
If any Pixo Dev is reading this wich im sure they are following this sort of developpment closely, id like to thank you for your effort in bringing new modeling paradigms…im not sure of the technical aspects involved but Zbrush seems to have a voxel engine in the BG doing stuff like Remesh Subtool Booleans or Shadowbox…just wondering if there was a way to unify all this workflows into one.
On a more different approach very useful for more man made shapes that are harder to obtain with limited clipping curves usability or innacuracy of mesh extraction for example, you guys should have a look at what freeform voxel modeling does as it has not only organic sculpting capabilities but a very accurate curved based trim tool and other surface creation, intersection booleans and filleting tools that could be more accurate in certain cases than lazy mouse pinching or will allow you to cut entirely trough pieces what polys dont allow you to do…im sure everybody can imagine the possibilities of being able to trim cut and merge anything at anytime with accuracy or not.
I dont now what the technology behind those tools imply… also Imagine and Shape From Catia is capable of subdiv modeling and booleans in the same process!..of course all this can easily be baked to polys anytime.
All this is very good news regardless…in our pipeline no one in production management has been timing or analysing this sort of issue but in the modeling department i have seen for some time now that the pipeline is shifting dramatically…Maya is still being used but in many tasks it is being replaced by Zbrush or 3d coat etc…i wonder how much longer it will be relevant for modeling purposes…i have spent entire weeks using Maya as a complement of Zbrush and not the other way around strangely.
Consider Lightwave 3D for a base - good software and a strong future (I hope).
My only issue with BPR at the moment is it’s totally locked to the active subtools. You cannot render the canvas, or use any of the 2.5 capabilities of Zbrush. That’s unfortunate because without that ability BPR seems nothing more than a fancy way to render turntables. Sure you can use background plates and the like, but what if you’re going for a more stylized approach to your illustration? Or say you need hundreds of characters in a scene with buildings in the background, props etc… There really isn’t an efficient way to do that with BPR. HDR backplates aren’t really useful for that.
The difference between BPR and the standard Best Render is significant enough to provide a different result for the very same texture/light/material setup. This is frustrating as I really like the quality of the BPR render and would like to do whole scene renders with it. I understand that things like transparency won’t work correctly with pixol renders, but in those instances it can be handled in post pretty easily. Rendering out 20 posed characters in BPR one by one and compositing them into one big scene is another thing altogether.
I’m not really sure what the final goal of BPR is, high quality turntables or allowing complete illustrations within Zbrush, but hopefully we can at least get to render the canvas in BPR in this new release.
Thanks for looking.
- Chad
Thanks for your suggestion, I was totally forgot this!
FREE AGAIN TO REGISTERED USERS?!
You guys at Pixologic treat us so good.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Cheers :eek:
holy smokes, those renders look awesome. I’ll be keen to give this a whirl.