Well, I don’t know about 1 billion polys, but I hate painting pores by hand. Doing it with a brush, and being able to easily extract those into a normal map is killer. Same with wrinkles.
And the ant? Well, I’m sure yoy could paint a normal or displacement by hand. But it’s truly quicker to quicker to texture, like you would do with clay.
Hey Crusoe, One tip on how to create really cool pores via brush is to select the clay brush and set its elevation to 10, set your Alpha to the default alpha, set Brush: Edit Density to 95 or so, z intensity to 50 or so, draw size at around 150 then just brush on the model.
Insta-Pores!
ryan
Greg,
Marc is a technical illustrator specialising in reconstructions from fossil evidence and so on. That is how he makes his living. As an illustrator myself, I can appreciate the greater flexibilty the new version of ZBrush brings. Certainly there are other ways of doing things - we managed without computers once - but the new ZBrush provides a number of different ways of approaching a problem without particular constraints and for any artist that is valuable. I agree that few will ever need a billion polygons but, as has been said, what’s important is not having to worry about hitting a limit.
Ofer Alon has not abandoned ZBrush’s first principles. This extra functionality does not require new hardware. My ancient and low spec machine [1800 MHz cpu, 768 MB RAM] is below the modest system requirements indicated on Pixologic’s web site and yet I can now produce models of 8 million polygons - without using HD Geometry - something impossible for me with ZBrush 2. HD Geometry is not dependent on high system specs either as the working method automatically adjusts to what your system can handle.
As you grow older, you’ll appreciate simplicity more, I think.
I’ve just turned fifty. I’ve been an illustrator for thirty years. I like simplicity, certainly, and that’s why I like ZBrush. It’s a complex program but its basic working methods are straightforward and intuitive. At least, I find them so.
Like you, I find a lot of the material posted here uninteresting. But I don’t think you’ll get a wider spectrum of artists using one particular software anywhere.
Rapid Prototype Tech.
Lastly I want real Texturework on my models. Not Bumpmaps or Normal maps. I want High Def psychically really, real, textures on my models surface that can be printed out on some fancy pants Rapid Prototype machine out there in California!
Marcus, I’ve got you beat. I’m turning 52 next month. I’m glad to hear that Mr. Alon is not abandoning his original principles with regard to ZBrush. One thing that is worth remembering is that he named it ZBrush, not ZSculpt. I think he must have had some kind of painting in mind when he named the program. True, one can “paint-sculpt” now with these high limits for polygon numbers, but I think he wanted to show how powerful painting in 2D and 2.5D can be, using this most unusual toolset. I believe these 2D and 2.5D tools have been underused and underrated. Just look, all of those original tools are still there - must be there for a reason, I figure.
Another note: people keep saying that ZBrush is not an animation program . . . well, with all of these new additions to the software, (particularly the posing tools with real time perspective, and the new movie functionality . . .), I’m not so sure. I’ll bet you could come up with something pretty nifty along the lines of a basic animation script, if you had the time.
Why don’t we start producing some more interesting content and demonstrating some of the relatively undiscovered methods for doing so?
Also, glad to hear that your machine is of the same caliber that mine is and still capable of doing amazing things with the current ZBrush release.
Greg Smith
Greg,
I think you were right when you said that ZBrush has been pushed in a particular direction. But it still has amazing 2/2.5D painting capabilities. I have done some work on ZBrush ‘natural media’ brushes and plan to produce a UI/script set up when I can. I think the new UI customization (when it’s implemented in a more comfortable fashion!) will provide the means to extend ZBrush’s range in new and exciting ways.
On animation: it may be possible at some stage. It is certainly something that interests me, though whether it could ever be practically done through zscripting is a different matter. But ZBrush’s new Matcap materials, realtime shadows and real-time rendering could make blazingly fast animations for some situations, so it’s worth thinking about.
As for ‘alternative’ content, I’m with you on that. I’m certainly planning stuff of my own and I look forward to seeing what you come up with.
Cheers,
What i want to do with 1B Polygons, err i subdivide it close to that limit, and then go out to get a coffee.(although prefer tea.) 
Seriously, i think the same way, it’s not the question if you have need for it but it’s nice to know that, when you need it, that you just can work, without to spam the company full with feature requests, and then wait some years.
And i’m glad that Pixolator(and Pixologic) is thinking this way.
i think the 1 billion is definitely needed. I work in commercials and very often we will get a request from a client like “Can we have a 8k render for our poster/billboard/print” or there might be a shot that might move the camera in very close to an object. when your working at these resolutions, you need the textures to be able to stand up before the texture to render pixel ratio gets to 1:1.
I always found zbrush 2 frustrating when i needed that extra subD level. i could always go up to 8 million or so but wanted that extra one to get the detail in a certain area.
As soon as we get HD geometry export in displacement maps the better.