it seems like everyone buys another 3d program like Maya or 3DS Max instead of just using zbrush, and i am curious as to why they do that. thanks!
because without lots of PS post work zbrush’s render isn’t so good at the moment(hope that changes) and is limited in many ways. Also from what i’ve seen, a good render engine can hide a crappy model, i’m actually amazed at how often i see that.
this should probably be in the community forum.
Because, as awesome as ZB is it just doesn’t pack that much of a punch in the rendering dept. It is still quite amazing but just very basic and not to intuitive.
Whereas Mental Ray or Photo Realistic Renderman are just indescribable as to the depth of what they can to .
There is just no comparison.
I think it would be awesome if ZB licensed Mental Ray, the cost would go up but it would be all I need for now.
i see, my copy of zbrush gets delivered tomorrow, hopefully it’s not to bad because i can’t afford Maya, or even Photoshop for quite a while. thanks for the replies, and sorry about posting in the wrong spot (i’ve done that twice for some reason).
You won’t be disappointed, ZB’s renderer is still quite awesome.
I might suggest dropping the cash and buy Digital Tutors ZBrush rendering tips and tricks tutorial. It’s @ $50.00.
crap! i just saw how well mudbox 2009 renders. have you seen that program, it’s unreal, i thought mudbox was supposed to suck.
I`d like to see those amazing mudbox renders somewhere. Any links?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7decRzBkB0A
i’m very new to zbrush since i’ve only used the demo for a few weeks but i don’t believe it can do anything even close to that.
looks very reliant on materials.
This is a very cool vid but I would love to see all that fancy Material being cast onto a texture.
I would still sculpt in zbrush though it has everything you could need or want to start your learning process.
it was a great buy. For photoshop pinch needs such as cropping and texture preps gimp works ok in that dept.
Learn the hardest program first then all other will seem easy 
i’m glad to hear that it wasn’t a bad buy especially given your knowledge of what zbrush can do. i also want to thank you so much for creating such great tutorials on veoh you gave me a much better understanding of zbrush. it also seems that my Xeon workstation isn’t good enough for Mudbox 2009 because it won’t load anything into the sculpting area. Thanks again!