ZBrushCentral

ZAnimator, The Zbrush Animation Plugin: Video Demos (Update, Added a Test Doodle)

Shared ZScripts & Macros
#61

This looks great!!!& great video!! Thanks for posting, looking forward to the next step :sunglasses: :+1: .

#62

I’m really glad I stopped bye to take a look at all of this. Really amazing stuff you have created here! Very cool potential! Thanks for sharing! :slight_smile:

#63

Great stuff, man! So much potential! Makes me wish I was a programmer.
Add those features, and better topology tools, and I would almost never have a reason to close ZBrush. :smiley:

#64

again
 I’m just stunned bro! Respect for your mad efforts

#65

I’m pretty new to Z-brush and find this plugin very exciting. I want to use Zbrush for creature development. If I wanted to make a movie, obviously I’d use Max or Maya, so I can see why some would poo-poo the idea of an animation-light plug in. But I want to encourage Pixologic to take this seriously for the following reason. A big part of creature design involves moving parts that may not be immediately obvious. Take the classic Geiger Alien. If I made that up, I’d have to sculpt it with the tongue-head in it’s mouth and then out of it’s mouth. Not a big deal, sure. Then I have two images showing before and after. But the impact on your audience, client, boss, etc. can be so much more powerful if they see the thing popping out, ya know? Other examples off the top of my head would be a character with blade that flips out of some grove, a vehicle with rotating wings, a stretchy blob monster
 the list could go on and on. Being able to communicate clearly and powerfully some of the kinetic features of a piece without having to take it into another program, rig it, etc. seems like a fantastic feature. (Especially for those of us who can’t afford Maya or Max.)

Anyway, just wanted to pitch it to Pixologic as being philosophically consistent with what they want Zbrush to be, that is: A sculpting program. This plugin simply extends the toolset for us designers with creative motion ideas. Please support this guy and his project! :+1:

#66

Hey man! :wink:

Thank you for sharing the video! The ZAnimator is very impressive and I really wish you keep working on it till the end!

#67

Some kind of obj sequence export?
Possible Impossible?
Great stuff darukin

#68

That’s some great stuff! :slight_smile:

It would obviously need a lot more features to be truly usable but it’s really cool what you’ve done!

#69

Thank you all for the great response !

I agree with you both Tobbeo and Scrybe, the only real usability so far of this is to extend the toolset with ideas for motion, displaying morphs etc quickly within Zbrush. We must be realistic.

@Disco Stu

Yes I am glad to say that all these features are possible, export, import / load and save, for obj sequences, whether it’s obj sequence of the animation of every frame or ZSphere rigs

Which brings me to this great announcement

ZScene Exporter! A script to Export obj, disp, normal map, ZSphere rig, even an associated mel script to load all this in Maya, with one button.


 is the feature which I’m working on now which will have greater usability.
But I can only do this for now with Maya, might extend it later but I don’t have any other apps like 3ds Max or XSI or whatever (and I’ll need to learn scripting language for each one anyhow if I intended to import).

This means that you can set up a Zsphere rig, and export it to Maya directly. In this new feature I’m working on:

This is how it will work:

Given a completed Zbrush model (for all sub-ds) ready to be rigged, with this new plugin that I’ll soon announce, the entire export of obj, normal map and disp map and rigging in Maya will be generated automatically from within Zbrush based on ZSphere rig and parameters etc. Basically you set up a ZSphere rig for your model and then set parameters for normal and disp map in the ZScript and then click the export button. This will automatically export into a directory specified the obj of the model, a normal map and a disp map based on the set up parameters and will even export the ZSphere rig.

Here’s the key though. The ZScript will also literally write out a mel script. After you press the export button, this is what you do, you just open up Maya , load the generated mel script and everything will be automatically set up in one go, the obj imported, the disp and normal map set up based on the exported ones in the directory, and even a Maya rig automatically generated from the ZSphere rig you created quickly in Zbrush. This will cut down time immensely, but you’ll have to see a demo to see what I mean.

This has implications which are beyond ZAnimator, but if used in conjunction with ZAnimator it will mean that I can also extend this to export keyframes from ZAnimator into Maya through the mel which is generated from this ZScript, hence export animation from ZAnimator into Maya in essence, so I’m glad to say this is possible. Even IK constraints can be exported based on, for example color, values of ZSphere rig (if a child ZSphere has same color value as a parent one, create IK link for instance) or something

Stay tuned for this ZExporter!<input id=“gwProxy” type=“hidden”><!–Session data–><input onclick=“jsCall();” id=“jsProxy” type=“hidden”><input id=“gwProxy” type=“hidden”><!–Session data–><input onclick=“jsCall();” id=“jsProxy” type=“hidden”>

#70

Very nice to hear this.
I wouldnt say its just for displaying. Id rather see it as an easier way to
do abstract animations out of proportion etc.
The things that would take ages with a rig.
Rigs with weighting would be stellar :smiley:
If you can get an obj sequence into maya one could probably port it to other
programs using an fbx or such i assume.
Keep it up! :slight_smile:

#71

please upload beta for testing

#72

wow sounds great! does all those work ffor R3?
is it th esame link as the first page for the right download?

#73

Hi thx for replies! but unfortunately it’s still in alpha rather than beta
I cant really release anything till I make the save/load /export / import features as well as a few major bug fixes but the closest thing to any release is ZClaymation which shud be good to go soon, but I apologize as there’s no beta release yet.

And yes this all works and was recorded in R3 =)

Thx again!
<input id=“gwProxy” type=“hidden”><!–Session data–><input onclick=“jsCall();” id=“jsProxy” type=“hidden”>

#74

It’s amazing I really want to test it :+1:small_orange_diamond:+1:small_orange_diamond:+1:

#75

this project is completly amazing i hope see it one day !!
and when i say hope is not little hope !!
good job !

#76

Darukin
I was wondering if the Zanimator would be able to save out the motion files of the 3d model and then bring them into PaintStop for more of a traditional 2d animation rotoscoping style as seen here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Wgm2OzDYVo&feature=related


//youtu.be/<object width=“425” height=“344”><param name=“movie” value=“http://www.youtube.com/v/4Wgm2OzDYVo&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0”></param><param name=“allowFullScreen” value=“true”></param><param name=“allowscriptaccess” value=“always”></param><embed src=“http://www.youtube.com/v/4Wgm2OzDYVo&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0” type=“application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=“always” allowfullscreen=“true” width=“425” height=“344”></embed></object>

#77

Hey, thanks SpaceMan, interesting idea!

But I’m not sure if that’s possible at this point yet, and even if it is I will have to do much work looking into PaintStop which isn’t the current direction of this.
Thank you though for the suggestion, it is interesting!

Just to let you all know, I now have a fully working ZSphere rotation system for the ZSphere animation, and soon will have acceleration of various ZSpheres and other things such as masking a particular ZSphere for a particular motion and giving specific motion properties for that particular selected (through masking) ZSphere etc.

In the meantime i have pointed out some major ZSphere rigging issues to Pixologic so that they can hopefully fix that so that ZSphere rig posing will become fully usable without frustrations and destructive deformations, and have also suggested a ZSphere weighting feature on binded meshes through use of masks etc that they might look into.

Cheers!

#78

Amazing feature! I can’t wait for the plugin!

#79

Hi, Was this completed in 3.5

#80

Hi Darukin
Looking forward to playing with this script! I am just curious if you have been able to tell if they have actually fixed the problems with zspheres in the new release? I would love to be able to port some of my old scripts to the new version if possible.