Yes, well unfortunately, things don’t always work out exactly as stated in the announcements. As far as I know, 3.5 still doesn’t have GoZ. Are they still planning to include it in 3.5, or will they wait until version 4?
How about just any kind of release for Mac? I’d just like to get bug fixes, and the ZSketch II and other functionality we’re missing on Mac. There’s now this general expectation that ZB = ZB3.5. I’m tired of 3D workflow tutorials I cannot properly follow on Mac ZB because they use ZSketching for roughing things out.
To make things worse, when I go to look up (for example) some subtle bit of ZSphere knowledge in the online docs, because Pixologic has taken down virtually all pre-3.5 support materials and 3.5 is too different to be relevant in a bunch of areas, so Mac ZB users have little support or product documentation available anymore.
That wouldn’t be such a problem, you see, but we never really received real documentation for 3.1.2 or 3.2, other than “What’s New” PDFs. We were always referred to the online docs for ZB Win 3.1, and to use the “What’s New” docs to understand the differences from 3.1. When Pixo moved everything to 3.5, we lost our baseline reference documentation for V3.1 ZB.
When I realized what had happened regarding the docs, I called Pixo’s customer support number, explained the problem, and asked if they could at least put back the 3.1 documentation (so Mac ZB users had relevant docs). I was told they “weren’t going to do that.” That’s it. No explanation, no suggestion of how to work around the problem, just “We’re not going to do that.” Spiffy, eh?
Derek, w.r.t. Win ZB 3.5 and GoZ, see this post. Apparently most of the guts of GoZ were already given to Windows users with 3.5r3, along with the Maya bindings. No idea whether the other bindings are there.
The cost factor seems to be a bit high, considering the features that is packs, it is cool to work with.
I find the price of ZBrush pretty reasonable, particularly given free updates until version 4. For the price, you get the most features in the genre, and the price is actually in the middle of the range.
What kinds of tasks are you looking to solve with a tool like ZBrush? Knowing that might make it easier to help.
From the Support Center Knowlegebase:https://support.pixologic.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=18&nav=0,13
GoZ has not yet been released for ZBrush 3.5 and is currently only available for Mac users with version 3.2.
It will be made available for all artists – PC and Mac – at the time that ZBrush 3.5 is released for the Mac. We do not currently have a release date for these, but can promise that it will be no longer than absolutely necessary to deliver a quality, feature-rich product.
Richard
They stated at some point either in a thread or a support ticket i read that when they release zbrush 3.5 for Mac the PC version will get GoZ
Richard, as I understand it, the Nov.'09 post I cited (from Support) represented a update from the situation described in the Knowledge Base article you mentioned (written in Sept.'09), and that 3.5r3 did include (some) GoZ functionality for Windows.
I’m just going on what the Support person wrote in the post, though, I don’t have 3.5r3 to confirm whether or not the GoZ guts are present. Perhaps someone from Pixologic can resolve this one way or the other?
so…we are almost through January of 2010. Any more that Pixologic can tell us on the coming of Z 4.0? I was just curious if there is any update as to how long? 6 months to a year? Or when we might hear an update? I love what i got so far so no complaints. 3.5R3 is awesome as is, just nice to know when MORE is coming.
The last official thing I read was the end of 4th quarter 2009. Not sure if I missed something somewhere though…
So I spend U$ 595.00 on ZBrush, hundreds of dollars in training videos, hundreds of hours studying the program, dealing with bugs that last generations of this software, and I have my message filtered on the forum.
If I cheered like a kid in christmas, like many others, I’d be allowed to have the benefit of your blessing, and see my words posted here.
That’s Pixologic’s customer service.
Well I guess you have to be happy you have 3.5. Mac users don’t even have that…
It’s been promised like a year now??
I just lost track.
Shame the license is not cross platform so you could use the version that suited you best when needed. As a Mac user GoZ is really useful but I would love to have access to ZSpheres II.
What makes me laugh is all the hooplah Pixologic makes when it releases a new feature, but then they fail to meet their promised release dates and people just get all frustrated all over again.
For a few weeks last fall when ZSpheres II was released Pixologic was communicating with its customers and things were looking hopeful, but now we seem to be hearing nothing but silence again from ZHusssssh! and no communication.
I just wish Pixologic would get some consistency. 
Mac users have been waiting since October for 3.5 and here it’s February. We were all told ZBrush 4 would be released in January.
Oh well I’ll check in here in another couple of months. lol 
I actually find the lack of communication more disturbing than the delays. Development delays (within reason) are normal, but most companies make the effort to keep customers informed about the reasons for the delays, and what the company is doing to resolve those problems. They want a dialogue with customers, and value the feedback about what customers would like to see them do better.
As a customer, I have a MUCH easier time accepting delays and problems when a company rep is at least engaging in open, honest dialog about what’s wrong and why, and they give a clear signal they’re trying to do better. Heck, given the wide experience of their customers, we might even have useful suggestions about how they could address the issue, or what kinds of compromises would satisfy us when fixes are too risky or beyond their abilities.
I’m not saying we need to hear about the minutiae of development issues on a daily or even weekly basis, but (for example) for Mac customers to be left for five months with no meaningful status is outrageous. That’s when they need good customer dialogue the most. I refuse to believe there weren’t resources available while posting the many update notes for Windows users to put together a monthly status update about how Mac development was progressing, and answer a few questions related to that status. Good customer relations aren’t even worth that much to them?
Now that Windows 3.5 is “released” and 4.0 is late, we’re back to receiving virtually no status communication for anyone. Again. Their behavior is painfully counter-productive, with serious long-term consequences. Don’t they see how this drives customers into the arms of their competitors? Do they just not care?
I love their product (when it works), and I really want to like and support Pixologic as a vendor, but it’s incredibly hard to overlook their miserable customer relations. The greatest irony is how little effort it would take for them to excel in this area.
Well, dk79, I thought 3.5 was fully functional, and I read that ALL customers could upgrade for free, so I bought it.
First of all, 3.5 still lacks crucial features, such as Zapplink, and does not have GoZ, massively announced but not delivered.
And I can’t upgrade for a Mac version when it comes.
I can’t work like that.
They offered me 1/2 price for a Mac version, but on the old 3.12 version, without the new features.
So if I want to have it all, kinda 100% of what has been offered, I must pay 150% price.
I had no deal with Pixologic, and asked for a refund.
Now I will wait in line, who knows for how long, until I can upgrade for 3.5 on a Mac.
I gotta tell you, I hate this “end of 4th quarter” thing.
Fisrt announcement promised version 4 to August 2009, then “4th quarter 2009”.
That means sometime next year.
That means not soon.
Soon for Pixologic means anything but.
They are promising 3 new video tutorials “soon” for more than “a quarter” on their website.
The disregard and silence policy from Pixologic demonstrates how little they care about customer service.
Im sure many people will not agree, but Zbrush is such an awesome program and so widely used, that if they took another year and released it in 2011 people would still want to get their hands on it. In fact, if it did cost money and was delayed till 2011, people would STILL want to get their hands on it. So I think that given the fact that it will be a free upgrade, people should be patient and wait to see what happens. This app is above and beyond any other 3D app(unless you are only doing low poly hard surface modeling), and in its current state can do just about anything.
I’m trying to keep all of this in perspective. While it is frustrating that Pixologic treats Mac users as second class citizens, and their communication to the public is worse than that of the Bush Administration, they offer a monster value that is pretty unique in the industry. Even if one has to buy Windows and a cross platform license to run the latest version of ZBush (Hah! That was a typo but I’m totally leaving it!) it’s a cheap ticket.
Personally I’ve just back burnered ZBrush and I’m working on Rhino, 3D printing and other things that won’t make me crazy. I check ZBrush Central every couple of weeks to see if Pixo has come even close to getting their sh*t together. No dice so far.
Happy modeling!
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