[edit… autocensored]
lets keep zbrushing instead of fight here 
No need to derail this thread even further, check your PM inbox mitzli.
Whether you think Macs are overpriced, overvalued, or just plain crap, has no bearing on the simple fact that they, just like PC users, expect software developers to patch faulty versions of their software.
Mac users need 3.5 to patch their lack of displacement generation/export and their render crash problems, so, for them, a little impatience is understandable in my opinion.
^Yup. The entire reason that I purchased Zbrush in the first place. I’m an animator. I’m not exactly interested in sculpting a model just to have it sit there and look pretty.
,!,
That was harsh.
I’m sorry, but thats simply not a strong argument. yes, amc users usually get ports later and we put up with it. But when the port comes, and people have paid full price for said port, the program should work as advertised.
When the Zbrush 3.12 release was announced, I saw no direct mention of all the known broken or missing features.
Therefore pixologic shipped and asked people to pay for a product that doesn’t do anything near what it advertised.
I’m currently in the middle of several sculpts, only to realise I’m now stuck in there and all my work is useless. I can’t render out turntables for viewing, I can’t export displacements and the program crashes when rendering half the time so I can’t even take decent screenshots. I can’t even open it up in a windows version of zbrush because of the version differences.
What pixologic shipped is a useless, closed off piece of software.
And to blame apple is just stupid. The API changes were managed by every other company that shipped mac versions. Adobe even settled for just having a 32 bit version of its apps… That’s understandable. Atleast their programs work. Zbrush 3.12 should have been a free or cheap beta and nothing more given the delay we experienced.
Sorry, I’m just really pissed off at Zbrush and the horrible company that is Pixologic right now, because it’s completely reduced all the work I’ve done to nothing. I think I’ll be jumping ship to mudbox.
Pixo is an awesome company. Oh and if you think that Mudbox is even close to a replacement for ZB, you are going to be in for one hell of a disappointment. Save yourself the $900.00 and put that toward a PC, so you can run ZB the way you want to. Or you can have some patience and wait for ZB 3.5/4.
Or you could create maps with xnormal (free I think), or export hi res obj’s to 3.1 in windows via bootcamp or a pc and create maps there…neither convenient, or used by myself, but it has been mentioned. Luckily, I’m just an illustrator and the renders out of ZBrush work for my purposes.
Hmm… preaching to Mac ZB users about patience… You really feel you need to go there? Srsly? :eek:
Ok, I know you guys have been waiting waaay too long for a fully functional version of ZB. 3.xx. I just want to point out that us PC users don’t have the latest incarnation of ZB either. I felt a little twinge in my stomach when I realized I wouldn’t be getting the next version of ZB yet. But I’m still learning a lot about the program so I’m waiting patiently for 3.5 ( probably 4.0).
I’m am dying for some refinements and some more polys but hey what can we do. My main point is that Pixo does the most incredible stuff concerning Polygons that the world has ever seen, and you know those guys are pulling their hair out trying to get us a working next version.
I do understand that you have been patient, but we are all waiting.
Also it makes sense that if you are actually making money with ZB that it may be wise to invest in a PC to run it as well.
But would you agree that the current wait that PC license holders are going through is rather more… shall we say… comfortable than that of Mac license holders?
Professional users will indeed find ways around… but that still leaves a lot of hobbyists hanging in the balance. You cannot expect them to spend more money to bypass the shortcomings of a flawed product.
Yes Indeed the wait for Mac users has been agonizing. I’m just hoping you will reconsider your opinion of Pixo. I at this point am a hobbyist, but I could make money at any time (god willing), so I just keep plugging away with tutorials, I’m also busy finally learning Renderman, so right now during my lull I’m just honing my skills, between crashes LOL.
I actually have quite a high opinion of Zbrush. Despite it’s problems it’s actually my favourite tool of all DCC software that I use and own. And I’m thankful for Pixologic to put it out there and their willingness to support the Mac.
It is their stubborn attitude towards communication with their customers (or rather lack thereof) that I have problems with.
A more open policy (like Luxology’s for instance) would do them big favours in my opinion.
Yes, indeed, an open communication, so we know what’s going on behind the screens, and that they’re working around the clock to make it happen. It would make such a big difference. From time to time I look at the beta forum of 3D Coat; the developer, Andrew, is working with so much passion and feedback on it’s product. That deserves a lot of respect, and a very happy community. Even if ZBrush is not functioning now as it should, with feedback and an open communication, it would give some peace among it’s users, and a much better company imago.
is there any info on the implemetation of texturing layers? My company wants to increase licences on either Zbrush ormudbox, right now they tend to go for no zbrush, since the lack of texturing layers.
Andrew wants our business. 
I’m hoping he can keep up the furious pace of advancement as his voxel approach is quite intriguing (though it may bog down ultimately–we’ll have to see.)
I bought zbrush in Dec. /08. I have PC’s at home, but I bought the MAC version to install on my new MAC since it had more resources. Had I known the MAC version was missing the capabilities I needed I would have bought the PC version. I sent Pixologic numerous emails requesting that they transfer my license from the MAC to the PC. They ignored all my emails until I got fed up and CC’d every email address I could find at Pixologic, including the CEO. Finally I got a response. I could keep my MAC license, and they sent me a link for a 30 day evaluation of zbrush 3.0 for the PC.
How nice.
Luckily, I’m only a hobbyist and don’t rely on zbrush for my work as a network administrator. I have, however, convinced our technology standards committee to blacklist Pixologic as a potential vendor - for any platform.
W
Be careful before suggesting people buy a PC to run ZBrush 3.x on!!! I have two PC’s, one older AMD and the other high end Quad core Intel, neither has ever been able to run ZBrush 3.x due to the fact that I like to keep my data on RAID 5 arrays. The program doesn’t even get loaded on the RAID drives, they are purely for data. In version 3, Pixo went with a licensing system that will not work if RAID is enabled on a PC, the ZBrush code works fine, but you run out of activations and the result is you cannot continue to run ZBrush. I have raised this with Pixo and had very polite short answers, but no solutions apart from … we are working on it … please wait… or buy another PC!!! So far Zbrush 3.x is still vapour ware for me!! What irritates me most is that if you pay for ZBrush 3.x you can end up not being able to use it due to a naff licensing system. (If you don’t pay for it you can probably run it on PC’s with RAID, just fine!!!:mad: ) Pixo have told me that they are not able to keep me informed about the status of the issue and that the only way I will find out if they fix it is to check the boards from time to time!! (This is one of those times!!) So if it is any consolation to Mac users, there are a unknown number of PC users that have NEVER been able to use ZBrush 3.x - In fact perhaps I dreamt that ZBrush 3.x even existed!! Now where was my book on staying calm!!!
FWIW: I’ve been much happier with ZB3 on Vista x64 than I ever was with ZB3 on my macs. But PC users with RAID systems are in the same out-in-the-cold approach to support.
-K