ZBrush 4.0 Purchase and Upgrade Schedule

[MontanaMan]

Let me start by saying again how much I absolutely love ZB. As an amateur artists and also software developer, I can appreciate the time and thought that continues to drive such innovatiion in software.

That said, however, I find myself still hoping that Pixologic will endeavor to make this more than just a release filled with new gadgets. Again, don’t get me wrong, I am in awe of their creativity when it comes to ways to create and modify geometry, but while innovation for it’s own sake is a good thing, sometimes it seems as though they continue to try to solve problems which don’t really exist. (Shadow Box looks fun, but if I truly needed to create geometry quickly, a base mesh in Maya or other package would make quick work of it).

I base this on some of the incredible galleries right here on ZBC. You guys are at the top of the artistic heap and continue to amaze us mere mortals with what you have been able to create with ZB in its current state.

Anyway, I am still hopeful that some truly useful things will be included in this release. Namely:

• A better way to retopologize.
• A better renderer, so I can (for still images) alleviate the requirement to create a myriad of maps for use in Mental Ray for high geometry, highly detailed meshes.
• A better way to retopologize (hmmm…seems like I repeat myself)
• Support for Connexion devices, which I would love to use in ZB.

(Note: I realize that a better renderer may be a stretch. After all, in order to render well, things like lighting, environment variables and a myriad of other things must also be included. One can dream, however.)

Lastly, I am still very appreciative of the efforts of the developers at Pixologic. They work hard to keep us happy and to ensure ZB stays competitive in the marketplace. I know about the long hours of work and pressure they have been enduring (been there many times). I just hope that the designers…the guys with a list of features to be included…have a few items addressing workflow, technical (x64 would be nice) and utilitarian issues.

And yet, I remain an appreciative, dedicated ZB user.

[toddrkeller]

Support for Vector Displacments/EXR’s would be a great addition too… Just realized that vRay supports them

[Velesius]

Hey all. Thought I would say a few words regarding z4 at siggraph. I went through today and picked up my license and was excited to see some great features!

What I saw was a lot of reselling of features we are all aware of. Which was unfortunate because I really wanted to hit the fast forward button. This was mostly because the people in the crowd had little to no experience with Zbrush, so the man demoing at the time didn’t want to jump to far ahead I suppose.

But here is a list of a few things that I saw, and were briefly mentioned that I thought sounded/looked very promising. Sorry in advance to Pixologic for spilling some of the beans:

• Improved Best Render - Allowing you to render out multiple shots of your image in one render, compositing it all in zbrush as you would in photoshop. Also allowing you to export out each image of that render to allow for more customization in photoshop.

• Subtool Control - Better ways to organize your subtools. Organizing by name of subtool rather than scrolling a giant list.

• Fiber FX - This wasn’t gone over much… sadly. Sounded like a hair and fur simulator within zbrush.

• Improved Layers - Allowing the artist to paint in layers, control the opacity of each polypaint layer, and more.

• Saving of Project - this will save out your tool’s orientation, rotation, everything as is. So the next time you open zbrush up and load your Project, everything is how you left it. Including every singe setting on every single slider. Very handy!

• Duplication of Subtools - No longer do you need to clone, then append a subtool to duplicate it. A simple button does everything for you now allowing you to quickly clutter your creatures mouth with teeth!

• Expand - A new feature that explodes your tool and its subtools into space allowing the user to quickly select one of the subtools. Rather than scrolling through the subtool list you can click the expand button which is located under the frame button in the UI on the right, and you’ll see all the subtools fly out in space. Pretty nifty.

Those are some of the little things I saw while I was able to stick around the Pixologic booth. I’ll post more as I remember them haha. Happy Zbrushing!

Thanks for the hot news! Seems, Pixologic made great enhancements to the general workflow. Something new about improvements to the old instruments? Dotted strokes, stich with symmetry…? They fixed them?

[Julian_K]

You know, this is one of those things that might seem boring compared to all the flashy stuff like Shadowbox and paint layers (which are, to be fair, great additions), but I’m really glad that Pixologic are devoting some attention to basic workflow-related things like this. I’ve been using ZBrush for ten years, and I still find the whole “your project is a tool” paradigm to be incredibly clunky. Something as simple as the ability to save the thing you are working on and then come back to it just as it was when you saved it is a VERY welcome addition.

So agree. save project will be a huge time saver. seriously. when you have to work all day with different zbrush files that can make a hell of a difference.

not to say that the oher news aren’t exciting. they pretty damn are

[Julian_K]

I’m personally very eager to see hands on what the new render improvements are.
rendering in zbrush is actually already not that bad in a bang for the buck ratio. you have to consider how quickly a Zbrush render is done, compared to the huge amount of work to export, create and set up various maps to get what you see in Zbrush, before you even start to bring it to the next level of lighting, shading and making final high res renders out of Max, May or any other of the big packages.

for pure conceptual work or anything which results only into a 2d image, it might be less and less necessary to leave Zbrush at all, which could make life so much easier.
one thing that you couldn’t realyl do so far was to render a compplete scene with objects and characters quite apart from each other in Zbrush.
The odd behavior of fake perspective view just made that impossible.

looking at that white room in the demo I get high hopes that this might be fixed.

[F_i_L]

• Improved Layers - Allowing the artist to paint in layers, control the opacity of each polypaint layer, and more.

• Saving of Project - this will save out your tool’s orientation, rotation, everything as is. So the next time you open zbrush up and load your Project, everything is how you left it. Including every singe setting on every single slider. Very handy!

OMG YES!!! all the other features sound great of course too. But these are the things that make my day. Congrats Pixologic on what’s looking like an absolutely solid software.

I really want to know about the new clay brush… like what exactly is different about it? God the next couple of weeks are going to be looooonnnngggggg…

[Gridlost]

Anyone know if spotlight made it into the 4 release?

Spotlight

[F_i_L]

Anyone know if spotlight made it into the 4 release?

Spotlight

Spotlight is in Zbrush4, according to someone at Siggraph. Though apparently they haven’t shown it off much. It’s probably been in their so long they’ve forgotten its a new feature, lol

[Pietas]

Let me start by saying again how much I absolutely love ZB. As an amateur artists and also software developer, I can appreciate the time and thought that continues to drive such innovatiion in software.

That said, however, I find myself still hoping that Pixologic will endeavor to make this more than just a release filled with new gadgets. Again, don’t get me wrong, I am in awe of their creativity when it comes to ways to create and modify geometry, but while innovation for it’s own sake is a good thing, sometimes it seems as though they continue to try to solve problems which don’t really exist. (Shadow Box looks fun, but if I truly needed to create geometry quickly, a base mesh in Maya or other package would make quick work of it).

I base this on some of the incredible galleries right here on ZBC. You guys are at the top of the artistic heap and continue to amaze us mere mortals with what you have been able to create with ZB in its current state.

Anyway, I am still hopeful that some truly useful things will be included in this release. Namely:

• A better way to retopologize.
• A better renderer, so I can (for still images) alleviate the requirement to create a myriad of maps for use in Mental Ray for high geometry, highly detailed meshes.
• A better way to retopologize (hmmm…seems like I repeat myself)
• Support for Connexion devices, which I would love to use in ZB.

(Note: I realize that a better renderer may be a stretch. After all, in order to render well, things like lighting, environment variables and a myriad of other things must also be included. One can dream, however.)

Lastly, I am still very appreciative of the efforts of the developers at Pixologic. They work hard to keep us happy and to ensure ZB stays competitive in the marketplace. I know about the long hours of work and pressure they have been enduring (been there many times). I just hope that the designers…the guys with a list of features to be included…have a few items addressing workflow, technical (x64 would be nice) and utilitarian issues.

And yet, I remain an appreciative, dedicated ZB user.

Agree with the desire to retopologize better, but you mention maya as a faster way to build base mesh… Well, if you are going to go out of zbrush to do things then 3dcoat have everything you need to retopologize fast. and it’s a lot cheaper than maya too.

[jawa64]

here is my analysis of the ui screenshot that was posted in the gallery. shadow box is under the subtool pallet but i could not see spotlight but im sure it is in there. ps i removed the logo so it would not look like it was anything official.

Attachments

[Sav]

Astonishing!

[Jerick]

I feel like a desperate and hungry little doggie at the end of his chain and a juicy biscuit is sitting there in plain sight just inches out of my reach. It’s such a cruel and viscous tease!

[KPtoons]

Hey again. Okay something I do remember that I failed to mention was SSS. Not sure about real time but it is for sure in the Best Render. Also it sounded like you can paint masks to control the SSS. Can’t wait to try that out. Their goal with the best render was to make it easy for anyone to display their own work the best way possible. And it sounds like we now have a lot of options to do so. They are doing their best to eliminate the need/desire to work outside of zbrush to get the desired effect and look you want with your final images/sculpts.

CGicore to answer your question, there was no talk about blending modes with polypaint. There were a lot of buttons added that we couldn’t read on the screen, and they weren’t mentioned. So who knows? lol

Can’t wait to see what others have to say that have been there. If nothing else pops up we are only weeks away from the release!

[mykyl]

KPtoons,
Thats Just not good enough. Go get your backside back there and get us some more info seeing as you are the only person on the planet actually telling us anything.

In all seriousness, thanks for telling us some of what you have learned.

Cheers

Mike R

[Richard_Marklew]

here is my analysis of the ui screenshot that was posted in the gallery. shadow box is under the subtool pallet but i could not see spotlight but im sure it is in there. ps i removed the logo so it would not look like it was anything official.

On the left hand side where you have Curve that’s just Dots for Dot stroke.
ZS-Sketches? palet, isn’t that the material palette with what is presumably a material for SSS

[jawa64]

On the left hand side where you have Curve that’s just Dots for Dot stroke.
ZS-Sketches? palet, isn’t that the material palette with what is presumably a material for SSS

that is the dot stroke icon but it does not look to say dots on the label but on the latter I forgot that is where the material palette was :o but it does list the name of the material being used ZS ---- ch something or other.

[F_i_L]

Also, jawa64, what you have cirlced on the right hand side is most likely the button(s) for Spotlight.

[edit] what really intrigues me, is the “Contact”(?) menu under Polygroups.

[KPtoons]

Haha if I was still there mykyl I would totally grab more info.

As far as the circled icons on the right, I do know that one of them is the expand feature I mentioned.

[tez]

Thanks for the info KPtoons.

[KrakenCMT]

Yes, thanks for the info! Is there any news on a hair solution within ZBrush? Someone here just touched on the subject.