well. IMO I don’t think an application like zbrush would be distracted from its developing. the current zbrush toolset is wonderful to sculpt clay like, and to build up characters working from z spheres. but wjat i’m thinking is just to add upon the current toolset some extended possibilities. example zbrush is a sculpt tool, tjpug there’s some zscript to do animation. the same is valid for the gorgeous quad viewport zscript, and more.
starting from z spheres what is needed IMO is :
- possibility tobuild up a structure wich works like a skeleton, and with an ik solver based on joints u draw with them. since z sphere JUST seeem a great structure, is more a thing to add upon existing tool than something strange
a cool idea though would be to have the possibility to build a real bone rig with your z spheres. some sort of double result in one side u get a shape, in the other u get a skel made of bones like in many other packages this would allow complete flexibility for all kinda animations
2)once u obtain your bse mesh and edited it in shape, it comes the time for aadjusting the polyflow. having an easy possibility to do this would be great, and again not a sci fi tool to add.
- once u have your sketeton and the low poly optimized mesh, then its time to build some sort of link between your object and sketeton. the link is just there yet:u can pose your chars, so what to add? a link to mesh deformations based on joints rotation.
now all this could be very valid for CA , not facial but body animation for sure but with some kinda Lw endomorph (morph maps embedded into object in Lw) facial expressions are easy.
however with my idea of a skeleton obtained from z spheres, u would have complete flexibility and u could add bones even for facial animation, wich is a good possibility
the curent z brush toolset will do the rest detail the mesh, texture it into an umbelievable way.
u will end up with a more robust tool, and your model could be exported (butonly if necessary LOL) into other packages to animate, even if i think that with some enhancements you will have no need.
ok maybe we will see some of this into a next release!!!