Absolutly baffling!
A presentation was realized at http://pixologic.com/zbrushlive/ ZBrushLive: video soon!

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?207149-ZBrush-4R8-Beta-Testing-Gallery Beta Testing Gallery

Many styles!

Very interesting !

Zbrush was the tool of amazing artists to create all sort of organic artwork
but in the link you posted it is all about hard surface modelling ;-P

Will Zbrush kill all Polymodellers now ?!

<< Will Zbrush kill all Polymodellers now ?!
No Blender will be still existing! ;)

<< is all about hard surface modelling
As there are 6 pages of images ... :)

So soft modeling! :)

In fact ZB 4R8 is released! :)

>>No Blender will be still existing! ;)<<

Working with Polymeshes is time and Ram - consuming.

What will keep people working with Polyamodellers when Zbrush
offers such sophisticated hardfurface - modelling tools now ?

"Will Zbrush kill all Polymodellers now ?!"

Absolutely, categorically, NO. Now, more than ever, low poly meshes are needed for VR and immersive game and reality experiences. Something like Zbrush still needs hours of retopo in order for it to play at all in those arenas.

If you look as some of Jerry Perkins work (aka Masterxeon1001) https://www.artstation.com/artist/jerryperkins1447 you'll find similar form development and detailing, but unlike zBrush models, they are already in an optimized poly mesh for gaming or VR. Of course there might have to be some auto-decimation and baking of normals, but that's trivial compared to the workflows demanded by Zbrush (and 3D Coat) to prepare their 10 million poly models for VR. Simiilar work is done by Bulgarov and others (see 10 days of Mechs).

If you CAN do it in a poly program, then it's best for VR.

IMO, MoI and it's kind are best for accurate CAD, 3D printing (poly modelers pretty much suck at that) and in some cases can be used for VR. MoI can actually be used also as a concept modeler as well.

MoI and other CAD meshers create "funky" poly meshes, so often there are difficult smoothing and mapping issues to deal with. Mostly, they can be quite difficult to create good UV mappings. Still, MoI has an absolute tremendous SketchUp export which when used properly can create very nice and 'renderable' meshes for VR at low poly acceptable resolutions.

I know of no other program that can do that. In fact, I recently recommended to Art Center to purchase MoI solely for that purpose as they are wanting to move from Rhino to VR quickly. HTH.

There is also something funny with ZBrush: it was natively a 2D/2.5D program!

So a long way for be a sort of 3D "monster" ! (more than 16 years! )
And the same number of years for finally be used in French !!! (and other languages)

Of course a certain learning curve is necessary!
It's a labyrinthine program! ;)

It was a precursor...copied by all... MudBox, 3DCoat, Blender etc...

Good points, Chipp !

Do you know how the artwork created in Zbrush is handled in movies ?
Creating image maps out of Zbrush and using them as textures in a polymodeller ?

Just thinking about theSea Creatures in Pirates of the Carribean.

;)
http://pixologic.com/interview/archive/ilm-pirates/

Hi Chipp.

@You : "...Absolutely, categorically, NO. Now, more than ever, low poly meshes are needed for VR and immersive game and reality experiences...."

I totally agree with you about this subject.

IMHO ZBrush has still a too high learning curve and for fast and easy 3D concept production it's better to have a product like 3D-Coat coupled with
some easy and fast "true" low poly/SDS modeler and also with Moi.

See you.

Hi Chipp and all,

quote: "Will Zbrush kill all Polymodellers now ?!"

quote: Absolutely, categorically, NO. Now, more than ever, low poly meshes are needed for VR and
immersive game and reality experiences. Something like Zbrush still needs hours of retopo in order
for it to play at all in those arenas.

There's is the ZModeler Brush (quad meshes) in ZBrush, which exactly does this! :-) So no need
for sculpting or retopo. And regarding retopo, there is the absolutely amazing ZRemesher in ZBrush,
so also no hours of retopo... :-)

http://pixologic.com/zbrush/features/ZModeler/

http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=8385.1

Regards
Stefan

ZModeler will be more friendly with a circular menu(s) or like the existing Lightbox than this box with multiple rectangular buttons! :)

Hi Pilou,

i think the Design is good, because you can put more features/functions in a square menue than in a circular, imho.

Anyways, i love the UI layout of ZBrush much much more than for example the layout of 3DCoat with it's many rooms where you always have to switch, which i never understood. The only advantage, i see, with 3DCoat is it's (PBR) texture painting capabilities.

Regards
Stefan

<< i think the Design is good, because you can put more features/functions in a square menue than in a circular, imho.
But absolutly not "ergonomic" ! :)

<< you can put more features/functions
Not a problem : just multiply Pies!

See Blender Menu Pies : it's runing 10 times more speed!
And some tricky uses of parameters inside! Absolutly amazing!:)
You can have all principal functions under fingers!
Sure you must config first (or load some yet made) but after what a confort!

You have not that with the very rustic rectangular box of ZBrush! It's a nightmare to use the ZModeler! :)


Maybe in the ZB 5.0 !



here a Pie specialized in Sculpting : Pies menu is the more adapted for numerous functions!

quote: You have not that with the very rustic rectangular box of ZBrush! It's a nightmare to use the ZModeler! :)

Mmmhhh.... there must be a reason why Pixologic implemented it that way. You are the first person, i have read from, saying that it is a nightmare! Why all the ZBrush users are not complaining? :-)

Regards
Stefan

<< users are not complaining? :-)
:)

Stefan,

Sorry, I disagree. Z's topology remesher is not as good 3D Coats, and theirs isn't all that good, IMO. I believe there will need to be some serious AI work in remeshers before they are able to handle ZB, 3DC and CAD output in an acceptable quad format. My guess is it will be 2-5 years before we start to see acceptable autoretopo tools which need no hand tuning.

Sure, Zbrush is good for extreme character detailing and design and creating the "ultimate dragon scales," but hard surface modeling? Not so much. I can always 'tell' a Zbrush model rendered in KS. It just looks 'doughy.' My 3DC models have the same problem. Even if you disagree, reducing these million plus poly models down to VR level numbers while still baking in the required normal and parallax maps, is still a difficult task currently. It's certainly easier to start from poly cages then use plugins like hardops and meshfusion to create the hyper detail needed/wanted for the final model.

I'm sure you can find Z users who absolutely love the quad tools. But they aren't as sophisticated as what can be done in Modo or for that matter Blender or Lightwave. It's not it's primary function-- as a hard surface cage modeler. To do that you need very sophisticated controls over loops and offsets of loops, polyflow and other nifty tools (like Meshfusion). Heck, I can find just about any appfan for any 3D program who can do great work. Have you seen some of the SketchUp models created by their top users?

Zbrush is the accepted pinnacle of topology modelers. They've just added vector displacement in the recent release and announced as if it's some sort of amazing feature set-- being able to pull 'pseudo voxels' out and about-- just like 3D Coat did years ago. Hurray.

The interface is quite arcane and difficult to learn, even more than Blender IMO. I'm no fan and have regular discussions with others on WHY they believe it has to be part of a workflow for hard surface modeling. Nothing yet compelling for me.

<< Have you seen some of the SketchUp models created by their top users?

See for examples
http://karanak.deviantart.com/gallery/
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php/234083-Making-of-Dreadnought Karanak (...scroll...astonished! )
http://600v.deviantart.com/gallery/ (Xlrlxi)

By Karanak


By xlrlxi *Sketchup, Vray, PS


By xlrlxi - Its UI 6 years ago! Not so clean UI ? Small is beautiful as usal! ;)


By xlrlxi *Sketchup - I am fan of its retro-futurist models!

Hi Chipp,

i don't want to start a long debate about ZBrush and 3DCoat, because each MoI user here should compare by themselves to see what fits better for them. The galleries of both apps can give users, interested in those apps, a good overview imho.

I dont know why you come to the conclusion that 3DCoats auto retope is better than ZBrush's. In the past i did several conversions and always had problems with 3DCoats auto retopo, resulting in no good mesh quality, like holes etc. Even the free InstantMeshes software did a better job. With ZBrush's ZRemesher i never had a problem, yet.

About ZModeler, it was implemented in 4R7 and so it's relatively new, imho. ZModeler has all the required tools available to create polygon models.

About Vector Displacement, it's a new brush where you can sculpt with Vector Displacement Maps. Maybe i have missed something in 3DCoat, but i have not seen a Vector Displacement brush in 3DCoat. If there is one then i appologize of course.

About the UI, i have read in the past from a lot of people that the UI is strange for them, same as Blender's.
If people only try out those softwares and don't read the documentation or take a course, then it might be allien.

I, for myself, can only say that ZBrush, even if i have only scratched the surface so far, is an absolutely amazing 3D Software. It has so many unique features under the hood, which you don't find in other 3D Modeling apps. The good Pixologic folks are simply genius!!! :-)

Best Regards
Stefan