ZBrush sets the industry standard for digital sculpting and painting. Its features enable you to use customizable brushes to shape, texture and paint virtual clay in a real-time environment that provides instant feedback. When you use ZBrush you'll be empowered by the same tools employed by film studios, game developers, toy/collectible makers, jewelry designers, automotive/aviation designers, illustrators, advertisers, scientists and other artists the world over. In fact, we have even received an Academy Award for the technology that powers ZBrush.
In short, ZBrush is an art tool created by artists, for artists. It allows you to create models and illustrations limited only by your imagination, at a speed that allows you to stand out in today's fast paced industry.
As with anything else in life, where you can go is usually determined by where you begin. Having a great finished model requires a quality base mesh. ZBrush provides an arsenal of tools to assist with this task, ensuring that no matter what you have in mind, there is a way to get the perfect base to then take to the next level. The best known of these systems are explained here.
Sculptris Pro Ignore the constraints of polygon distribution and simply – sculpt! Sculptris Pro will dynamically add (tesselate) and remove (decimate) polygons wherever and whenever needed. It does this during your brush stroke in a real-time process called Tessimation. This frees you to focus entirely on the look you’re trying to achieve.
Dynamesh DynaMesh is a perfect solution for free-form sculpting because it removes all need for focusing on topological constraints. Change the overall shape of the model by pushing or pulling, adding various pieces of geometry to combine into one, or even remove geometry in a manner similar to what can be done with Boolean operations. Where Sculptris Pro dynamically adjusts the triangles in your mesh as you sculpt, DynaMesh redistributes the model’s polygons as quads on command.
ZModeler While ZBrush is best known for organic sculpting, its hard surface capabilities should not be underestimated. The ZModeler system is designed specifically for low poly modeling with easily accessed and highly intuitive controls for creating holes, adding edge loops, extruding polygons and much more.
Live Boolean Many models are really nothing more than a set of shapes that combine to form a more detailed shape. Live Boolean takes this concept and runs with it, providing a way to easily add models together, subtract one from another and more. What makes the system in ZBrush unique is that this operation happens in real-time, letting you see exactly what you’re going to get before committing to the actual merger. This provides both exceptional ease of use and unprecedented control.
ZSpheres If you’ve ever added clay to a wire armature then you know exactly how ZSpheres work. Draw a simple skeleton/stick figure and ZBrush will then flesh it out with actual topology.
Mannequins An evolution to ZSpheres is the Mannequin system. With a wide variety of both humanoid and animal figures in the library, Mannequins are an easy starting point as you explore the scene that you wish to create, before even beginning modeling.
ZRemesher As you have read through the features listed above you may have found yourself wondering about the kind of topology that is created. The beauty of ZBrush is that you don’t need to worry about that! Feel free to explore and just let your imagination take you where it wants with the knowledge that once you have your design ZBrush can nearly instantly convert its polygons into a usable base mesh with clean edge loops and polygon flow.
Whether created in ZBrush or imported from elsewhere, once you have your base mesh it is time to start detailing. ZBrush features a robust suite of tools to accomplish this. Those listed below are just the tip of the iceberg.
Multi-Resolution Mesh Editing The inherent problem with traditional 3D modeling methods is that once you divide your mesh you are locked into the design thus far. There is no way to go back and make changes at the macro level without sacrificing everything that has been done at higher resolutions. ZBrush does away with that restriction through multi-resolution subdivision editing, the feature for which it received an Academy Award. With this system you are free to move between subdivision levels at any time, making changes wherever they are most appropriate. Those changes then automatically ripple across all other levels of your model.
Sculpting Brushes The main workflow for creating with ZBrush is based on a system of brushes which can also be modulated using pen pressure from a graphics tablet. ZBrush will reproduce the natural feeling of a real paint brush or sculpting tool, using the pressure applied to the pen tip to transform your digital stroke in a variety of ways. There are brushes to pinch, move, build up the surface, chisel into it, slice through the model and much more. You can even use other 3D models as brushes, inserting their geometry into your surface.
Noisemaker In addition to being able to add detail by hand, ZBrush provides a system for procedurally generating surface detail through noise patterns. Choose a detail type, adjust a few simple parameters, then apply that pattern to your model in its entirety or by restricting it to a certain region. You can even combine different noise types to create highly complex effects. The Noise system is ideal for both hard surface work and organic details.
HD Geometry ZBrush is easily able to handle models in the range of 20 million polygons on most computers, and up to 100 million on a high end machine. That is more detail than can be held by an 8K map. But sometimes you want even more, and this is where HD Geometry comes into play. With this feature, ZBrush can work with models of up to 1 billion polygons. Let your imagination run wild!
© All Rights Reserved QAST Software Group