zbrush? (A pipeline question)

[UnspoiledWalnut]

well zbrush takes some getting used to and you have to be a artist foremost with deep knowledge of anatomy and proportions and etc.Its not as simple as Max or Maya so many ppl like above may find it very hard.

Not really, it's totally different thing than Max and Maya. It's not a 3D modelling tool, it's designed as a paint tool like Photoshop, which is probably why a lot of people who are used to things like Max find Mudbox to be more suited for their needs because it's designed in the same field as what they know to use. If you're really good at Photoshop or something chances are you'll be able to pick up Zbrush faster, whereas 3D artists will find Mudbox better for them.

well it may be a time consuming but modeling in general or any form of art is for that matter.Being fast and getting done fast is never the way to go in game development cuz it turns your game to trash at the end.Thats why many high demand titles use the "ITS DONE WHEN ITS DONE" motto.

There's a difference between rushing through development and using a different method that's faster.

when it costs 1/5th of a package like max or maya.

You can't use it for the majority of things that Maya and Max do.

I generally make the low poly outlines in Max, then go to Zbrush and add in detail that would otherwise take forever to do, bring it back into Max for retopo since I hate doing it in Zbrush, and then generate the normals.

The only reason I would use it for would to be to make brick work textures and such.

I usually just do that in Max as well. But I cheat and use scripts that we made to change the general topography. It doesn't work half the time, but really you only need one set of virtual displacement maps to match the texture so it's never been too big of a deal.

Try saying that to the industry.

I think that's usually just the publisher. Yet another reason to publish yourself.

[Hboybowen]

Not really, it's totally different thing than Max and Maya. It's not a 3D modelling tool, it's designed as a paint tool like Photoshop, which is probably why a lot of people who are used to things like Max find Mudbox to be more suited for their needs because it's designed in the same field as what they know to use. If you're really good at Photoshop or something chances are you'll be able to pick up Zbrush faster, whereas 3D artists will find Mudbox better for them.



There's a difference between rushing through development and using a different method that's faster.



You can't use it for the majority of things that Maya and Max do.

I generally make the low poly outlines in Max, then go to Zbrush and add in detail that would otherwise take forever to do, bring it back into Max for retopo since I hate doing it in Zbrush, and then generate the normals.



I usually just do that in Max as well. But I cheat and use scripts that we made to change the general topography. It doesn't work half the time, but really you only need one set of virtual displacement maps to match the texture so it's never been too big of a deal.



I think that's usually just the publisher. Yet another reason to publish yourself.

I never claimed zbrush as a 3d modeling program its a sculpting program and that is the whole concept of zbrush and why its so useful.An no artist thinks Mudbox out matches Zbrush(Mudbox was created by Autodesk to provide a complete Autodesk workflow being able to completely integrate modeling and sculpting while there sculpting program is very behind compared to zbrush standards and updates since 4.0 is coming up throwing them farther behind ) it may be easier to work with becuz zbrush has alot of hidden features and etc.An Zbrush is nothing like photoshop.If you are referring to Paintstop thats a copy of coral painter not photoshop.Your workflow seems ok but but the mudbox statement was totally irrelevant and not factual.If you can prove your statement abot zbrush being good at photoshop needs please provide facts and proof this goes for the mudbox statement aswell I would love some facts and evidence.Because I never knew this

[UnspoiledWalnut]

It's an opinion, the interface of Zbrush is more like an image tool than a 3D tool. It doesn't really work in a way like Max or Mudbox does. Instead of rotating around the scene, you basically make the scene itself rotate, and you zoom in to the canvas, etc. The Mudbox statement was to clarify why I think it's harder to get used to for modelers because they work differently. They're both sculpting tools, but Mudbox renders a 3D environment like Max and Maya, whereas Zbrush is more like a paint tool, the canvas works more like Photoshop. It uses 'poxels' instead of polygons, which is basically a pixel that stores positions for X, Y, and Z, instead of just X and Y. Polygons work differently, like I think Mudbox uses and Max and Maya do, where the information is stored in the vertices which are infinitely small points that define the edges of polygons. The way they work isn't the same, and I think that if you're used to working with polygons, then you'll find Mudbox more your style right off since it uses the same technology. But if you're used to working with pixels, like in Photoshop, then you'll find Zbrush easier since it basically uses a more advanced version of the technology. See what I'm saying? Max and Maya users probably find it really hard to get used to because they're not used to using pixels, they're used to vertices and polygons, so they'll probably find the workflow of something like Mudbox better compared to Zbrush, but 2D artists will probably pick Zbrush up easier than Mudbox.

[danimal']

They all use polygons and vertices, don't misunderstand ALSO storing pixol information as not using polys. Mudbox just mimics Zbrush but tries to give an interface less alien than Zbrush's. IMO its very much a less powerful "me too" attempt, but has a solid audience because it doesn't require the learning curve and different mindset of Zbrush. Zbrush is easy to use if you understand it and it's VERY powerful if you convert to its way of thinking.

Zbrush has always intended itself to be an "artist" tool, not a technical tool and is meant for quickly "roughing out forms", especially organic forms, and doing really high detail work. In other words it tries to offer precisely what traditional programs are NOT good at. They compliment each other, not compete with each other.

Below is a hard surface test I did in Zbrush the other day and it's a perfect example. For the basic form, it's just a cube, squished, and bent. In Maya, this is extremely fast/easy to do. To make the same shape in Zbrush would be kind of tedious. The details themselves were done in Zbrush in maybe 3 minutes. These details could be done in Maya, but they'd be a pain in the @#$, and definitely take much, much longer than 3 minutes.

[shot]http://img704.imageshack.us/img704/9254/capturexu.png[/shot]

As for the author's original question, people just get comfortable with some tools and stick with them. If anything, Zbrush is more popular than ever with the new hard surface sculpting brushes.