Zbrush like sculpting

[beaker]

Ever heard of artisan?

Paint Sculpt tool

[MasonDoran]

lol...where do you think Pixologic got the idea to paint sculpt?? Maya was the first to do this, if i am not mistaken.

[beaker]

yup, that and anamorphium from EI/Play(maya didnt support sculpting polygons when anamorphium came out, only nurbs).

[Raptor235]

Yes ofcourse I heard of artisan but if you have used zbrush you would notice how much faster it is to sculpt something I think the main problem with artisan is that you can't use your cursor as a paint brush like in photoshop as a smudge tool in artisan you click where you want pull things or push things but it would be good if it would take your cursor as a circle and you could just smudge that area and the points would move with it . Do you know what I mean?

[wlau]

Hehe, comparing Maya's Paint\Sculpt tools to ZBrush v1.5 is like comparing Microsoft Paint to Adobe Photoshop. ZBrush blows it out of the water. If there's anyone who hasn't tried it, go download a demo copy (i think there's one) and have fun in it. It really is quite the amazing program.

[Raptor235]

ya I know but I was hoping someone could help with writing a script that might help get the same sculpting style into maya I think it would be a great addition to Maya.

[MCronin]

Originally posted by Raptor235
Yes ofcourse I heard of artisan but if you have used zbrush you would notice how much faster it is to sculpt something I think the main problem with artisan is that you can't use your cursor as a paint brush like in photoshop as a smudge tool in artisan you click where you want pull things or push things but it would be good if it would take your cursor as a circle and you could just smudge that area and the points would move with it . Do you know what I mean?

I think Artisan is one of those tools in Maya, like Paint Effects, that requires a professional graphics card. If you aren't doing huge displacements in a wide radius even a decent game card works ok, but it's better on proper hardware. I've only looked at Zbrush for like and hour, just long enough to realize I don't like the interface, so I'm not sure exactly what it does that's different than Artisan. Your description sounds exactly like Artisan. Maybe you should take a closer look at Maya's Sculpting Tools; you can adjust the brushes how ever you want, push, pull, smooth, erase, set brush opacity, displacement and strength, mask areas of the model and operate on different vectors. It's a very thorough surface sculpting tool. Maybe post pictures and an explanation of exactly what Zbrush does better and someone can help you out.

Or, you could give Houdini a spin. It has a super fast sculpting tool with more features than Maya, that works very well even on non professional hardware.

[ambient-whisper]

Originally posted by MCronin
I think Artisan is one of those tools in Maya, like Paint Effects, that requires a professional graphics card. If you aren't doing huge displacements in a wide radius even a decent game card works ok, but it's better on proper hardware. I've only looked at Zbrush for like and hour, just long enough to realize I don't like the interface, so I'm not sure exactly what it does that's different than Artisan. Your description sounds exactly like Artisan. Maybe you should take a closer look at Maya's Sculpting Tools; you can adjust the brushes how ever you want, push, pull, smooth, erase, set brush opacity, displacement and strength, mask areas of the model and operate on different vectors. It's a very thorough surface sculpting tool. Maybe post pictures and an explanation of exactly what Zbrush does better and someone can help you out.

Or, you could give Houdini a spin. It has a super fast sculpting tool with more features than Maya, that works very well even on non professional hardware.

the main difference is that in maya you got too many options to play with that really kill the whole workflow its way too elaborate to be used as a tool to come up with concept models on the fly. the speed in maya that was reffred to earlier isnt due to refresh speed on screen. but overall workflow regarding quick access to switch brushes, adjust size, falloff,Z-intensity. masking etc..etc. and the editors that give you the options dont take up 1/2 the screen like the attribute editor does in maya.

[MasonDoran]

i have done some work in zbrush...so i am well aware of workflow. It is incredibly fast at working with meshes at 2 or 3k of faces.....the best work flow i think is to do the basic "sketch" of the model in zbrush then export and use as a template in order to re-model in Maya so that the mesh is opitmized for animation purposes. Once that is done...you can creat the uvs in maya...then export back to Z to tweak it out a bit for getting multiple versions and for texturing.

Its not a bad workflow...cuz it shouldnt take more then a few hours with Z to get an impressive head.....and with Mayas excellent snapping tools it would be very easy to re model it. .)

[MasonDoran]

Z is really good at sculpting...and has a better library of painting tools...excluding mayas paint effects. The biggest downplay of zbrush is that it has a bit of clumsy workflow for sculpting and then drawing modes and you strongly limited with face/edge/vert tools.

Mayas has a 3d paint tool...so u can paint directly on your models very easily....and in a much more natural way then Z....but maya has only 1 undo and very limited painting tools

It is very important to realize that you cannot export any of the shaders from Z!

[Jonny Bubonic]

Maya has only one undo? Sorry dude, but that's totally wrong if you're talking about maya 4 (or even maya 3). Mine's set up for up to 20 undos at the moment....

But...when you're using the paint tools it can take ages to complete an undo. You can undo more than once, but very slooooowly.;)

[MasonDoran]

as i understand it.....3dpaint has only 1 undo...otherwise everything else has infinite

[AmateurOne]

I too find the ZBrush "Move" sculpting tool much more "artistically useful" in the way it gets the surface to deform as compared to Artisan. So I am going to raise the initial question again in hope that in the intervening time such a Maya tool has come to be. Anyone?

Thanks

[womanonfire]

the 3d paint tool has as many undo's as anything else in Maya. It is paint effects canvas mode that has only one undo... the so called "Canvas Undo"
Anyone know if they changes this in Maya5 btw.???

[mental]

i think 2byts might have been referring to an early version of the 3D paint tool (it was a direct DL from AW) which only had one undo.

[ambient-whisper]

Originally posted by 2byts
Z is really good at sculpting...and has a better library of painting tools...excluding mayas paint effects. The biggest downplay of zbrush is that it has a bit of clumsy workflow for sculpting and then drawing modes and you strongly limited with face/edge/vert tools.

Mayas has a 3d paint tool...so u can paint directly on your models very easily....and in a much more natural way then Z....but maya has only 1 undo and very limited painting tools

It is very important to realize that you cannot export any of the shaders from Z!

i dunno man. in maya you have a huge attribute editor on the side in which you change stuff like brush size..and whatever else.
highpoly models bog down a lot in maya while using artisan too.

the only big thing i feel that is really missing in Z is the fact that your working on a canvas. and not in a 3d viewport. so navigation needs to be refined IMO. and it needs a smooth brush. you can mask an area and smooth, but its not as nice as just using a brush to do it interactively.:/
also the move /rotate and scale tools with a radius act like magnets, which is always nice.

and heres a few pics done by dave cardwell who is using zbrush to get the original model, brings it to maya for a reconstruct ( the animatable model ), and then back to zbrush for details. )

http://209.132.69.82/uploaded_from_zbc/200304/user_image-1050238198krh.jpg
http://209.132.69.82/uploaded_from_zbc/200304/user_image-1050238233rdo.jpg
http://209.132.69.82/uploaded_from_zbc/200304/user_image-1050238257jno.jpg

http://ambient-whisper.cgcommunity.com/images_dump/DaveCardwell/chestD.jpg

http://ambient-whisper.cgcommunity.com/images_dump/DaveCardwell/chestC.jpg

http://ambient-whisper.cgcommunity.com/images_dump/DaveCardwell/chestB.jpg

mm yummy :D

[edit]

originally posted by Skycastle over at pixolator.com
To second what Jason said on cgTalk. No Zbrush was not used on Gollum.
But I will say that Zbrush is an extremly powerful production ready tool. And I can tell
you that it will get even more powerful!!

I would also like to mention a bit about how displacement mapping can improve
the quality of your models ( nothing new here). Most CG models have this "slick" quality
to them that makes them look fake. Displacement maps help to break up the silhouette of your
creations and take away the "CG" look. Displacements can work well weather your going for
a photo real or non photo real ( displacements with a toon shader! ) visual style.

So how do you go about making these displacement maps? Well most people out there like
to paint them as 2d greyscale images that are applied to a shader and when you render your
surface is displaced according to the map.
The problem with this is that no matter how exp. you are at painting these maps you have to guess
at what the final rendered image will look like! Good surface detail should be sculpted, intetional and NOT be just treated as "texture".

I like to consider my character models at three diferent levels:
1. The LowFreq level. This should be the base poly cage or set of Nurbs patches that make up your creation. This level should have the intended proportions, correct dege flow and interesting graphic shape.

2. The MedFreq level. This model should include more detail that would include things like Bone that shows at the surface, undulations within each muscle mass, fat and larger wrinkels in the Flesh. ( you cant paint FATTY TISSUE! )

3. The HiRez level This level could be painted and should include any of the traditional surface texture that we observe in the real world. Things like dino skin, pores in the skin, scratches, bumps, etc...

Mosts models, weather done at home or at big shot studios fail at this second level of detail ( This is when you compare the model to a 3d scaned object or traditional Sculpts ) . In my opinion this is because most CG artist focus on Levels 1 and 3 then forget about 2. Or because people dont have 3d scaners to see the detail at level 2!

If you dont have a scanner or time for scanning use ZBRUSH to create this MedFreq detail!
The workflow is this.
1. Make your LowFreq model.
2. Then use Zbrush to make the MedFreq detail.
3. Next use a surface compare plugin to capture the detail into a 2dmap http://www.drone.org/tutorials/displacement_maps_mental.html.
4. Apply the map to a shader and render the displacements in your favorite renderer.

Some examples here: http://cube.phlatt.net/forums/spiraloid/viewtopic.php?TopicID=581


Dave Cardwell
Modeler haveing fun working on the Rings flicks

[SheepFactory]

Originally posted by 2byts
Mayas has a 3d paint tool...so u can paint directly on your models very easily....and in a much more natural way then Z....but maya has only 1 undo and very limited painting tools

It is very important to realize that you cannot export any of the shaders from Z!


Both points are untrue ,

Zbrush's texture paint capabilities are way ahead of what you can do with the 3d paint tool in maya. Take a look at the Texture Master features at the pixelogic website.

And you can bake and export all the texturing you make to other packages. Cant wait to use the next version which allows you to export the displacement map :drool:

Ali

[gmask]

To answer the question posed in the title of this thread I would say if you like Zbrush's way of modellign then use it for what it does best and import those models into Maya.

[MonkeyNinja]

Hehe after reading this thread I kinda came to the same conclusion as gmask :)

I havent used Zbrush but doesnt it subdivide the model as you pull it to extremes? unlike Maya where you would have to add isoparms as you go.

[gmask]

Originally posted by MonkeyNinja
Hehe after reading this thread I kinda came to the same conclusion as gmask :)

I havent used Zbrush but doesnt it subdivide the model as you pull it to extremes? unlike Maya where you would have to add isoparms as you go.

Zbrush's output is overly dense and irregular.

[ambient-whisper]

depends what you do. you can output models that are very low in detail. they look as if you just did a number of extrusions from a box model. it really depends how you work. but for displacement generation, you want your model to be dense. teh whole idea is not for them to be used as animation models...but to displace the animation models to look like the stupid dense model :)

anyway. the app has been mainly been designed for illustration in mind. not highend fx/etc. so give it time and im sure itll kickass in both realms.

[gmask]

Originally posted by ambient-whisper
anyway. the app has been mainly been designed for illustration in mind. not highend fx/etc. so give it time and im sure itll kickass in both realms.

I'm playing around with the demo now.. I have to read the docs as many of the functions I'm assuming about aren't obvious and so far the tutorials that come with the demo are kind of messed up. The interface seems Kai Powertools inspired which I allways found kindof annoying.

I'm into the whole displacement normal map idea and I see no reason why a low budget program can;t do somethign right but like most modeling programs you have to get used to it's workflow.

[AmateurOne]

Yea, I find the ZBrush UI very aggravating. And IMHO it has a unique architecture that is entirely unintuitive. But it has many uniquely powerful tools and I'm in love with the move tool. I find the export, import, export, import, routine very akward. If I were not an amateur this would need be done less often I'm sure. Still, I WANT that move tool right there in my Maya tool set. :drool:

I've had no complaint for the tutorials however. There is a pdf manual on their website which I have found useful. But it has no index. :annoyed:

[Sammy]

psst!- there are a bunch of free video training manuals (VTMs) on ZBrush that will probably help getting past the initial shock of it's unintuitive interface. You can find them on www.3dbuzz.com ...

-Sammy

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