What would you like to see in future updates of Zbrush?

[DustinBrown]

Option 1) Retopologize your mesh extractions once you're done working on them. That's what I would do.

Option 2) Bring your ZTool (the head or body or whatever) to subdivision level 1. Clone your ZTool, hide the head except for the bit you want to use as a helmet, Delete Hidden, then do a mesh extraction on what's left (with thickness) at that lowest subdivision level. Then just step up and sculpt as you normally would. The downside is that you're not going to be able to get very organic shapes right off the bat like you could extracting from a high res mesh.

For ZBrush to be able to take a high res mesh extraction and figure out how to step backwards and give you a nice base mesh...I don't like that, it's too much like letting my software do my modeling for me. Nothing wrong with a little elbow greese.

-Dustin

[DrewShelton]

True, true... the elbow grease is where it is actually fun, and art...
I'm just not seeing a simple bowl shape being all that bad to ask for...

[svero]

The only thing I want from Pixologic is for them to take a step back, and take a good very hard look at the UI and standardize and sanity-ize it. I think unless they do this eventually zbrush will be overtaken by competing apps. It's crucial. ZB is powerful and has many wonderful features, but the strange UI and the seemingly infinite gotchas involved in using the simplest of these features, are IMHO a danger to it's future.

[paul k.]

See this is where I totally disagree. When I started using Zbrush I used to rail against the interface... I hated it. But with version 3... and now 3.12 on the mac. Things have improved greatly. I actually think that have struck gold in terms of how you work while actually sculpting. I know users who don't even know how easy it is to set hot keys etc. (control click on the tool and then choose a key by the way). It works well for what zbrush does. It is hard coming from a qwerty style nav system but once a user gets going they really won't ever look back. Case in point Mudbox which seems at first to be great... and then slows you way down once you get going.

I would like backwards sub d levels on mesh extracted items as well.

I would also like an auto re-topo that would basically add the first or second level of sub division "nodes" that I could then tweak ad too or remove and build custom topo poly's without having to start from scratch. THIS WOULD BE HUGE!

[Lone Deranger]

I completely agree. I hated it too at first. But it has come a long way and Pixologic have made a lot of large improvements to the GUI going from 2.0 to 3.1. There have also been a number of more subtle changes made to version 3.12. Including the addition right click navigation, which is a great addition to say the least (no more hunting around for empty canvas or the gutter to be able to navigate). A few out of date buttons have been omitted and several other buttons have been rearranged and consolidated in menus of their own where logic dictated they should be.

ZBrush has got one of the most user configurable GUI's of all 3D packages. And I've spent quite a bit of time setting up a layout that works for me. I'm still making small changes occasionally, fine tuning the config. I've managed to set up hotkeys for most of my brushes, display modes, subdiv levels, brush size scaling, etc. to keys located under my left hand on the keyboard. As a result I feel much more at ease working in ZB than I do in many other apps. I'm absolutely loving 3.12 and I would hate it if they decided to adopt a boring AutoDesk-like GUI.

When I started using Zbrush I used to rail against the interface... I hated it. But with version 3... and now 3.12 on the mac. Things have improved greatly.

[CybrGfx]

Hi!

I like the interface, although it does take getting used to, but once you do, it's perfect for its intended usage.

I would like to see a simple way to "close off" open creations on the bottom.

I would also like to see a very simple base female demo model and a basic cat demo model. That's because I'm not good enough yet to make them...;)

~M

[svero]

I figured people would say that after I posted. I don't think it changes the fact that the UI is endangering Zbrush's future. Learning to use the UI and to configure it is not the same thing as it being good. It's a mess full of hidden gotchas that are design flaws that do not in any way enhance usibility and the feature set.

For instance, just to pick one of hundreds of examples off the top of my head.. you hit col->txt and it takes the rgb alpha setting in another part of the UI into consideration when painting the texture. Being able to alpha the amount of color you apply to a texture is a sort of feature, but this is not a good way to represent it. In fact to paint the texture you have to first create it in yet anothe part of the application. Oh and.. if any of the color is black that'll be transparent. This is good UI? This is "perfect for what it does?" I disagree completely. This is a horrible mess! It's not streamlined for sculpting or whatever... Its just confusing and bad. Even if you've been using Zbrush for some time it takes a little effort to make sure all your dominos are lined up right before hitting a button.

I don't hope to convince anyone, but again IMO, Pixologic are going to have to be brave and go against this "but I learned the ui! and now i want it!" comfortable feeling older users have, and risk initially alienating them if they want to survive. There's a certain comfort and familiarity you get after using something a long time. I'm pretty comfortable using it myself now. That doesn't mean other applications won't be more streamlined and a better fit in production pipeles, able to more eaily grab new artists, etc..

[Erik Heyninck]

Me too I like the interface. It's very artistic, I mean: organised like my studio is.

Standardising smells Adobe, say: Photoshop. Can't say anything later than CS2 but I find the Adobe interfaces really something you get accustomed to. Just imagine being able to creat your own panels with the tools you prefer. If there's an outdated interface than it's adobe's.
Give me Photoshop with shelves and all, style ZBrush, and I'm happy.

What I would like to see in ZB in the future, but that's not only depending on Pixologic, is a bridge to Maxwell and/or Fry.

[SockMonkey]

To answer the original question put forth, what I would like to see is for ZBrush to be able to deal with OBJ files with overlapping UV's.
I mean, look at some of our painting programs like Deep Paint 3D or even modo. You can load an OBJ file of a figure with the head mapped on one UV, the body on another and so on, all within the 0-1 space, and you can paint on the whole mesh at once and export individual maps. In other words, those programs know how to deal with it.
I can live with the interface - I've gotten quite used to it, but the mapping situation is the single largest source of my ZBrush woes. Really, about the only one. The simple act of creating a series of normal maps for such a figure becomes an exercise in extreme frustration with a whole lot of time-consuming and irritating workarounds.

[DustinBrown]

Yeah, I'm not looking for any great, new, shiny features in the next full release. What would please me more is if they worked some of the major quirks out:

- The "Infinity Spikes" my ZTools get sometimes if I forget to save at the lowest subdivision level.

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=16887

- The infamous "Exploding Geometry" you get if point orders get mixed up between models, and also sometimes when you reproject detail using the SubTool pallet.

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=54833

Stuff like that destroys my artistic flow and is a stark reminder than I'm using software instead of actually sculpting. I end up spending time (sometimes an hour or more) just trying to resolve these issues before I can get back to doing what I want to do.

Also, I'd like to see a more stable release for the Mac people next time around. I'm a PC guy, but I can empathize with their frustration.

-Dustin

[Bucket]

I wouldn't mind seeing a little more logic thrown into the user interface. It's weird to have so many different buttons designated to loading assets and that they are sacttered across the various menus. Sure I can get used to it but I do agree it does endanger zbrush's future. There are a lot of really talented fine arts people out there who don't use computers. And then one day they feel the need to move to the computer and they just want to get up and going as fast as possible. Some of the sculptors I know, don't even know how to get around in windows. Having buttons all over the place scares the hell out of em. I load up muddbox or zbrush with a just a subdivided sphere and show them a few things on how to use the stylus. And after a few minutes they go to town and make something that is amazing. There is so much talent out there it's scary. But plugging some of these people into the digital realm is really difficult, zbrush could be better at it.

A feature I would like to see in zbrush would be voxel sculpting. The stuff Andrew Shpagin is doing with 3dcoat is just amazing and I think in time, mudbox and zbrush users are going to be envious of 3dc's VS tools. Voxel Sculpting smoothly on millions of polys would be dreamy.

[sethwolford]

To answer the original question put forth, what I would like to see is for ZBrush to be able to deal with OBJ files with overlapping UV's.
I mean, look at some of our painting programs like Deep Paint 3D or even modo. You can load an OBJ file of a figure with the head mapped on one UV, the body on another and so on, all within the 0-1 space, and you can paint on the whole mesh at once and export individual maps. In other words, those programs know how to deal with it.
I can live with the interface - I've gotten quite used to it, but the mapping situation is the single largest source of my ZBrush woes. Really, about the only one. The simple act of creating a series of normal maps for such a figure becomes an exercise in extreme frustration with a whole lot of time-consuming and irritating workarounds.

Agreed!

I would also like to see some more map support besides diffuse, normal and displacement. I would like to be able to render in zbrush things like specular and reflection along with opacity. The dream would be to create occlusion maps for low res from high res. I know that there is cavity but it is not the same. The exploding mesh thing is another frustration that is a pain.

[Darth Mole]

I'd quite like them to fix the displacement map export on Mac before doing anything else!

[MASTERSHOKHAN]

fill holes

[Lexalotacus]

platform equality? seems like mac users are always waiting around...

[MASTERSHOKHAN]

3.5 is supposed to be released simultaneously.

[YancyYoung]

I'm sure this has been suggested many many times but it would be really nice to have layers for painting. ZApplink is cool and I'd still use it i'd just like to be able to put a layer of paint down knowing that it's not so final.

Thanks

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