ZBrush 3.5 R3!!!

[Ritorian]

This upgrade looks pretty insane.

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?t=077864

[zeke3d]

yep, looks like this is the come to restitution version I have been waiting for. until 4 comes out of course.

[ReplicA]

You have to take a swig of beer every time they use the word "powerful". Keep the hospital on the phone, cause you could die of alcohol poisoning before the end of the video.

Not sure why, but this release I'm really not excited about. Maybe it's cause they show a lot of features I'll never use, or their over-hype machine has killed any ability I have to get excited about ZB, but I'm really unimpressed by this one. So much so, in fact, that I'm probably not even gonna bother downloading and installing it. I've gotten used to 3.5 R2 by now, and the occasional crash isn't so bad.

[seven]

The feature that does impress me is painting the polygroups to control edge flow. To me that sounds about the closest thing to the "done" button I've seen. However actually using it and testing it will make me have a more refined point of view... It's one thing to say it does this... I believe that it does... but how well is another question. I do agree that I am relatively unimpressed as well due to the substantial amount of announcements they release... it has made me a little numb even though some of the features made me lift an eyebrow slightly.

[Ritorian]

Booleans stuff is kool though

[crazyfool]

looks amazing,

[darkfox]

does look nice plus the fact that at last it now includes the plugins

[zeke3d]

yeah, its a bit overwhelming in all that there is to take in, and how much you will be needing to integrate into your work flow remains a mystery. still, lots of fresh new options and tweaks, plus the addition of the plugins, I have avoided using it at work due to the fact that I wasn't going to get my decimation master, a must have in the game art pipe. but now it looks like its "there" with the bumps ironed out, which is great, unlike "cough" other apps that take a year to get those fixes, if ever. time to put 3.1 to bed i suppose and make the complete switch over. still, like many I agree, that 3.1 is so good that you probably don't even need 3.5, but the quality that it can reach is now becoming evident in the zcentral forums. bless the pace of the industry for kicking my ass out of my lazy tendencies :)

[seven]

Just got the email, downloaded it and I am installing it now... I'll let you know how it plays out if you don't get yours going before my next post.

edit:

initial impressions...

the group from polypaint doesn't work exactly as I thought it might and can end up as a bit of a messy mesh. No shortcuts here except in high poly sculpting for additional geometry and creases. Using this method on an organic model isn't a shortcut in topology.

The new chrome materials are nifty

Yay for decimation (works really well for static meshes... not so much for organic if you're going to animate them) master subtool master and transpose master

Quick Sketch is pretty interesting and works with symmetry on which is a good thing for quick sketches (pun).

r3 feels like it is a bit faster in workflow as the quick key B for brushes seems a little more intuitive than menu surfing.

The Boolean tools are nice as well... the only limitation I see is that they require a really high poly mesh to retain crispness.

only problem I've had thus far is that it crashed after authorization however it has been stable since.

[cookepuss]

only problem I've had thus far is that it crashed after authorization however it has been stable since.
You wouldn't, by any chance, be on Win7 would you? I recently upgraded to Win7 and just had the same exact problem. ZB crashed on me right after authorization, but ran just fine on subsequent boot ups.

Apart from that, I think that I'm in love with the new tilt feature. I'm equally impressed by how quickly Pixo themselves have managed to get this out of the door this time around. It took me 3 days to get my e-mail last time. This time, got it within hours of release. Maybe I'm just luckier this go around. :p

[womball]

I've been having licensing issues. ALso i have a feeling the bug with vista is still there, that require you to run zbrush as an adminstrator, whenver you want to start it up.

[zeke3d]

initial impressions, looks like its time to switch, the trim dynamic and new ability to do flat quasi hard surface stuff is a win for me, no crashes, and my plug ins are there. was sketching out a skull and was having fun and impressed how the perspective/floor grid gave me real parallax,. hard to explain, but if you use zb you know what I mean, the brush sensitivity also feels like it actually works, will take sometime getting used to the normal angle on my brush, and I think I will try out more of the new features it tomorrow.

[Lamont]

You have to take a swig of beer every time they use the word "powerful". Keep the hospital on the phone, cause you could die of alcohol poisoning before the end of the video.

Oh god... I'm blind... drank too much 2 minutes in. Remember me how I lived: Foolish.

[seven]

You wouldn't, by any chance, be on Win7 would you? I recently upgraded to Win7 and just had the same exact problem. ZB crashed on me right after authorization, but ran just fine on subsequent boot ups.


nope... I am using vista.

[BigJohn]

Anyone have any clue what does the Brush icon in the Subtool Operators area do?

If you look at your subtools, there are 5 icons for each subtool. First three are for Boolean operations with ReMesh. Last one is the Eye icon we had in previous version. But damn, what is that 4th brush-looking one for?

This is going to drive me nuts just looking at it there. Taunting me with the possibility of an awesome function I don't know about

[seven]

I can't find anything on it but if you read the new features doc that is in your zbrush 3.5 r3 you might have better luck than I did. At any rate you might find stuff that you didn't know zbrush could do.

[kotter]

dunno if it's been mentioned or was in R2 but one big workflow improvement is the ability to import a base mesh with a new topology (in the first subD level) and it automatically subdivides and projects all the details.

[Hazardous]

dunno if it's been mentioned or was in R2 but one big workflow improvement is the ability to import a base mesh with a new topology (in the first subD level) and it automatically subdivides and projects all the details.

Thats such a simple / brilliant ( and so so necessary to save time ) feature! I swear i was an instant singing praises to the pixologic gods when i found this out!

[frigi]

BigJohn: It activates/deactivates polypaint display.

[cookepuss]

Being able to import an OBJ base mesh with new topology has been in there for a long time. It's not new.

[Hazardous]

Being able to import an OBJ base mesh with new topology has been in there for a long time. It's not new.

Well hot diggity thanks for dropping that gem on us Confucius! What else you got cookin ?! :lol:

[cookepuss]

Ah, read your darn docs for a change lazybones. :p

[ThatDon]

Anyone have any clue what does the Brush icon in the Subtool Operators area do?

If you look at your subtools, there are 5 icons for each subtool. First three are for Boolean operations with ReMesh. Last one is the Eye icon we had in previous version. But damn, what is that 4th brush-looking one for?

This is going to drive me nuts just looking at it there. Taunting me with the possibility of an awesome function I don't know about

Sorry for the late reply but the brush icon is to turn polypaint on and off :)

CHEERS!

[Lamont]

Dude, my ZB isn't remembering my prefs. Also, I want it to load my alpha/brushes by default, I hate having to load them every time I open a file

[ReplicA]

If you get that to work, Lamont, let me know. I've never gotten zb to remember most of the settings I want. I've never gotten it to remember my doc res, my file locations, change the default mat, any of that kinda thing. I've read the instructions, I've followed them to the letter, and it still has never once worked for me.

[Goldo_O]

Hey guys, here is what I do, hope it helps you to get things working:



Create your own UI and store your config:

Go to Preferences/Custom UI/Enable Customize to be able to CTRL+drag buttons, icons, sliders etc on your UI. Then save your custom UI in Preferences/Config/Save UI and save it under C:\Program Files\Pixologic\ZBrush 3.5 R3\ZStartup. Then press Preferences/Config/Store config to have all your preferences saved (you should have a confirmation message at this point, make sure this is not an error message instead).




Load Alphas by default:

Save your alphas under C:\Program Files\Pixologic\ZBrush 3.5 R3\ZStartup\Alphas. (not C:\Program Files\Pixologic\ZBrush 3.5 R3\Alphas ) Use the same pattern for materials, tools etc.
Note that this is to see your own alphas in the alpha palette. Lightbox displays the alphas found under C:\Program Files\Pixologic\ZBrush 3.5 R3\Alphas.




Files location

You can desactivate this option: Preferences/Misc/Use ZFolders
and Zbrush will open the last accessed folder every time you try to load something. Unfortunately, you won't have a different location for alphas/tools/mats/etc if you uncheck this option.
For Lightbox, you will notice that you can't access your drives directories. just put a shortcut to your D:/E:/etc drives under C:\Program Files\Pixologic\ZBrush 3.5 R3\ZTools if you want to access them through Lightbox, or even better, a direct shortcut to your project folders.
I personally use Direct Folders (http://www.codesector.com/directfolders.php) which is a freeware (for home users only) that helps me access my saved directory in a simple double clic. Very useful!



Default Document

If you want to have an optimised size for your canvas that will use all the available space depending on your screen resolution and UI, press Document/WSize, then Document/New Document and finally Document/Save as Startup Doc.



change the default mat
This one I didn't know so thanks for making me wonder.

Important: Make a backup of your default red wax matcap (ex: save it as redwaxbackup.zmt) if you want to see it again, I think I lost mine in the process :D


Looks like you had to do that before 3 or 3.5:
create new document.
use the simple brush tool with MRGB, ZAdd activated.
In the material palette, select the default red wax material then load, and select your own material.
make a little stroke somewhere on your canvas then save this document as your startup doc.

Now, since the (I can't remember which) version of ZB, a polysphere is loaded by default when you start. I haven't seen an option to desactivate that, but basically, it reactivates the red wax material since the polyshpere tool uses it.

So from now on, you need to do these following steps:
open the C:\Program Files\Pixologic\ZBrush 3.5 R3\ZTools\PolySphere.ZTL,
select the red wax material then Material/Load and select your own matcap.
Then with M (between MRGB and Zadd) activated, Color/Fill object, and save your polysphere tool on top of the existing one.



If I didn't miss something, that should be it. At least it works for me, minus the fact that I will never see this red wax again, unless I reinstall ZB :lol:
Cheers!
Adrien

[Lamont]

The above is what I have already done, and it would have worked if...

the brush alphas were 16bit greyscale images!!!! So in order for ZB to load your alpha's at start up, it needs to be a 16bit greyscale image. Not sure if being PSD has anything to do with it, but mine are PSD's.

[ReplicA]

Hey, Goldo, the doc size worked FINALLY!! Thanks man, now I just gotta try the file locations thing, and I'm not even gonna touch that material thing. Just way too complicated, and I might as well just get used to changing the mat anyway. But thanks for the research, it helps a lot.

[nihilicon]

Thank you Goldo_O I just jumped into ZBrush on this build (at last) and I thought not being able to get any of those default setting things to work was just a n00b issue on my part but this is really helpful.

I'm really impressed by eveything I see in this app it certainly makes modelling more intuitive than a 'standard' 3d app for me. I think Paintstop and Quicksketch are great things as well, I've never managed to see eye to eye with Painter but I can see me using Paintstop frequently.

One thing I can't work out or find in any docs so far is how they create those gradiated colours when using Zsketching, I can see how to change the zsketch material but the default examples in Lightbox have lovely colouring, anyone know how they do that?

[plunq]

One thing I can't work out or find in any docs so far is how they create those gradiated colours when using Zsketching, I can see how to change the zsketch material but the default examples in Lightbox have lovely colouring, anyone know how they do that?

That is polypaint on the Zsketch. When you start Zketching go and fill your tool with a color (color>FillObject). Now whenever you lay down a stroke it will have your current color and will have the ability to blend colors when you smooth a sketch stroke.

[nihilicon]

That is polypaint on the Zsketch. When you start Zketching go and fill your tool with a color (color>FillObject). Now whenever you lay down a stroke it will have your current color and will have the ability to blend colors when you smooth a sketch stroke.

Cheers plunq, I see it now. Off to play . . .

[Vincent]

Hey guys,

I've got a little question about this new stuff projecting high res details on your new topology. In their "wiki", Pixologic just says that you have to click "yes" when, after importing your new topology, Zbrush asks you if you want to project all the high rez details of your old model on your new topologized model.
I've got a clean pivot point, no tris, etc. but when I click "yes", nothing happens... Could someone explain me why ?
I've been searching for an answer during all the afternoon and didn't find anything, even on the Zbrushcentral website...

Thanx a lot!

PS: hooray for the new zspheres, first time in my life I could manage to create "not that ugly" looking hands directly in zbrush! :)

[plunq]

I've had reprojecting work very well on a few characters. The steps I followed were:
Sculpt and polypaint a high resolution model using a simple base mesh.
Export the lowest level of my base mesh into modo as an obj.
Remodel certain areas of my mesh for deformations and proper UV's, save out my mesh again as an obj.
In Zbrush, go to my sculpt and set my subdivision down to the lowest level (the same one I exported at) and hit the Tool>import botton.
Zbrush asks if I want to project my details onto my new mesh.
Say yes and it projected all of my sculpted details and polypaint onto my new mesh.

One thing I've read that you might need to change is to tun "Maximum" on in the Tool>Subtool>ProjectAll settings. To turn it on you need at least 2 subtools. So if you need to, just append a sphere, turn on Maximum and delete the sphere.

I hope that helps. If it doesn't, maybe you could describe in more detail what you are doing and post some images.

[Vincent]

Thanks a lot for the fast and well explained answer Plunq! Will definitly try this at work tomorrow.
Don't know what else I can say: before, i used to "append" my retopologized mesh as a new subtool onto my old mesh. Subdivided my imported new mesh so that all the details can fit well and pushed the "project all" button. All the details came from my old mesh onto my new new retopologized mesh.
The main problem was that, in some areas, i had to deal with horrible artifacts (?), mostly in the hands and back of the ears areas.
A friend at work told me that, normaly with the new zbrush version, you didn't have to do all of this, and simply had to import your new mesh as an obj while you were at your highest subdivision level and it projected all the details without any problem.
But hey, the problem is simply that for him and for me it simply didn't work... ahah.

[plunq]

Yeah I imported on my lowest level without problems. I tried my highest and it didn't work.

[Vincent]

Yeah I imported on my lowest level without problems. I tried my highest and it didn't work.

Hey man, I tried to do it the way you told me to do, and it worked! :)

But some areas are pretty shitty tho'... Do you know if there's a way to optimize your retopologized mesh so that you don't have those "masked" areas appearing with the errors they are implying ?
I mean, I did the retopo work using a plugin in 3DS Max, simply thought that by using a "push" modifier, it would work great (some sort of "cage"). But some areas are still coming out pretty weirdly... Maybe i pushed the sculpting work to far and it would be better to retopologize my model half way through the sculpting process.
Hope that what I've written is pretty clear ? :think:

Thanks for everything Plunq ! :)