Introduction to Maya - Rendering in Arnold
This course will look at the fundamentals of rendering in Arnold. We'll go through the different light types available, cameras, shaders, Arnold's render settings and finally how to split an image into render passes (AOV's), before we then reassemble it i
# 1 01-04-2004 , 11:09 PM
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ZBRUSH, What is it

Ok, I've been hearing about this Zbrush program for a while now but don't know what it is

Is it a Modeling Program/paint program?
Does it only do still models?
can you export the models into maya for animation?

just want some clarification

thanks

# 2 02-04-2004 , 12:08 AM
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Zbrush is considered 2.5D, if I'm not mistaken. You use it similar to a sculpt program to create extremely high detail, super high res models. I'm talking millions of polys. I would doubt you would ever animate a zbrush model, although I'm sure it's possible.

The biggest use for it that I can see, aside from making super high res models for stills, is to bake the surface information into displacement maps or normal maps (for games).

# 3 02-04-2004 , 07:08 AM
Kevin
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we are opening a ZBrush section on the upcoming simplymax site, so check it out user added image

it looks pretty dam good

# 4 02-04-2004 , 07:22 AM
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Jesus just looked at the ZBrush site!! Thats a powerful bit of kit!!

# 5 02-04-2004 , 08:59 AM
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yeah, zbrush has some powerful parts that noone has (namely truly cool 3d (err,2.5duser added image) texturing)and seeing the "exchange" of features that is natural to all software, i wonder why only it has those...

# 6 02-04-2004 , 01:10 PM
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As per the 2.5D part .. for those who do not understand the technology involved in Zbrush, it is actually pixels with depth info that give the 3d look. The only 3D perse features in the app, are Zspheres and skinning.

# 7 02-04-2004 , 06:27 PM
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Wow I was surprised when the website said that pricing was under $500

Be fun lil program to play around with user added image

DSA

# 8 02-04-2004 , 08:59 PM
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Ok, so how did WETA Digital use this program? Did they build models then animate them isn't that a hell of a lot of Polys to work with?

They didn't use scanning but used Zbrush instead

# 9 02-04-2004 , 10:24 PM
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I'm fairly certain they did use scanning, mostly because it showed them doing so on the DVDs.

# 10 03-04-2004 , 06:22 AM
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Yea but if you go to Zbrushes website it explains that they used zbrush in Return of The King and got rid of the scanning

# 11 03-04-2004 , 03:28 PM
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Ah, ok. I'd have to guess that they used it to create displacement maps.

# 12 04-04-2004 , 01:37 AM
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I bought a copy a couple of years ago, and was pretty frustrated with it. in the version I had, you couldnt move objects once you created them... It looks a whole lot cooler now! Has anyone here used it in conjunction with Maya?

# 13 06-04-2004 , 02:17 AM
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Tell me if i'm barking up the wrong tree here but wouldn't zbrush be great for making very detailed bumb maps for maya?

# 14 06-04-2004 , 06:16 AM
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yep, that and displacement maps are very similar.

# 15 27-04-2004 , 01:00 PM
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Zbrush is a polygon modeler too. It works by importing, or creating any 3D object, must be polygon based, and all quads for best performance. You can model with the edge loop function, or you can model using zspheres.

Here is a quick study I did with the new Z2. It's all made by Zspheres, and entirely posable within Z2.

user added image

user added image

user added image

user added image

What's cool about Z2, is the subd features on steroids! You can import, lets say a lowpoly model like I made here,

https://homepage.mac.com/chadtheartis...Picture-11.jpg

And once you have that model in Zbrush, you can subdivide it up to 8 levels, more if you want to get rid of the lower level history, and can sculpt this model using up to 4 million polygons. But what's really cool about the sculpting process is you can utilize the painting part of the program to alter the mesh. So if you can paint wrinkles, and folds, it will update on the model.

I haven't had much chance to play with Z2, but I like it a lot so far. Being an illustrator, not really a 3D artist, I like the ability to pose the character directly from the Z2, without having to rig it for animation.

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