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Our newest member to the turntable gallery, Hasan Bajramovic (aka bomoh at ZBC) has just been added with his sculpt “Daiichi.” Hasan preferes to begin his creations in ZBrush using DynaMesh followed by QRemesher to clean up the topology. This speeds up the process for him and allows his creativity to flow without worrying about poly counts.
Take a look at Hasan’s sculpt in the round at the Turntable Gallery, and see more work from him at his ZBC user gallery.
We are pleased to announce the release of ZBrush 4R5 for both Windows & Mac!
ZBrush 4R5 continues to expand on creative freedom with new features for sculpting, rendering and overall quality of life. These new features were designed to let you be an artist first and foremost, giving you more freedom to explore new ideas!
Major Features
Polish by Features – A new set of Polish sliders has been added in the Tool >> Deformation sub-palette to improve your surface and make them cleaner, especially for hard surface models and product design objects. It includes Polish by Features, but also Polish by PolyGroups and Polish by Crisp Edges. DynaMesh functionality has been greatly enhanced and can now retain more of your shape in a lower polygon count than ever before, thanks to the new Polish by Features volume preservation characteristic.
Curves by Features – Creates curves based on the model’s PolyGroups, creased edges or its outline. These curves can then be used with any of the curve-based sculpting brushes.
Panel Loops – Based on PolyGroups, this feature will transform the selected model into individual panels with thickness. Or it can extrude those panels from the surface with clean borders and bevels, perfect for hard-edge sculpting.
Delete Loops – Allows you to remove unnecessary edge loops. At higher settings it can also drastically change the shape of your model.
Align Loops – An alternative to the Delete Loops feature, this produces the same visual effect but doesn’t change the model’s topology.
Dynamic Brush Size – Makes it possible for the brush size to dynamically change as the model moves closer or further away from the camera. This becomes extremely helpful when sculpting items such as bolts, alpha pattern, scales, and etc. No matter the distance the model is from the camera the bolt, alpha pattern and scales will remain the same size due to the brush dynamically changing.
PolyGroup Enhancements – Several functions have been added relating to ZBrush’s PolyGroup options. You can now group by normals, merge stray groups (useful when groups have been auto-assigned), crease or uncrease by PolyGroup and also a Smart Polish By Feature function to improve your mesh shape without losing volume.
Posterize – Posterization takes a smooth gradient and converts it to fewer steps with abrupt changes between them; a staircase kind of effect. With additions made to the profile curves, Material Mixer, BPR Filters and a new 3D Posterize feature, you can now easily create a cell shaded render.
See-Through Mode – Makes the entire interface transparent so that you can see open windows behind ZBrush. As an example, you can use your browser to find a reference image and sculpt against it without even needing to import it into ZBrush!
Auto Save – ZBrush will now periodically and automatically save your work in a temporary project file. It will also auto-save when ZBrush is idle, such as if you’re away from your computer or switch to another application without first closing ZBrush.
For a full list of features and descriptions, visit the ZBrush 4R5 feature pages. For upgrade instructions, check out the ZBrush 4R5 thread at ZBrushCentral.
We have a whopping nine new turntables from artist Mihai Daranga. All of the characters in the gallery were started as a 1 hour speed sculpt from a sphere and modeled 100% in ZBrush using DynaMesh. Mihai then uses QRemesher for retopology, UV Master to create UVs, and then polypaints and poses each character. Regarding his choice for using ZBrush for a majority of his workflow, Mihai explains: “everything seems so easy to do, when I am in ZBrush I get the feeling that I can do anything without being afraid to mess my sculpt. Everything is fixable at one stroke distance.”
Take a look at Mihai’s turntable, and check out his thread at ZBC to see some WIP shots and time-lapse videos from his speed sculpt sessions.
We are delighted to add a new group of international users to the ZBrushCentral community forum. Our newest friends hail from Brazil. ZBrush Brazil is devoted to Portuguese speaking artists and fans of ZBrush. This section will unite Brazilian ZBrush users and Portuguese speakers interested in digital art creation under one banner. Be sure to stop in and brush up on your Portuguese while keeping up to date with latest in digital clay coming out of South America.
Visit the online forum here. Bem-vindos todos!
Our newest member of the Turntable Gallery, Wilson Oviedo (aka bestialopolis at ZBC) has been added with his “Batman AntiRiot” sculpt. For this model, he started with a Mannequin and did the sculpting and most of the retopology in ZBrush. His cartoon style definitely sets him apart. With the help of ZBrush, he is able to let his imagination take over and create without limits.
Take a look at Wilson’s “Batman AntiRiot” at the turntable gallery, and check out more of his artwork at his ZBC user gallery.
Our newest member of the Turntable Gallery, Henry Cheng (aka gwegwe at ZBC), has been added with his T-Rex sculpt. The entire image was created in ZBrush: DynaMesh for the base shape, QRemesher to retopologize, and Surface Noise for skin and texturing. Using these features, Henry was able to sculpt out the model in a fairly short amount of time. We are really impressed with the detail, so we’re looking forward to seeing more from him in the future!
Take a look at Henry’s T-Rex in the round at the Turntable Gallery.
Rick Baker is synonymous with creature and monster creation. He’s known as the go-to guy when it comes to creating blockbuster makeup and designing unforgettable characters. His resume reads like a best seller’s list of creatures and characters spanning over four decades. Some of his more memorable outings include; An American Werewolf in London, Harry and the Hendersons, Ed Wood, The Nutty Professor and Men in Black.
On November 30th 2012, Rick will be honored by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce with a star that’s been a long time coming on the illustrious Hollywood Walk of Fame.
On behalf of the Pixologic Team and the entire ZBrush community, here’s to you Rick. You’ve provided inspiration and pushed the bar higher than most in a career that leaves us all in awe.
We have updates to the turntable gallery from three existing members! David Richardson, Adam Sacco, and Maarten Verhoeven have provided a combined total of 11 new images to view in the round.
The shoe David made for a commercial was sculpted and textured in ZBrush; he used nearly every tool within the program to achieve the realistic look. Check out his thread at ZBC to see the final renders.
Adam has provided a few sculpts, including Sabertooth from X-Men, a bust of Bruce Willis, and many more. He often relies heavily on ZBrush for the sculpting, painting, and the Multi-Map Exporter. See more artwork from Adam at his user gallery at ZBC.
Maarten definitely has a diverse style, and it’s reflected in the turntables he’s just added. A creepy bug, an ape, and Marty McFly are just a few examples of his recent work. Take a look at Maarten’s user gallery at ZBC to see how he makes heavy use of the sculpting tools within ZBrush.
Many of the images you’ll see on these artist’s threads are in their Turntable Galleries, so now you’ll be able to view them in the round!
Matthew Kean is no stranger to the ZBrush community. He’s a regular beta tester and frequent poster at ZBrushCentral, often providing time lapse videos and tutorials along with his artwork. Clearly, his addition to the Turntable Gallery is long overdue. Matthew has provided us with a whopping 8 images for his gallery, ranging from cartoon-esque busts to mythical creatures. Most, if not all, of his sculpts started as speed sculpts from a DynaMesh sphere. He tends to stay exclusively in ZBrush for modeling and texturing, and even retopology with the addition of QRemesher.
Visit our Turntable Gallery to see Matthew’s images in the round. To see more of his artwork, visit his User Gallery at ZBrushCentral and his website at MatthewKean.com.
Pixologic is proud to be in attendance at the CTN Expo for the forth year running. Join us at Booth 52/57 for a three day double booth explosion. You’ll see live demonstrations with industry pros and have direct access to members of the Pixologic Team. Be there as we dive into the latest features and provide insightful tips on how to generate high end illustrations and sculptures.
Click here to register, and use promotional code BRUSHX12 for a discount!
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