ZBrush

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ZBrush is a digital sculpting and painting program that has revolutionized the 3D industry with its powerful features and intuitive workflows. Built within an elegant interface, ZBrush offers the world’s most advanced tools for today’s digital artists. With an arsenal of features that have been developed with usability in mind, ZBrush creates a user experience that feels incredibly natural while simultaneously inspiring the artist within. With the ability to sculpt up to a billion polygons, ZBrush allows you to create limited only by your imagination.

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Features:

ZRemesher

ZRemesher is the next evolution in our automatic retopology solution. ZRemesher has been designed with an artist’s point of view in mind. With a single click, ZRemesher produces ideal new topology based on your original mesh. The new functions in ZRemesher are smarter, able to analyze the curvature of your model with the precision of a computer, but with the subtlety of the human eye. Add more polygons locally where needed, changing their shape to create perfect topology flow. As with most ZBrush tools, ZRemesher also lets you take control over the automatic process and give your own guidance to the core algorithms. It is easy to drive the flow of polygons with the help of curves. You can also define where you wish to have more or lower polygon density. You can perform local retopology to a specific part of your mesh while keeping a natural connection with the support model.

New Brushes

ZBrush’s powerful creative toolset is largely based on its brush system. With each release we add new brushes that can transform your way of working or simply make your daily sculpting easier. With ZBrush 4R6, we continue this long tradition. The new Trim Curve brushes cut your models in a way that is very similar to the Clip brushes, but deletes the affected polygons rather than pushing them to the stroke line. And as you can imagine, these new brushes will be DynaMesh’s new best friends!

Creating holes through a mesh has been possible since the introduction of DynaMesh and more recently enhanced with Mesh Fusion. Now ZBrush adds another option for this purpose with the Bridge Curve brush: select an opening, PolyGroup border or crease edge and connect it with another to generate a bridge of polygons. And because this new topology detection is so useful with the Frame Mesh feature, we went ahead and enabled it for all brushes that use curves. You will love it as much as we do!

Other additions

The new additions and improvements don’t stop there! Here is a brief summary of other noteworthy new functions:

DynaMesh now preserves PolyGroups. This makes it so easy to do Panel or Group Looping on a DynaMesh after having used Mesh Insert or Mesh Fusion!
The Slice brushes now only operate on the curve position and won’t propagate. What you see is now exactly what you get!
Group Front — a new PolyGroup creation function — detects all polygons which face the camera and assigns them to a single group.
This tool will let you create special effects by using your point of view, such as deformation of only the parts of your model that are visible to the camera.
The new Solo Dynamic mode keeps only the current active SubTool visible when manipulating it in front of the ZBrush camera, in order to improve 3D navigation.

ZBrushRecent articles

Using Weather Shifts to Set Up an Atmosphere For a Medieval House Scene

Finn Bogaert joined us to share how he approached the creation of a medieval house, sculpting and texturing the house, rocks, and wood with a realistic style, and using weather shifts to set an atmosphere in the scene.

Adorable Stylized 3D Cat Model to Brighten Your Day

Set up with ZBrush, Substance 3D Painter, and Blender.

Modeling & Texturing a Detailed Colt Single Action Army

Daniel Midghall talked to us about his Colt Single Action Army project, detailing how he created the gun and how he textured the engravings using Marmoset Toolbag.

Ruined King Viego: Creating a 3D Model for JoeMADChallenge

Alex Avdeev shared with us his experience creating the collectible-style project Ruined King Viego and modeling the body, clothes, and armor while keeping in mind the competition rules.

Designing a Robot in a Post-Apocalyptic Environment Using ZBrush & Marvelous Designer

Rafael Amarante shared the process for his project, a robot in a post-apocalyptic setting, explaining how he designed and modeled the robot and the anti-radiation suit, focusing on the fabric details.

Creating a Digital Character Inspired by The Matrix's Neo

Pratim Mondal shared with us his process to create a project inspired by Keanu Reeves in The Matrix, discussing the hand-sculpting he used to create the leather clothes with folds, wrinkles, and damage to achieve a realistic look.

Modeling a Hand-Painted Character Using ZBrush, 3DCoat, Maya & Substance 3D Painter

Rémy Lauret joined us this time to talk about how he created a hand-painted crab, guiding us through the sculpting and painting of the carapace and cannon parts made with ZBrush and 3DCoat.

Bilbo Baggins Recreated in 3D Using ZBrush & Substance 3D Painter

Ahmed Wafdy showcased this eye-catching portrait of the character.

Okino's Residence: Creating a Studio Ghibli-Inspired 3D House

Ana Cristina Pacheco shared the workflow behind her project, Okino Residence, discussing the modeling and texturing workflows she used to achieve an environment with a Studio Ghibli style.