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

How to Turn the Concept of a Coffin into a Stylized and Detailed 3D Prop

Willamis Rodrigues spoke about the workflow behind the Coffin of Silent Oaths, explaining how he modeled the piece, achieving the appearance as if something is trapped inside, and discussing how he textured each material differently, but keeping a visual balance.

Check Out This Astonishing and Impressive 3D Environment of a Sacred Tower

It's beautiful to look at, but if you're afraid of heights, it'll probably make you anxious.

This Game-Ready Model of Robert Pattinson's Batman is Insanely Detailed

It looks very detailed, and you can definitely imagine it in a video game.

How to Create Grasslands, Trees and Mountains for a Nature Environment

Jia Junjie, also known as Yning, discussed the workflow behind the Crack Valley – The Vanished Village, talking about how they created some of the assets and the terrain materials, how they sculpted the mountains in ZBrush, and explaining how they organized the composition with the rule of thirds.

Artist Showcases Self-Portrait in Funny Pokémon Scene

Get him, Poliwag!

How to Model and Texture a Dark Fantasy Real-Time Character ZBrush, Maya and Substance 3D

Jules Joris shared the workflow behind the Sweet Ophelia project, discussing how he modeled the character's body and the armor, focusing on the chainmail details, and explaining his steps to texture the metallic elements.

Character Artist Shares How Overwatch's Vendetta Was Sculpted and Textured

Overwatch has a huge roster of iconic characters. Is Vendetta in your typical rotation?

Check Out This Highly-Detailed Character Model of a Retro-Style Dancer

What kind of music do you think she dances to?

Creating a Mesmerizing and Cinematic Real-Time Character Using ZBrush and Unreal Engine 5

Lena Holmfridardottir shared the workflow behind the Lyoba character, discussing how she achieved an anatomically correct sculpt, the tools she used to create the realistic afro hair, and explaining how she used a Use Wet toggle to texture the face.