Of course Zbrush is known for games like Gears of War and such if Im not mistaken. I am a noobie to Blender and 3D artistry for that matter. I messed with Maya a while back and did the starwars walker tutorial and made it walk but what is everyone’s oppinion with Blender vs Zbrush. I know Zbrush has alot of brush options for sculpting and building meshes fast, but what is Blender really missing that Zbrush has?
IIn Blender, I just started on working on a human mesh and got to the completing the body without the hands/and feet but the mesh doesnt have detail in the actual human muscle proportions. So my question is what would be the difference if I were to build my mesh in Zbrush, is it worth me spending $600 dollars? Becuase I am sold on Blender for the obvious word “Free” and now officially “Professional”.
I am ultimately planning on a 30-40min syfy/action movie, what is my best route as a noobie?
…and Zbrush can handle over 10billion polygons (at least on my computer). Last time I checked, Blender doesn’t do that (sculpting that is). In fact, the two applications are totally different. You’re right to choose Blender because it’s free, and it does a lot of what you will need to make a short film.
As for Zbrush, it can now help you model, as well as stick to its true sculpting nature. I own it. It’s a beast. If you’re a diehard sculpter, buy it. If you don’t plan on using it for anything but sculpting a few details here and there, stick with Blender; there would be no point in buying anything else.
this has nothing to do with blender or zbrush but with you lacking anatomy skills so instead of paying $600 for zrbush I would spend that money on anatomy books. actually you wouldn’t have to spend $600 but a few books here and there should do the track.
four books I would recommend
atlas of human anatomy - stephen peck
constructive anatomy - Bridgeman
human anatomy for artists- Goldfinger
artistic anatomy -Richer
I have the first two books and am planning on getting the other two. of the two that I have Peck book is the best for beginners it has an execellent section on bones far more than in the Bridgman book. The two of them are a pretty good combo to have
The only advantage i see in Zbrush atm is Speed (Handles more polygons), Zsketch, and more brushes, lots of brushes dedicated to hard surfaces.
Everything else about Blender is more or less as good. Blender will get Unlimited clay sometime soon, so ZSketch is not that necessary. And you don’t really need as many brushes. Surface brushes would be cool…
With this new Blender functionality in sculpting, i don’t think it’s worth buying Zbrush, Unless you really see that you need more then that. For example, i really don’t need more then Blender can offer.
sure, zbrush can handle billions of polygons, but I dont think that should be a deciding factor. you don’t need billions of polygons to get a good looking sculpt.
blender sculpt is lacking in some areas though. when you work on a complex sculpt, the absence layers and advanced mesh hiding gets to be a little frustrating
I’d have to agree with tyrant monkey though. your money would be much better spent on anatomy books, since anatomy is arguably the most important aspect of any organic sculpt.
Actually I would do this the opposite way around. Being blender is free, get used to sculpting in it. even if you are not happy with the results, use till you are comfortable understanding what does what and why, then download you trial version of Zbrush and try out the same projects then. Your 30 day trial would be more beneficial to you this way I think.
I don’t own Zbrush, would like to but at the moment I am only a casual sculpting freak. Thus blender does and has everything I need.
Personally, having reference books on hand is never, never a waste of money in this industry. You must have a good sound knowledge of the basic concepts of art, to be a success in this medium. You should check that all out first as everyone is suggesting.
One thing, what are you planning on using the apps for? Games? Stills? Animation? Blender can pretty well much keep your head above water in any of these areas. Just also good to have an idea of which field you are hoping to enter as this will ultimately affect the sort of apps you are either going to need, or going to use.
Good luck with everything you do. Looking forward to seeing some of your stuff one day no matter what it was made with.
I do like what Blender does, even if it wasn’t free. (I’m not pitching it) I honestly like it. The designers/coders did a bang up job. I actually like Blender over Maya. I agree that I have to step my game up with anatomy and drawing a bit, but I feel more comfortable in 3D realm. not saying Im any good or anything but just its suits me. I have to learn UV mapping and texturing/baking and all that but modeling in Blender seems relatively easy even for a novice. I saw youtube vids on Zbrush and the menu options look complexed/complicated. I will take all you guys advice and show you what I came up with thus far.
Modeling projects:
-base male and female mesh
-Logo
-iconic character model
-space craft
-Mech
-World (realistic)
Thus far I have confidence that blender can produce.
A question to all blender users.
DO you like re-topology tools of blender? This is the weakness of blender AND of zbrush actually.
Anatomy: nothing special, nothing to do with real sculpture. The first you learn in a decent art academy. I wont explain why so. Not the right topic I’m afraid. Just try to imagine your sculpt in stone. Box modeling is more close to real sculpture actually. Anatomy is for details.
I’m a zbrush user alright, the tools are fantastic. But nobody mentioned here “voxels” or 3DC. Thats strange, the last version looks like we a have a new winner LOL. My favorite.
They aren’t even close to the same thing. Zbrush is not an animation tool You can build detail with it, but it doesn’t do animation.
You can even use Blender and zBrush. A better question would be: Which is better Maya or Blender… Which is better 3D Max or Blender… XSI or Blender… etc. Those are animation packages.
it is an implicit comparison of Blender’s sculpt mode with Zbrush so the question is a valid one. He didn’t state explicity but I think you can infer that that is what he wants to compare blender sculpt mode versus Zbrush sculpting
It should be obvious to everybody that the retopo tools that are currently in blender aren’t as awesome. In fact there is less functionality than in 2.49. Like many other things in blender right now it’s just not finished.
Since you seem to be very interested in this area you might want to write up a proposal (and discuss it with the community?) to show how the current functionality could be extended to allow for a nicer workflow. This way if somebody decides to work on the retopo/snapping tools there would be something one could use for reference.
On a sculpting only comparison, give a serious try to Sculptris, don’t “snob” it because it’s free, as you would miss an impressive sculpting package for a ridiculously small size.
In term of intuitivity and the feeling of sculpting freedom, Sculptris is unmatched, both by Blender and Zbrush (especially Zbrush that has a particularly user unfriendly interface from my attempts when i tested a trial version).
In term of smoothness at high polycount, Zbrush is unmatched without any contest as not only it can display impressive polycount but can have them nearly always workable relatively smoothly), but at least on my system while Sculptris can’t really reach the same limits of face count as Blender, it actually manage them better than Blender (both 2.49b or latest 2.54 SVN) as a 1.000.000 faces object is much smoother to work in Sculptris than in Blender in which it just crawl for me.
While waiting for Unlimited Clay that i hope will be completed one day and implemented in Blender, with its .OBJ import/export, Sculptris is a great companion for me to Blender for pure sculpting and importing back and forth between Sculptris and Blender for retopo/UV/etc…
There is no surprise the people at Pixologic decided to hire the Sculptris author and buy the license for its possible future development, because it’s really -that- good.
I actually installed 2.49 first to get a feel. I rarely go Beta with anything becuase of the obvious bus and test. I will wait a while for 2.5 but I dont want to wait too long
See I didnt even know that Zbrush didnt do animation? What, thats like Daz/Poser or something, right? no animation…See then its clear Blender is best for me. Sure I would love the smoothness of Zbrush but I guess becuase of the high polys they had to compensate/compromise and leave the animation out due to software size, and speed? I dunno like I said Im a noobie. Sculptis seems promising for sculpting, does it accept Blender files? visa versa?
big mistake the sculpt mode in 2.49 is nothing like what you find in some of the GSOC builds of 2.5 or just plain 2.5 itself its world apart. Its faster and has a better brush engine to boot