I have Mudbox (301 I think, have’nt used it in a while), it’s pretty decent, sucks the memory from my comp, but then agian I have a really outdated machine that has some sorta strange supernatural weirdness going on with it, I think it’s haunted, things… disappear, reappear and some times it turns it’s self on :eek:, btw it’s not connected to the internet.
Anyway, Mudbox is a neat little toy, I may play around with it some, it’s got a strange learning curve too.
-Jimmy
Check, Mudbox is now on my ‘things I might buy’ list. lol. I’m lovin’ it. I’ll need to start comparing Zbrush and Mudbox now. 
Also, to be honest, Blender doesn’t compare. Yeah, it has a sculpt tool, but Mudbox is optimized for this sort of thing and one shouldn’t hesitate to buy a program like Zbrush or Mudbox if you ever even consider going into the graphic industry.
peace,
-nick
I’m thinking of Mudbox, considering the price difference. You can buy a non-commercial license for Mudbox for only 300 bucks, while it is 600 bucks for a license for Zbrush. If you need to use it for commercial work though, the choice is really yours, becaues Mudbox professional costs 600 bucks as well.
No, it really isn’t.
Yeah, I must say Mudbox is something I like a heck of a lot more than ZBrush, mostly because ZBrush is a massive memory eating monster, even if I’m not doing anything in it, it still lags like a gimp.
-Jimmy
Why do you say that? Everyone over on CGtalk is praising Mudbox like mad, saying they are thinking of switching over.
woah!
time to save up for mudbox
Also I might add that the way Zbrush saves your models is mega-gay, it saves them as a brush, plus the fact that it FUBARs the UVs, it also stores models in different layers like PS which is rediculous. MudBox is better though cause it is actually 3d and not 2.5d as the ZBrush folks call it.
-Jimmy
As someone who uses ZBrush 3.1 and tried Mudbox about a year ago - wow. It was all looking impressive-but-ZB-can-do-it for the bulk of the video, but the realtime sculpt in realtime AO, hdri etc etc at the end takes the cake.
Why you would put a computer through all that regularly is a little beyond me, but it is a nice way to preview what it will look like without reimporting into Maya/Blender/whatever, setting up the materials, tweaking the lighting, waiting for a render - then previewing.
Fortunately Autodesk doesn’t seem to have inflated it’s price as much as I’d feared, but it’s still way off something I’d consider. Particularly as ZB can do what I want anyway.
Those vids are amazine. I can see that in the future real-time will be the only type of rendering there is 
http://area.autodesk.com/mudbox_preview#performance_preview
http://area.autodesk.com/mudbox_preview#render_performance
http://area.autodesk.com/mudbox_preview#render_performance_pt2
More videos for your enjoyment.
No wonder a lot of people at CGTalk are thinking of leaving Zbrush, the videos are very impressive.
The sculpting tools look nice, like the rake tool in the first video that works like the one coded by IanC.
Yea, and the same can be said about my honda civic, but that doesn’t temper my lust for a drive in a 1969 mustang.
just a simple question.
Ok I see that the system mudbox uses is similar to Blenders multires and sculpt tools.
However what happens when the model is finished in mudbox - or zBrush and has millions of polygons?
What is the next step in animation?
To my understanding without and engine which could render true displacement it would be quite difficult to render those scenes than. what about you have 10 characters with such a high poly count?
You take the character, create a displacement map which is an included feature in Mudbox and Zbrush, then you retopologize the model and map the displacement map onto the model. You could also export the model into a normal mapper and create a normal map instead. Either way you would use the map on a retopo’d mesh. That is the normal workflow.
Claas,
Both Mudbox and ZBrush have similar systems of displacement mapping and re-topology tools to make new, simple mesh from the advanced detailed meshes that are sculpted. My friend in film school is using the zbrush package to learn character design, and he told me what he was doing with it. It seemed very much like a workflow from Blender,except he is capable of displaying more in the view and he has better painting and masking tools to work either with paint or photogaphsas source.
I think that both packages have a lot to offer as a specialist tool, and they have done some very good work in that respect. Blender is a good vantage point to start for some that are curious to learn, and if possible they might try purchasing a copy of either to augment their work once they get ready to do so. I am very happy with what I have access to, and I hope that Blender continues to be the inspiration to unfetter the creative spirit.
And thanks to Nicholas for allowing me to learn how all this works 
How are you going to make a displacement map big enough to match the same quality as your nicely sculpted model in Mudbox, you have 25 million polygons and insanely detailed sculpts, can you really get an image big enough to catch every little detail?
This is one thing I like about Blender sculpting, when it gets to the point I can sculpt 20 million polygons, I don’t have to obtain massive images with 20 million pixels because it doesn’t need export.
I would think Autodesk would have a way to transfer the sculpted model to Max and Maya, it would only make sense.
hey
I am not comparing Blender to zBrush !!!
I was just curious if there is something I was missing.
The displacement map would be during rendering time to keep memory manageable
and 6 years ago true displacement was not an issue.
The retopo tool in zBrush, looked at it - seems to be very similar to Blenders one.
The difference seems that you can bring your displaced mesh (image map or normal map) back onto the retopoed mesh.
But than what is the point of modeling first simple , zbrush, and than retopo?
Or do they use the retopo when they just started straight in zbrush and did not first create a base mesh for animation which the are only zbrushing for displacement?
It probably wouldn’t have to be that big, not even 8K I’d say.
Martin
Claas,
They use ZSpheres for building mesh, so the ‘simple’ model doesn’t even exist yet, it is made as they sculpt. That way, they are ever evolving the model they are working to get the form and detail perfect, then retopo it out to a base mesh. Most of the persons I have actually talked with that use it aren’t modelers but more of ‘artist’ types used to sculpting in clay and plasticine. I know they do have several base meshes to manipulate from in zbrush trial I tried out earlier this year, but my friend uses the zspheres to build his forms first and then shape it out.
CRaigo