As expected… This is Pixo, mate… 
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Loved the live-streamed introduction of the ZBrush 2021 features. Nice to see Mike Pavlovich join the show. He always manages to speed-inject ZBrush knowledge into your brain like the Matrix “I know Kung Fu” scene. 
Definitely. Well-said!
Same here. I also love the interoperability of ZBrush tools, and the fact that the devs almost never remove a tool or function you’ve gotten used to. Although I’m a Blender lover, I don’t like the frequent and often drastic changes in the toolset, UI and workflow. It makes it necessary to constantly keep track of recent changes and get accustomed again.
Looking forward to try the new ZBrush 2021 features. I’ll have to impatiently wait until 8:00 PM over here in the Netherlands (CET). 
Of course it’s also great that ZBrush 2021 is once again a free update to anyone who has ever bought ZBrush.
I bought the ZBrush version of Keyshot 7 and subsequently the pricy full version of it. Then I skipped upgrading to Keyshot 8, only to discover one year later that I would need to pay the full price again to upgrade from Keyshot 7 to 9. No, thanks. Hello LuxCoreRender, my new friend!
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From the other thread. 
Yes, the first time I tried it my mind was absolutely blown. At the time I was using Max 4 and my system exploded if I subdivided a mesh to 10K polys… 
It’s still hard to even describe what it was like back then to pre-Zbrush 3D artists. It’s like trying to explain what videotapes were to small children. Just how revolutionary ZB really was. Back in the days of a single core, a 32-bit OS, and 1 gig of Ram. To be able to sculpt on millions of polys was pure sorcery(phrase thrown around with abandon these days, but mere card tricks compared to this)
Funny, but I’ve spent the morning flicking through that old Zbrush 2 book and the sculpting brushes don’t get a mention until halfway through. 2.5D tools and tutorials take the front seat.
Anyway, enough with the ‘grumpy old man’ ramblings. Not long until we get our FREE upgrade and get our hands on this Dynamic system!! Looks like I’ll be waiting up until 4 a.m again…
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Totally seconded.
Speaking of books and grumpy old men, I remember this was my sweet vacation literature back in 1997 or so:
I had all three volumes. Back then, Max was the bomb.
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Haha! You’re way grumpier than me, I only started at R4.
Those huge tombs were great. Some of them were 1000s of pages! Sadly, I lost a lot of mine from those days. Those books and the shipped physical docs were the only learning resources back then. I feel another grumpy old man rant coming on…‘these kids with their infinite video tutorials and their fancy internet…’ 
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I came to check in on ZBrush discussions from Blender users. But then saw that Inside 3D Studio Max 2 volume and I am hugely distracted and side tracked.
OMG !!! That brings back memory’s. This crazy huge book was where I first learned 3D. Most of it felt like it was written by programmers. At least thats how it seemed to me at the time.
There were two others in the series as well. Animation and I think the other one was lighting and rendering ? So much didn’t actually work. Like the complex tutorial I struggled through custom rigging a segmented cartoon dog thing with Max’s original and terrible bones system. The one that slowed to a craw after about 50 frames. No weighted skinning ability either. I kept wishing I could learn Softimage instead
With regards ZBrush. On a trivial side note, part of me is wondering if one reason for such a quick fire release is they want to get the year 2020 out of the product branding as quickly as possible. 
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I remember that Max 2 book, picked it up for cheap in a bookstore around 2000. Always interesting to flick through, can’t say I have learned much from it though.
Anybody remember this? This was my bible for a year or two:
Since we only had one set of these, a fellow student went through the trouble of borrowing each volume, scanned them in page by page and compiled PDF versions of all these books and distributed them among the students
Then one release later Softimage supplied official PDFs of their own… oh and my colleague decided 3D wasn’t for him after all. I still have his PDFs though.
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I’m glad I’m not the only old-schooler around here. 
Those Inside 3D Studio Max books were my bibles.
Sorry for the distraction, let’s head back to ZBrush. 
I just had my first session in ZB 2021, and I quite like it. Compared to Blender’s cloth brushes, the ones in ZBrush are much more applicable / instantly usable. I love the Transpose Cloth brush, among other things. You can instantly start playing around with the dynamics system without the need to learn how you should use the tools. It’s very accessible.
I also like the speed improvements. Dynamesh has become noticeable speedier.
First, my crappy Australian(can’t wait to get back to Europe, for numerous reasons) internet kept failing on the download…hours wasted. Then I decided to download to my phone. Success. Plugged the phone into the laptop…USB not recognised…more hours wasted troubleshooting that. No success. Now I’m relying on crappy bluetooth transfer from my phone to laptop…VERY slow…more hours wasted. only 80% complete…(please don’t fail)
It’s been a mission, but it’ll be worth it. Few more hours and I’ll be(hopefully) up and running and cloth simming! 
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Totally agree. I’m new in Blender and for me this changes are big waste of time and distraction. Everyone who earlier use some other 3D package, know routine… couple months before official release “rumors” appear, then release, so you do not must to wast your time to track constantly changes and fight with stability. Someone must tell developers to be more serious 
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I remember similar book for Maya… In this time I was “analog” 2D guy ( late "90’s or early XXI century ).
One friend show me these books, I take look inside… and decide that I never use 3D 
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oh boi oh boi
“File extensions Collada (DAE) and Alembic (ABC) import/export capabilities”
goodbye 5 minute import times with huge objs!
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Yeah, those additions were kind of tucked away among the release notes, but are definitely welcome!
Good luck! It’ll definitely be worth the effort.
Bluetooth froze at 86%… I’m starting to have withdrawals.
Plan D - download manager.
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So there’s downloads and… downunderloads! 
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Very informative new Mike Pavlovich video, discussing the new features:
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One thing bother me… What happen to Paul Gabory… y’know, loud guy 
He, he, he is sometime… tiring, but his knowledge is very deep. In every his video I learn some little thingy, trick, hacks… Couple last years he almost disappear,
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Paul is still around. He’s just a bit quieter these days.
He’s been involved in ZB since the start. He writes the documentation, so yes he knows everything there is to know about ZB.
Paul/Joseph are great presenting on their own , but together they’ve always overdone the ‘comedy’. I was delighted to see Pav there on the stream. I’d much rather a solid, uninterrupted demo of the release than the joking around which just wastes precious time.
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You have right… maybe Paul “comedy” is reason why he is not in ZB events… But I remember one ZBrush events when some AAA game studio show his jaw dropping art. One dude show his workflow to achieve certain stuff, many steps, “complicated” process. Then Paul jump, take pen and achieve same stuff in two steps or so. Poor dude which are top artist, was speechless, stunned.
I hope that he will continue with his “Do you know that” series.
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