ZBrushCentral

Advice for a beginner on jewellery design and 3d scans

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

I’m completely new to zbrush or any 3d design software so staring from scratch to learn the basics. It’s a daunting task having no experience but up for the challenge.
My goal is to sculpt organic jewellery, 3d resin print then cast in silver using lost wax casting.
Are there any jewellery specific plugins worth getting?
I’m aware of ring builder 5, can anyone recommend this?

Also looking at the possibility of 3d scanning gems/and oddly shaped crystals then sculpting jewellery around their form in zbrush. The scan would not have to be very high resolution, just enough to get a basic shape to sculpt around. Is this idea possible? If anyone is able to recommend any budget scanners that might do the job would be great to hear some recommendations.

Thanks

#2

Hi @ChrisBriton,

As far as non-standard plugins you may find Ring Utility useful:

https://pixologic.com/zbrush/downloadcenter/zplugins/#

Yes, it is very possible. However many times people have too high expectations of 3D scan tech. It is possible or even likely that any geometry derived from scan data will be incomplete or problematic, requiring some degree of reconstruction. Your ability to do this will require a broad understanding of the wider ZBrush toolset. 3D scan technology is not a substitute for basic program mesh editing and creation skills, and you generally need the latter to make the former work.

I’d also recommend following along with the streams and workshops of T.S. Whittelsbach who is a ZBrush Live streaming partner and can tell you quite a bit about jewelry design in ZBrush:

Good Luck! :slight_smile:

#3

To add to @Spyndel 's reply, might also want to enquire about the ZBrush Jewellery Workshop established by Tomas Wittelsbach ($). ZBrush Jewelry Workshop

Also check out Nacho Riesco streams which focus on jewellery.

Nacho Riesco Gostanza – Pixologic : ZBrushLIVE

Have fun.