ZBrushCentral

when does zbrush (new version)appear?

Community
#54

And… looking at it… It is really the corner stone of pretty much everything I do.
If I have to check out a .OBJ then I do that in ZBrush as the .OBJ importer is the single best importer of all other apps I have. If there is something wrong, Zbrush will tell.
I would like to take a look at UV’s as well. UV-Txt and I’m all set. I wish to slap a texture on it without render tree and what not, Zbrush does it with the click of a button.
I need to create a height map for a weird landscape -> Zbrush.
Deformation of procedural geometry with and without masking in the blink of an eye… -> Zbrush…
And the best friends… the very best is that this tool is at the lower price range of all the other tools hich I do NOT use because ZBrush is doing a better job (once you bend your mind to understand the core…).
I’m not (to much) a fan boy. But I won’t write something like this for another app. Maybe XSI… but that’s it then. XSI is a monster… ZBrush is the ultimate swiss army knife for the creative soul.

Cheers
Lemo

#55

Yeah. Me too. :slight_smile: It’s been nearly two years though. (11-27-04)

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=22256

#56

But in the context of Pixologic and their ocean drinking achievements. Why would anyone honor the wealth of the discontents dry-mouthed delusions.
( Antimorph 11/07).

As is the usual case, you cast pearls among swine.

I write swill.

Pleasure to see you read something I posted.:smiley:

#57

Can you elaborate on this? I’ve heard great things about XSI and have now started to learn it, but I don’t really see it to be that great compared to the other ‘complete’ applications… What’s so monstrous about XSI? I’m getting used to it and the selection tools is great, but all the modifiers seem to add a little too much required thinking =P. I’m still sticking with modo for modeling. Not to mention that Softimage is advertising it as a character creation tool rather than a all purpose 3d app.

#58

I’m a 3D newb. I’ve tried blender, use Silo, and tried demos of C4D, modo, XSI, maya and a few others.

Ease of use wise, I find this to be true:

Silo>C4D>Modo>Maya>Blender>XSI.

XSI seemed to require a LOT of mouse jockeying to do even simple things. Silo and C4D, I was able to figure out by just playing around with the interface. Since 3D models require a lot of polygon pushing, it should be dead simple to do that. XSI was about as fun to use as blender for me.

#59

Monstrous functionality. Not my tool of the choice for doodeling. And imho it IS a multi purpose app. Just extra dandy for animation. I meant Menster in a good way.
Lemo

#60

After having used quite a few different programs XSI has become my main 3d weapon of choice. It is “complete” and can handle enormous polycounts extrememly well. It’s a full blown animation package for 500 bucks…that’s monstrous in and of itself. Ive used Modo a bit and apart from a few gee whiz features I don’t really see much difference between it and XSI. They are both next gen apps, but Softimage is complete…whereas modo is not. The initial learning curve for any app is going to be hard, speaking from experience. I found Maya to be extremely cumbersome, as well as max. Modo was a bit more streamlined and Ive not touched C4D yet. As for XSI being a character animation package only, Luc Eric from Softimage commented on that not being the case but that they are focusing their energies moreso in that realm than others but that isnt their ONLY area of development. You can read his full reply at www.xsibase.com as my quoting isnt precise, just an overall gist of things. I believe we are right on the brink of the next version of XSI and with Leonard Teo, the man that brought you CGSociety.org, CGTalk, Ballistic Publishing, as well as Philip R. Taylor, CAT product designer joining the Softimage team recently I think the future is even brighter for XSI. There IS a reason Valve switched their pipeline to XSI during mid-production of HL2 and it wasn’t because XSI was too hard to learn :slight_smile: ZB2.5, XSI v.5.5/6 coming out soon…I think we are in store for a VERY merry Christmas indeed! If not Christmas, than a very happy new year! :smiley:

#61

I still think Blender is the easiest. But I guess that’s just from experience. XSI is great, much easier to use than Maya. You just can’t get away with using a weak system like you can with Blender. XSI doesn’t have that many good video tutorials and DVDs though.

#62

Huh??? I got my Fnd at the time with about 40 hours of tuts (5 dvd’s), Then there is the excellent 3dquakers and 3dtutorial website. Digital tutors have great material, and here ‘http://www.xsibase.com/tutorials/beginner.php’ is only a small part of what’s available on the XSIbase site. And there is more… don’t make me pull up my Bookmarks :wink:
Lemo
\

#63

I have heard really bad things about both 3dquaker and 3dtutorial. Also they don’t seem to want to use DVD’s as a format but rather a tied to your system digital file. I’d like to see your bookmarks. A ton of links on Ed Harris’s site are really old and often do not work. Well the ones I want.

#64

Have you ever visited their websites? At least Joe has the option to get all his publications on DVD. I always want it NOW, so I always download.

Yes, both tie the player to the system you play it on. But that’s not a big deal. You have the medium, and in both cases you have the license in a very short period of time. Usually instantly.

This seems to be the same kinda rumor floating around like the ATI/NVidia driver rumor. Depending which side you are on, the drivers of the other vendor are all crap hahaha.

I’ll copy my list of links together when I have a minute.

Cheers
Lemo

PS:What is easily forgotten… Joe and Charbel are one man shows. They produce the tutorials by themselves or for another single dude who is a speciailst in his realm. You can ring them up or ask questions. And that is valid from the author to the publisher. Great value. However, tutorial syles and contents are depending on the individual. What one likes, the other dreads.

#65

XSI has been a slow learn for me, a lot of trail and error. I was using Amorphium 3. Amorphium 3 was as easy to learn as sneezing. Blender was just impossible for me.

I am not a very good modeler, but after sticking with it I can get XSI to do what I want, and it has grown on me. I still render my models in Amorphium 3 or DAZ, only becuase I have not figured out the shading, textureing and uv mapping yet.

I spoiled myself with UV Layout for UV mapping and that is another easy sneeze compared to XSI.

The more I learn in XSI the more I like it. It has a lot more tools then I know what to do with, but it is a Pro Modeler, and once you grasp it you really don’t want to go back to another.

The reason I think poeple love it so much is once you learn it your hooked. I really like modeling with it.

here is on of my XSI models http://cccharron.50webs.com/pages/csg.html

#66

Wow, that’s a cool model! Compared to your first steps in amorphium you grew by leaps and bounds! Why don’t you bring it into ZBrush and detail it there a bit?
Cheers
Lemo :+1: :+1: :+1:

PS:I agree… lighting rendering takes time… But here is something you will enjoy:

http://xsi.jankin.com/mad_physicalSky.zip

Download and install with the File->addon manager. Then load the sample scene, delete the spheres and import/merge your model. Maybe you have to scale it.
Then open a render region. Should look cool!. Now open the View->Toolsbars->shader presets and drag and drop something cool or strange onto your model. Render again… This should look pretty. Set the animation slider to various locations (30 or seventy e.g.) and you will see the light changing.
That’s a lighting method which will give you instant results without fiddling. From there… it all goes downhill into the manuals again. But this should give cool results!

When you have UVLayout… then you do not need the XSI UV editor. Specially since Phil’s last release with the straight edges. But look at it. It’s a handy tool to fix a seam or so.

#67

Thanks for the comments guys! A good read.:wink:

#68

Lemonnado: it would be great if you could post that list of bookmarks:)
personally I’ve found the XSI Documentation is good and covers alot.

#69

Lighting is hard to figure out regardless of what application you’re using (maybe something like Maxwell is easier – I don’t know)

I probably haven’t looked hard enough but I have never really found a good “generic” CG lighting tutorial. Any suggestions?

#70

Lighting is an art form in itself. Like texturing. I gave up on the search for the lighting bible. The best and only approach imho is to take a nice render, or photo and take that apart. Where is the light comming from , which materials are used, which post effects (glow etc.) are used. Is there depth of field etc…
Then plop it together yourself. I have not looked, but I guess the real movie light professionals must have standard books. Those should be of more interest than an explanation on how to adjust the spotlight falloff…

This has been a great introduction:

http://dvd.3dfluff.com/vol4_1.htm

Cheers
Lemo

#71

Maybe this?

The book Digital Lighting and Rendering by Jeremy Birn is also a must (it is application agnostic).

Further to 3DTutorial, the license is tied to a specific machine but one email to Joe will get you a new license if you want to transfer machines. The couple of times I have renewed licenses I’ve received replies within a matter of hours, even on the weekend.

#72

Speaking for 3dtutorial.com, just to be clear our tutorials no longer use any type of hardware locking, they are NOT tied to a single computer, they are fully floating and can be viewed on any PC that you own without limitation.

Only 1 title currently still uses a node-locked license and I will recompie and reissue that as a fully floating series hopefully before the end of the year.

So once again, 3dtutorial.com does NOT tie it’s products to your system!

I hope this clears up any confusion.

Cheers,

Joe Saltzman

#73

Thanks for the links. Once I get over this cold and can concentrate for more than 2 min at a time I will read them. :slight_smile:

The Birn book has shown up on my radar before too. I’m getting closer to taking the plunge on that one.