ZBrushCentral

Which material is 'best' when sculpting?

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

I use ZBrush to create displacement for use in Modo and in the past I have used the default ‘red wax’ material and a few others but I have found that they can be quite deceptive with regards to giving a good representation of what the displacement will look like in Modo.

Can anyone suggest a material that is nice and basic for the sculpting process?

#2

Why not create a MatCap that matches your preferred material in Modo? It’s easy.


  1. In Modo, set up a document that’s 1024x1024 in size.
  2. Draw and center a sphere on the screen. It should be perfectly smooth, and sized just slightly larger than the render area.
  3. Set up the lighting just how you want it.
  4. Render and export.
  5. In ZBrush, select a MatCap material.
  6. Press Texture>Import and load your rendered light map.
  7. In the Material>Modifier menu, locate the patch that shows the current light map. Click it to open the texture selection pop-up and choose your custom light map.
  8. Save your material to the ZStartup\Materials folder.
Your custom material will now load every time you launch ZBrush.

#3

Aside from Auricks ecxellent advice and synopsis of MatCap. If you want to use ZB default materials I usually bounce back and forth from SimpleShader to FastShader to MatCap RedClay. This helps keep the eye/mind refreshed and gives alternate shadows and specular.

Another technique to use when Retopologizing is to turn the Frame Button on and use FlatShader this lets you see into crevices and small spaces.

One more use of materials is to at certain intervals see how your model looks with many different types of Materials, again this keeps the eye/mind refreshed and the model retains it’s stamina.

Using the Fast shader for ZSpheres seems to be a little more simlpified.
I also like using the AgedBronze shader for ZSphere modeling, I believe that one is in the MatCap library.

#4

Thanks jaystein, good advice there too. I will use a combination I think and that will give a more comprehensive view of how my model will deform.

Thanks

#5

i like the max and maya blinn matcaps over at the matcap repository. If you make a modo matcap, i’d love to add it to my collection :slight_smile:

#6

Hi eldee

I have just uploaded a ‘Modo Matcap’ to the Pixologic Matcap library.
http://www.pixologic.com/zbrush/downloadcenter/library/
Its called mw_modolook_01 and it will be listed under the Matcap Matte category.

If the team approve it, it will be available to download in due course!