ZBrushCentral

Any effective ZBrush *glass shader* yet?

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Having just finished a marathon of all of the Materials tutorials I could find and be enthusiastically amazed with the Modifier function able to express some 4 channels deep alloyed with the Mixer channels as being truly advanced so that i can get into some full-metal alchemy within ZBrush. Then i was inspired to return to one of my favorite subjects in pre turn of the millennium Painter which was to be able to paint , in near-realtime , light refracting & reflecting curved glass brush for the creation of a neon tube render complete with separately painted glowing neon within that glass tubing .
Truth be told the way i arrived at that glass curvature refraction in Painter was to use its liquid metal chrome brush and turn its opacity all the way down which still left the , I assume ,ray-traced curved refraction of whatever image layer is was painted upon, including the hand painted neon glow brush path, intact along with whatever image you sought reflected in it.
Thus , as excited as a kid on Christmas morning , I rushed to look under the tree by querying ZBrush’s search function on this subject and it led me straight to a thread entitled, " How can I make realistic glass?" and the lone response was to render in another program to which it linked to a tutorial using Luxology’s Modo. If Photoshop & old pre-2000AD version of Painter ( even little old Bryce ) could render out editable shaders of convincing glass with appropriate glass refractive distortion of light as well as reflections when will ZBrush’s truly admirable renderer come up to speed on that front. BTW: ZBrush itself is a 21st century advanced version of little old Bryce’s capability to allow freehand brushed grayscale to height maps that would be turned into primitively editable 3D mesh and renderer in ray-traced glass.

So ,hey, Pixologic , when are we getting the glass renderer? I know I can’t be the only one to wish use of this render feature.
BTW: There is a version of an exquisitely rendered curved glass for an alien’s space suit of armor that 1st inspired me that someone had, indeed, arrived at a ZBrush glass shader here dated May 2011 entitled Alien 77-1 by senior member Zaliti. This is the level of render quality I mean as it expertly touches upon all of the bases for realistic curved glass. How did this senior member arrive at such results in May 2011? I guess you can read this as an impassioned tutorial request with pretty please written all over it Zafati-sketcbook - Page 13

#2

Post #28>> http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?171975-Whisky-in-the-Jar

#3

The manual is you best friend only if you know where to look. I thought creating glass was a materials issue. You can’t explain to a manual what you’re looking for and then it all devolves into a game of hide & seek or like playing Battleship where you call out co-ordinates that you suspect works and you hope they connect.
There at least needs to be more tutorials on such a vital and often sought after feature. Glass defines elegance so why keep it such a hidden riddle. Modo doesn’t hide the fact that it has a glass material shader. It’s right there for all to see. Why keep such a beautiful & elegant shader, when done right, lost within a manual that you have to play a guessing game with to arrive at at all? As I said , even humble little Bryce had beautiful glass shaders back in the 1990’s.Glass shaders should be an upfront featured material to be shown off and seen strutting its stuff. ZBrush has already a liquid bronze & earthy chrome material shader that is quite beautiful in its execution. Glass should not be assigned such a backwater place in ZBush’s admirable collection of rendered materials.
Refraction & reflection that dynamically bends light is elegance itself in the way it works with raytraced light. That J.B.Monge image triumphantly bursts off the page the absolute moment you see the light play off of the glass bottle & tumbler. Suppose the character had spectacles?
Whisky in the Jar ( be prepared to scroll down and be pleasantly surprised as I was )
Now I have to try and see if that transparency render setting of ZBrush’s refraction engine actually refracted light correctly distort according to the form of the displacements in the glass such as in raised lettering you see on bottles. Where would any rendering be of the characters in Alien or Prometheus in their spacesuit helmets? This alien suit of armor really opened my eyes because glass like this is so rare to see Zafati-sketcbook - Page 13

Like I said I’m in search of the right alchemy formula of render settings for neon tubing that will also express refraction distortion for the actual fluid plasma of colored glowing neon gas. I shouldn’t have to resort to the Adobe After Effects or Photoshop glass distortion filter rendering a glow path underneath the glass effect. It should all be able to readily be done feature by now in ZBrush, not still a puzzle through hidden feature with assembly required.
Just an experienced opinion, nothing more, nothing less.;)

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#4

I wonder too and feel your pain. You must also take other factors into consideration such as light and placement thereof. You may also be interested in this thread>> http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?174602-light-emitting-mateial&p=991775&viewfull=1#post991775 The docs are searchable as well as these forums. Oft times when reading you, need to find out other information. I did it lots as a kid when I was reading and there was a reference to a picture in another one of the books in the set.

#5

I’m personally convinced you can’t do glass in ZBrush. Why?

The docs are wrong and don’t work (at least they didn’t in R5) and people will say that refraction and transparency have been broken in ZBrush since 4R2.

When searching, you will find no working examples and only people telling you to search and google.

When looking through books that mention the subject they say things like “Use the jellybean shader as a starting point” but never go further.

If someone made a Youtube video showing exactly how to do it in ZBrush 4r6 (or told me how to do it so I could make one) then I’d retract the statement above but those were the things I ran into searching for the same answers.

I gave up and just use an external renderer.

#6

When searching, you will find no working examples and only people telling you to search and google.

If someone made a Youtube video showing exactly how to do it in ZBrush 4r6 (or told me how to do it so I could make one) then I’d retract the statement above but those were the things I ran into searching for the same answers.

I gave up and just use an external renderer.[/QUOTE]
I genuinely appreciate the honesty expressed here. I’ve done a marathon of google & tutorial searches and thought I 'd try here. The whiskey bottle example, while a useful look was definitely achieved yet it was still an advanced cartoon glass & liquid look of a massaged shader-render. Just so there’s no further confusion here ,this is what I mean by a true glass shader’s elegance , especially with the rendering of the CocaCola logoTheThe Foundry Community The Foundry Community The Foundry Community The Foundry Community:idea:
As I have said , that is why the exquisitely crafted alien glass domed helmet I linked to stood out from the ZBrush gallery as so very striking. So then the conclusion is, unless someone of the other members can offer a link to a clear demo of achieving this effect within ZBrush’s renderer then the above response stands on its own merits. The jury will be out until proof is offered. Fair enough?

#7

Someone left a shred of info here :wink:
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?162413-Blue-Ferrets-ZBR4r2-Sketches&p=1070453&viewfull=1#post1070453

#8

Something as beautiful and elegant as curved glass should have more than a shred of info or has the production design market imposed a limit due to lack of artist interest in pursuing this render path?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but is it the nature of market that ZBrush serves , as in either Sci-fi or swords & sorcery warriors for digital gaming or the cinemafantastique production where the FX production house always winds up using their own in-house proprietary renderers and ZBrush is for production design only, which it does so very well , that limits ZBrush’s rendering capacity to not do glass. That’s the impression I’m getting from reviewing the entirety of gallery subjects of choice. Forgive me but it appears as if there is a self-imposed prejudice against building towards this render path of glass elegance. ( As I say,you guys do polished & distressed metal & cloth & skin beautifully.)
Then it’s time that I express my long-awaited vision of what I believe a digital artist should be able to do some 14 years into the 21st century for crying out loud . One should be able to carve into digital clay and render it out as ray-traced glass to a more sophisticated degree than one could in Bryce’s little ray-trace renderer from the 1990’s and produce Steuben quality etched glass crystal. One should be able to freehand brush with a brush path of connecting oval’s that are editable 3D mesh tube brush strokes. You’re already practically there with editable Curves if I’ve understood my tutorials correctly.
Like I expressed earlier in this thread I was able to freehand brush 3D looking glass tube brush paths in Painter 8. You guys at ZBrush clearly have the proven coding talent & sophistication. So I’m wondering if it’s the targeted customer-base that causes this apparently self-imposed limitation against glass shaders? Again, please correct me if I’m wrong.
BTW: I remember having the same problem with getting a definitvely straight answer out of the Electric Image Animation System team for the same ray-tracing feature after having 1st ponied up the $1,500 and EI did not even provide an integrated modeler yet. It was then that I started having visions of what a Wacom-based modeler should be. Could’ve really used ZBrush then instead of the totally artist inappropriate engineering modeler FormZ That’s when I 1st experienced and then started experimenting with Bryce’s ray-tracer and sculpting editable 3D mesh with a wacom-aware brush gray-scale to height maps in Bryce’s humble little terrain editor , ( shades of ZBrush ) but that was then ( 1998 ) and this is now ( 2014 )!

#9

I love those examples from Modo that you posted. That carnival glass has me intrigued. I’m going to have to figure out how that was done.

You’re probably aware of this but I’ll throw it out there just in case you aren’t, if you have access to another 3D app you can use GoZ to export from ZBrush straight to your app of choice almost instantly. I use it between ZBrush and Modo all the time for when I need glass or if I want to retopologize something. It’s extremely useful and gives me the best of both worlds.

I do agree though its a shame it can’t all be done in ZBrush.

#10

Yeah ,in a perfect world it would be just the best of all worlds, but my download of ZBrush seems to be adversely impacted by what is called the Mercury Retrograde effect ( google it ) which is like Murphy’s Law in spades munging up all things technological. I’ve decided that executing my freehand calligraphy into editable 3D meshes can be best arrived at with ShadowBox and have reviewed the all of the Shadowbox videos till I’ve gone cross-eyed cross-eyed and for the life of me I can not seem to be able to get the Shadowbox to orbit around so that I can see the results.
This is where I ran into the brick wall of ZBrush disallowing my basic Import procedure as I was looking for the Pen tools in order to get a more calligraphy-friendly brush path to create a custom logo with ,but ZBrush refuses to allow this most basic & simple procedure with all of ZBrush’s own brush tool folders grayed out so no import. This should not be hard at all.
Blocked from doing that I just went back to what proved to work, namely Simple brush’s Photoshop like brush alphas to work on a ShadowBox attempt and can not get the damn box to to orbit round. I’m so frustrated I’m going to have to just walk away from this headache of a program that just refuses to perform as advertised on these basic procedures because I’m getting precious little accomplished. I’m contenting myself with just learning the Materials modifiers settings using the simple brush to execute freehand calligraphy using MatCap fluid metals. At least that worked as it should right out of the box.