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General question concerning Keyshot / Marmoset Toolbag + zBrush

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hi there, just a general question please:

I am learning zBrush at the moment and am quite skilled with Photoshop / Clip Studio Paint. I’d like to use zBrush for my own illustrations only (mostly hard surface stuff like spaceships etc.) Now I am looking for an external renderer and found Keyshot or Marmoset Toolbag, to make the process as easy as possible.

So the problems seems to be UVing the zBrush models after decimating them, right? If I’d send them over to Keyshot / Marmoset without UVs I could only use materials for the big parts, as I understood it. But zBrushs UV-skills seem to be not that good for hard surface stuff at the moment.

So how do you do it? UV-ing in Blender or some other application? Which would be the best process to do? I watched the Michael Pavlovich vids concerning the SciFi-Pistol and the shotgun, which are game asset workflows, if I got it right. Are those the way to go?

I just need a few hints where to look next.

Thanks and Cheers

Eric

#2

Hey there, I’m not a pro but if I were you I’d stay within zbrush for rendering too. Since its for your illustrations you can go crazy with your model and render in zbrush without the need for uvs.

#3

Thanks. I dowloaded the Marmoset Toolbag Trial (was not able to get the Keyshot bridge to work properly) and lucky me, I was able to throw materials on the meshes as a whole. Which is better than nothing.

I’d prefer a renderer like this to have basic values etc in place, which saves a lot of time while overpainting. So image based lighting plus a few extra lights go a long way. Not sure if zBrush is capable of something like that. Need to try that out.

Apart from that, the workflow in zBrush feels a lot more artsy than doing subds in Blender, which I don’t like that much. At least for me :slight_smile:

#4

I went through a phase where I tried everything too myself. Tried rendering in keyshot, substance painter, marmoset 3, blender, 3dcoat, maverick render etc.
Since I make single images and not working with a team I decided its best to stay in zbrush so I dont have to deal with the shenanigans of exporting.
Apart from keyshot which can handle high polys and easy to use but very expensive you can get good renders in zbrush easily. If you have the bridge keyshot should work great. I personally dont like marmoset.
Also I believe zbrush can handle image based lighting but I prefer to place the lights myself.
Paul G. has advanced lighting series on youtube starting with this video:

If I had money I surely would buy Keyshot pro but other than that I decided to stay within zbrush model and texture freely take a few renders with light materials etc and compose in an image editing software. Hassle free workflow and people seem to like the results so far.
Good luck, cheers.

#5

Thanks for the vid. Will check that out!

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