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does it support textures with alpha and render it correctly? Like tree leaves? wth shadows. translucent light scattering/ backlighting etc?
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does it have normal rgb material or normal pass that would render such leaves as two sided material? 32 bit exr Z pass with true depth values? World xyz pass?
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Does it render zbrush materials in a smooth blended mode and if it’s possible to render spec values of such materials separatly?
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How much poly limit and how long transfer of 30-50 mil scene would go? Does it support nanomesh clones and noise displacement or evrything should be true geometry?
- does it support textures with alpha and render it correctly? Like tree leaves? wth shadows. translucent light scattering/ backlighting etc?
Yes, I believe it does. However I haven’t tried this since ZBrush sort of doesnt exactly (someone correct me if I am, as I would like to be wrong about that).
- does it have normal rgb material or normal pass that would render such leaves as two sided material? 32 bit exr Z pass with true depth values? World xyz pass?
I dont think it does passes at all but Im not sure about that.
I think they would be two sided by default, but if not, thats easily fixable in ZBrush by turning on Double in the Display Properties Palette.
- Does it render zbrush materials in a smooth blended mode and if it’s possible to render spec values of such materials separatly?
It does a good job with ZBrush materials, and MatCaps, but render specular stuff separately is something I know nothing about.
I think it could be done if you turn off everything else, but honestly I dont know.
- How much poly limit and how long transfer of 30-50 mil scene would go? Does it support nanomesh clones and noise displacement or evrything should be true geometry?
Poly count and time COMPLETELY depends on your system.
Nano Mesh and Noise work GREAT, and yes, if noise has pits, you see pits if thats what you are asking.
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Yes Keyshot does support alphas by means of the Opacity slot for each material. You can send it via Zbrush with transparency turned on full, or import it directly within Keyshot. Iv tried it on eye lashes and it works fine. You can also render out the shole scene with a alpha with a PSD or other file types, loading the psd into Photoshop cuts out the background automaticly, and does a pretty fine job of it.
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I haven’t a clue, never had to use such a thing, sorry.
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It does blend textures with Matcaps for instance, but it does not seperate the spec from the Zbrush materials. Spec maps can be made in the normal way with a black n white image map, but iv found it rather difficalt in the short time time used Keyshot to control it, as it apears to be not your typical Spec, its actualy reflection with roughness control, ans you cant control roughness via a map.
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Thats a huge poly count, I tried it and it takes me over 6 min on a quad core i7 at 4.6ghz 16gb of ram, gtx 260 gfx card. Once in Keyshot I can rotate very smoothly. Iv tested Fiber mesh, only, but that works very well. Normal maps, or Displacement maps it does not send over from zbrush to keyshot, but you can export these maps and manualy import them into Keyshot…
A few additional things to mention, the Gi in Keyshot is simply fantastic, and what surprised me allot was how good SSS is with such little control over it.
Dan.
Thanks for the detailed answers guys.
As of the normal pass and specular I just wonder if Keyshot would be somehow helpfull.
Those two things is what bother me a lot in Zbrush internal renderer . I use it for “flat” environment textures where 2,5d mode is not enough (i.e with hairs and micro/nano meshes)
So I am still not sure if it has a way to do orto render of normal and height map. I gues it couldn’t be used to bake textures normally but maybe at least to render an orto view.
As of specular I am curious if it allows to do the same trick I do in Zbrush. I mean painting by few materials in MRGB, and then replacing given materials to a special ones representing spec values only . Does Keyshot able to do so easily and have the same 1-2 pixels in-between materials blending option?
maybe just materials ID pass?
Your best bet would be to download the demo which has the same functionality as the Zbrush version all be it the bridge and limited saving features. By default Zbrush does not send any high map data, but you can apply them manualy. The other questions you have I dont understand whats being asked, and have a fairly good technical understanding in general with 3D.
The slots that Keyshot provide are limited depending on what material type you choose. As to if you can get the effect you desire, the only way is to give it a go.
There is a few things I dont understand regarding Zbrush bridge to Keyshot, such as how why at times Uvs dont work, more so when you have already send the model using polypaint data, then choose to use a map, other times its not a issue. If you have a file you would like me to test by sending via Zbrush bridge to keyshot id be happy to give it a go.
Dan.
Actually the demo is a LOT better than the ZBrush version, its got all the features that were removed.
A very simple example of this is the inability to import .OBJ files, there are a bunch of other things though. The demo is designed to sell all the different and VERY expensive versions of KeyShot, not just the ZBrush version.
Also I don’t think KeyShot supports passes at all, not in the way ZBrush makes them anyway.
You will NOT be able to export normal, specular or any other maps from KeyShot.
All it does is render what you send it from ZBrush, and it allows you to change some materials.
This sort of sounds like I don’t think that you should get KeyShot, thats not the case, I am having a lot of fun with it, but i am just running into some limits that I wasn’t expecting.
thanks again.
I still have some hope i could bake a “beauty” pass with good GI in Keyshot and height and ao passes in default one.
so a few more specific questions:
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does keyshot render orto view ?
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How zbrush normalRGB material looks like in keyshot ? Maybe somebody could render a simple sphere there.
Does it work the same way i.e. without actual shading and shadows, just surface colors? -
I need to turn hairs into meshes, right?. Does it make it’s own hair subdivision or should I mesh them exactly what I want i.e huge file transfer. Should I forget about hairs at all in Keyshot?
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How it renders several materials painted on the same subtool with a brush in only M mode? Maybe also a simple test on not too subdivided sphere could show it?
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Can it do multiple subtools and material masks?
Sorry , too many questions but I dont think full blown demo may answer zbrush specific things
You cant bake and export texture from Keyshot, not sure what your planning here?
If you mean Othographic view, yes it does.
The default RGB colour actualy looks good, spot on from what it looks like in ZB if you turn the Use Diffuse Map Alpha on in the material settings.
Hair is certainly worth using. You dont have to convert anything, just generate the fibers, style and send over. of course if you send over 25k fibers its going to take a few min to get over to keyshot. However you see it in Zbrush, is how it looks in Keyshot. In the first hair shots they are about 7k, Second is 27k, I gave the hair max 50 segments, 27k hairs, it took a few min to send over. Matrials are painted from Mat caps in Zbrush.
Thanks tez for the screens , it answered a few my questions. I actually hope Keyshot could be somehow helpful. I didn’t mean actual bake I talked about off screen render in orthographic view . It’s basically enough for environment textures ( in games)
Too bad it looks like normalRGB material is not rendered correctly. ( blue halo + GI) With Zbrush internal you have to do “best” render first and then BPR
Does Keyshot allow to construct shaders somehow ? I see “flat” shader. Perhaps It could be turned into normalRGBmat with a few extra inputs.
Does it have any 3d party shaders? Maybe a few procedural ones? A “dirt” shader that could paint convexity/concavity edges?
I have been playing with shaders, you can totally make your own, and its LOTS of fun, but a bit labor intensive (since you have to wait for things to render every time you do anything).
There a WHOLE BUNCH of procedural textures that are a blast to play with.
There are a lot of shaders available on the KeyShot site, its got a whole section dedicated to that.
Honestly I was disgruntled when I got it by what I thought of as needless limitations, but I have changed my mind, its actually quite an excellent tool.
You have to look at what it is:
A rendering and scene building tool, it’s designed to take things from other sources and make nice pictures and it does this very nicely with out a large learning curve… in fact I am learning it in my favorite way, by trying stuff out.
Heres my advice since I don’t fully understand what you need:
Get it. Its great. At worst you will have a good rendering engine for ZBrush that makes some seriously annoying things easy.
oh. thank you for the tip. It does have quite a lot of procedural textures to play with including concavity/convexity/curvature one I asked + falloffs/gradients which are theoretically enough to do its own normalRGB material.
A problem although is I still have no idea how to combine/blend inputs. For example I see procedural noise texture but only inputs to select is two colors. What if i want to blend two separate textures using mentioned noise as a blending mask? Guess I am missing something since it’s very basic thing.
Could you past a link on their site shader section please. Maybe it’s my eyes but i don’t see it
I don’t know squat about their main site but in their forum they have a whole section dedicated to shaders:
https://www.keyshot.com/forum/index.php?board=29.0
The total lack of Multi-Pass features is a big disappointment to me. But I’ve been told that there are work-arounds.
Marco “Splash” Plouffe, for one, says that it is possible to to a Depth Pass. But I have not figured out how, yet.
He has some very useful tips on scene setup and rendering, as well as faking some Passes like Rim Light Pass, and Shadow Pass.
Although mentioning Fog and Depth passes, he doesn’t explain how.
Link to “Passes” post; http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?191220-Sinners-Project&p=1125840&viewfull=1#post1125840
Link to UV’s, Lighting post; http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?191220-Sinners-Project&p=1125839&viewfull=1#post1125839
Since this thread, started by kirkl, is in the right Forum, and has good questions that need answering, for us all, I think we should continue to expand it with questions and answers and tips.
I, for one would welcome more info on work-arounds in getting Passes out of Keyshot-for-Zbrush.
Here’s a Tip from angusmac on creating a Mask-Selector Pass, or Clown-Pass;
Keyshot clown render pass
Yes - the Keyshot for ZBrush doesn’t do passes - but the most useful Keyshot pass is probably the flat color ID for post processing masks, especially in Photoshop - it’s called the Clown pass in Keyshot (for obvious reasons!) - as long as your model is not incredibly complicated, it’s not that hard to create your own clown pass - just duplicate the model - (make sure it’s unlinked so the materials on the original don’t update, too) - then drag and drop the flat materials onto your model parts - and render out - try it - it’s pretty quick.Best
Angus M
I did experiment with the fake Depth-Pass Marco mentioned in his reply to my question (in his thread linked above). It uses the Camera rendering Depth of Focus option in Keyshot combined with the Alpha Channel option when saving to PSD or TIFF.
I’m an Illustrator so everything I do ends up in Photoshop, and figuring out how to get Multi-Passes out of Keyshot, (without spending $2000 extra for the feature), would be a huge help. 
So a big thanks to you, Kirkl, for starting this thread. 
Doug
KIRKL;
A problem although is I still have no idea how to combine/blend inputs. For example I see procedural noise texture but only inputs to select is two colors. What if i want to blend two separate textures using mentioned noise as a blending mask? Guess I am missing something since it’s very basic thing.
Don’t overlook the powerful noise shaders and multi-channel shaders in Zbrush. They transfer across the Bridge to Keyshot faithfully.
Doug
MealeaYing, thank you for the link
acmepixel, what do you mean noise shader ? those like spherical intensity and textured metal ? Does the mixer settings goes to keyshot as well?
I still have no idea how to do the depth pass.
Leave it to Grot to find the answer to this!
Look in this thread:
https://www.keyshot.com/forum/index.php/topic,9905.msg47256.html#msg47256
Also, if you want to know what’s in your future, look up Grot on this site, he knows stuff and draws pictures of it.
That method (from the link) looks like working on a single object (tool) since the gradient mapping is working in object space or something. Would it be working in world space, same for all objects it might be enough actually.
Or does it come as a single object from Zbrush multiple subtool ? The way gradient working on all of them as if it would be a single object?