ZBrush - Alphas Explained (In 2 MINUTES!!)
Added 2022-07-02 04:32:14 +0000 UTCAnother simple yet extremely powerful feature in ZBrush - Alphas can save you literally thousands of hours of wasted time -
Comments
Not a problem man :) It's always a pleasure to read a well thought out comment or question - Glad I was able to clear some things up! And, yeah I know exactly what you mean with those add-ons - I'm a victim of that stuff too - lol Either way, can't wait to show you guys what's coming up, so I'll see ya in the next vid-!!
Royal Skies
2022-07-03 05:08:33 +0000 UTCIt sure does. And don't forget the agony of wanting those quad-remesher features, but thinking maybe if you wait for the next few blender releases, all those features will be in blender by default, and you'll be holding a $100 add-on that's laughing at you for the rest of time. Not to mention that you're sure right about those add-ons sometimes not even working to begin with. I hate that! I got a bait-and-switch remesher that was just no improvement over the standard features at all. The speed of configurability in ZBrush is definitely amazing, at least what you've shown so far. And a speed ratio of seconds-to-minutes in favor of ZBrush is hard to argue with, especially when I realize that minutes-to-hours is the exact same ratio. It's sort of implying that if it takes someone 4 or 5 days to sculpt a character in blender, it would take less than a day in ZBrush. That's pretty damn insane! Definitely looking forward to more of these videos! Thanks for all the work!
Zack Brown
2022-07-02 17:39:11 +0000 UTCWell you're close on a few fronts - On the point regarding focusing on human characters, this is true. My main shift is to human fantasy characters. And most of the tools and brushes I've demonstrated so far like belts, chains, etc have been included in recent tutorials. However, ZBrush that's just the genre I've chosen. For example the year before this when I was creating monsters for the game, my brush sets, tools, and UI were completely different from what you see now. I think by the next 10 or so videos you'll start to see what the real difference between Blender and ZBrush are. It's not just being able to quickly do belts and buckles. It's being able to customize all your own brushes, tools, and UI without needing python or programming knowledge - From my experience so far, if I had to sum up what truly distinguishes them though, it's simple speed, and reliability. Something that could take a few minutes in Blender will take a few seconds in ZBrush. And, it comes like this out of the box without needing add-ons. In order for Blender to even come remotely close to the speed of dynamesh and retopology in ZBrush, you have to start with $100 add-on called "quad-remesher", and it's only a fraction of the strength of the version in ZBrush. And, this is kind of how it is with a bunch of different equivalents in Blender, like technically you can get a polygroup add-on, or maybe a curve brush add-on, and if you push it "maybe" a VDM add-on. But, you have to go out of your way to obtain and install these, and pray to god that every time Blender updates that they continue to work - And, sometimes they don't even work to begin with lol. But, you're definitely on the mark. I wouldn't go as far to say that ZBrush puts Blender to shame, I can list plenty of reasons why I wouldn't recommend ZBrush for a casual or indie director. It's really for the people who want to specialize in 3D character creation (be it monsters, or humans). You can make monsters and people in Blender too, it's just gonna take more work and time to get the same quality - Hope that answers some of your questions -
Royal Skies
2022-07-02 16:12:07 +0000 UTCI think I'm gradually understanding what you're going for, through the hints and peaks provided by these technical explanations. Originally when you said creating characters was your new goal, I envisioned you sculpting bizarre and highly-detailed non-human or semi-human Nyarlathotep-type beings out of whole cloth. My theory now is that you are largely sticking to a base human mesh, and focusing primarily on the outfits as the true appearance and distinguishing features of the character. The reason this matters to me is that I'm always looking from the eye of a blender person, trying to see what ZBrush has that would make it the Lamborghini in a world of Hondas. So far it looks like ZBrush is *amazing* at quickly layering greebles on surfaces, i.e. making an outfit that has all the fantasy stuff like buckles, ornaments, and weapons. Is that basically what you meant? Or were you saying it also puts blender to shame at sculpting Nyarlathoteps? Or am I way off the mark, and I should just wait for more of your videos that will continue to answer these questions?
Zack Brown
2022-07-02 06:36:12 +0000 UTC
