ZBrushCentral

ZBrush 2019!

I say: YEEE-HAAWWW!!

Looking at the intriguing Joseph Drust image, my guesses are:


  • Folders for Subtools (as seen in a ZBrush Summit demo by Joseph and Paul).
  • A real camera (as also seen in the ZBrush Summit demo).
  • New industry-compliant UV mapping tools (as also seen in the ZBrush Summit demo).
  • An updated ZRemesher? (can’t wait to know more about that!)
  • A new or updated tool to turn alphas into meshes? Maybe adding Insert Mesh brushes straight from alphas?
  • An updated Spotlight?
  • A new toon renderer? Maybe an AI-powered NPR art style approach?

Attachments

ZBrush_2019.jpg

The demo renders look more advanced than a toon shader, but perhaps something more sophisticated like an AI powered style transfer. If I’m correct, then an artist would provide a stylized reference image and then Zbrush would render results that would match the style of the provided sample image. Show it a hand painted illustration and get a hand painted render like magic! It’s inevitable that Content creation apps will deploy AI more and more as time goes by, why not Zbrush?

You might very well be right about the AI approach to NPR. I’ve been hoping to see a Machine Learning powered ZRemesher for years now, so I’ve got my fingers crossed regarding the ZRemesher update.

If you guys are right about the rendering algorithms… that’s really exciting.

Personally, I’m most looking forward to a decent UV mapper inside zBrush.

Yes, the new UV editing tools are definitely exciting too. :+1:

I’ve updated my guess list a bit. I was thinking: maybe the ‘Alpha Mesher’ allows adding Insert Mesh brushes straight from alphas? That’d be quite interesting.

I cant see where the toon rendering part is interesting for my work, even though it looks cool. Actually, I cant see where it would be interesting for anyone really, since data is 95% of the time pushed to another renderer, but I hope Pixologic prove me wrong :smiley:
Better UV tools are always welcome.

I am mostly excited for the subtool folders - let me rephrase that : I am REALLY excited for the subtool folders, and I hope you can use them with the Live Boolean system, so the result of a whole folder can be subtractive.

Looking forward to see it all :smiley:

To be honest a new NPR renderer would also be not more than a nice gimmick for me personally, but I can see the potential for comic creators, for example.

I’m also wondering if the hourly ZBrush 2019 teaser images on ZBrush Central will show more than only the toon-style images. Maybe a range of realistic renderings will follow, making Keyshot obsolete. :wink:

But I expect to see images showing mouth-watering wireframe output of the new ZRemesher.

I would also love to see the folders being usable with Live Boolean. :+1:

:+1:small_orange_diamond:D

Attachments

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Lots of artists have been tinkering with getting Toon shaded renders out of Zbrush. I was one of the few starting to dive into that nearly 10 years ago already. That was way before bpr posterize filters posterize where available. I definitely think there is a wider user base for it than one might assume.
Also, why I like the Keyshot-Zbrush package, I still see great use for the Zbrush internal render, especially for anything that doesn’t require ultra photo realistic rendering. BPR is super quick and if you take some time to explore it, you can get really nice results out of the box or for further compositing.

or may be instead of toon render its actually a drawing that can be converted to mesh and drawn inside of zbrush …

BPR is definitely still an interesting renderer. The only thing I really miss is reflections, but I guess then the ZBrush developers would need to cross the border between trickery and real ray-tracing.

Blender has a nice new realtime renderer called Eevee. It’s got Global Illumination, reflections and refractions, and it’s a breeze not having to wait for a rendering to finish.

What I really want the Pixo team to implement is if I bring a character in from another program when I export it all the surfaces are gone and I have to redo them… this is really important for my work flow to have those kept in tact. I’ve got work arounds but it would be nice to have to worry about loosing all of those. Quite annoying
Also in the exciting world of real cloth draping, it would be nice if Pixo had their own set up for that. Just my little wish list!

Is there a link on YouTube with all the new and updated features that were listed in the first post?

Thanks kindly!

Here you go https://youtu.be/OLbo3WXMhxw

Thanks so much Julian! :smiley:

Thanks for the video link Julian.

Personally, I would love more import and export compatibility in ZBrush. For example, it would be great if you could export an FBX that contains painted layers as multiple vertex color channels. Then you could paint masks on several layers in black and white Polypaint, and use those vertex channels to create flexible textures in an external renderer, such as Blender’s Eevee or Cycles. Too bad Keyshot only offers half-baked vertex color support, purely for ZBrush exports with Polypaint.

Great work that you have done. Thanks for sharing your efforts.

My pleasure :slight_smile:

This was a live counter to the ZBrush 2019 release, but I believe something went wrong regarding the PST noon time input. :o

Uncanny. Our User names are very very similar. :roll_eyes:small_orange_diamond:D