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Monday, March 24, 2008

Detailing Next-Gen Characters in ZBrush



+ Digital-Tutors, a leading provider in video-based training for emerging digital artists, today announced the availability of ‘Detailing Next-Gen Characters in ZBrush’ - an interactive training product developed to teach artists a production-based workflow to digital sculpting and character development for use in next-generation games. ‘Detailing Next-Gen Characters in ZBrush’ contains over five hours of project-based training for artists learning the creative processes of character refinement and pipeline integration with ZBrush 3, the award-winning integrated modeling, texturing, and illustration environment developed by Pixologic®, which is widely used throughout feature films and games.
Popular highlights from ‘Detailing Next-Gen Characters in ZBrush’ include: character refinement, adding appeal for enhancement, additive sculpting techniques, subtractive sculpting techniques, UV tools and techniques, creating usable UV layouts, strategically combining UV shells, preparing geometry for sculpting, exporting geometry from Maya, importing geometry to ZBrush, appending subtools, morph targets, subdividing geometry, sculpting organic shapes, masks and deformation for detail, adding flexibility with 3D layers, stencils to add details, creating custom alphas, hard surface detailing, integrating geometry with detail, combining brushes and strokes, adding texture with alphas, exporting normal maps, using ZMapper to create normal maps, and applying normal maps in Maya.

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Wednesday, March 12, 2008

SubTool Master for ZBrush



+ pixologic has released a new ZBrush plugin that gives you greater control over your SubTools. SubTool Master is a plugin designed to simplify many operations involving SubTools. It also includes checking mechanisms to help avoid common mistakes that can arise when working with SubTools. SubTool Master allows you to mirror, duplicate, merge, export all your subtools at once, fill all your subtools with color and/or materials and many other things.
Installation Instructions:
- Download SubTool Master to hard drive
- Unzip the zip file to your ZBrush3\ZStartup\ZPlugs folder.
- Make sure that your unzipping program preserves the folder structure of the plugin otherwise it will not work. (In Winzip this is the 'use folder names' option. In WinRar check 'use relative paths' in the Advanced options.)

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Thursday, October 11, 2007

ZAppLink v3 for Zbrush



+ Pixologic, Inc. has announced the release of ZApplink Version 3 for Zbrush. ZAppLink 3 is a ZBrush plugin that allows you to seamlessly integrate your favorite image editing software into your ZBrush workflow. Call up your image editing package while in ZBrush, use it to modify the active ZBrush document or tool, and then go straight back into ZBrush. Some of the ZApplink features includes; # Create New ZBrush Layers in Photoshop # Store views for your model to be painted in your image editing software # Create ZBrush Stencils in Photoshop via selection tools and many more.
For full features list and free download of ZAppLink - Click Here

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Monday, August 13, 2007

CGnews Tid-Bits*


+ e-on software, makers of Vue, the leading solutions for natural 3D environments, and creators of the breakthrough spectral atmosphere technology announced the immediate availability of Ozone 3.0 for 3DS Max, Cinema4D, LightWave, Maya and XSI. Ozone 3.0 is a complete solution for creating and rendering scenes with real 3D clouds and spectral atmospheres.
+ 3dm3 has posted a new 3ds Max rendering tutorial/making-off by Emre Goren, about how he rendered 3d model of yellow Ferrari.
+ Hyperfocal Design is proud to announce the release of its new Night Skies “mini collection”. Night Skies is available on DVD and contains 14 night and twilight images, including two bonus HDR moon images. The images in Night Skies measure 10,000X2,500 pixels in TIFF format.
+ E-on Software Ships Vue 6 xStream for Macintosh OSX. Vue 6 xStream offers CG professionals a complete toolset to integrate their Maya, LightWave or Cinema4D projects in rich and realistic natural 3D environments.
+ VFX powerhouse Framestore CFC has built a repository of knowledge and technique for animating realistic animals. The commercials team reveals its trade secrets to 3D World – and explains why it recently had to relearn everything.
+ Pixologic has announced ZBrush 3.1. Update and its now available for download. ZMapper and Displacement Exporter have been ported for ZBrush 3.1 to allow more flexibility for exporting your sculpt. Check out what its like to sculpt in the new ZBrush.
+ Softimage announces Face Robot version 1.8 and XSI 6.5 with a new pricing scheme. Built on the XSI 6 core, Face Robot 1.8 makes it easier than ever to create compelling 3D facial animation.
+ NewTek, Inc., has announced the availability of LightWave® v9.3, during SIGGRAPH 2007, August 7th – 11th. This is the second in a series of free updates to the Emmy®-award winning 3D application. LightWave v9.3 provides improvements in rendering technology, including: the ability to render lines with photo realistic motion blur; two new sub-surface scattering shaders that are significantly faster than earlier shaders, and higher quality as well; various performance enhancements throughout the product; as well as numerous maintenance improvements.
+ Autodesk, Inc. will be supporting designers through sponsorship of the VisMasters Design Modeling and Visualization Conference (DMVC), to be held in San Diego from August 9 to 11, 2007. VisMasters DMVC conferences are hosted in North America and Europe. These events offer professionals from the design, modeling and visualization industries a platform to learn, network and influence the direction of their industries.
+ Ben Rogall releases Binder for XSI, an alternative to displacement mapping. The concept of this plugin is as an alternative to displacement mapping. If you have a low-poly base object to animate/deform in XSI and a corresponding high-poly sculpted version, this plugin will bind the high-poly version (as an external file) to the base object. Then at render time the high poly detail is rendered, using the animation/deformation of the base object. For downloading Binder for XSI, please click here (via - xsiBase).
+ Massive Software announced availability of Massive, the artificial intelligence (AI) driven animation system, on the Windows platform. In its newly announced Version 3.0, available both on Linux and Windows, Massive delivers more power with dynamic hair and fur, lanes, layer simulations, subdivision surfaces, improved dynamics and more.
+ 3dTotal has recently published ''Making of Faydrums'' by a truly amazing artist with a beautiful imagination, Benita Winckler.
+ CgChannel has published an interview with Marco Dilucaa, the senior character modeler at Weta Digital. Read the 3d artist interview here.
+ 3Dconnexion, a Logitech company, today announced a public beta release of plug-ins that allow its line of 3D mice to support Blender, a free, open-source, 3D-content-creation software suite.

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Monday, July 02, 2007

ZBrush User Group Meeting 2007


+ Only Two days left to pack your bags and rush for Pixologic ZBrush User Group Meeting 2007. Snip: Join Gnomon School of Visual Effects in welcoming back Pixologic for our first User Group Meeting since the release of ZBrush 3. Learn how two artists: Meats Meier and Ian Joyner, use ZBrush to create models and illustration. In particular, Meats will be demonstrating his working processes when using ZBrush 3 for character creation and texturing and he’ll show his efficient methods of base model creation using Zspheres. Then, he will take the sculpture all the way to a final model, ready to animate in an external 3D package. Ryan Kingslien will also talk in-depth about ZBrush 3 and what it’s like to develop a next generation sculpting application. He’ll demonstrate how to look at it, how to understand the brushes and what it means, as a developer, to be thinking about a users experience............more info!!

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Friday, June 08, 2007

Digital-Tutors Announces New ZBrush 3 Training



+ Digital-Tutors, a leading provider in video-based training, today announced the availability of 'Introduction to ZBrush 3' and 'Sculpting Techniques with ZBrush 3' - the latest releases in a growing library of interactive training for emerging digital artists using ZBrush 3, the award-winning integrated modeling, texturing and illustration environment developed by Pixologic®. As part of the ZBrush 3 beta team, Digital-Tutors has developed a series of training solutions to teach new and experienced artists the powerful capabilities available in ZBrush 3. 'Introduction to ZBrush 3' and 'Sculpting Techniques with ZBrush 3' both provide 4 hours each of project-based training and deliver new methods and techniques for greater productivity - an ideal learning resources for all ZBrush artists.
Introduction to ZBrush 3 (link)
Highlights from 'Introduction to ZBrush 3' include: fast creation with Rapid Start Interface, 2.5D and ZBrush Pixols overview, sculpting with imported 3D geometry, Subtools for multiple 3D meshes, sculpting workflow overview, adding detail with alpha brushes, creating custom alphas, precision sculpting with stencils, freeform selections with Lasso tool, topological masking, reposing 3D meshes with Transpose, creating photographic-based materials with Matcap, building meshes with ZSpheres, adding new details with Mesh Extraction, refining details with 3D Layers, and additional lessons developed for artists new to ZBrush 3.
Sculpting Techniques with ZBrush 3 (link)
Highlights from 'Sculpting Techniques with ZBrush 3' include: importing base geometry, modifying ZBrush primitives, subdividing meshes, mesh extraction, sculpting with brushes, alphas, strokes, and stencils, additive and subtractive sculpting, combining multiple meshes with Subtools, creating poses with Transpose Tool, masking techniques, sculpting with 3D Layers, custom alphas, sculpting at progressively higher levels, Projection Master, sculpting with symmetry, creating a final turntable, and additional lessons developed to learn digital sculpting with ZBrush 3.

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Friday, June 01, 2007

Two Free Zbrush Tutorials by DT



+ Digital-Tutors has published two new handy video tutorials for recently released 3.0. In First Zbrush tutorial you will learn; How to use poses and new powerful feature "3D layers", which is introduced in release 3.0 of Zbrush. Using handy 3D layers system user can turn each individual layer on and off or even blend the poses stored in these 3D layers......lesson one!
The Second tutorial is workflow related, shows you how to maintain sculpted details of your 3d mesh while switching between ZBrush 3 and other 3D applications. Tutorial show you the exact method of exporting the base mesh from ZBrush, edit it in another application, and re-import it into ZBrush while keeping all the sculpted detail.........lesson two!

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Saturday, May 19, 2007

ZBrush 3.0 Finally Released



+ Highly anticipated Version 3.0 of Pixologic's 3d modeling and sculpting software Zbrush has finally released and available for instant download. Pixologic Say: "ZBrush 3 is the next step; the next step in the creation process; the step that liberates you from the restrictions of conventional software; the step that carries you beyond experience and knowledge and into pure imagination. Sculpt using materials that so closely resemble earth you'll wonder why your hands aren't dirty. Pose your sculpture as if you were moving its limbs with your hands rather than a stylus and a tablet. ZBrush's technology allows you to ignore technology altogether, transferring its power directly to your hands, hands that can be used to create, sculpt, imagine and cast your creations as heroes in your own journey." Do visit CGSociety who has compiled a nice comprehensive article on new Zbrush 3.0, which holds some videos exploring new features of Zbrush 3.0. These demo video and some other video's are also available on pixologic website.
Related Link -
CGS Article on Zbrush 3.0
Pixologic website

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Friday, September 08, 2006

3DT New ZBrush and Blender Tutorial*



- The CG artists homepage 3DTotal, has published an useful New ZBrush and Blender tutorial by Oskar Swierad and Kamil Makowski on creating 'Old Man'. Snip: In this Tutorial we will explain how we have created the artwork "Old man - Portrait". At the beginning - 3d modelling and unwrapping was done in Blender, detailing and rendering in Zbrush and some post production with Photoshop. You must be a bit familiar with these tools, the more advanced CG artists can do first and thelast part of this tutorial in different application...........Link!!
Related posts:
3D Modeling Tutorial - Body Beautiful
Zbrush Tutorial - Detailing Body Work
Free Tutorial : Sculpt with ZBrush
Tutorials : ZBrush and XSI Integration
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Tuesday, August 01, 2006

3D Modeling Tutorial - Body Beautiful


- Computer arts, has published new tutorial by CG artist Alessandro Baldasseroni , who explains how to make an anatomically correct Human 3d model . Alessandro ; The cover star of 3D World 75 is actually an unclothed version of a character I had already created for a series of images on my website. The model was crafted in 3ds Max using subdivision surfaces, with Photoshop used for texturing, ZBrush for all the fine anatomical-details, and Brazil r/s for rendering. However, the original model lacked detail, mainly because the figure was originally created with clothes. For the purposes of the cover, it was necessary to show this very fine anatomical detail, so I generated normal maps in ZBrush to achieve the desired level of realism. The tutorial is in .PDF format and support files are also available for download......Give it a shot !!
More Tutorials by ComputerArts:

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Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Zbrush Tutorial - Detailing Body Work



- Computerarts has posted very comprehensive Zbrush tutorial about modeling the human body. The tutorial explains how to recreate the fine details of the torso and arms of a male figure. The rough 3d model, posed as a low-resolution mesh has modeled in Maya, and then detailed work was carried out in ZBrush. The tutorial has been broken down into several sections, each covering a single part of the body. The base mesh is also available for download along with the tutorial in .PDF format (21mb)..................download tutorial!
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Monday, June 05, 2006

Tutorial : Detective in Zbrush!



- Snehal Gopal have created this character of Detective in Zbrush, for getting familiarized with Zbrush and explore its various aspects. Now, In this brief tutorial Gopal explains how he modeled, textured and rendered the character using Zbrush. You may download (.pdf) or read Tutorial -"Making of Suraagh Rusaan - The Detective", which is featured on CgArena and 3dm3.com.
Related links:
Detective in Zbrush-CgArena ( Html)
Detective in Zbrush- 3DM3.com ( HTML+ .PDF)
Tags: Zbrush . Zbrush Tutorials

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Monday, May 01, 2006

LightWave3D to zbrush and back Guide!!


LightWave3D to zbrush and back Guide by Carlo Macchiavello..CGI
- Carlo Macchiavello publish this guide to help all lightwaveuser to work better and fine with zbrush 2.0. The Guide describe two diffrent workflows; 1)Modeling in Lightwave3D, detailing and sculpting in Zbrush, animation and rendering in Lightwave3D. 2) Modeling in Zbrush, animation and rendering in Lightwave3D. Download this guide to improve your workflow in Lightwave and Zbrush......Download Link!!
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Monday, April 10, 2006

Free Tutorial : Sculpt with ZBrush!!



Exploring the power of organic sculpting package, ZBrush
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- The world of visual effects has been revolutionised by tools like ZBrush. Far more accessible than the first generation of modelling software, this organic sculpting package enables artists with limited technical expertise to turn their designs into 3D models, bridging the gap between concept art and final digital product. 3D World has published a new Zbrush tutorial, in which CG Artist Zack Petroc explains the techniques he uses to transform a simple low-res mesh into a terrifying creature..You can download the tutorial files (50mb) and .pdf tutorial files for free from thier webs