Zbrush and Mudbox - What are they?

Well..upon a tiny bit of research, it seems that people consider Mudbox to be along the same vein as Zbrush.

I've looked at pages about both..but still not really sure what they are..or more specifically, how they work. All I've learned is the obvious..they are brush based. At the moment I can't try out either because I'm at school and the computer would explode, but I'll probably try it later today or this week. But I'm still unsure of what it is.

SO my question: How do you work with them? It sound like you paint your model onto the screen somehow, but how can you do that in a 3d model capacity? It sounds extremely interesting but at the same time extremely confusing.

Any info at all would help =P
Also, it seems based on the gallery stuff that it would be very hard to make something that would translate well to a sculpty, though I'm probably wrong...am I?

THanks ^^

-Oki

After watching one of the 'see mudbox in action' videos (I didn't think the computers here would be able to handle it honestly lol.. these things suck) it looks like you start with a basic model, and then essentially edit it by painting 'dents' or rises into it? Still confused lol... but seeing how quickly a shapeless block was turned into a car..and how easily.. wow. So far looks absolutely amazing.. at least mudbox, still haven't looked much at zBrush

EDIT:: Looking at the gallery for both.. they seem to have some of the most detailed models I have ever seen in any capacity.. I do believe I'll be buying one of them if I try it and find it isn't impossible for me...but I still don't even know how it works lol

They're really intended for folks that want to do organic modeling/sculpting, and definitely aren't for somebody who wants to make a building.

ZBrush has far more abilities than Mudbox. As well as sculpting, ZBrush gives the user the ability to paint directly onto the surface of their model and even add lighting to it (kind of). Mudbox can only do sculpting (for now).

The worst thing about ZBrush is that it uses something called a 2.5D canvas which in my view makes the program unnecessarily weird to use. But it does this because when ZBrush first arrived onto the scene, home computers weren't powerful enough to deal with 3D models made from a billion of polygons.

These days computers are much faster and so we can now have programs like Mudbox which makes the whole process so easy that even your granny could use it.


and you're right, they do have the most detailed models ever. Even professional Maya users (except Chosen Few) will create a rough model in Maya and then take it into ZBrush or Mudbox and add the detail. They do this because Maya's sculpting tools are just TOTALLY CRAP.

Was it really necessary to carry over an argument from a different thread?

Both apps are really useful for taking a low poly model and using the sculpting tools to detail it (which can result in a model with millions of polygons), then creating a normal map of the difference between the low poly and high poly versions. The normal map can then be used in a game engine (or other rendering engine) to render the low poly model as if it were the high poly one without the overhead of having to actually render all the polys of the high detail model. They're both also excellent organic modelers in general. Zbrush is also a 3d paint app. I've never used mudbox, but Zbrush has an interface that makes baby Jesus cry. It's very difficult to wrap your brain around (at least for me).

"but Zbrush has an interface that makes baby Jesus cry" LOL! So true!

Chip, I'm trying to figure out what you mean, creating a normal map between the high res and low res version.
Does that mean that we can sculpt a more detailed sphere in Zbrush (higher polygon count) and create a normal map that can then be uploaded into SL at the correct resolution?

This is one thing I've never totally understood, is why does the number of vertices matter if when the texture is made to use as the sculpty map, it is now pixels. Would a sculpty map made from a higher res object be usable in SL if the map (the colorful 'rainbow' bumpmap) was just lowered in resolution, pixel-wise?
Hope I'm making sense!

I can see how it wuold be more useful for organics, which I do modelling in general.. the sculpties I do will likely not be as natural is all I meant in th other thread. I like modelling just about anything, trying to get it accurate

But I'm going to have to disagree that it isn't useful for architectural. Quite the opposite... with such fine detailing you can make the most realistic buildings ever seen graphically. You can detail wood to be at least semi grained, without bump mapping (I love and hate bump maps lol), as well as tons of other things.. carpet can be give ruts and such based on exactly where traffic flow would likely be on an older building, wood can be aged ad chipped, metals can be dented, dinged and scratched, cloth can be given fine detailing in its folds and waves... every aspect of anything, quite literally, benefits from this type of detailed modelling... it may be more noticable in things like faces where wrinkles are very visible or trees where knots and curves are obviously there... but with such fine detailing you can also capture the imperfection inherent in man-made objects, and the wear and tear that time creates.. you can make the most accurate scenes ever essentially, whether it is organic, ancient, futuristic, man-made, ethereal..anything.

However.. my initial question hasn't really been answered. Yes, takes low poly and makes it more detailed and increases poly count and whatnot, but is it how I assumed earlier? Do you essentially paint in curves and dents and wrinkles, or is it more complex than that? Also, is basic modelling possible in it, to begin a model as well as detail it? Like you said, pros might bring their models in to do fine details but... do you have to bring in a model, or can you make something basic and then paint the major *and* minor details on?

Also, how well would a model detailed in it work as a sculpty, if at all? Would it essentially revert to the original undetailed model or what?

I don't think the other models texture would wrap correctly, or stretch correctly on a less detailed object, as then the point where changes are made is changed.. so it might make it change in the wrong place.. if I'm making sense.

Alas, no. SL's sculpt maps are similar to normal maps but not the same. Sculpt maps are more like displacment maps that move the actual mesh vertexes around. A normal map is more like a bump map. It doesn't change the mesh itself. I instructs the renderer where to draw each pixel of a polygon surface. The RGB values of each pixel in a normal map translate to XYZ coordinates just like sculpt maps, but instead of telling the renderer where to move a vertex, they tell it "take this pixel from this polygon and offset it by an XYZ value." A sculpt map can't make an object look more detailed than it actually is. A normal map can make a 1000 polygon object look like it's a million polygon object whithout much additional strain on the system. It's a shader effect.

We may get normal map support some day. The new water shader in WindLight uses a normal map to create the waves, so it's probably only a matter of time before we can use similar shaders on objects and avatars. How much time is anyone's guess.



It matters because SL uses the sculpt map to describe the physical location of each of the sculpt objects vertexes in 3d space.

Having said that, it doesn't matter entirely when creating an object in a modeler to create a sculpt map from, depending on the method you use. Some sculpt map makers like Shack Dougall's SculptGen for 3ds max use the location of the model's vertexes to create the sculpt map so you have to use a mesh with the correct number of vertexes. But, if you use a texture based method like Abu's sculpty material for Max the number of verts doesn't matter, as long as the object has the correct type of UV mapping. It won't work well if your object is a lot more complex than can be described by 1024 verts in SL, and you need to try and keep a fairly even distribution of vertexes in your model, but if it has more or less actual verts it won't make much difference. The color of each pixel on the sculpt map is determined by wherever the portion of the polygon it's on is in 3d space, not the location of the verts.

Sorry if that's all greek. It's not easy to explain.

!!!

haha, I know. I've been working in 3d for a decade and a half and taught classes in it for most of that time, so you'd think I'd have proper spelling of that confounded word down pat, but I seem to have a genetic defect that prevents it. If that's the only problem with my explanation I can live with that. Deep breaths, Johan.

A. Maya's sculpting tools are NOT totally crap. If you can't get them to work to your satisfaction, then I'm sorry for you. I can.

B. I already said I think both Mudbox and Zbrush are great at what they do. What more do you want?

C. You appear to be trying to force a simple difference of opinion into becoming an all out argument. That's really not cool. I think we'd all appreciate it if you'd stop now.

D. As others have stated, carrying over arguments from one thread to the next is extremely bad form. If you want to continue the discussion from the other thread, do so in that thread, and only that thread. Otherwise, just let it drop. No one needs to read about it here. This will be the last I'll speak of it outside that other thread. Please respond in kind.



Now, back to your regularly scheduled on-topic discussion. Sorry for the slight diversion, everyone. I just felt something needed to be said on this.

I think somebody needs a hug!

So, does this mean that someone (eventually me ), could make realistic organic sculpties for SL using ZBrush, Mudbox, or Maya? The images in the galleries of these programs are very impressive but can this level of detail be created in SL?

My main interest is building organic shapes in SL (organs, cells, tissues) for teaching purposes. I would be happy to buy any of these programs (or any others) that would help me accomplish this for SL. I'm not averse to learning a new program/platform but I also don't intend to be a professional 3-D designer/modeler. Would I just be better off hiring a pro to do this?

I know, I ask a lot of questions .

Thanks in advance,

Doug

You won't be able to produce the level of detail from those gallery models, no. However, you can come pretty convincingly close by employing surface transfer techniques. As Chip mentioned, you can take a low poly model (a sculpty), and then create a much more detailed secondary copy of it. Then you can transfer much of the visual appearance of the high poly version to low poly original, output a texture bake, and the results can look spectacular. The extra geometry won't actually be there, but the highlights and shadows of the texturing will make it look like it is.

You may be better off hiring a pro, considering the steep learning curve involved in using a program like zbrush for the general user.

I'm not a professional digital artist, just a hobbyist, and after playing around with the zbrush demo (I highly recommend getting it to get an idea what it would take to do even the simplest 3D modeling and later export for SL) I have to say that zbrush has some impressive tools for sculpting (in its general sense, not SL sculptie related necessarily) but it's not like using a 2D image editor and having to learn what an alpha channel is - it's way more advanced than that.

I think if you get to the point that you can sculpt a heart, for example, for display on SL using zbrush, and you know how to use the processes Chosen Few mentioned about projecting higher detail images onto lower detail objects in SL, then you'll definitely be able to get a job as a 3D modeler - at least a part time one.

I haven't played with Mudbox yet so I don't know how it compares with Zbrush. If it has documentation geared towards beginners in 3D modeling it may have an advantage over Zbrush, which is mostly targeted to experienced users who already have the skills for doing what it is they want to do but are looking for an alternate or better way of doing it using Zbrush.

So if you get the demo start with the help documentation and all the introductory videos on their site and see how far you'll be willing to go and how much time you'll want to spend being skilled in a new profession

Thanks Chip - I really don't completely understand the explanation, but thank you
At least, now I know it does matter how many polygons even if I don't understand why it makes a difference.... numbers and polygons and vertices, oh my!

My artistic, bad-at-numbers-and-math-and-code brain just kinda sees this when reading that: wlekjlsdijfoidnflskdnfoaiwerwknerlksndfoisdflknlkdnfgi! LOL