ZBrush vs. Maya

I've spent a maddening amount of time trying to figure out what all the 3D programs do. I've learned little. I hate hype.

I now own a Maya book. I wish I could buy a Zbrush book.

Is anyone familiar enough with both of these programs to briefly describe why one costs four times what the other does? For creating SL content, what, if anything, is missing in Zbrush?

What I want to do...

1) create sculpted prims, of course
2) create 3D scenes with lighting and re-bake the textures with lighting effects (architecture and avatars)

Thanks,
Anna

ZBrush is made almost exclusively for organic modeling and works like sculpting.

Maya uses NURBS, polygon modeling, and subdivision modeling and includes a large animation, rendering, and texturing toolset. Basically, Maya does everything.

To add to what Stavros said, Maya is a platform, not just an application. It can do literally everything you'd ever need to do with 3D, and more. Granted, it might not do each specific task as efficiently as dedicated applications do, but it's not supposed to. Part of its power is that it's set up to work in conjunction with all kinds of other programs (including ZBrush), so that if any one application happens to be better for you at any one thing than Maya is, you can use that program for that task, and then bring the results into Maya afterwards to put it all together with everything else.

By comparison, ZBrush is a one-trick pony. It excels at organic modeling, and it's got lots of tools to that effect that Maya does not have, but it's not a fully fledged start-to-finish 3D platform like Maya is.

Think of Maya like a Swiss Army Knife while ZBrush is more like a scalpel. The Swiss Army Knife can do everything under the sun, but it might not be your first tool of choice if you needed to do surgery. Of course, you could use the Swiss Army Knife for that if you really wanted to, but the scalpel will be a better choice for that one task, since that's what it's specifically designed for. So, if you know that all you'll ever be doing is surgery, then the scalpel is what you should get. If you want to do all kinds of things, get the Swiss Army Knife. If you want to specialize in surgery, but still be able to do all those other things too, get both.

Make sense?

Before someone goes off to buy Maya (which aint exactly cheap!), may I suggest trying out Maya PLE (Personal Learning Edition)?? This way you get to try it for free. Mostly its used by game modders for making assets for published games, such as the UnReal Tournament series. You could say its the "Hobbyist" version. While its not as robust as the full versions of Maya, its enough for someone to learn on.

First, I'm not a 3D modeler.. or really an artist of any type. I'm a programmer/scripter. That being said I know several 3D modelers in RL and have watched them work, and discussed the various programs with them a few times. They are 3ds Max users rather than Maya, but from what I understand the capabilities of the two are pretty much the same.

Now with the preambles out of the way, this seems to be the work flow that I see them use (on much larger projects than what you will probably do for SL). They will use 3ds Max to do the initial model creation, setting up of bones, etc. Then they will take the model into Zbrush for fine detail work and the creation of maps and texturing.

My experience with zBrush is pretty much nil, but from my understanding of the program it seems like it may be a good tool for creating sculpted prims, since in zBrush you start with a zOrb and deform it.. which is pretty much what a sculpted prim will be.. a sphere deformed.

I've paid $224.19 to upgrade to Win XP Pro so I can do just that. That's an expensive free program

I too have been going nuts researching 3D modeling software and trying out Maya PLE and Blender. I am about 90% decided to buy zbrush. They do have a free 30 day demo which I have not gotten to work (mac version) but I may call them about it if I find the time today. Zbrush looks like a good tool for making sculpted prim avatars which I am burning to try.

LOL! Its still cheaper than Maya Unlimited - $6999 (which just Rawks! Even though I could buy a decent used car for that price)

Another good one, that I really just never got around to using, is SoftImage XSI. Does some really nice stuff!! Also expensive!

just a some additional words

Maya is actually THE film industry working horse. Its been long in development and any big effects studio ( i.e. ILM, Weta Digital, Digital Domain etc.) have their own custom made pipeline that works with maya - ZBrush is one part of it.

Like u do sculpting your model in clay, laserscan it, mesh clean up in maya, export to zbrush for displacement map generation (i.e. sculpting finest details - ZBrush is best at that) and maybe texture painting but i think photoshop in combination with 3D Paint apps is still their favorite, all this goes back into maya for animation rigg creation and then one final day to their renderfarm to get "Rendermaned"

So maya got its power from a lot of customized tools - it comes with great ones from start but the "create cool looking scene" button is still missing

If u still like to take a look try the mentioned PLE version. If u like to start modelling I would suggest to go for Maxon Cinema 4D its not that expensive and has all features u need to do modelling, texture baking and so on...

Just try out their demo version.

Have fun and if u still got question just ask - hope I can answer them

CU
John

Sylvia, Zbrush 3 is coming out very soon I think. You my want to wait before getting zbrush 2 as there are some big differences as I understand.

Plus hopefully remaining inventories of 2 will be sold at a discount once 3 is released. I highly doubt the new features will be at all relevant to making sculpted prims, and that's what the OP is interested in.

Probably not, but it does look like it may have some cool new abilities for texturing them. Of course, now that Photoshop can directly do 3D, that may be irrelevant, but I was pretty impressed with what I saw of ZB3's painting tools.

According to info from makers of Zbrush the upgrade to 3 will be free.

Thank you all for your participation

Does anyone know anything about DAZ Productions' products?

Bryce
Carrara
Daz Studio
Hexagon

If I understand correctly...

Bryce: basic 3D modeling, advanced terrain tools
Carrara: advanced 3D modeling, intermediate terrain tools
Daz Studio: basic 3D modeling
Hexagon: intermediate 3D modeling

As I don't know which of the modeling tools I'm going to be most comfortable with, it'd make sense to choose Carrara to get the most capability, as Carrara isn't terribly expensive even in its pro flavor, but then how does it compare to the offerings of other companies?

Here's what I've learned so far.

3D Paint:

Ghost Painter - paint on 3ds max models using photoshop tools and see the result simultaneously in photoshop and 3ds max in real-time. Very cool, and only $345, but you need photoshop and max, too.

ZBrush - Paint on 3D objects. Also has basic 3D modeling. $500.

Deep Paint 3D - Paint on 3D objects. I hear it's really cool but their website is the most maddeningly content-free of any of these. $600.

Photoshop CS3 Extended - The new version has an easy but not real-time way to view 2D painting on a 3D model. $350 for the upgrade, $1000 for full product.

Body Paint 3D - Paint on 3D objects. $900. See Cinema 4D, below.

3D Modeling:

3ds Max or Maya - All the tools you'll need for animation and modeling, but other specialized tools may be better for specific tasks. $2000+ each. Why oh why does one company have to have two products of similar capability? How does one choose one over the other? The decision seems to be what you've worked with professionally, as most sane hobbyists don't buy these and most professionals have the decision made by their present or past employers.

Cinema 4D - Very capable animation package with some 3D modeling capability. $900 includes Body Paint 3D for the same price as Body Paint 3D, huh?

LightWave 3D - Animation and modeling. $800.

Carrara - Capable modeler for $250 or $550.

Bryce - Basic modeling for $100.

Daz Studio - basic, but...free!

Blender - pain in the butt, but...free!

If I understand correctly, sculpties will require NURBs, no?

3d max exporter pls!

I used Bryce years ago and remember it fondly. My research shows that Bryce has serious limitations for exporting objects. See http://www.brycetech.com/tutor/bryce/export.html

Also, the sculpty wiki reommends nurbs, but uv meshes will work if they meet certain contraints. See http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Sculpted_Prims

I have Bryce 6 and it has many export formats including the most common ones,
such as, 3ds and obj.

Autodesk only recently bought Maya, but the two programs have different strengths and weaknesses. Maya is better suited to a studio environment with people who work on specific tasks - coders to write custom Mel scripts, shader writers, lighting techs, riggers, modelers, etc. It's extremely powerful and capable but it's not the best choice for a one man shop. That's where Max excels. It's a bit easier to learn, may not be quite as capable in some areas, but it's the tool of choice for smaller shops, individuals, and game studios (though both Maya and XSI are making inroads there).

That has as much to do with history as with the capabilities of the applications. Maya came from Alias Power Animator which was really the first high end 3D animation app. Back in the day it cost around $30,000 (per year!) to license and was out of reach for all but large studios. Max evolved from 3d Studio which was the first (along with Lightwave) affordable 3d animation app that brought 3D within reach of everyone else.

I don't recommend that anyone buy either of them if your only interest is in creating content for SL. They're extremely complex and have enormous learning curves (and in Maya's case it's more like a learning right angle), and their use for SL is very limited.

Thanks, Chip. In another thread you recommended polygon or subdivision modeling for sculpties. Do you have another favorite tool for those, or do you use Maya or Max because you are already familiar?

Yes I was wondering the same...
I hear alot of people not recommending, but not really anyone saying what they do reccommend ...

I use Max because I've been using it professionally for a long time. It's an excellent subdivision modeler. The only reason I don't really recommend Max or Maya for SL work is that the price is difficult to justify if that's all you intend to use it for. You might want to take a look at Silo 3d which is only $109.

Working on it. It is not an exporter exactly but method(s) for setting up a mesh and using a material I will provide as well as examples. Hold onto your horses. No need for a plug-ins or scripts just the tools that are already provided. Draw back is it will be for Max5.1