ZBrush

Pixologic ZBrush is a digital sculpting and painting program that has revolutionized the 3D industry with its powerful features and intuitive workflows. Built within an elegant interface, ZBrush offers the world's most advanced tools for today's digital artists. With an arsenal of features that have been developed with usability in mind, ZBrush creates a user experience that feels incredibly natural while simultaneously inspiring the artist within. With the ability to sculpt up to a billion polygons, ZBrush allows you to create limited only by your imagination.

Designed around a principle of circularity, the menus in ZBrush work together in a non-linear and mode-free method. This facilitates the interaction of 3D models, 2D images and 2.5D Pixols in new and unique ways.

ZBrush gives you all of the tools needed to quickly sketch out a 2D or 3D concept and then take that idea all the way to completion. You can create realistic renders directly in ZBrush with lighting and atmospheric effects. With the many powerful export options, you can easily prepare your model for 3D printing or use within any other digital application.

Because ZBrush users are enabled by its powerful software processing, you can sculpt and paint with millions of polygons with out having to worry about purchasing expensive graphics cards. It is for this reason why ZBrush is used by everyone from art enthusiast to major film and games studios.

ZBrush 4R2 introduces significant new sculpting features, as well as major enhancements within the Best Preview Render (BPR) system.

DynaMesh, the new base mesh generator, will allow you to realize your concepts via a workflow that ignores the traditional geometry barrier. To gain an unparalleled accuracy with your brush, the new Lazy Curve Mode allows precise strokes to your mesh whether in symmetry mode or not. The capability to apply an environment HDRI (High Dynamic Range Image) to the new LightCap system will give your finished images a remarkable level of believability.

DynaMesh

ZBrush 4R2 revolutionizes digital modeling and unleashes your creative power by delivering a topological-free sculpting process with new tools like DynaMesh. When sculpting with traditional techniques, polygons become stretched and difficult to work with. Now with a quick gesture, ZBrush will instantly generate a new sculpting-friendly model with uniform polygon distribution. This makes it possible for you to focus only on the visual aspects of your model, without worrying about its underlying geometry.

Freedom of Creation

DynaMesh is The New Base Mesh that has no limitations to what it can become. Starting from a sphere to create a character head is an easy process but DynaMesh will allow you to create a whole character from that very same sphere with no uneven geometry!

Consider what it's like to work with clay. As you stretch clay out or add volume to it, the clay itself retains the same basic consistency and the same capacity for detail across its surface. DynaMesh brings that experience to the digital world.

The magic behind the DynaMesh is its ability to regenerate geometry in a blink of the eye, removing all stretched polygons by creating a surface optimized for sculpting and with equal distribution of polygons across the surface. Don't be afraid to stretch your model to create legs, arms, columns, or whatever else comes to mind in your creative process. There are now no limits to what your starting point can evolve into.

Inserting Elements to Your DynaMesh

With DynaMesh the ability to recreate geometry with one flick of the wrist opens new ways to combine several meshes together to create one new complete model such as integrating a pre-sculpted ear into your head mesh. On top of that, DynaMesh brings freedom to cut out surface forms or even create holes in your geometry. This capability is equivalent to the well-known Boolean operations, except that with DynaMesh your result will be a perfectly uniform and easily sculpted mesh. Using the already loaded ZBrush primitives and a few flicks of the pen will allow for a complex result that would have been extremely difficult and time consuming to build in a more traditional way.

You can create a library full of noses, ears, heads, arms or any thing else you come up with. Then with the help of the Insert Mesh brushes you can add these shapes to any sculpt. The result is a creative process that will have few boundaries and incredible speed.

DynaMesh is for More Than Just Sculpting

With DynaMesh you can more easily cut a model into two or more pieces using the new Slice brush combined with the Group option. Use the Insert Mesh brushes to create intricate parts for 3D printing and when done, use the new Create Shell function to add an internal thickness to your model.

These different operations deliver the ability to create a figure that is ready for 3D printing faster then ever before.

Sculpting Updates

In addition to DynaMesh, ZBrush 4R2 delivers a powerful set of new tools, functions and features. These include a new Curve mode that can be used with any Stroke type, a Clay Polish topology modifier and several new sculpting brush presets. When combined with the existing ZBrush features, these will empower your creative juices like never before.

Curve Mode

A new Curve mode has been added to the Stroke palette, allowing you to apply your brush strokes with all their settings and modifiers along a defined curve. This curve can be drawn out along the surface of your sculpt or even continue the curve off your model to create integrated pieces like horns, arms, fingers and so much more.

To apply the Curve mode to any brush, just enable the Curve Mode button found in the Stroke palette. Draw your path on (or off) the model. Now click on the curve you just drew -- your selected brush will be applied along the curve. The Curve mode even allows you to change the intensity and size of your stroke along the curve’s path!

Thanks to its dynamic ability, the curves can be adjusted even after the initial drawing of the curve to refine the position of your stroke over you model. The Curve Mode will allow editing of PolyPaint, masking, geometry or sculptural detail at any point of the process. Curve Mode brings you the freedom of fine refinement, but will also allow you to mix different brushes with the same curve.

With Curve mode, creating patterns on a surface can be as easy as selecting the right alpha with any brush. You can even stretch any piece of geometry along the curve with brushes like the Mesh Insert brush. Using the Curve mode in association with DynaMesh will allow you to generate anything from simple to extremely complex volumes in just a few clicks. Or expand your existing creations, no matter whether they are organic or hard surface style models.

Clay Polish

This one-click function will apply a topological modification to your model to alter the geometry by sharpening its edges. It can also create a clean surface between two sharp-angled edges.

By modifying the Clay Polish parameters, you can drastically change its result. For example, it can give your model a clay weld look, as if the two pieces were welded together.

Clay Polish can be combined with DynaMesh. This further enhances the feel of real clay sculpting in ZBrush 4R2, making it look even more like you’re adding real clay strips to the surface!

New 3D Brushes

To help all these new additions maximize their potential, several new brushes have also been added. Many of these are variation of the existing brushes you already know and love, combined with the new features to open all new possibilities. There are now brushes that will allow you to instantly add a nose or ear to your mesh or even use the new CurveMesh brushes to draw out lines of geometry.

On top of the brush advancements already talked about, there is a new SliceCurve brush. This brush will allow you to slice your model while adding new faces along the cut and can also create two different polygroups at the same time. When used with DynaMesh and the Group option, SliceCurve will create independent parts of a model, ready for manipulation.

Extra brushes have been added to open new ways to deform your model quicker then ever. The Curve Fill brushes allow you to draw a curve and with release of your cursor, the stroke is converted into a closed shape. This new mesh is ready to be sculpted or even continue to refine the mesh after the curve has already been drawn. the new Curve Lath brush will create a revolution based mesh from your drawn curve. This is a new way to quickly create a base mesh or even props in just seconds.

BPR Enhancements

Introduced in ZBrush 4.0, the Best Preview Render has now seen drastic enhancements. ZBrush 4R2 brings you the ability to integrate your models within a 360° environment and adjust scene lights using the new LightCap designer.

The enhancements don't stop there! For example, all materials have seen the addition of a Wax effect. You also now have the ability to tweak your final render with the new BPR Filters, taking your final image to the next level.

Environment Map Support

Use your favorite panoramic images as a background in ZBrush and integrate your model into the environment’s lighting and coloring at render time. Whether your image is 8 BIT or full HDRI, using it as an environment is one click away. You have complete control over this environment including changes in longitude or latitude to choose your point of view. To improve the integration, the default ZBrush floor grid is treated as a shadow catcher, creating an invisible ground plane which will receive the object shadows. Simply load your background image, select an appropriate material and render the next masterpiece.

Lightcap Creation

ZBrush 4R2 introduces the LightCap Designer: a real-time material light modifier. In astonishingly little time you can create scene lighting from an environment, create lights with alpha shapes applied and even add texture to a light to fit the needs of your render.

You can even create lights and then use the LightCap Designer to convert these to an environment for your render, resulting in more accuracy and allowing more creativity in your process.

Expand More with ZBrush Materials

MatCap lovers now have even more power at their fingertips. It’s now possible to dramatically refine MatCaps using just a few new sliders: change hue, saturation, orientation and much more. This can be done with the MatCaps you create or any from our library in the DownloadCenter. Any one MatCap now offers thousands of possibilities!

Once done creating your materials, use the new Wax modifier to add an effect to your model that resembles Subsurface Scattering — but without all the effort! A single slider adjusts the material’s temperature to be cool or hot.

We’ve also eliminated the rendering artifacts that can occur when multiple materials come in contact on an object’s surface. Combine as many materials as you wish on one model and use the new Material Blend-Radius slider for a smooth material blend at render time.

Speed Up the Render Process

The ZBrush render engine benefits from several core enhancements in version 4R2. Its kernel is now 32 BIT, producing more accurate renders and even more crisp images. To see the difference, just open your previous projects in ZBrush 4R2 and re-render.

Wherever possible, ZBrush 4R2 will store shadows, ambient occlusion and subsurface scattering in memory for a quick re-render. This dramatically reduces waiting time while you tweak materials and colors to arrive at your finished result. You can afford more time for scene setup because you’ll spend less time waiting for a each render.

BPR Filters

Even with a great lit scene and amazing materials, many renders still find themselves in a 2D image editor for final tweaking. Thanks to the BPR filters in ZBrush 4R2, you can make many adjustments directly within ZBrush. Add Sharpness to the whole scene or just the model. Add a Depth of Field filter on top of that. Finish things off by changing the shadow colors with a Color filter. All while remaining in ZBrush!

These BPR filters can affect Shadows, Ambient Occlusion, Mask, Fresnel, Subsurface Scattering and much more.