In nuce: At this year’s ZBrush Summit, Maxon unveiled some of the new ZBrush features that the developers are currently working on. Two different beta builds of ZBrush 2023 were shown, although it is still unclear whether the features demonstrated will be included in the next release – there is also no specific release date for the next ZBrush to date. According to cgchannel.com, however, a release date for next year has been hinted at. The ZBrush Summit 2022, linked below, was moderated by Maxon’s Senior Creative Director Louie Tucci and ZBrush Trainer Ian Robinson.
The ZBrush Summit – Day 3 – 2022
In toto: As Digital Production reported on 16 December last year , Pixologic, the original developer of the sculpting-slash-painting tool ZBrush, has been acquired by Maxon. This means that the current ZBrush, version 2022.0.6, is the last free update for users with a perpetual licence. Many of the commentators under the YouTube video for the ZBrush Summit were disappointed with the new functions, drawing conclusions about Pixologic’s acquisition. Nevertheless, here are some of the new features presented:
- Revised masking system: the new button called “Auto Area” is designed to automatically fill contiguous areas of an object surface – as long as these areas are between existing masks.
- ZRemesher retopology toolset is to be equipped with a new caching system, whereby ZBrush generates a cache during the first model remeshing – which should reduce the time required for subsequent remeshings. In addition, a Repeat button has been added; this allows remeshing to be repeated on the original geometry – but with new remeshing settings. This should make remeshing faster, as Jim Thacker writes on cgchannel. This is because there is no need to undo changes once they have been made. Furthermore, ZRemesher now has the vertex colour data Polypaints, which enables characters to be created earlier in the sculpting process. Polypaint is a 3D painting tool.
- Integrated Redshift renderer: This is accompanied by Redshift materials that can be dragged and dropped onto models in ZBrush. Their parameters should be customisable via sliders on the user interface (these include the parameters: Roughness, reflections, refractions, emission strength and others). Redshift renderings can also be combined with BRP filters, according to cgchannel, allowing colour tone, saturation and blurring to be refined afterwards. Beyond this, it is possible to bake a redshift rendering in Polypaint, whereby the lighting on the model surface is converted into vertex colour data.
Click further: All further information on ZBrush can be found at pixologic.com.
Source: cgchannel.com ( news from Jim Thacker)
