With the introduction of 3.5, Pixologic introduced us to a sketching with Zspheres.   Gone is the need to develop a highly planned armature before sculpting.   Sculptors can now grow their base mesh model much like adding tubes or lumps of clay together and then skinning them to create a sculpt-able mesh.  The primary output of this workflow is what is referred to as a “unified skin” which is a sort of smoothed voxel construction in space.   Probably not an efficient animating form, but for sculpting it has the advantage of being relatively uniform mesh.   Pixologic has done considerable magic in their skin generators to handle branching forms (including the more traditionally used adaptive skins.)  In 3.5 R3, they have also added considerable features for defining edge loops by merely painting color on the surface of the model.   That’s right, in 3.5R3, you can just paint color on the surface of your sculpture and Zbrush with calculate an underlying topology to follow your colors.  It is a truely an amazing piece of technology in and of itself.

What’s more important is the sculpting tools.  While R1 and R2 offered us glimpses of the power we would see with unified skins, the clay brush types were the primary manipulators of the mesh for sculpting.   With the R3, a new category of polish brushes have been introduced.   They take a little getting used to, but the gist is this: press lightly, the buff and smooth your surface (like running a wet finger of over clay), press hard and they gouge into the surface or operate like a planer flattening tool.   It seems like a bit of an odd combination in words, but when in actual usage, the feel like the ideal detailing tools for working on hard body forms in virtual clay.

R3 also adds a Boolean system for Subtools, so many unique new forms can be quickly established from primitives including boring precise holes into surfaces or alternatively closing up holes or gaps.

Polygroups (essentially selections) have become quite powerful in R3.   They can be used to define selections, painted on textures, convert to masks, and even saved as textures (although this feature seems slightly experimental for some–use with caution.)   One of the best features is that brushes can be told to automatically mask their actions with the polygroup as you contact the surface of the polygroup, thus confining the brush to that group alone.   This will save tones of time detailing a model since hiding polygroups to get a a hard edge is no longer required.   (Try this with the layer brush and you’ll see what I mean.)

Projection tools a better than before.   This will be handy since unified skins aren’t always the best for animation.   With the projection tools a complex mesh can now be easily transferred (color/surface information included) to a more traditional mannequin which can be created through traditional Zsphere adaptive skins, a SDS modeler such as Modo, Topogun, or Zbrush’s own retopology tools.

Clearly Pixologic is committed to innovating Zbrush beyond any other sculpting product out there.   The fact that this innovation is free to existing customers of Pixologic is truly an amazing testament to their belief in supporting their customers (compare to Luxology’s $395 upgrade from 301 to 401  on Cinema4D’s latest “point-5″ upgrade weighing in at a hefty $695.)   Zbrush is a bargain the digital sculptor cannot overlook.

Details of the upgrade can be found here: http://www.luxology.com/modo/product_information/documents/modo401_Improvements.pdf.   The modelling, sculpting, painting, and UV sections I think speak for themselves.

The applications are immediately interesting.   GoZB promises to make jumping out to a polygon  modeler such as Modo to tweak topology and then back to ZB virtually effortless.   I’ll reserve judgment until I can try it for myself, but if it simplifies re-topology of ZB models (perhaps through more conserving reprojection algoilrithms) this will be a major advance for ZB4.  As those who have experienced it know, re-adjusting geometry in ZB3 currently has risks as reprojection from one topology to another shows different degrees of artifacts.   The simple examples in the video (add edge loop for example) don’t make it clear what will happen when more wholesale changes to the underlying geometry.  If it is really as seamless as marketed, GoZB promises a new era in topology management and bridging the world of polygonal-built & rigged models with the freedom of ZB sculpting.

The other advantage promised of GoZB will be the easy export of maps and models back to ZB-enabled applications.   While this path has been endlessly discussed among ZB users and though complicated, doable (given repairs to the displacement map generators), the simplicity actually will enhance the ability to go between test renders and model tweaking.   This will become indespensible in game and animation pipelines where tweaks are often needed to handle unpredicted artifacting in the deformation of models when animated.

First up for GoZB enabled applications: Maya, C4D, and Modo.   Brad Peebler acknowledged Modo’s involvement in the GoZB project in one of his webcasts.  Given the apparent lack of development in Modo painting and sculpting (at least as so far “revealed” over the past few months) this will be a good thing for the Modo community as it will allow easy access to more sophisticated sculpting solution without the pain of matching back and forth between Modo and ZB.

Still not addressed from my point-of-view is the model-creation side.   It feels like (despite some clever enhancements in the Modelling “reveal”) that Lux has stagnated here.    Very little has been said about sculpting or texturing.  That being said, Modo’s creatiion capabilities may be more restricted to traditional box-modeling (SDS) approaches as the performance of the sculpting solution is very limited when compared to more advanced solutions like Zbrush and Mudbox.    Similarly, I don’t see Modo 401 (yet) challenging Bodypaint’s more complete model painting environment.

So, 401 is shaping up as a bit of a risk for Luxology.   Not really the top modeler (though a very good one), not really a full animation package (though some interesting starts on basic object animation, hair and fibers), and a decent rendering system (though not quite as nice as a full nodal system.)  It’s a lot of middle, but I’m still waiting for Modo 401′s killer app to reveal itself.

Also, this week Pixologic announced ZBrush4.    The statement is:

ZBrush 4 to be released in August, 2009

Since its inception, Pixologic revolutionized the world of digital art. When ZBrush was unleashed, it became the tool of choice for artists by allowing them to bridge their richest imaginations with reality.

With each new release of ZBrush, came a fundamental change to the way artists created some of the world’s most groundbreaking artwork. Through out these past years, innovative new tools coupled with unparalleled leaps in performance, enabled artists to maximize their creativity.

THE REVOLUTION CONTINUES with ZBrush 4

As with previous versions of ZBrush, Pixologic is dedicated to develop tools that not only break the mold, but also reinvent it. ZBrush 4 offers significant enhancements to existing features, and a host of new innovative tools that will allow you to explore and ignite your imagination.

THE FUTURE BEGINS August 2009

ZBrush 4 will be a free upgrade for all registered users of ZBrush on Windows and Mac systems.

It looks like things are heating up in the sculpitng applicaiton market and ZBrush intends to keep in the game.