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“Rango” marks ILM’s first foray into full-cg animated films, and utilized a lot of their in-house expertise with Pixologic’s Zbrush.  Over at ZBrushCentral, they have an excellent writeup on how they built it all.

The general flow was to sculpt and texture a three-day ZBrush maquette for each character and after approval, start in on the asset. A first pass model was sent to rigging while the model asset continued to be refined, hair and fur splines added, scales added, UV’s laid out etc. Once the finished model had gone to paint, the modeler would start on the facial library. We had a few weeks for each character model including wardrobe and two weeks on average for making our facial libraries.

Pixologic :: Interview :: Rango.

Science ilm, movie, pixologic, software, vfx, zbrush

Pixologic just anounced on their forums that they’re preparing to add a new product to their stable of 3d modeling tools care of Tom Pettersson called ‘Sculptris’

Sculptris is the brainchild of the bright programmer Tomas Pettersson. Sculptris has captured the hearts of artists with its fun, intuitive and user-friendly interface – indeed a perfectly sweet companion to our big monster ZBrush! Tomas will be moving to California, from Sweden, to join our team. It is our pleasure to welcome Tomas and we look forward to a fruitful collaboration on future Pixologic projects.

You can download the early ‘raw baby’ Alpha 5 version at their site now, and check out the new forum they’ve created for it.  It currently only runs on Windows.

via ZBrushCentral – A Gift From Pixologic.

Graphics pixologic, software

ZBrush users eagerly anticipating version 3.5 for Wndows will definately want to head over to CGSociety to see some of the work done by some of the early beta testers.  In the article, they talk to Joseph Drust ( Senior Character Artist for Vicious Cycle Software), Scott Spencer (Character Designer for Weta Workshop), Ryan Kingslein (The Gnomon Workshop), Mia Lee (Creature Modeler at ILM), and several freelancers.  They show videos and screenshots of some of the new features as well.

CGSociety – Pixologic ZBrush 3.5..

Graphics interview, pixologic, software, zbrush

It’s a few days later than originally announced, but Pixologic came through and has just announced that ZBrush 3.5 for Windows is now available.  A short list of just a few things you have to look forward to:

• ZSpheres 2 and ZSketch
• Surface noise
• Brush noise
• Improved LazyMouse with Backtrack and Snap to Track modes
• New brushes such as Trim, Planar, Noise, Move, Spherical, Slide, Form, Flakes, Crumple and more
• New Brush Depth Masking to give complete brush control on a surface
• New MatCap materials for ZSpheres 2/ZSketch mode
• Gradient PolyPaint
• and much much more

It’s a free upgrade for existing ZBrush users, so go get it now!

via ZBrushCentral – *** ZBrush 3.5 for Windows RELEASED.

Graphics pixologic, software, vfx, zbrush

Pixologic has announced a new feature to be included in the new Zbrush3.5, a new version of their popular modeling tool ZSphere, called simply ZSpheresII.

They’re light on details, but from the video (on their site) you can see them quickly model a skeleton using the classic zSphere systems, then begin to add muscles, skins, and fine details on top of it, while keeping them all connected.

ZBrushCentral – *** Introducing ZSpheres II.

Graphics pixologic, software, zbrush, zsphere

Pixologic has dashed the hopes of graphics designers worldwide by delaying the much anticipated ZBrush 4 until Q4 2009.  The original August release will instead see ZBrush 3.5.  ZBrush 3.5 has several new features regarding SubTool, displacement and normal map options, and high-definition geometry.  But they’ve saved one ace in the hole to mend our broken hopes:

ZBrush 3.5 will also include one of the still unannounced key features of ZBrush 4. We are very excited to include this very powerful and creative new feature in version 3.5, and are sure that you will be too! An introduction to this feature will be made available here, at ZBC, within the next couple of weeks.

The Windows version of 3.5 will be released by the end of August, followed by a release of the OSX version in September. Following the release of 3.5, we will continue to refine ZBrush 4 and its features (such as LightBoxand Spotlight) for release in the 4th Quarter of 2009.

ZBrush 3.5 and ZBrush 4 will be released as free upgrades to all registered users.

via ZBrushCentral – ***Announcing ZBrush 3.5 and GoZ for Windows and MacOSX.

Graphics pixologic, software, zbrush

Pixelogic has just announced ZBrush 3.2 for Mac OSX is now available as a free upgrade to all ZBrush OSX Registered users.  This version includes:

• Preliminary versions of GoZ with support for Maya, Modo, and Cinema4D
• DecimationMaster & 3D PrintExporter
• and more

The update is available for download from their website.

ZBrushCentral – ****OSX Update: ZBrush OSX 3.2, GoZBrush, DecimationMaster, 3D PrintExporter..

Graphics osx, pixologic, software, zbrush

e-on software has partnered with Maxon, Pixologic, 3D Total, 3Dconnexion, Cornucopia3D and 3D World Magazine to announce the 4th annual Vue 3D Environment competition.

Any version of Vue – including the Pioneer and the Personal Learning Edition (PLE) which are available at no charge- can be used to enter the competition (standalone or in combination with any other 3D application).

Judging will be based solely on the quality, realism and artistic merit of the entries, not on the version of Vue used to create them.

Winners will be announced at SIGGRAPH2009 and recieve part of an $11,000 collection of software.

The winner of the “Vue 3D Environment Competition 2009″ will receive a complete 3D arsenal worth over $6,500 including: Maxon Cinema4D XL Bundle ($2,495), Vue 7.5 xStream ($1,495), a 3D Total Mega Bundle (worth over $1,300), Pixologic ZBrush 3.1 – with free upgrade to ZBrush 4 ($595), 1 3Dconnexion SpaceExplorer ($299), 1 year subscription to 3D World magazine ($150), $100 voucher for Cornucopia3D content, and a 1 year subscription to 3D Creative and 2D Artist magazines ($81.2).

via Vue 3D Environment Competition 2009.

Science 3dconnexion, 3dtotal, contest, cornucopia3d, maxon, pixologic, siggraph, vue

Pixologic, the guys behind ZBrush, have announced a new pair of tools called Lightbox and Spotlight for plugins into ZBrush4.  From their release:

• What if the world was your palette and ZBrush was your Canvas?
• What if you could have instant access to billions of images?
• What if you could then use those images for reference, texturing, and sculpting?
• What if you could do this without ever leaving ZBrush?

In short, it looks like a pretty impressive combination of tools.  They’ve integrated an image browser into ZBrush that draws from a huge online library of textures and graphics, and then integrated tools to allow you to use those photographs as paintable textures or reference images.  The demonstration video shows dozens of examples of loading an image, aligning it in 3-space to a model, then “painting” it as a texture (either a color texture or a displacement/normal map) onto the model.  Very powerful stuff.

Visit the link to see the demo video.

ZBrushCentral – *** Introducing Spotlight and Lightbox….

Graphics pixologic, plugin, software, zbrush

Pixelogic has announce two new plugins for ZBrush, Decimation Master and 3D Print Exporter.  Decimation Master is, just like it sounds, a tool for decimating the number of polygons in a high-resolution model while preserving the visual detail.  From the examples, the results are impressive with no change in detail at a reduction down to 10% of the original complexity.  3D Print Exporter adds direct STL export to ZBrush for stereolithography machines, and VRML format with color-support for color model printers.  The picture above is an example of such an export, going from a ZBrush Model to a physical printed version. (That’s the Sideshow Collectibles Dagger Maquette).

Both plugins are free for ZBrush 3.1 users.  Windows versions are available now, and Mac versions will be available within 30 days.  Read inside for the full press release and example images.

Read more…

Graphics modelling, pixologic, plugin, software, zbrush