Free Zbrush Like Tool (Sculpting)

[GremlinLord]

Since I can't post in the 3D forums... I'll post here and hope it gets mod moved.



Anyway I've been playing around with Zbrush but my time trail expired. So I looked around for similar programs that don't have a $600 price tag on them; luckily I found one. It's called Sculptris and if you've used Zbrush you'll feel right at home. The only catch is it is currently in alpha and isn't terribly fast or stable but it does have a decent community forum. This isn't a replacement for Zbrush's higher end tools but it is free, that's right $0. I found it to be quite useful so check it out http://www.sculptris.com/index.html

 

[Hugh Holder]

That's really awesome, thanks for posting



What kinds of issues have you run into while using it?

 

[tompkins420]

thanks man

 

[ummi60]

thanks man. i dare anyone make a halo helmet in there, thats what im gonna try to do

 

[mc halo3]

thanks man. i dare anyone make a halo helmet in there, thats what im gonna try to do

You do know that Z brush is for Detail and grooves of the sort right? To make a helmet you'd need a normal Shape modeller, ZBrush is a sculpting tool made for many smooth applications. So possibly if you're looking for a nice detail alternative sculptris might work.

 

[Ruze789]

Very cool, will have to give this a try thanks for the headsup.



Moving into 3d forum.

 

[GremlinLord]

Unless your a super amazing artist with amazingly steady hands I would personally rough out the model in Zbrush or Sculptris and finish it up in Blender or your program of choice. As far as issues it isn't completely stable as it is alpha software and on super hi poly models it can get a bit laggy but it's free. The only other issue I have with it is the models it produces can take some work to slim down as they consist of many polygons (low detail modeler this is not). To see what I mean make a simple face then press W to turn on the wireframe.

 

[Hugh Holder]

You're right about having to be a super amazing artist to sculpt hard surface models out of a 3d sculpting package, lol. Aside from the sheer difficulty of it, there's always the need to re-topoligize your models eww



Well these types of modeling programs were made to generate normal/displacement maps. Not so much to export a 5,000,000 polygon model to animate. Speaking of which, have you looked at the normal map features? I'm curious how they handle that.



Having UV coordinate for your model before sculpting saves time, and I mean render time. The only time I'm moving a high res model is when I'm prepping it for CNC/rapid prototyping. Well, and when I generate a 3d mesh from laser scan point data... gross.



I see why most people would think Zbrush has a hefty price tag on it, but compared to most other 3D packages it's nothing. If you buy a Zbrush license then that's the only one you ever have to buy. You get to upgrade for free every time there is a new release! I wish Autodesk would do that, sheesh.

 

[GremlinLord]

I know very little about finishing a model with UV maps and rendering but I can tell you once you've "painted" on your texture you can't edit the model mesh unless you export to obj and re-import it (strips the texture map). That being said just download the program it is 3.2Mb but you'll need to trackdown some brushes for it (there are some on the Sculptris forums).

 

[seaninja]

sweet I just downloaded it and it's great but you might want to save your work after an important change...

 

[GremlinLord]

One last little tip. Since the program outputs meshes that are way to high poly you will need to simplify them. Here is a quick vid I found on youtube that tells you exactly how to do that with blender.



[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9-dthbtg7U&feature=related[/media]

 

[Spartan 051]

Thanks for posting been looking for a decent sculpting program other then zbrush (mainly cost thats stopping me) blender has a nice one but compared to this is nothing close



EDIT: Well did some digging



here is great discussion on it goes in depth in some ways in others it does not decent read though



http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?p=1632789#post1632789



An i thought i point this out it will not run for mac users

 

[Boba Fett]

Thanks Gremlin! Prefect program to make a Flood in...

 

[mc halo3]

Thanks Gremlin! Prefect program to make a Flood in...

OMG!Man you are a genius like Jimmy Neutron but Flood *cough*pep*cough* Much?