This Project is going to guide you step by step, and to allow you to create a whole scene with Zbrush 3 from scratch, to sculpt texture and finally render it. This is an extensive tutorial, but there's still a lot I won't go into, such as interface configuration or ZScripts.
Featuring: Transpose, ZSpheres, SubTools, and Mesh Extraction
About Zbrush:
ZBrush is different from other 3D and painting programs. It's a mix between 2D painting, and 3D modeling software, with good rendering capacities. In ZBrush, you don't have a 3D workspace, but a canvas. The canvas can be painted on, and can also be sculpted in and out (like a bas-relief carving, but with much greater depth). When doing pure 3D modeling, you simply manipulate the model with a (usually) blank canvas as the background. Your model can then easily be incorporated into a previously painted scene, and lighting, rendering, and so on, will all work to produce an illustration with true 3D appearance.
Of course, many artists use ZBrush as primarily a 3D program, and that's largely what we'll be doing in this tutorial. Because of this integration, a model in ZBrush can be thought of as a tool, which also includes 2.5D brushes, a 3D primitives, ZSphere skeletons, and of course standard 3D models, which are normally referred to as polymeshes or meshes.
A new feature in ZBrush 3 is that a single polymesh can be split into multiple subtools, enabling you to work on multiple items at the same time. To paint and sculpt a tool or the canvas, you will use 3D and 2.5D brushes, different kind of strokes, textures, alpha maps and materials.
The picture on the left was created from scratch in ZBrush, all the models are created, sculpted, posed, textures, lighted, and rendered without (almost) the help of any other application.
Before beginning this tutorial, let us have a look to the basic functions of ZBrush, as well as the main menus.
Basics: Tools, Editing, and Navigation in ZBrush:
The Tool Palette (palette is another name for menu in ZBrush) is one of the most important menus. It's where you load, save and edit all of your models.
Select the Sphere 3d primitive and drag it on the canvas.
Near the top of the canvas, you can find the Edit, Draw, Move, Scale and Rotate icons. After you draw the Sphere, all these icons except Edit are now active.
You can use the Move, Scale and Rotate tools (respectively: W, E, R keys) to transform the sphere, or stay in Draw (Q key) to draw other spheres. For the moment, enter the Edit mode, and press the Make PolyMesh3D button in the Tool menu. The sphere primitive is converted into a standard 3d Mesh. Sculpting brushes will work much better with standard 3D meshes (polymeshes). Edit Mode mode will let you edit and sculpt the sphere. When this mode is on, the Draw, Move, Scale and Rotate icons will allow you sculpt, move, or pose your current tool.
In Edit Mode, to Move, rotate and scale the current tool, you'll have to use the Transform icons, on the right of the canvas area, or the following combos:
- To rotate your Tool, just click drag on an empty area of your canvas…(or on the Safe area around)
- To move your Tool, press the Alt key and click-drag on your canvas.
- To scale your Tool, press the Alt key, click-drag on your canvas, then, release the Alt key.
- To center your Tool, press.
A safe area (one that you can drag on to do the above) appears around the canvas that will help you to move rotate or scale your tool, even if your model one fills all the available space on he canvas.
For now, activate the Local transformations. If will help to focus on the part of the model you're working on.
Basics: Sculpting:
The various available brushes, which are going to serve you for sculpting the model, are all in the Brush menu. Each has a different effect, and can be combined with different strokes and alpha maps.
Before beginning, take time to experiment with them.
On the top row, you can find the buttons to controls the color, opacity, and material of the tools when the Edit Mode is off, and the depth, color, opacity and materials of the 3d brushes when the Edit Mode is on.
- Press S to change the Size to the brush.
- Press U to change the Z intensity of the brush.
- Press I to change the RGB intensity of the brush.
- Press O to change the Focal Shift of the brush.
- You can also show for a moment a Hotbox that includes all these options by pressing the Spacebar.
You'll find in the Transform Palette the Symmetry options. Symmetry will save you a lot of time. Symmetry in X, Y and Z can be switched on and off by pressing respectively, X, Y and Z keys.
Basics: Hiding and Revealing:
(Upper half of figure):
- Press CTRL + Shift and drag a rectangle to keep visible a section of the sphere.
The remaining part of your model is hidden.
(Lower half of figure):
- Press CTRL + Shift and drag a rectangle as previous. While you draw the rectangle area, release the SHIFT key. The rectangle becomes red, and the underlying part of the model is hidden.
- To invert the model visibility, press CTRL + Shift and drag a rectangle on an empty area of the canvas.
- To reveal all the model, press CTRL + Shift and click on an empty area of the canvas.
- The Lasso tool allows you to quickly create freeform selections by pressing CTRL + Shift and dragging out a lasso.
