ZBrush 1.5.1: pixologic's 2.5D sculpting and painting tool. (Modeling And Painting).

Pixologic promotes ZBrush as a 2.5D digital art creation program for the artist, game developer, graphic designer, hobbyist, and professional artist. I have to admit I was skeptical about how much it could accomplish, but I was also curious to try out the latest version, 1.5.1, as I'd been impressed by some of the images I'd seen created with ZBrush.

Working in ZBrush is like sculpting or painting with wet oil paint. Once you've created a 3D object, you can paint new contours and shape the object using the Edit mode. All this is completed in real time, which is one of the most important features of ZBrush, Like other paint packages, ZBrush uses layers, so you can work on different parts of your painting without affecting the rest.

One of the two coolest new features is TextureMaster, a powerful tool for painting directly on your 3D object, and thus avoiding seams and stretching. What sets ZBrush apart from similar programs is that TextureMaster gives you the ability to paint with any 2D or 3D tool within the program, and create incredible 3D shaded objects, which can then be baked into the texture. Materials can be applied to the textures for different looks such as shininess and bump.

TextureMaster can be used to paint 3D textures on models you build in other programs and import in DXF or OBJ format. You can paint in 3D wrapped or unwrapped mode. The finished texture can then be exported back to your native program.

The second powerful new tool that makes ZBrush special is ZSpheres. These tiny spheres can be used to create complex 3D models. In some ways, using them is similar to modeling with metaballs or polygons. But instead of extruding faces on a polygon, you create a preview sphere and then use the X-Symmetry edit feature to add spheres to the preview. The program automatically adds "tween" spheres to fill in the model. With your ZSpheres created you can modify individual spheres or entire chains using the move, scale, and rotate modifiers.

After you have completed construction of your basic model, you create a skin, essentially a mesh that follows the contours of the ZSpheres. There are two skinning methods within which you can control polygon resolution. There is Unified skinning for higher polygon count and softer shape, or Adaptive skinning, which creates lower polygon models that are ideal for game applications. Meshes ...