ZBrush 4R5 (Mac) (Download)

DESCRIPTION
Installing ZBrush 4R5 (does not apply to download version)
No changes will be made to the CD. ZBrush 4R4 will appear on the CD cover.This discrepency is explained in the instructions inside the CD. While this CD is for version 4R4 you will receive ZBrush 4R5 upon redeeming the coupon code. The instructions included in the CD explain how to install 4R5 directly or update from ZBrush 4R4 to version 4R5.

Designed around a principle of circularity, the menus in ZBrush work together in a non-linear and mode-free method. This facilitates the interaction of 3D models, 2D images and 2.5D Pixols in new and unique ways.

ZBrush gives you all of the tools needed to quickly sketch out a 2D or 3D concept and then take that idea all the way to completion. You can create realistic renders directly in ZBrush with lighting and atmospheric effects. With the many powerful export options, you can easily prepare your model for 3D printing or use within any other digital application.

Because ZBrush users are enabled by its powerful software processing, you can sculpt and paint with millions of polygons with out having to worry about purchasing expensive graphics cards. It is for this reason why ZBrush is used by everyone from art enthusiast to major film and games studios.

Leave technical hurdles and steep learning curves behind, as you sculpt and paint with familiar brushes and tools. Download a full trial today and see why ZBrush is a tool created by artists for artists.

Arrive at a finished work of art faster and more efficiently with the workflow enhancements in ZBrush 4R5. With the addition of features like Quick Save, Mouse Wheel Support and a new See-Through mode, you’ll have more time for exploring your creativity without leaving ZBrush. Whether it’s browsing the internet for inspiration or accessing pictures from a database or library on your computer, ZBrush 4R5 gives you unparalleled artistic freedom to do what counts: design.

NEW IN ZBrush 4R5:

Topology and Geometry

Panel Loops
With Panel Loops you can convert your model’s PolyGroups into panels of polygons with or without thickness, or even as extruded surfaces. The edges of these panels are created with a custom bevel around them defined by an editable curve. This is a great companion to ZBrush’s existing Mesh Extract feature, providing advanced control over the final result. Borders will have clean polygons loops even on low resolution models. They can have inner or outer panels (or both) and can be created as an extrusion from the original surface or as entirely separate pieces. Panel Loops are a remarkably fast way to create armor, machined surfaces or anything else where a panel shape is called for in your hard surface sculpting or product design. And because they are derived from your model’s PolyGroups you can take advantage of ZBrush’s many auto-grouping features to quickly and intelligently break your model into these paneled segments.

Delete Loops
The new Delete Loops command analyzes your model’s topology based on a user-defined angle setting. With a single click it removes all unnecessary edge loops – polygons that don’t contribute to the shape of the model. Not only is this a blessing for artists who must work within a polygon budget (such as game designers), it also allows you to push your high resolution sculpting farther. After all, unnecessary polygons add up quickly when you subdivide your model several times! Incidentally, pushing the limits of the Delete Loops settings can be an interesting way to quickly explore alternate designs by producing original models derived from the original polygon structure.

Align Loops
A companion to the Delete Loops feature, Align Loops uses the same settings but doesn’t actually remove any polygons. Instead it moves them to what you would get if you’d used the Delete Loops function. In this way you can push the settings to their extremes in a non-destructive manner and quickly explore new directions.

PolyGroups
As mentioned above, the new Panel Loop feature is the newest in a series of functions that work from your model’s PolyGroups. To that end, ZBrush 4R5 provides even more features for quickly and accurately assigning PolyGroups to your model. The new Merge Stray Groups function lets you “clean" the results of ZBrush’s automatic PolyGroup creation tools such as PolyGroups from PolyPaint. You can also now automatically create PolyGroups based upon Surface Normals. Creasing can be added to a surface or removed from it based upon PolyGroup edges alone. This ignores creases that are elsewhere on the model, running through the middle of the PolyGroups.

Polish by Feature
The Deformation sub-palette now has Relax options including Polish by Feature, which intelligently improves your mesh’s shape without sacrificing volume. It produces beautiful by analyzing the model’s PolyGroups, creasing and split areas.

Improved Frame Mesh
The Curves Frame Mesh option can now create curves based on the model's PolyGroups, creased edges or outline. These curves can then be used with any of the curve-based sculpting brushes like Curve Multi Tube or even QRemesher Guides.

Materials and Render

Posterize
Zbrush 4R5 puts Cell shading at your fingertips with new Posterize render features. Give your models a new look with full control over gradients and steps in real-time! Posterization in ZBrush 4R5 is computed in different ways depending on your needs. You can use it in 3D and build your desired effect directly onto your model, or it can be applied as a 2D effect to your renders in conjunction with BPR (Best Preview Render) filters. By applying Posterization to your model in 3D, you’ll expand the shape and depth dynamics of your image. Taking this concept further, BPR Posterization can dynamically unify your model with a background image. This means you can use photos and integrate your 3D models with even more accuracy and still retain an interesting Posterization effect that stays uniform throughout your composition.

Step Curves
In ZBrush 4R5 Posterization can also be applied to Materials and Curves via the curve modifiers settings. This means you can assign different Posterization effects to multiple materials and modulate the effect of Posterization in the Specular, Diffuse Color and Environment Color channels. That’s just the start. The Posterization functionality extends to Shader Channels, Sculpting Brushes, Alpha curves and Auto Masking. The limits to what you can create are really only measured by what you can imagine.

Outline
The Outline function applies an illustrative touch to your final image. Outline also works with the Material Mixer and as a post render effect in conjunction with BPR filters.

Workflow, Usability Improvments and More

Quick Save
Saving your work has been streamlined with the addition of Quick Save. This feature supplements your regular saves by creating uniquely named backups which can be made with or without the Project History. Each time a QuickSave is called for, it creates a new project with incremental numbering. By default, ZBrush will cycle between ten QuickSaves but you can change it through the Preferences settings to as many as one hundred!

Auto Save
If you have ever become so focused on creating that you’ve lost track of time and forgotten to save your work (and who hasn’t had this happen?) you will appreciate the new Auto Save feature! If you step away from your computer or switch to another application for a few minutes, ZBrush will add a new QuickSave to the existing series. This turns QuickSave into an Auto Save process! This feature isn’t limited to inactivity either. You can also set ZBrush to automatically perform a QuickSave after a specified amount of time has passed since your last save. This gives you total freedom to save when you wish, but also security for those times when you simply forget.

See-Through Mode
Sometimes as you work you might find yourself searching for reference images on the internet or maybe referring to an image already loaded into another program. Or maybe you’ll be working through an online tutorial and don’t want to constantly switch back and forth between ZBrush and the instructions. Whatever your reasons, the new See-Through option lets you make the entire ZBrush window partially transparent so that you can see what’s in the other windows behind it. You can now save time by skipping the need to switch between windows, print stuff out or even load reference images into ZBrush to be able to work against them!

Mouse Wheel Support
Scrolling your mouse wheel up or down can now be assigned to any slider in place of a hotkey. Simply assign the hotkey like you normally would but scroll the mouse wheel instead of pressing a key.

Switching Between the Mask and Selection Brushes
To improve your workflow when using the Selection and Masking brushes, you can now use the Ctrl/Cmd key to between the various Selection and Masking brushes without the need to cancel your current stroke.

Dynamic Brush Size
Makes it possible for the brush size to dynamically change as the model moves closer or further away from the camera. This becomes extremely helpful when sculpting items such as bolts, alpha pattern, scales, and etc. No matter the distance the model is from the camera the bolt, alpha pattern and scales will remain the same size due to the brush dynamically changing.

Additional Changes

• SubTool splitting can be based on the surface’s mask -- useful for creating a SubTool based on an inserted a mesh or a tri-part curve.
• The Smooth algorithm used in several major ZBrush functions (such as DynaMesh and ShadowBox) has been improved to preserve as much of the original mesh volume as possible.
• The Topology brush now keeps the curve segment size constant, even after zooming in or out. This avoids accidentally changing the curve density while navigating.
• Slice Curve now works on partially hidden geometry and has four Stroke options: Lasso, Curve, Circle and Rectangle.
• Micro Mesh has a new Align option, causing all replicated objects to face the same direction.
• The Render Properties now have a Vibrant slider for a global setting change. This eliminates the need to individually edit materials when you want them all to share the same value.
• Images can now be exported in PNG format with full transparency support and/or depth as an Alpha. This is especially useful with the new GrabDocAndDepth function.
• Size and Position of the Tool can now be adjusted through dedicated sliders. Unlike the deformation sliders which reset to 0 immediately, these new sliders retain their values. For example, you can simply set the Size slider to 2 and double the size of your model. To change it back to the original size you would change the slider back to a setting of 1.
• Extract has a new Double option, allowing you to extract both out from the surface and in toward the center at the same time.

New Features in Version 4R4

IMM Insert Multi Mesh Brushes combine entire libraries of objects into a single brush. Select from any object within the brush, then insert it into your model. Easily convert any Tool to an Insert brush with a single click. If your Tool has multiple SubTools, an Insert Multi Mesh brush will be created, allowing you to select from any of its objects at any time.

Tri IMM Tri Part Multi Mesh Brushes advances the Insert Brush features even further, using PolyGroups to define end cap objects along with a middle segment. When you draw a curve, the end caps will be placed at either end with the middle segment being duplicated along the curve's length. Instantly build chains, zippers and other complex shapes in full 3D. In addition to Tri IMM, the new Curve Brushes can be used to draw almost anything!

QRemesher Alpha frees you from the complex tasks of creating new model topology. QRemesher can automatically or semi-automatically clean up your mesh topology. Special automasking and other control features including curve guides let you control the retopology, when necessary, to get the best results quickly and easily.

Topology Brush provides manual control over topology creation for those times when you wish to re-topologize your work with precision. It uses ZBrush 4R4's optimized curve engine to let you draw new polygons on the fly, after which a simple click on the support surface instantly generates the new polygons -- with or without thickness. Build form-fitting props complete with thickness or redesign a partial surface, ready to replace part of your existing mesh.

Mesh Fusion swaps part of your model's surface with another piece of topology, automatically bridging the polygons to maintain a seamless mesh. Simply define PolyGroups on your model and then replace those areas with a new mesh! ZBrush merges the new element into the support mesh by bridging the polygons at the insertion boundary.

Grid System Reference Images can now be applied to the ZBrush Grids. Load your images for the front, side and top views to more easily create artwork based on references. This even works with Shadow Box. Different images may even be assigned to opposite sides of each plane, giving you the effect of a reference cube surrounding your sculpt. Additionally, your model or even a simple plan with a texture applied on it can be snapshot to the Background image so that if follows your camera rotations.

UndoHistory With over 10,000 available steps gives you virtually unlimited Undo capabilities. This History is saved as part of the ZBrush Project format, meaning that your steps will be maintained even across multiple sessions. A History slider makes it easy to scrub through your Undo History, you can play through the steps like a movie. In fact, you can even make a movie out of your History, complete with special controls to optimize (or replace) camera movement, object centering and more. The result is a far more enjoyable playback than if you had simply recorded your sculpting session using traditional video capture.

TransPose Enhancements provide a world axis selector so that you can switch to any working plane orientation with a single click, or snap the Action Line to your surface normal anywhere on the model. In addition, there are new Inflate and Flatten functions which are especially useful for hard surface sculpting.

DynaMesh Enhancements provide increased resolution (up to 2048) and the capability to combine SubTools using DynaMesh -- even defining specific SubTools as negative volumes. You can accomplish amazing things simply by combining basic shapes in original ways.

These new features are only but some of the enhancements that ZBrush 4R4 brings to the table. Here is a list of more features that have been designed to open up new avenues for creativity:

Brushes

• New preset brushes provide examples of how to take advantage of ZBrush 4R4's key features: Curve Strap, Curve Track, Insert types and more.
• Create Insert and Multi Mesh Insert brushes with a single click.
• Insert Brushes now use the brush Imbed setting to define the depth of the insertion.
• Insert Brushes now use the Z Intensity setting to apply a squash factor along the insertion normal.
• Projection Strength function conforms the inserted mesh to the underlying surface.
• Be recognized for your contributions! You can now provide your name and website info to a brush before exporting and sharing it with the community.

Tool and Geometry

• Maximum DynaMesh resolution has been increased to 2048.
• Mask Peaks and Valleys function detects portions of the mesh with the greatest detail density. This function is used internally by QRemesher but is also available for general use via the AutoMasking options.
• Quickly create a PolyGroup from a mask. This is especially useful with the new topology replacement features.
• New Cluster option for the Group Visible function controls the way its randomization will act.
• Grow All visibility function makes all the current mesh's polygons visible.
• Mesh to Brush function converts the mesh of an Insert Mesh brush to a new Tool.
• New topology cleaning tools: Merge Triangles and Weld Points.
• Mesh Extract gains two new controls: Corner Quad to Triangle and Thin Border.

FiberMesh

• Merging different SubTools which are FiberMesh aware preserves the designation if they have the same number of vertices per fiber.
• The Group Visible function is now FiberMesh aware and uses the Coverage value to regroup the fibers.
• The Split Hidden and Group Split functions are now fiber aware.
• The Inflate deformer now has a reduced effect when used on a FiberMesh.

Render and Materials

• New Vibrant Shadows and AO setting generates more strongly color-saturated shadows.
• The Background image can now be tilted.
• The Background image may now be synchronized with your model's rotation.

Import/Export

• Vector Displacement map export quality has been improved.
• UV Offset has been added in the Preferences palette's Export options for use with Vector Displacement.
• .EXR File format has been added for Vector Displacement maps.
• GoZ now supports Maya 2013 and Luxology modo 601. (Note: modo 601 on OSX requires a manual update when importing a model.)

Miscellaneous

• XPose now displays the SubTools as a contact sheet.
• Improved notification when saving large projects. (2Gb to 4Gb)
• New SubTool commands Delete All and Delete Other help to quickly clean your projects.
• Improved overall Projection speed.
• ZBrush preferences settings are now stored in a Public folder for improved permissions compatibility with Windows and Mac.
• The location of the ZBrush virtual memory/cache files can now be changed, providing performance improvements on systems where the system drive is not the computer's fastest drive or is running low on disk space.
• New ZScript commands have been added, mainly to manage the SubTools.

New Features in Version 4R3

FiberMesh. Significant advancements to the FiberMesh settings provide you with greater control and flexibility. Curve modifiers have now been added to a number of FiberMesh settings including: Length, Coverage, Gravity and Color Profile. Revolve has also been added as a new setting. Textures applied to FiberMesh and MicroMesh objects can now be transparent (true black pixels will be hidden), allowing even greater diversity in their use. FiberMesh settings can now be saved and loaded as needed it. In addition, various FiberMesh presets will ship with ZBrush 4R3. These presets can be pre-viewed in Lightbox, as well as modified and shared amongst ZBrush artists. Once you have styled your FiberMesh to perfection, export the fiber guides to other applications for further use. Moreover, fibers can also be exported as unique vector displacement maps to be rendered in external applications.

New Features in Version 4R2b

With enhancements to the already powerful features in ZBrush 4R2, the all new ZBrush 4R2b takes the potential of features like the BPR Renderer and its real time filters to the next level. You'll be amazed by the capabilities of the added functions in this latest version.

Our goal over at Pixologic, is to provide the most comprehensive tool set available to artists. In our pursuit of this, advancements like FiberMesh inside the new ZBrush 4R2b, take creating in ZBrush to new heights. The new FiberMesh will generate real 3d geometry, allowing you to manipulate and sculpt in real time with direct visual feedback. This previously unimagined breakthrough is only one aspect of the incredible new developments found inside ZBrush 4R2b.

Their commitment to you means there is way more where that came from. To add to the already revolutionary new functions and capabilities inside ZBrush 4R2b, they have included enhancements like, MicroMesh, Alpha Surface and Seamless modes, improved masking using TransPose with curvature detection, TransPose curve blending mode and a host of other possibilities.

You'll find that the new ZBrush 4R2b is nothing short of amazing. That's the Power of ZBrush.

ZBrush 4R2b Feature List:

• FiberMesh to create real 3d fiber, fur and hair geometry with export capabilities.
• New set of dedicated FiberMesh "Groom" brushes and corresponding Brush settings.
• MicroMesh support to render fibers or single polygons as separate 3D objects.
• New set of BPR filters and operators to greatly improve your final ZBrush renders
• BPR Global Shadow and Ambient Occlusion settings simplifying shadow management.
• New Cavity Mixer used to define different material shaders based on the mesh cavities.
• Improved small details creation through Alpha and Mask.  Alphas may be placed using TransPose.
• Surface Smoothness feature detects mesh curvature for Mask creation.
• New global deformation with Transpose Curve deformation and UnClip.
• Improved Mask operations with Shrink and Extend.
• Topology editing additions: Group Mask and Edgeloop Mask Border.
• New JPEG Exporter with Crop, Preview and adjustment settings.
• Numerous improvements such as storing shadow information based on the camera point of view, preview of mesh Extraction,
• Auto Adjust Mode for perspective… and a lot more.

New Features in Version 4R2

DynaMesh, the new base mesh generator, will allow you to realize your concepts via a workflow that ignores the traditional geometry barrier. To gain an unparalleled accuracy with your brush, the new Lazy Curve Mode allows precise strokes to your mesh whether in symmetry mode or not. The capability to apply an environment HDRI (High Dynamic Range Image) to the new LightCap system will give your finished images a remarkable level of believability.

DynaMesh
ZBrush 4R2 revolutionizes digital modeling and unleashes your creative power by delivering a topological-free sculpting process with new tools like DynaMesh. When sculpting with traditional techniques, polygons become stretched and difficult to work with. Now with a quick gesture, ZBrush will instantly generate a new sculpting-friendly model with uniform polygon distribution. This makes it possible for you to focus only on the visual aspects of your model, without worrying about its underlying geometry.

Freedom of Creation
DynaMesh is The New Base Mesh that has no limitations to what it can become. Starting from a sphere to create a character head is an easy process but DynaMesh will allow you to create a whole character from that very same sphere with no uneven geometry!

Consider what it’s like to work with clay. As you stretch clay out or add volume to it, the clay itself retains the same basic consistency and the same capacity for detail across its surface. DynaMesh brings that experience to the digital world.

The magic behind the DynaMesh is its ability to regenerate geometry in a blink of the eye, removing all stretched polygons by creating a surface optimized for sculpting and with equal distribution of polygons across the surface. Don't be afraid to stretch your model to create legs, arms, columns, or whatever else comes to mind in your creative process. There are now no limits to what your starting point can evolve into.

Inserting Elements to Your DynaMesh
With DynaMesh the ability to recreate geometry with one flick of the wrist opens new ways to combine several meshes together to create one new complete model such as integrating a pre-sculpted ear into your head mesh. On top of that, DynaMesh brings freedom to cut out surface forms or even create holes in your geometry. This capability is equivalent to the well-known Boolean operations, except that with DynaMesh your result will be a perfectly uniform and easily sculpted mesh. Using the already loaded ZBrush primitives and a few flicks of the pen will allow for a complex result that would have been extremely difficult and time consuming to build in a more traditional way.

You can create a library full of noses, ears, heads, arms or any thing else you come up with. Then with the help of the Insert Mesh brushes you can add these shapes to any sculpt. The result is a creative process that will have few boundaries and incredible speed.

DynaMesh is for More Than Just Sculpting
With DynaMesh you can more easily cut a model into two or more pieces using the new Slice brush combined with the Group option. Use the Insert Mesh brushes to create intricate parts for 3D printing and when done, use the new Create Shell function to add an internal thickness to your model.

These different operations deliver the ability to create a figure that is ready for 3D printing faster then ever before.

Sculpting Updates
In addition to DynaMesh, ZBrush 4R2 delivers a powerful set of new tools, functions and features. These include a new Curve mode that can be used with any Stroke type, a Clay Polish topology modifier and several new sculpting brush presets. When combined with the existing ZBrush features, these will empower your creative juices like never before.

Curve Mode
A new Curve mode has been added to the Stroke palette, allowing you to apply your brush strokes with all their settings and modifiers along a defined curve. This curve can be drawn out along the surface of your sculpt or even continue the curve off your model to create integrated pieces like horns, arms, fingers and so much more.

To apply the Curve mode to any brush, just enable the Curve Mode button found in the Stroke palette. Draw your path on (or off) the model. Now click on the curve you just drew -- your selected brush will be applied along the curve. The Curve mode even allows you to change the intensity and size of your stroke along the curve’s path!

Thanks to its dynamic ability, the curves can be adjusted even after the initial drawing of the curve to refine the position of your stroke over you model. The Curve Mode will allow editing of PolyPaint, masking, geometry or sculptural detail at any point of the process. Curve Mode brings you the freedom of fine refinement, but will also allow you to mix different brushes with the same curve.

With Curve mode, creating patterns on a surface can be as easy as selecting the right alpha with any brush. You can even stretch any piece of geometry along the curve with brushes like the Mesh Insert brush. Using the Curve mode in association with DynaMesh will allow you to generate anything from simple to extremely complex volumes in just a few clicks. Or expand your existing creations, no matter whether they are organic or hard surface style models.

Clay Polish
This one-click function will apply a topological modification to your model to alter the geometry by sharpening its edges. It can also create a clean surface between two sharp-angled edges.

By modifying the Clay Polish parameters, you can drastically change its result. For example, it can give your model a clay weld look, as if the two pieces were welded together.

Clay Polish can be combined with DynaMesh. This further enhances the feel of real clay sculpting in ZBrush 4R2, making it look even more like you’re adding real clay strips to the surface!

New 3D Brushes
To help all these new additions maximize their potential, several new brushes have also been added. Many of these are variation of the existing brushes you already know and love, combined with the new features to open all new possibilities. There are now brushes that will allow you to instantly add a nose or ear to your mesh or even use the new CurveMesh brushes to draw out lines of geometry.

On top of the brush advancements already talked about, there is a new SliceCurve brush. This brush will allow you to slice your model while adding new faces along the cut and can also create two different polygroups at the same time. When used with DynaMesh and the Group option, SliceCurve will create independent parts of a model, ready for manipulation.

Extra brushes have been added to open new ways to deform your model quicker then ever. The Curve Fill brushes allow you to draw a curve and with release of your cursor, the stroke is converted into a closed shape. This new mesh is ready to be sculpted or even continue to refine the mesh after the curve has already been drawn. the new Curve Lath brush will create a revolution based mesh from your drawn curve. This is a new way to quickly create a base mesh or even props in just seconds.

BPR Enhancements
Introduced in ZBrush 4.0, the Best Preview Render has now seen drastic enhancements. ZBrush 4R2 brings you the ability to integrate your models within a 360° environment and adjust scene lights using the new LightCap designer.

The enhancements don't stop there! For example, all materials have seen the addition of a Wax effect. You also now have the ability to tweak your final render with the new BPR Filters, taking your final image to the next level.

Environment Map Support
Use your favorite panoramic images as a background in ZBrush and integrate your model into the environment’s lighting and coloring at render time. Whether your image is 8 BIT or full HDRI, using it as an environment is one click away. You have complete control over this environment including changes in longitude or latitude to choose your point of view. To improve the integration, the default ZBrush floor grid is treated as a shadow catcher, creating an invisible ground plane which will receive the object shadows. Simply load your background image, select an appropriate material and render the next masterpiece.

Lightcap Creation
ZBrush 4R2 introduces the LightCap Designer: a real-time material light modifier. In astonishingly little time you can create scene lighting from an environment, create lights with alpha shapes applied and even add texture to a light to fit the needs of your render.

You can even create lights and then use the LightCap Designer to convert these to an environment for your render, resulting in more accuracy and allowing more creativity in your process.

Expand More with ZBrush Materials
MatCap lovers now have even more power at their fingertips. It’s now possible to dramatically refine MatCaps using just a few new sliders: change hue, saturation, orientation and much more. This can be done with the MatCaps you create or any from our library in the DownloadCenter. Any one MatCap now offers thousands of possibilities!

Once done creating your materials, use the new Wax modifier to add an effect to your model that resembles Subsurface Scattering – but without all the effort! A single slider adjusts the material’s temperature to be cool or hot.

We’ve also eliminated the rendering artifacts that can occur when multiple materials come in contact on an object’s surface. Combine as many materials as you wish on one model and use the new Material Blend-Radius slider for a smooth material blend at render time.

Speed Up the Render Process
The ZBrush render engine benefits from several core enhancements in version 4R2. Its kernel is now 32 BIT, producing more accurate renders and even more crisp images. To see the difference, just open your previous projects in ZBrush 4R2 and re-render.

Wherever possible, ZBrush 4R2 will store shadows, ambient occlusion and subsurface scattering in memory for a quick re-render. This dramatically reduces waiting time while you tweak materials and colors to arrive at your finished result. You can afford more time for scene setup because you’ll spend less time waiting for a each render.

BPR Filters
Even with a great lit scene and amazing materials, many renders still find themselves in a 2D image editor for final tweaking. Thanks to the BPR filters in ZBrush 4R2, you can make many adjustments directly within ZBrush. Add Sharpness to the whole scene or just the model. Add a Depth of Field filter on top of that. Finish things off by changing the shadow colors with a Color filter. All while remaining in ZBrush!

These BPR filters can affect Shadows, Ambient Occlusion, Mask, Fresnel, Subsurface Scattering and much more.

FULL FEATURE LIST for Z4R2 - http://www.pixologic.com/zbrush/features/zbrush4r2/features/

GALLERY for Z4R2 - http://www.pixologic.com/zbrush/features/zbrush4r2/gallery/

New Features in v4

• Best Preview Render
  • Renders Shadows, Ambient Occlusion, Fibers, SSS and Transparency with advanced anti-aliasing.
  • Multi-pass rendering with Shadow, Color, Ambient Occlusion, Mask and Depth as separate maps.
  • Render for still images or animations.
• Project presentation
  • Timeline for more than just simple turntables and animations. 
  • Keyframe management: copy, move, etc. 
  • Audio support with color beats for manual animation synchronization.
  • Fade in/out and cut keyframes for nice transitions.
  • Ease in/out keyframes.
  • MDD animation file format support for exporting and importing animation.
  • Animation-capable layers, Tools, ZSpheres, background and more.
• ZProjects
  • Save all loaded tools, document size, light, material, timeline and render settings in one click.
  • ZBrush 4 even includes sample projects to help you discover new features.
• Concept creation
  • Shadow Box for free-form creation. 
  • Move Elastic Brush to create stretch-free extrusions. 
  • Reproject improved for more finely tuned control of the results.
  • Mannequin for quick scene setup.  
  • TransPose units to help you in proportions and sizes.
• Hard Sculpting
  • Clip brushes for slicing your models. 
  • By Radius and By Polygroups modes for the Clip brushes. 
  • Shadow Box to create original sculpting bases, combined with radial symmetry.  
  • New Strokes: Circle, Square, and Curves. 
• Major brushes:
  • MatchMaker, the perfect brush to deform your mesh to conform to other 3D models.
  • Deco brushes, turn, spin - perfect for creative patterns! 
  • Clay Buildup will be your new Clay brush for the rough sculpting.
  • Move Elastic, Move Topo, Move Parts: Stretch and deform with no constraints. 
• Strokes:
  • Roll mode improved with the Roll distance. 
  • New lasso/marquee selection mode, circle by center, perfect circle, curve for masking and hiding. 
  • Marquee, Lasso and Circle strokes working with symmetry for hiding, masking and slicing.
• Pipeline and Productivity
  • GoZ with Autodesk Maya (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011), Autodesk 3DSMax (2009, 2010, 2011), Luxology modo 401 (Sp2 to sp5), Cinema 4D R11 and R11.5
  • GoZ SDK for integrating GoZ in additional software packages.
  • Xpose to explode all SubTools, making it easy to work on a hidden one or create stunning animated effects. 
  • SubTool Duplicate and Insert, List All + ABC, Merge All for more flexibility when working on complex models.
  • Solo mode to quickly isolate the current SubTool.
• 3D Painting and Materials
  • PolyPaint Layers for more freedom in 3D painting.
  • SpotLight to edit textures on the fly and then use them to paint by projection. 
  • New shaders: Fast Overlay and Fresnel Overlay for more effects in your materials.
  • New Fresnel and SSS settings for more realistic materials!
  • New Blinn Specular added to the default shader for a better skin specular effect.
  • Large number of blending modes between materials: Add, Subtract, difference, darken, etc.
• Misc
  • Topology auto masking to protect closed areas, which are not directly connected.
  • Elasticity settings to stretch your model without stretching the topology.
  • Orientation settings: rotate your alphas while sculpting.
  • Tile alphas for more creativity with brushes. 
  • Non-Square alphas are supported, avoiding distortions.
  • Contact support for SubTools: deform multiple SubTools while maintaining your defined contact points between them!
  • Relax Deformation: relax your topology without altering the shape.
  • Inflate Balloon Deformation for a variation of the relax deformation.
  • Deformations are now in real-time when moving the sliders, giving you Live feedback.
  • New File menu to manage all content.
  • Gradient transparency for anti-aliased transparency in PolyPainting.
• Plugins
  • Decimation Master is now 64bits.
  • Original size is kept when exporting with 3D Print Exporter.
  • Unwrap all SubTools at once with UVMaster.
  • New Multi-map exporter for fast and easy creation of many maps at once including: normal, displacement, ambient occlusion, etc.

Various additions in SubTool Master and TransPose Master have also been added to ZBrush4.

Sculptris

Enter A World Of Digital Art Without Barriers. Welcome To Sculptris.
Sculptris is an elegant, powerful and yet easy to use 3D sculpting software, allowing the artist in you to simply focus on creating amazing 3D artwork. Gone are the technical and often tedious constraints typically associated with digital art.

If you're new to the world of digital sculpting, Sculptris is the ideal ground on which to get started. If on the other hand you're experienced in CG you will find in Sculptris is a blazingly fast way realize your concepts. It's intuitive, fun and user friendly, so you can focus as an artist on pure creativity.

What's more, the skills you learn with Sculptris directly translate to ZBrush. The models that you create with Sculptris can even be sent to ZBrush with the click of a button using the GoZ functionality! Since releasing our award-winning ZBrush more than a decade ago, Pixologic has become recognized for bringing ground-breaking innovations into the world of digital art.

ZBrush is the most widely-used digital sculpting application in today's market and is the industry Standard. When you're ready to take your Sculptris creations to the next level for detailing, rendering and integration into even the largest of projects, we welcome you to ZBrush with its host of robust, unique and revolutionary tools.

Sculptris Features
Sculptris has been designed to be as accessible as possible to every type of artist. The interface is effortless to navigate and each feature is easy to locate. Even the most novice user is able to start creating within moments.

As you become more skilled, you will begin to discover new depths within the application. Your sculpts will be taken to new levels of creativity and detail the more experienced you become.

Sculptris offers two navigation methods to accommodate your preferences and what you're already used to. By default, Sculptris lauches with ZBrush navigation controls known as Right-Click Navigation and Free Moving Navigation. Alternatively, Sculptris's Original Navigation and hotkeys can be toggled on or off.

Dynamic Tessellation
Sculptris frees you from the need to worry about your model's geometry. As you model, Sculptris is constantly analyzing the surface to ensure that there are enough triangles to display the details that you're creating. If there aren't, Sculptris automatically divides the area under the brush while leaving the rest of the model unchanged. This also allows Sculptris to make better use of your computer's resources, since polygons are only added where they are needed.

This dynamic dividing of the model doesn't only come into play when sculpting details. It's also used when you add volume to the surface, such as when pulling part of a character's forehead out to create horns. Where other programs stretch existing polygons to accomplish this, Sculptris adds new polygons and maintains an even polygon distribution to make future sculpting in that area easier.

GoZ
Sculptris has been designed to work effortlessly with ZBrush, which in turn will enable you to import your mesh to other sculpting applications. When selecting the "GoZ" button in Sculptris, your entire mesh will be transferred to ZBrush.*

Because GoZ is a ZBrush feature, the files necessary for GoZ to operate are included with the current GoZ update for ZBrush which may be downloaded from the plugins page.

* The GoZ feature will only work if ZBrush and GoZ have been installed on your computer.

More information on Sculptris here - http://www.pixologic.com/sculptris/

GoZ

One of the core functions of ZBrush has always been to provide artists the ability to create in an environment that allows for complete freedom of expression. This lack of technical barriers makes working within ZBrush feel like real-world sculpting and painting. It is a significant part of why so many artists have created ground-breaking work using ZBrush.

With GoZ there is no need to invest time in setting up shading networks for your normal, displacement, and texture maps. With a single click of a button, GoZ will transfer your mesh to a GoZ-enabled application of your choice and instantly set up all the appropriate shading networks for you. Upon sending your mesh back to ZBrush, GoZ will automatically remap the existing high-resolution details to the incoming mesh, even if you’ve significantly changed the topology in your other application! GoZ will take care of simple operations such as correcting points and polygons order, as well as more advanced operations that require complete remapping. The updated mesh is immediately ready for further detailing, map creation and transferring to any other GoZ-enabled application.

GoZ is based on core features of ZBrush. This means that you can even use the ZBrush portion of GoZ’s features in non-supported applications. You can import an OBJ file which includes topology changes and ZBrush will automatically updating your current sculpture without losing details.

GoZ also supports the transfer of multiple Tools and/or SubTools between ZBrush and its target applications. Rather than focusing on the import and export process, you are free to focus on your art!

Current GoZ enabled applications:

• Maya 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012
• 3DSMax 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012
• modo 401 SP4-5, 501 SP1-SP2
• Cinema4D R11, R12
• Photoshop CS4 Extended, CS5 Extended

*Note: Mac users need to use the 32-bit version of Photoshop.

Sculpting and Productivity

Develop Truly Creative Concepts

Limitless creative control is what Shadow Box brings to the process of creating a three-dimensional base mesh. Use the advanced masking brushes to paint a silhouette of your idea on any of the three sides of Shadow Box and the mesh will appear at the center. Carve out holes in the surface of the mesh by simply erasing any part of the masks; the surface at the center of Shadow Box updates instantly. Combine radial symmetry, your own custom alpha textures, reference images and masking curves to build complex forms in a matter of seconds. Whether you are sculpting a specific model or just exploring shapes, Shadow Box offers a unique method for quickly establishing an editable base mesh for sculpting.

The new Move Elastic brush allows you to pull and stretch the surface of your model while simultaneously relaxing the topology of the mesh so that polygon distortion is minimized. A simple sphere can be shaped into a base mesh for a bust very quickly and with few stretched polygons! Take your concept from base mesh to final model in no time using the new Clay Buildup brush. Before you know it you’ll be ready for 3D printing or presentation. The new ZBrush 4 brushes are addictive!

A good pose is the essence of a great composition. Rhythm, gesture, weight and balance are all key to any work of art. Use the new Mannequin sample projects to find that perfect pose for single or multi-character models. The ZSphere Mannequins can easily be edited to fit any character or creature you need. Create an entire scene in just a few clicks! In no time, you'll have established perfect visual harmony and you'll be on your way to sculpting a masterpiece.

Render Your Art Directly in ZBrush

ZBrush 4 expands on the library of advanced hard surface sculpting brushes introduced in ZBrush 3.5. The new Clip brushes add precise refinement to the shapes and surfaces of your mechanical objects, vehicles and character armor. Use these brushes to slice your forms with accuracy and hone their edges to absolute perfection. The new Curve, Circle and Square stroke types can be applied to the clipping brushes to ensure that your surface has straight edges or for creating realistic detail. By combining these techniques with the surfaces you generate in Shadow Box or with the Remesh feature, there is no limit to the types of mechanical objects you can make.

Enhancements to the SubTools system let you merge, duplicate, mirror and weld any of your model's separate parts. Complex models with hundreds of SubTools can be easily manipulated, freeing you to construct visually rich and intricate objects. The new Solo feature instantly hides all other SubTools while Expose moves your SubTools apart in the 3D space so that you can easily isolate the pieces.

The amazing new Match Maker brush deforms the shape of a surface so that it fits perfectly against other objects. The brush is incredibly easy to use and the results are stunning. Within seconds you can craft complex parts and make them all fit perfectly together.

Productivity is the key!

GoZBrush (or GoZ) has been extended and improved in ZBrush 4. Send your models to Autodesk Maya, Autodesk 3DSMax, Luxology modo or Maxon Cinema4D with a single button. Make any change you need in your 3D animation software, such as editing the topology or generating a new base mesh and then send it all back to ZBrush for further sculpting. Your ZBrush project will be automatically updated using the changes, without losing the work that you've already done in ZBrush.

Using GoZ, the texture maps you make in ZBrush are instantly transferred and applied to your model in your 3D rendering application. These include diffuse, normal and displacement maps! GoZ now even supports the simultaneous exchange of multiple SubTools. GoZ lets you focus on your creative process by removing the tedious and technical hurdles of 3D data exchange between applications. Support for additional 3D animation software will soon be added to GoZ with the help of the GoZ SDK. Bookmark GoZBrush.com to stay current with the latest update information.

As your ZBrush creations become more complex, you'll find that saving all the meshes, textures, alphas, materials, timeline animation and camera positions at once is easy thanks to the new ZProject format. When you load a saved ZProject in ZBrush 4 you'll be able to pick up exactly where you saved as if you had never left!

The new Multi Map Exporter plug-in included with ZBrush 4 makes creating and exporting your many texture maps easier than ever before. Within a single menu you can establish custom settings to create displacement, normal, ambient occlusion, cavity and texture maps, exporting them all at once. It even supports multiple UV sets!

Paint and Show

Paint Your Work

ZBrush 4 extends the flexibility of working with Layers to PolyPainting which means you can now create unlimited variations of the colors painted on the model and save all of them along with your model. You can now create separate PolyPaint layers and then export them to other rendering applications for more astonishing renders. By adjusting the opacity of the layers you can mix them together in an infinite variety of ways or even animate the change of colors over time in ZBrush!

The innovative SpotLight painting system enables image editing in ZBrush and then allows you to project the image to the surface of the model using the intuitive sculpting brushes. SpotLight goes beyond being just a texturing tool. Imported images can be altered, layered, and precisely positioned.

Adjust the hue and intensity, color match other images, clone, tile, and color key to create entirely new images. Use these images to project color on any part of your model. Use symmetry to apply skin color, tattoos and more to both sides of a face or character at once!

Enhancements to brush alphas include new options for spinning the alpha texture as you make a stroke. The new Deco brushes use Alpha spinning to let you make intricate and decorative patterns on your surface. In addition, ZBrush now supports non-square alpha textures and adds the Roll feature which can be used to stretch and tile the alphas applied to the brush.

Show Your Work

Your model’s presentation is as important as the quality of its form, details and the paint applied to its surface. ZBrush 4 offers an elegant solution for showing off your work, whether you want to share it with the world online or present it to a director for approval. Using a timeline system, you can store multiple camera views and animate between them. This can be used to create advanced turntable animations or as a workflow enhancement.

Animate between morph targets and model poses to verify facial expressions and UV texture maps. Rig your model with ZSpheres and see how your model moves. Using layer animation you can even animate between variations of textures and PolyPaint. Import a soundtrack for precise animation synchronization or build your demo reel within ZBrush.

The timeline interface includes options such as auto magnification, jump cuts and easing. Your work deserves the best possible presentation; the timeline features give you the power to show off your work in a professional way!

All of the primary ZBrush features can be animated: Layers, SubTool visibility, background colors, Polyframe display, ZSpheres, camera angles, subdivision levels, and more. You can export the animation of your mesh using the MDD format for use in other 3D packages such as modo. This makes realistic facial animation easy and fast!

Render Your Art Directly in ZBrush

ZBrush 4 adds the new Best Preview Render option which gives you the power of rendering with advanced shadows, ambient occlusion, subsurface scattering, fibers and transparency directly on the ZBrush canvas. Multi-pass rendering is available, allowing you to export alpha and depth channels as well as ambient occlusion, diffuse color, and shadows as separate images for compositing in your favorite image editor... or even your compositing software! Best Preview Render can be used with the timeline to render animation straight from ZBrush! Now your favorite MatCap materials can appear in your animated work.

The material editing workflow has been improved so that different materials can be blended together using transfer modes such as screen, multiply and difference. Use the Fresnel settings to blend multiple materials based on the angle of viewing incidence.

Create Without Limits!

Once again, Pixologic changes the way artists create by introducing a brand new suite of sculpting features and expanding the power of the existing ZBrush toolset. Explore shape creation with Shadow Box, refine hard surface edges with the Clip Brush, manage complex multi-part models with SubTools, remesh and reproject to create any topology you need, use the MatchMaker brush to fit parts together perfectly… the possibilities are endless! Combine hard surface and organic modeling tools or techniques to create fantastic creatures, superheroes, vehicles, environments and more! Paint your models with the intuitive PolyPainting brushes or use SpotLight to edit and project source images directly onto the surface! Finally, render your work in ZBrush as an amazing still image or animated turntable using Best Preview Render(BPR). BPR will render the model with shadows, ambient occlusion, subsurface scattering and fibers. ZBrush will stretch your imagination beyond what you ever thought was possible. The flexible toolset is designed to fit your needs and the way you work.

3D Brushes

• Sculpting Brushes - With over 30 start up brushes to sculpt with and the ability to create an endless assortment of your own custom brushes, it's easy to see why sculpting in ZBrush is not only powerful but incredibly easy as well. The natural brush strokes you get when sculpting across millions and billions of polygons gives the user the feeling like they are sculpting on a real piece of clay, or wood, or stone, or real any surface you can think of. The wide range of brushes you will find in ZBrush were created with real world sculpting techniques in mind. Maybe you want to sink your fingers into a soft piece of clay to rough out general forms. Or maybe your want to chip off pieces of stone with a metal chisel. However, simulating real work sculpting tools isn't all you can do with the brushes you find in ZBrush. With tools like symmetry, repeat and hundreds of other custom controls you can now sculpt details like stitching in fabric, hard mechanical edges, and so much more. When using ZBrush's dynamic range of brushes the control you have over your surface is limited only by your imagination.
• Lazy Mouse - Even the shakiest of hands will have tremendous control over the direction of their strokes. By enabling Lazy Mouse while sculpting in ZBrush, you get surgical accuracy as you brush across the surface of your model. Sculpt with smooth flowing curves or make perfectly strait line across your surface. Whether you are using a mouse or a tablet to sculpt inside ZBrush, Lazy mouse and its many settings give you the precision you need to create any style of strokes quickly and easily.
• Strokes - Use the freehand stoke to brush across the surface the way you would in real life, or switch your stroke type to gain even more control over the surface you are sculpting. Use the spray stroke to add a random spray effect as you sculpt. The Drag Rectangle Stroke allows you to draw out exact details like skin pores all the way to sharp mechanical parts.
• Alphas - Using different alphas as you sculpt gives you unlimited control over how you deform your surface. Create realistic wood grains, scaly skin, feathers and so much more. You can use any the may alphas that come with ZBrush or use any image to create your own.
• Editable Brush Curves - Adding to the endless controls you have over your brushes in ZBrush is the ability to edit the shape of your brush. The easy to use curve allows you to precisely change the shape you sculpt into the surface. You can even create curves that transition between hard edges to soft rounded ones.
• Gravity - Gravity allows simulation of gravity, wind, magnetism, or other directional effects that 'pull' (or push) at the surface of your model. When gravity is on, your regular sculpting will be modified by a pull in the direction of the gravity. Imagine windblown cloth, or the heavy folds of elephant skin.

Polypaint

Polypainting allows painting on a model's surface without first assigning a texture map. A texture map can be created at a later time, and the painted surface can be transferred to the map. Polypainting offers significant advantages compared to standard workflow. The resolution of the texture map need not be decided in advance. This is particularly valuable if you find you need more detailing on an area than you thought you would. Instead of repainting a new, larger texture map, you can simply transfer the existing surface painting to a new, larger map, with no rework necessary. Similarly, the UV unwrapping need not be fixed in advance. If one unwrapping proves unsatisfactory, simply create a different unwrapping and transfer the surface painting to that map. Removing UVs from your model frees up system resources and allows you to work with even more polygons!

To understand how polypainting works, first consider a 2048 by 2048 texture map, which provides reasonable resolution. It has a total of a little over 4 million pixels. If you work with a 4 million polygon model, then in terms of surface painting, simply assigning each polygon a uniform color gives the same amount of information as the 4 million pixel texture map. (Actually, somewhat more, since significant parts of texture maps are typically left blank.) So, with polypainting, you can put all of the painting details directly onto the model's polygons, and then transfer that detail to a texture map when the painting is complete.

Illustration

Even though ZBrush has revolutionized the 3D industry it is also a powerful illustration package! Based on the power of the Pixol, ZBrush takes digital painting to the next level. Unlike ordinary pixels found in other 2D applications which contain only color and position information, ZBrush’s Pixol contains color, position, depth, lighting, and material information.

So maybe you decided to paint what seems to be a 2D illustration of tree in ZBrush, but then decided that you want to change the lighting to be more like sunset instead of midday. Just change your lighting controls and all of the shadows are updated in real-time! There are also no limits to the amount of polygons you can use in your illustration. Maybe you want to add a 3D building to your image that is around 20 million polygons. While working in 2.5D you can add and duplicate that 3D model as many times as you want, creating an entire city with an infinite number of building with out ever causing a slowdown in your system. Then finalize your city with atmospheric effects and an arsenal of brushes and filters.

Transpose

Creating realistic poses to abstract deformations has never been so easy. Transpose lets you quickly isolate parts of your model which can then be deformed, positioned, scaled and rotated with incredible actuary. No need for complicated rigging or tedious painting of weights, just select and pose! Achieve realistic muscle deformation as you bend a limb into a flexed position, then quickly return your geometry back to its original position. Transpose gives you the freedom to explore 3D sculpture is a new and natural way.

ZSpheres

ZSpheres allow you to quickly create a base mesh with clean topology, which can then be sculpted into any form. The power of ZSphere lies with in their simplicity. From a single ZSphere you can easily grow new ones, which can then be scaled, moved, and rotated into any form. Now you can enjoy creating the geometry for your characters while posing in real-time.

Surface Noise

Surface Noise gives you unprecedented control over the look and feel of your 3D surfaces. You can apply an endless variety of noise types directly to any surfaces regardless of polycount while maintaining the strength, size, and color of the noise you want to work with. Surface Noise gives you the ability to create looks that would be impossible or too time consuming to model. You can apply noise to your whole model or only to the selected areas. Creating rusted metal, stucco, chipped paint, battle damage and more is just a click away with Surface Noise.

• Brushes, Colors, and Masking - You can also apply noise to all of your brush strokes. Paint, sculpt, and mask using any style of surface noise. Build and save libraries of different noise types, which can then be applied instantly to any mesh! Because this is a nondestructive process you can turn noise on and off, as well as change the look of the noise you are using at any point in your modeling process.
• HD Geometry with Noise - By taking advantage of up to a billion polygons, you can apply the finest noise details to your surface, which can then be converted to texture, normal and displacement maps.

3D Layers

Layers allow for a non-linear workflow. Artists are able to work with a model at many different stages of development simultaneously. Artists can add details such as a reptile's skin scales then turn those details off and refine the major forms underlying them. If a director is calling for more damage on a piece of armor simply dial up the intensity of that layer. If you want to see that same mesh with out any damage at all just turn that layer off.

Materials

In ZBrush, the appearance of any surface is affected by several things - its base color, its texture image (if it has one), the lighting that falls on the surface, and its material. The material changes the way the lighting reacts with the surface so that it may appear - for example - shiny, bumpy, reflective, metallic or transparent. There are many preset materials in ZBrush to give you control over a scene. In addition, each material can be modified to create new materials.
MatCap - What if you could create a surface material and lighting environment simply by painting an object so that it looks like you want it to look? What if you could create that surface material by sampling points from an existing image that already features the material and lighting environment you want? For a great many (probably the majority) materials and lighting environments, this is exactly what MatCap (Material Capture), allows you to do.

Subtools

SubTools permit a single (logical) mesh to be treated as many independent objects. Like polygroups, they split a single model into several different components, but the emphasis on SubTools is allowing you to work with each component as if it were a separate mesh. SubTools increases the amount of polygons you can work with by allowing each SubTool to have as many polygons as your system can handle. For example, if your system can handle 8 million polygons for one SubTool you can have a model equal to 32 million polygons by having 4 SubTools of 8 million polygons each.

Mesh Extract

Mesh extraction is a fast and powerful way to create new parts to your model. Using existing geometry you can quickly and easily create a jacket, a helmet, gloves, whatever your character may need! Mesh Extractions works by isolating parts of one model and, in a sense, duplicating that as another mesh. It also 'cleans' the edge of the extracted mesh to create a smooth, even boundary. Just paint a selection on the area you want new geometry to be created from and simply extract!

Projection Master

Projection Master is a unique feature of ZBrush that allows you to use all of the 2D and 2.5D brushes in sculpting, texturing, and otherwise working with your 3D model. The concept behind Projection Master is simple. While working with a 3D model (usually a very high-resolution one-the more "standard" 3D tools are usually used when sculpting low- and medium-resolution details), you activate Projection Master to convert the visible portion of your model into pixols on the canvas.

This simply samples the depth of your model at each visible point on the screen, and adjusts each corresponding pixol to reflect the depth, color, material, etc., of the model at that point. The model is then temporarily removed from the canvas, leaving you to work with the pixol-based representation of the model. This process is referred to as dropping the model to the screen. Being able to use any paintbrush to affect the final geometry of the model opens up a huge number of possibilities. For example, you could use the Blur brush to smooth out a section of the model that is too rough. Or you can project other complex pieces of geometry into your mesh to create complex details as easily as a brush stroke.

Deformations

The deformations features inside ZBrush allow you to easily apply twist, stretch, bend, and a variety of other unique changes to any 3D mesh. with over 20 powerful deformation types that can be applied in any axis, you have the ability to create advanced shapes with just a few clicks. By using the power of ZBrush to deform millions of polygons with ease, you don't have to worry about how complex the shape you want may be. Just deform it any way you like!

HD Geometry

HD Geometry is the next evolution in digital sculpting. With the ability to divide your model up to a billion polygons, now your limits are based only on what you can imagine. You can focus your attention on specific area of your 3D creation while ZBrush handles the rest of your model in a very system friendly way. This is why you can achieve a billion polygons without having to worry about purchasing expensive graphics hardware. ZBrush’s powerful memory handling allows you to sculpt with out limits!

Primitives

One aspect of ZBrush’s workflow is the ability to create extremely complex scenes by combining a bunch of smaller objects. Ultimately, a scene could be composed of millions or even billions of polygons, yet still render in real time! Many of these complex 3D primitives ZBrush provides combine to produce a very powerful masking and deformation system that is unique to parametric objects. This system allows you to create an endless assortment of complex shapes all from a single primitive.

• Not so primitive primitives! There are a wide range of attributes that can change the initial state of a ZBrush primitive. This gives you a great level of control over the shape of the primitive you start sculpting with. Quickly and easily change a cone into a torso or a single plan into any shape you can imagine by using ZBrush’s powerful curves.
• Dynamic Curves - Curves are used within ZBrush to make powerful editing of a feature intuitive and much more powerful. This is also the case with ZBrush primitives. By editing a primitive’s curve you can create an endless number of shapes with both rounded surfaces mixed with hard edges. Add as many point of control along a curve to make shapes as complex as you want.

Normal Maps and ZMapper

ZMapper is the free Next-Gen Normal Mapping plug-in for ZBrush 2.0. Using ZBrush’s revolutionary multiple levels of resolution and a new lighting-fast ray tracer, ZMapper generates unsurpassed normal maps in seconds that will work with any game engine need. The built-in open GL viewer allows artists to see their normal maps in action directly on the model without leaving ZBrush. Artists can also view their wire frame, normals, tangents, and UV seams directly in the viewer allowing for fast troubleshooting.

Built into ZMapper is a simple to use interface that gives artists and programmers complete control over their normal maps. Every permutation of normal map generation is possible and easy to do with ZMapper's Expert Options. Artists can create tangent space maps, world space maps, flip their red channels, swap their red and green channels, and derive their tangents from their normal and binormals as well as a host of other options. ZMapper also contains several options designed to take your normal maps to the next level and to help troubleshoot your game engine needs.

ZMapper uses some of the unique features of ZBrush, such as multi-resolution subdivision surfaces, to make the creation of normal maps a quick and easy process. Here's a quick preview of a typical use of ZMapper, so you can have an idea of how it fits in with ZBrush. Create a low-resolution model to your liking and (in ZBrush, using the multiple subdivision levels feature) a high-resolution model that is a subdivision of the low-resolution model. Start the ZMapper plugin and use it to create a normal map for the low-resolution model. The map will incorporate both the differentials in geometry between the low- and high-resolution models, and the details of the bump map.

Decimation Master

Decimation Master is a free Plugin for ZBrush that allows you to greatly reduce the poly count of a model while preserving the high resolution detail. Decimation Master's ease of use is matched only by its speed. You can interactively choose up to what percentage you optimize different areas of your mesh giving you a high level of control over how you preserve details while lowering your poly count.

If your model contains many different parts (Subtools) then you can choose to batch decimate all of the parts together, or each one separately. Never before have artists been able to lower poly counts to such a highly optimized level while seeing almost no lose in detail.

Decimation Master is ideal for:

• Highly detailed renders in other application with out the need for normal or discplacment maps
• Optimization for characters and in game assets
• Optimizing models for 3D printing or rapid prototyping purposes

Decimation Master also lets you:

• Preform quick decimation at any precentage
• Optimize with two powerful methods for a better control over your mesh
• Optimization based on the polypainting information
• Use symmetry and partial symmetry
• Optimization of your UVs for exporting models for 3D Color printing
• Export all SubTool as one OBJ file
• Clone all SubTools

PaintStop

PaintStop is a powerful addition to ZBrush's extensive plugin library which configures your user interface and settings to give you the true to life feel of using real world art tools. In addition to the many brushes, pencils, and paints that are available in PaintStop, you can choose from a variety of different canvas types to change the look and feel of your final piece. Take advantage of ZBrush's powerful blending tools to enhance your work even further. Giving you even more control over your artistic workflow in PaintStop is a powerful cloning tool.

UV Master: UV Creation Has Never Been So Easy!

When creating or using a texture map, a 3D model needs UVs. These are 2D coordinates that tell all 3D applications how to apply a texture to your model. Until now, the process of creating those UVs has been a time consuming challenge that requires a high level of technical expertise and has little room for creativity. UV Master is a free plugin which will create very efficient UVs for your models with a single click. Any artist can now quickly and easily create excellent UV maps. This free ZBrush plugin clearly represents the ZBrush ideal of maximum artistic freedom with minimal technical hurdles! With UV Master's cutting-edge technology you can leave all the technical work to the computer. Because the UV maps generated by the plugin can be in one UV island you will be able to understand your model's UVs in any 2D image editor and paint or edit them like you would do with manually unwrapped UVs. Amazingly, what needs mere minutes with UV Master could take hours in other dedicated solutions! Just load your model, click Unwrap and you're done!

If you need more control over this automatic process, use the Control Painting mode to restrict seams creation in specific areas of your model or paint areas which will attract seams. Just a few broad strokes will add more power to the process with minimal effort. In addition, UV Master's density mode lets you define areas where you need more or less pixel space for your texture -- without the need to locally scale or stretch your UVs by hand. For example you can give more density to the face and less on the back by simply painting the areas before clicking Unwrap!

UV Master Provides Several Utilities:

• Flatten and Unflatten the model's UVs for easy visualization. You can even tweak them with TransPose or the ZBrush sculpting brushes.
• Copy and Paste UVs between models of the same topology.
• Create UV islands based on Polygroups.
• Load a model with existing UVs and/or seams to unwrap it using the high quality UV Master algorithm!
• Use specialized Ambient Occlusion calculation to attract UV seams to the less visible parts of the model.

REQUIREMENTS

• Windows
  • HIGHLY RECOMMENDED:
    • OS: Windows Vista/Windows 7 32-bit/64-bit
    • CPU: Pentium D or newer (or equivalent such as AMD Athlon 64 X2 or newer) with optional multithreading or hyperthreading capabilities.
    • RAM: 2048MB required for working with multi-million-polys. 6 GB recommended. (ZBrush 4 is a 32-bit application, but can use up to 4 GB of system RAM)
    • Pen Tablet: Wacom or Wacom compatible.
    • Monitor: 1280x1024 monitor resolution or higher (32 bits)
  • MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
    • OS: Windows Vista, or newer, 32-bits or 64-bits.
    • CPU: P4 or AMD Opteron or Athlon64 Processor (Must have SSE2 : Streaming SIMD Extensions 2)
    • RAM: 1024MB (2048 MB recommended)
    • Pen Tablet: Wacom or Wacom compatible.
    • Monitor: 1280x1024 monitor resolution (32 bits)
• Mac
  • REQUIRED:
    • OS: Mac OSX 10.6 or newer
    • CPU: Intel Macintosh
    • RAM: 2048MB required for working with multi-million-polys. 6 GB recommended. (ZBrush 4 is a 32-bit application, but can use up to 4 GB of system RAM)
    • Pen Tablet: Wacom or Wacom compatible.
    • Monitor: 1280x1024 monitor resolution set to Millions of Colors (recommended: 1280 x 1024 or higher)