jayanam writes: Here is a new Blender modeling tips & tricks video, in which I use my free Fast Carve addon and snapping to faces to create a simple hardsurface model.

The post Blender modeling & snapping tips appeared first on BlenderNation.

Fred Mantel writes: Just created this new speed modeling time-lapse of an Alien City. The entire scene has been created in 4 hours. Hope you like it!

The post Speed modeling time-lapse of an Alien City appeared first on BlenderNation.

Allen Grippin talks about how he created this amazing Cthulhu model in Blender and Zbrush in this Sketchfab Art Spotlight. Hello, my name is Allen Grippin. I’m an old comic book artist who grew up reading X-Men and Spider-Man. I became very adept with a pencil and moved into tattoo art. I have always been [...]

The post Art Spotlight: Flying Cthulhu appeared first on BlenderNation.

 ZBrush Summit 2018 News

The 2018 ZBrush Summit is fast approaching!

The ZBrush Summit is a three day event happening September 28 through 30 in Los Angeles, CA and streaming LIVE around the world.

You can look forward to presentations from top ZBrush artists, the Live Sculpt-Off, interviews, contests and the annual ZBrush Awards.

 

There will also be ZBrush workshops taught by some of the most prominent artists in a variety of industries! Whether you are interested in VFX or film, video game asset creation, character design, or simply want to sharpen your ZBrush skills, you can learn from the best in the business with this special opportunity. Workshops have limited availability and must be registered for in advance. 

WORKSHOPS
Stay tuned for the schedule and registration information.

In addition to the exclusive workshops, the ZBrush Summit will be offering a full slate of live presentations that will be streamed LIVE around the world. Of course, the best seats in the house are in the studio (there’s nothing like being there in person!) but no matter where you are, you can be in on the action. You can even communicate directly with the presenters via social media and possibly have your questions answered live.

PRESENTATIONS

Friday, September 28

• Kris Costa
• ZBrush in Digic’s Character Workflow
• Blur Studios
• Framestore: Pushing Characters Through the Pipe
• Pixologic Demo

Saturday, September 29

• Method Studios: Creating Creatures for Spots & Features
• Double Negative: ZBrush Kaiju Creation for ‘Pacific Rim: Uprising’
• Santa Monica Studios: Creating Modular Architectural Assets Using ZBrush
• Pablo Munoz Gomez: Make it Happen in ZBrush – The Workflow
• Zack Petroc: Using ZBrush to Create Content for Story Pitches
• ZBrush Awards Ceremony

Sunday, September 30

• Michael Pavlovich: Using ZBrush to Facilitate Smarter Production
• Epic Games: Fortnite
• Insomniac Games: How ZBrush Helped Build Spider-Man
• Joe Menna: Engineering Toys & Collectibles for Production

 

LIVE SCULPT-OFF
Are three days of ZBrush action not enough for you? You’re in luck! On September 27 we will once again be holding the Live ZBrush Sculpt-Off, featuring twelve artists in each of two categories (Organic and Hard-Surface) going head-to-head in a themed ZBrush sculpting competition. You can watch the event unfold during a LIVE stream and then vote for the winners. 

4th ANNUAL ZBRUSH AWARDS
Throughout the past year, you’ve been voting on your favorite images posted here at ZBrushCentral and we are pleased to now announce the nominees for 2018. Every post between June 15, 2017 and June 14, 2018 was eligible for an award. 

Please congratulate all of this year’s nominees. Their work has been exceptional! 

Then come to the ZBrush Summit, where this year’s winners will be announced live at the Awards Ceremony on Saturday, September 29th, 2018. For those of you who cannot attend the Summit in person, it will also be LiveStreamed to the world.

The nominees contending for this year’s awards are:

 

(Click the names beneath each image to view the nominated ZBC posts.)

Alexander Beim · Kris Costa · Kojiro Yahata
Mickael Lelievre · Maria Panfilova · Zhelong Xu
Daniel Bel · Frederic D’Aoust · Moisés Ojeda
Hossein Diba · Maria Panfilova · Piotr Rusnarczyk
Elastic · Epic Games · Section Studios

Epic Games – Paragon · Rare – Sea of Thieves · Section Studios: Rival – Crimson X Chaos

Elastic – Westworld · Ian Joyner – Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 · Alex Kozhanov: Transformers – The Last Knight

In addition to those listed above, there will also be an HONORARY AWARD. This is traditionally given to a luminary of the industry — someone who has had great impact not only within the digital art world but also for ZBrush itself. The recipient of this year’s award will be announced at a later date.

To qualify for a nomination, works must have been posted at ZBC between June 15, 2017 and June 14, 2018. Nominations for threads required a minimum of 6 images. ZBrush must have been an integral part of the creation process to qualify. For collaborations (including studios), all artists names will be present on the award that both worked on the project and posted images within the winning ZBrushCentral thread.

Don’t forget that you can already vote for the winners of next year’s awards! Just click the Vote button found over any image throughout the year running from June 15, 2018 through June 14, 2019.

Sign up here to get on the official ZBrush Summit mailing list and be among the first to be notified about all Summit-related announcements!

We look forward to seeing you there! 

3D artist Misha Kovalenko recently shared a ZBrushCentral post showcasing the finished product of a job he was commissioned for. He designed this massive eagle in ZBrush which is now prominently displayed alongside a building in downtown Toronto. Misha shared his process and some background on the project which you can read below. Afterward, make sure to visit his ZBrushCentral thread to leave a comment and check out Misha’s website to see more work!

The Eagle Project

Some time ago, I had the honour to work as a sculptor on The Eagle project owned by talented Toronto artist Dean Drever.
It was a very challenging and exciting opportunity for me to create a sculpture which stands about 50 feet tall and located in the heart of the largest city in Canada, Toronto.

The main artistic challenge here was to capture a realistic look of the Eagle while keeping more of a stylized design.
Public art like The Eagle has the ability to create character and identity by celebrating the history, character, identity and creativity of the area and its people.

Sculpting in ZBrush:

Knowing right away that during this project I will be working with feathers a lot I started out by gathering various reference materials.
While sculpting head and wings I did not really use any modified or custom brushes which is a good example of how the ZBrush default tool set up is so powerful that it can be enough to complete a project of this scale without any customization.

Once a base shape was established and approved, I modeled several different sets of feathers in ‘’ZModeler” and then placed and adjusted them manually.
I opted to not use procedural tools as the goal was to give the Eagle more of an organic look with all of its imperfections.

I really like using ‘’ZModeler” in my work as in my opinion is it is very quick and flexible modeling tool yet it can be pretty powerful if the one spends enough time learning it.

At some point towards the end of sculpting stage, when I already had a solid mesh a couple of design elements had to be changed and this was where the “Move Topological” Brush came in extremely handy.
At that time “The Eagle” was my first project done in 4R8 version and I had a chance to test out new features literally on the go. The combination of new Gizmo and old Transpose tools worked very well for me.

There were many things to keep in mind when working on such large structure. One of them was wind study report which required an upper wing and long feather to have a certain curvature angle. The needed angle was achieved by using the amazing flexibility of various move brush tools.

Once the final design was approved, I worked closely with an architectural engineer and was responsible for making adjustments to ensure that it meets engineering requirements.

Overall it was a great and very inspiring experience despite a huge amount of responsibility and multiple technical and artistic challenges along the way I definitely look forward to working on similar projects in the future.

A project like The Eagle has a lot of potential in terms of urban infrastructure development as property values may increase, and the art will become a destination draw for visitors, who will contribute to the local economy in the shops, cafes and businesses

The Eagle Sculpture, in my opinion, is a great example of how ZBrush can be used not only in game dev, movies, collectables etc. but also in traditional sculpture as it brings absolutely new, enhanced feel and approach to traditional art.

Basically, with proper planning and professionals on board, ZBrush makes it possible to bring very ambitious projects to life.

Misha Kovalenko

www.mishakovalenko.com
Michaelkovalenko778@gmail.com
LinkedIn

Raf Grassetti and his team at Sony have shared a beautiful art dump for the hit game which you can view on ZBrushCentral! 

Artist Edward Price shows us just what can be done with the powerful ZModeler brush. Inspired by a love of vintage motorsports, he modeled every component of this 1967 Indy race car using ZModeler. As always, we’re excited to see artists embracing the modeling power of ZBrush and discovering the innovative and intuitive workflows available that break the mold of more traditional CAD based modeling platforms. Visit the ZBrushCentral thread to see just how precise you can get using ZModeler and let your imagination run wild with an unrestricted, hands-on approach to 3D modeling!

View this and more of Edward’s work on his website at www.BrightSplashes.com

ZBrush 2018.1 is now available for download.

This patch is a free update and is highly recommended for all users. It includes a number of changes for improved stability in ZBrush 2018:

NEW

• Added various changes to increase ZBrush sculpting and navigation speed.
• Added ‘Go To Unmasked Center’ button for use with Gizmo3D center option.
• Added ‘Uvb’ and ‘Uvbt’ (UV-Box and UV-Box tiles) UV map creation options.
• Added option to export Smooth Normals with OBJ files.
• Added ZModeler Inset proportional option. (A Single Poly only. CTRL modifier)
• Added a warning when loading custom brushes with auto-masking enabled if Sculptris Pro is active.
• Added a MatCap Red Wax material so it will no longer be fully replaced when using ‘Save As Startup Material’.

UPDATES

• Fixed Groups Border weighted smooth mode (Smooth Groups Brush).
• Fixed iCloud Photos shortcut issue.
• Fixed GoZ Photoshop Crash.
• Fixed GoZ Max has been updated to work with 3ds Max 2017, 2018, & 2019.
• Fixed double clicking not opening ZPR or ZTL files on the MacOS.
• Fixed issues with tablet pressure on MacOS.
• Fixed ZRemesher density control with Polypainting on MacOS.
• Fixed CTRL + Drag duplicated crash when using the Gizmo3D.
• Fixed issue with geometry position sliders staying active when inputting values.
• Fixed issue with lightbox not opening with large number of loaded brushes.
• Fixed issue with VDM brushes when applying with textures.
• Fixed ‘Draw Transformation Border’ not storing with Config.
• Fixed ZBrush not responding after restoring from minimize on MacOS.
• Fixed typing with a French keyboard on MacOS.
• Fixed importing of PNG files on MacOS.
• Fixed custom UI not storing when in full screen mode on MacOS.
• Fixed Screen Saver from activating when ZBrush is launched on MacOS.
• Fixed computer not sleeping when ZBrush is launched on MacOS.
• Fixed issue after UI is saved in window mode on Windows.
• Fixed issue of UI not being saved in fullscreen on secondary monitor on Windows.
• Fixed UV Planar smoothing UVs when applied. Now smoothing will only take place when SUV in the Tool>Geometry is enabled.

If you are upgrading from ZBrush 4 or below, please follow the full instructions here. You will automatically have ZBrush 2018.1 from the outset.

If you have already upgraded to ZBrush 2018, with ZBrush closed please browse to your ZBrush 2018 folder and run the ZUpgrader application found there. (Do not run “Update,” “Updater” or anything else. You must run ZUpgrader.) This will update your ZBrush 2018 installation to 2018.1. You will not need to reactivate ZBrush after updating.

• If you encounter issues with the ZUpgrader — or if you simply wish to have a completely fresh ZBrush 2018.1 installation — please uninstall ZBrush 2018 and then download the most current ZBrush 2018 installer from your My Licenses page. This page will always give you the most current installer, which at this point is the ZBrush 2018.1 installer.

If you have floating licenses, you cannot use the updater. Your company’s IT manager will need to submit a Support ticket to request the update. See here.

Happy ZBrushing!

Originally published by Charles Taylor in September 2016, we have had several questions about Cycles lately and thought it might be a good time to remind Poser users of this blog. 

WINNER ANNOUNCED!

Pixologic is pleased to announce that Daniel Alderson Smith (3dasp) is the winner of the Magic Wheelchair Comic Con Contest!

It was a remarkable competition, with brilliant ideas by all the artists involved. The judging panel — comprised of industry experts and professionals within the Magic Wheelchair Organization — were hard pressed to select a winner. At the end of the day, they chose their favorites which were then sent to the kiddo who will be putting this costume to use. That kiddo then selected Daniel’s Droideka droid as the one that she most wanted. Congratulations!

The Droideka will be joined by Pixologic’s own creation, the Poe Dameron X-Wing Fighter which is currently being built by Monster City Studios, Massivit 3D and Dangling Carrot Creative. Two kiddos are going to be VERY proud as they roam the convention floor!

THE PIXOLOGIC BUILD

MAGIC WHEELCHAIR

Who is Magic Wheelchair? Magic Wheelchair is an organization that builds costumes for kiddos in wheelchairs, at no cost to their families. The Magic Wheelchair is a non-profit organization that teams up with artists and builders to assemble theme-based costumes that are fabricated to integrate with the child’s existing wheelchair.

Magic Wheelchair has set a goal to build seven Star Wars themed costumes which will then be unveiled to seven boys or girls and their families at the 2018 Comic Con. In addition to designing a costume themselves, Pixologic called upon the amazingly imaginative talents of our ZBrush artists to design one of these seven Star Wars costumes.

From April 30th-May 31st, 2018 Pixologic Inc. hosted a ZBrush community contest with the challenge to design a Star Wars themed costume for one chosen kiddo. The winning design will be included with the other professional build teams for the big reveal at Comic Con. All teams involved are:

CONTEST ENTRIES

Thank you to the entire ZBC community for your support of this project — especially to the artists who joined in the competition with your great ideas and masterful use of ZBrush!