There is even quicker way than smooth group brush. If you want to create a smooth polygroup from mask press SHIFT+CTRL+E. Zbrush will automatically cut polygons to make boundary buttery smooth. This is a real gem.
My tip would be ZAppLink. A lot of people don't know that you can actually do almost all your texture painting directly in Photoshop. Just couple clicks to bang out your character sheet to photoshop and then a quick paintover makes concepting even on low resolution characters a breeze.
Just starting out with Zbrush after 3k hours in blender, not to replace but to add to my gamedev arsenal. And you know that demotivates a tiny bit that i can tell how much i need to learn, but thank you for making it as accessible as possible
J thank you so much for your knowledge , ive been a 3D instructor for 8 years and you are by far the first reference i encourage all my students to watch . Keep up the amazing work
Tip number 3 speaks volumes to me as someone who used ZBrush for the past year. Michael Cauchi told me the same thing about low resolution it plays a role in making easier deformations in one of his life streams. And now you’re saying the same thing. He also did tip number 10 a lot in his likeness videos. I wish I could send you some of my ZBrush projects for feedback and advice. Plan to do more soon so that I can mess with game engines. Big big fan. Your videos help me get through my last 2 semesters in college. My latest biggest obstacle is creativity and consistency and completion. J Hill if you read this humble comment you have my gratitude and thanks in all the world. I’m a very humble beginner of ZBrush looking to connect to others that use it.
Another useful tip, when using smooth brush, keep sculpting but let go off SHIFT key, it changes its mode and preserves the form I think. Great video though, those are some really useful tips I didnt know about!
It took me a while to get a handle on the way scale works in zbrush. This is the most important thing when it comes to going to other programs or to a 3d printer.
Really I’ve never seen this use of the Draw option for the reference images, I’ve used other ways to use references but this looks like it’s far more efficient!
Reconstruct is a nice thing, that I haven't really thought about before. It is worth mentioning with reconstruct, things that change the setup too much like adding new polygons will break it, and if you've got any triangles (which are actually nice for a few modeling cases, even in zbrush) doesn't work with those either.
So happy you shared these tips, dynamic subdivision, is so amazing to let us see how the mesh looks like with subdivision levels and also seeing what the mesh looks like with thicknes, as a preview~~
The reaction to the audience to the smooth groups brush was similar to when Capcom was doing their talk on Street Fighter 6 this year and when they used the cloth transpose brush. They are both amazing tools and I use them pretty frequently now. There are so many hidden gems in the lightbox it's unreal, I guess Pixel Logic doesn't want to overwhelm people who are still learning. I would suggest that everyone learn what's already there very well and if there's ever something really specific that you can't achieve with the default brushes, guarantee it's in the lightbox.
on tip no.1 you can also not use 2 subtools. Remesh or retopo your dynamesh mesh and then mark a point in history where your details were (ctrl click on the undo point you wish) and then go back to the latest undo (the clean topo mesh) and click project history . that way you can keep retopologizing and projecting without worrying if both meshes are the correct distance and if something is off in your topology you can work on it as you project the details. also allows you to project meshes with a HUGE polycount, since you don't need to have a duplicate of the subtool eating up your polycount. :)
Yo that was some synchronicity shit! Been using Zbrush for over a decade, and about 2 hours ago I was contemplating how to solve for Tip 6. Then I randomly saw this video and you solved it. Thanks bro
Damn I need to add that Smooth Groups brush to my palette. I've been using "Polish by features" to do the same after extracting, after creasing the polygroups, works well. Another tip is to use Freeze Subdivision Levels to do operations that can't be done when the mesh is subdivided. Like when you deleted the area for the shirt and reconstructed the subdivs, instead you can Freeze Subdiv Levels and separate/delete the parts you don't need, then Unfreeze and it'll recalculate your subdivs. For some reason Reconstruct Subdiv tends to fail a lot for me, even with only quads. Zbrush can do so many things, but it's generally buried in menus and sub menus...
Thanks for the insight again J! That final tip is GOATed for likeness studies!? So much easier than pureref behind and making the Zbrush window see through.
Tip1 - out of laziness I always bypass this process and just keep working on my high poly without duplicating for ZRemesh and project all, I think I will embrace this method starting now. ^_^ Tip7 - what I do is edgeloop masked border, but this is better as I only need to use smooth groups brush, problem in edgeloop was you have additional polygon which sometimes I don't like. Tip8 - I'm stupid I didn't know that Thickness, after I create a belt from planes I directly use extrude in zmodeler, ouch Tip9 - I'm not gonna be lazy of not doing zremesh by group promise ;) thanks for the tip man, thanks! super!
For tip 9, I've seen people just use polypaint where they want the separation, then generate polygroups from polypaint and then zremesh (keep groups). I feel like that would be the easiest/cleanest way to get zm to create the needed loops.
Amazing Tips, always learing something new from your clips. Great job man. I donno if you've covered this in the past, 2 tips i have really found helpful - 1) splitting your model into patches with overlap if you want to go crazy hi when detailing huge full body characters. and 2) Using UVs to transfer shape information in maya even if the vertex count has changed. If you have UVs then you have a way.
"Video game characters are just belts, pouches and shoulder pads" lmao The secret of cool characters was in the palm of our hands this entire time... :O
8:07 Should I say "pum pum pum" for it to work 😄😄...... nice video brother, as a mid-level sculptor I knew all the points (other than the last one) but for a fresher, this video is a treasure trove.
ty so much for making this video its veryy helpfull specially about how to use Zremesher (polygroups) and Project now my vision to modeling characters is better 😁💥
If you want perfect export scale every time without importing or usig scale master, just multiply scale of your geometry mesh which is usually 2 by the export scale, it works in centimeters. so if you want to export a 6'4" person which is around 190cm set export scale to 95. 2x95=190. I think geometry scale of 2 is for zbrush brushes to work properly, if you set mesh scale to 1 the export scale will be exactly in cm without multiplication...but your brushes wont scale properly. zbrush is genius but less so for scaling it may be legacy from very early versions
bro I tried Z brush and its way to convoluted, think im gonna stay with mudbox. you open the Brushes menu theres like 100 brushes wtf. you're tutorials are awesome btw, you are a GOAT.
haha didn't know about polygroup smooth brush :D Gotta add that right away! Also didn't really find much of a use for dynamic subd but I didn't know it had thickness settings. That alone makes it crazy useful. This videos are great dude! Thank you very much for making them. (Btw I think mic audio might be panning a bit to the left side. Lowering about 2 dB on left channel brings it to center though.)
awesome tips, where has the smooth groups brush been my whole life! Also, at 12:57- how did you isolate those beveled faces, so you could apply the poly group to them?
DOING (sound effects) eheh, thanks for sharing, can you explain a bit how do you pose a face and make changes when it s not in simmetry anymore? thk (not local simmmetry)
For me it's a problem when I stay low for too long! I often think that there's something more to shape on low resolution when it actually starts holding back my progress. I try to break that habit now and increase resolution more often but still it's a balance I've yet to find for myself. Also number 6... man. I'm grateful, truly.
00:20 Projecting
03:40 Scale
05:00 Keep it Low
06:18 Reconstruct
08:22 Backface Mask
09:33 Smooth Brush
10:45 Smooth Groups Brush
13:23 Dynamic Subdiv
18:04 ZRemesher
25:31 Reference Images
This is the kind of video I would have wished for when I first got into Zbrush. Every tip is crucial and helpful!
There is even quicker way than smooth group brush. If you want to create a smooth polygroup from mask press SHIFT+CTRL+E. Zbrush will automatically cut polygons to make boundary buttery smooth. This is a real gem.
🤯
Yup, my mind also exploded when I learned that :)
My tip would be ZAppLink. A lot of people don't know that you can actually do almost all your texture painting directly in Photoshop. Just couple clicks to bang out your character sheet to photoshop and then a quick paintover makes concepting even on low resolution characters a breeze.
Yea Zapp link can be super powerful
I just try Zapp link , and yes it is a very cool function. Thank you for your recommendation.
Just starting out with Zbrush after 3k hours in blender, not to replace but to add to my gamedev arsenal. And you know that demotivates a tiny bit that i can tell how much i need to learn, but thank you for making it as accessible as possible
Keep learning. I don't use 95% of of Zbrush and I am making some beautiful sculpts with thousands of downloads now.
@@SuperComicAnimation tysm
J thank you so much for your knowledge , ive been a 3D instructor for 8 years and you are by far the first reference i encourage all my students to watch . Keep up the amazing work
Awesome, thank you!
Had no idea smooth groups existed, what a great tip!
Tip number 3 speaks volumes to me as someone who used ZBrush for the past year. Michael Cauchi told me the same thing about low resolution it plays a role in making easier deformations in one of his life streams. And now you’re saying the same thing. He also did tip number 10 a lot in his likeness videos. I wish I could send you some of my ZBrush projects for feedback and advice. Plan to do more soon so that I can mess with game engines. Big big fan. Your videos help me get through my last 2 semesters in college. My latest biggest obstacle is creativity and consistency and completion. J Hill if you read this humble comment you have my gratitude and thanks in all the world. I’m a very humble beginner of ZBrush looking to connect to others that use it.
Worth the time to watch. Excellent video. The last tip for reference images is brilliant.
Smoothing polygroups omg!! That 12:13 was so satisfying to watch. Thanks for the tips!
This is fantastic. These were all the pitfalls i hit when i self-taught myself this program. You do a fantastic job explaining.
Another useful tip, when using smooth brush, keep sculpting but let go off SHIFT key, it changes its mode and preserves the form I think. Great video though, those are some really useful tips I didnt know about!
the reference image tip is gold! Im suprised ive not seen or heard about this before
It took me a while to get a handle on the way scale works in zbrush. This is the most important thing when it comes to going to other programs or to a 3d printer.
Really I’ve never seen this use of the Draw option for the reference images, I’ve used other ways to use references but this looks like it’s far more efficient!
Reconstruct is a nice thing, that I haven't really thought about before.
It is worth mentioning with reconstruct, things that change the setup too much like adding new polygons will break it, and if you've got any triangles (which are actually nice for a few modeling cases, even in zbrush) doesn't work with those either.
OMG! What was that smooth groups witchcraft?! That was awesome. Congrats for the video. 👏👏👏👏
So happy you shared these tips, dynamic subdivision, is so amazing to let us see how the mesh looks like with subdivision levels and also seeing what the mesh looks like with thicknes, as a preview~~
For Tip9, instead of using polygroup, you can use retopology curve and use the curve slider to guide the remeshing process.
Ive been doing this for 10 years and this was by far the most helpfull video ive seen on this platform, thank you so much
Wow glad you think so and I hope it helps you out
Thanks!
Thank YOU! I hope it helps
Honestly had thought I’d hit a wall until I saw this video, appreciate the knowledge you’ve laid out perfectly.
love to hear it, you got it. get back at it!
13:50, that's the real gem of this video, the secrete tip into the industry
💯
Thank you so much Jhill this Zremesher part save made my life so much easier!!!
Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with the community as always! You’re amazing! 👏🏼
the last tip blew my mind, I had no idea I could do that,
could you make a dedicated video on likeness sculpts. Thanks for the tips!
Thanks so much for this. I’ll be rewatching this fir a very VERY LONG time
I'm glad you ended the Smooth all even edges with "this took me years to find" because I needed to hear that haha. Legit helpful vid man, Cheers J!
Tip 10 ! is supper useful. thanks man.
The reaction to the audience to the smooth groups brush was similar to when Capcom was doing their talk on Street Fighter 6 this year and when they used the cloth transpose brush. They are both amazing tools and I use them pretty frequently now. There are so many hidden gems in the lightbox it's unreal, I guess Pixel Logic doesn't want to overwhelm people who are still learning. I would suggest that everyone learn what's already there very well and if there's ever something really specific that you can't achieve with the default brushes, guarantee it's in the lightbox.
Haha yea I felt this way seeing that too
on tip no.1 you can also not use 2 subtools.
Remesh or retopo your dynamesh mesh and then mark a point in history where your details were (ctrl click on the undo point you wish) and then go back to the latest undo (the clean topo mesh) and click project history . that way you can keep retopologizing and projecting without worrying if both meshes are the correct distance and if something is off in your topology you can work on it as you project the details. also allows you to project meshes with a HUGE polycount, since you don't need to have a duplicate of the subtool eating up your polycount. :)
Wow nice
hey @Sihbus can u please elaborate more i didn't really get how to preserve the history , thanks in advance
Great tips dude. I also enjoyed the relaxed nature of the delivery and the humor sprinkled in
Thanks dude, glad you liked it
thanks man,it's been a while, please upload more vids
15 minutes in and you blew my mind multiple times
Happy to hear that! I hope it helps
straight to the point and no bs! thank you so much for sharing this. big big help!
Yo that was some synchronicity shit! Been using Zbrush for over a decade, and about 2 hours ago I was contemplating how to solve for Tip 6. Then I randomly saw this video and you solved it.
Thanks bro
Damn I need to add that Smooth Groups brush to my palette. I've been using "Polish by features" to do the same after extracting, after creasing the polygroups, works well.
Another tip is to use Freeze Subdivision Levels to do operations that can't be done when the mesh is subdivided. Like when you deleted the area for the shirt and reconstructed the subdivs, instead you can Freeze Subdiv Levels and separate/delete the parts you don't need, then Unfreeze and it'll recalculate your subdivs.
For some reason Reconstruct Subdiv tends to fail a lot for me, even with only quads.
Zbrush can do so many things, but it's generally buried in menus and sub menus...
This is one of your best videos yet. Valuable, very helpful for zbrush owners who have put the software aside years ago. Thanks! :)
Happy you think so and I hope it helps
Thanks for the insight again J! That final tip is GOATed for likeness studies!? So much easier than pureref behind and making the Zbrush window see through.
glad you liked it!
Welcome back, and as usual, you are always creative and innovative
🙏
@@artofjhill 💗
Tip 6 is real deal, Thanks.
Now I understand why you have so many subscribers for a cg artist. Great video J!
omg ty
really amazing tips specially the group smooth ,really useful ,thanks a lot
You got it
Tip1 - out of laziness I always bypass this process and just keep working on my high poly without duplicating for ZRemesh and project all, I think I will embrace this method starting now. ^_^
Tip7 - what I do is edgeloop masked border, but this is better as I only need to use smooth groups brush, problem in edgeloop was you have additional polygon which sometimes I don't like.
Tip8 - I'm stupid I didn't know that Thickness, after I create a belt from planes I directly use extrude in zmodeler, ouch
Tip9 - I'm not gonna be lazy of not doing zremesh by group promise ;)
thanks for the tip man, thanks! super!
The smooth group will litterally change my life haha ! Thanks a lot for theses tips !
You got it
Tip 7 changed my life when I discovered it! Over night it made me better at hard surface hahah
The fact that he remembers the exact year in which he saw the magic of the Smooth Brush tells you how important it is :D
These tips are crucial for dealing with Zbrush! Excellent video!
Group Mask = Ctrl +W! All the best!
Thank you Sir.. You Tips and Guide helps a lot to making my works better. THANK YOU SO MUCH
you got it!
Hidden treasures in plain sight, Thank you so much!!!
My god this was useful. Thank you so much. Love the vibe through the video aswell.
Thanks!
This Video really helped me as a beginner Thank you for creating this video!!
Happy to hear it, good luck and have fun!
Bruh... some of these tips are helping me so much, I wouldn't even have known what to google to address them
Happy to hear that!
Thank you J Hill, your channel its one of the best to learn 3D from all youtube :)
For tip 9, I've seen people just use polypaint where they want the separation, then generate polygroups from polypaint and then zremesh (keep groups). I feel like that would be the easiest/cleanest way to get zm to create the needed loops.
Thanks for this J, the last 2 tips are just awesome and something I have been needing recently!
I keep coming back to this video 🔥🔥🔥 I think is the hairstyle
Amazing Tips, always learing something new from your clips. Great job man.
I donno if you've covered this in the past, 2 tips i have really found helpful - 1) splitting your model into patches with overlap if you want to go crazy hi when detailing huge full body characters. and 2) Using UVs to transfer shape information in maya even if the vertex count has changed. If you have UVs then you have a way.
Nice tips!
Omg last tip its da bomb !
"Video game characters are just belts, pouches and shoulder pads" lmao
The secret of cool characters was in the palm of our hands this entire time... :O
💯
AMAIZIIIIINNNNNGGGG stuff as usual, Thanks for sharing all this tips, I like your stile and way to give you knowledge, thanks thanks and again thanks!
Glad you liked it, hope it helps
This video is a treasure! ♥ tysm
Man, this is the most usful zbrush video I watch in few weeks, thank you very much!
so helpfull jay, thank you so much. been watching since 4 years ago until now that im already a 3d artist :)
smooth group brush.....my mind is blow
8:07 Should I say "pum pum pum" for it to work 😄😄...... nice video brother, as a mid-level sculptor I knew all the points (other than the last one) but for a fresher, this video is a treasure trove.
Characters you make are amazing as always! Maybe I should learn Zbrush. Thanks a lot!!
ty so much for making this video
its veryy helpfull
specially about how to use Zremesher (polygroups) and Project
now my vision to modeling characters is better 😁💥
Thank you, Jay. Very very useful tips.
Very good Tips. most of them i didt know. thank you.
Happy to hear that
i wish i would have known about that morph target trick with projection a long time ago. probably would have saved me my job...
If you want perfect export scale every time without importing or usig scale master, just multiply scale of your geometry mesh which is usually 2 by the export scale, it works in centimeters. so if you want to export a 6'4" person which is around 190cm set export scale to 95. 2x95=190. I think geometry scale of 2 is for zbrush brushes to work properly, if you set mesh scale to 1 the export scale will be exactly in cm without multiplication...but your brushes wont scale properly. zbrush is genius but less so for scaling it may be legacy from very early versions
These are extremely useful tips!!!!!! Thanks!!!!!!
bro I tried Z brush and its way to convoluted, think im gonna stay with mudbox. you open the Brushes menu theres like 100 brushes wtf. you're tutorials are awesome btw, you are a GOAT.
Give it a try
Where have you been man! Missed ya!!!❤️
Timeline can be used for making tons of camera angle saves
Hello sir.. Your video tutorials very helpful... Plz crate tutorials on character art zbrush
Bro, a BIG THANKS to you !
Np, Hope it helps!
Very helpful amazing tips! Thank you!
You got it!
for some reason I always underestimate my own knowledge about zbrush, I use most of these tips, and I feel so good haha
Thank you for the useful tips!
When you used the CurveFlat brush - how did you move the top around without it twisting and deforming?
Awesome video. So helpful!!
haha didn't know about polygroup smooth brush :D
Gotta add that right away!
Also didn't really find much of a use for dynamic subd but I didn't know it had thickness settings. That alone makes it crazy useful.
This videos are great dude! Thank you very much for making them.
(Btw I think mic audio might be panning a bit to the left side. Lowering about 2 dB on left channel brings it to center though.)
Glad you liked it and thank you for the feedback
I had the opposite problem with smooth borders. always annoyed me that it smoothed the borders. finally know where option to change that is lol
Thank you for amazing tutorial!
awesome tips, where has the smooth groups brush been my whole life! Also, at 12:57- how did you isolate those beveled faces, so you could apply the poly group to them?
With select lasso, clicking on an edge hides the polyloop
i love when you talkin spanish perfecto!
Zremesher Guides brush does pretty much the same as the polygrouping way to try and get different flow but less steps
Maybe it works now but it didn’t before
Smooth groups 😮
i like your tutorials, so details!
Amazing !!! Make more videos like this 😀
DOING (sound effects) eheh, thanks for sharing, can you explain a bit how do you pose a face and make changes when it s not in simmetry anymore? thk (not local simmmetry)
For me it's a problem when I stay low for too long! I often think that there's something more to shape on low resolution when it actually starts holding back my progress. I try to break that habit now and increase resolution more often but still it's a balance I've yet to find for myself.
Also number 6... man. I'm grateful, truly.
🙏 keep at it!
Thanks J!
great tips! Thank you
Great tips!
Tip 10 was it for me ❤❤
So much value, thank u