Next version of ZBrush

Yep, that's correct on the system info I use. So will keep that in mind when I try loading it up, thanks.

And yeah, I learned that yesterday as well. I wasn't aware ZB had it's own renderer built in until they mentioned it. Which made me wonder why they didn't just work within the same program? But I'm guessing as you said, Keyshot does this quicker and probably has some other bells and whistles that helps speed up their work process.

Will have to check out some videos on Sculptris. I've only seen ones of people using ZB, so not familiar how that one works. - Also hoping when they make the 4r7 version available, they might also have special pricing on it's purchase as well? From what I read last night, they don't put it on sale that often.

Thanks again

Sculptris likes to spontaneously crash, corrupt saved files and frequently the UI gets screwed up where it doesn't read where my cursor is, or simply fails to react to commands at all. I've been having these issues with it for over a year with multiple reinstall attempts on different systems too.

I was using it last night and it was fine until it wasn't. Crashed suddenly and attempting to reopen it crashed my computer. So I think I'm done with it again.

Well, got home tonight and went ahead and downloaded Sculptris. Have to say that I honestly don't think I like it at all, not one damn bit in fact! I started playing around with it around 7pm, trying out all the tools, figuring out some stuff and the next thing I know, it's freakin' midnight! It was like I went through a damn time warp!

Actually, my boss asked me today if I would come in late tomorrow and work the pumping stations from Noon to Midnight and then be off on Wednesday, so I took advantage of this and stayed up some for tomorrow's long shift. Definitely see the setup is different from what they showed for ZB. But think they're right, in that it's a nice program to get someone started into using 3D modeling software. I actually created a few things that came out pretty cool, but was also learning on the fly, so some trial & error was definitely in play. (yeah, didn't read all the info they provided in the documents, but did read a few pages before tossing it aside, and jumping right in. I'll go back and look at eventually. ) Think if I fool with it here and there, It wouldn't take too long to get a handle on it. Actually took the last hour to see if I could create a guy wearing a hat. Didn't fine tune it, just wanted to rough it up to work on later. Here's how it came out.

Nice to see you hate it so much

The only major things you need to keep an eye on with Sculptris is not setting the detail slider too high, and every so often hit W (or click the wireframe button) to check how dense the mesh is getting in some places. Sometimes, if you get too much geometry created in one area and continue working over it it will bunch up and start crossing over itself (often happens more around the center line), but if you keep an eye on it you can just run the reduce brush over the area a bit to keep it under control.

Yeah, actually found that working in wireframe did help with that, which of course I did. Had it pinch down on me a couple times, and wasn't sure how to fix it. But have been keeping en eye on that afterwards, once learning about the detail settings. Thanks for the advise, I can only imagine how much I would hate ZBrush.

The one thing I liked that they showed in the ZB vids was being able to slice and remove sections, which so far, I haven't been able to do in Sculptris and thinking it's probably not a function with Sculptris? At least I couldn't find a way. ... That and being able to connect pieces, which I'm pretty sure is something new for the 4r7 version too since they seemed so excited about it. But I wanted to look into how to do this with Sculptris, or if it's easier to just work with one piece and keep manipulating it? Maybe when I get back home tomorrow from work I will fool with it some more. ... Thanks again.

You can't cut away parts in Sculptris, it's a pretty simple application. You can add additional spheres to the scene, but you can't join them to the existing mesh. There is a similar application called meshmixer which does allow parts to be cut off and merged, I think I put a link to it in the free software list in the resources section. But I don't like sculpting in meshmixer at all it's interface is horribly clunky and awkward. You could maybe use the 2 together.

If you get the mesh pinching it's normally easiest to deal with by using a combination of the reduce brush and smooth brush, to slowly go back over the screwy area.

Hey Banj, have you by chance ever took an image into paint mode within Sculptris? I'm guessing you have, but was wondering if you get the extreme lag when you do so? ... Of course, I wanted to check it out, so took a sculpt in and the lag is quite bad. The image is just under 80k triangles, which I didn't think was too much. But I did thin it down to around 37k to try it, which did show improvement, but still had lag. ... I'm not seeing any lag at all while using it in sculpt mode.

I did some searches on the web, and apparently there was a lot of talk about others having this issue, and they were discussing why this doesn't seem to be a problem with ZB, since the application of color is done differently with that program. But was wondering if you might have any tips that could be helpful? I probably won't use it much really, but just thought to ask. Thanks.

I've only used the painting in sculptris a few times back when it was first introduced into the app. The UV unwrap it does is fairly chaotic, and unwrapping can take a while if you have a high poly mesh. I never had any huge problems with painting that I can recall, it can be slow if you use a brush with an alpha.

Zbrush 4r7 release delayed until January: www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?190635-Status-update

4r7 is apparently now out: www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?191398-ZBrush-4R7-Released !