Zbrush and its use

Hey Guys,

Was just wondering how useful Zbrush would be for modeling and texturing for interior architecture…

I don’t have Zbrush, but I’m just curious to know whether it would be applicable for use for interior arch. A simple google search reveals almost nothing for interior arch, but quite a lot for exterior arch.

Is it useful for say, making “butt marks” on sofas or making objects look worn out (e.g.: chipped off edge of a table/chair)? In that case would the sculpting tools for Blender suffice?

Any other uses for Zbrush for interior arch?

Thanks!

Zbrush is useful for everything. Though I say that, for archviz its probably less so. If your goal is to make something look worn or chipped, I would look more at something like substance designer, since the texture is going to be a bit more important. If your goal is to make a lot of higher poly detailed meshes and render it out as a cinematic scene, then yes zbrush is a must. One thing you will find useful with zbrush is shadowbox. It will let you use alphas to generate 3d geometry.

Ultimately though, if your goal is to create hyper realistic (mesh wise) assets, then zbrush is a must. If you just want to do some basic modeling and rely on dynamic texture maps to convey the effect you want, then substance designer. (note, you can use Substance Designer commercially with the $99 indie license if you make less than $10k a year with it, otherwise the commercial version is close to $600, which I own. Both are equal in effectiveness and depend on your income level from the software itself.)

Thanks a lot for the reply! It gave me much insight into Zbrush.

I guess then Zbrush is not really the right tool for me, even shadowbox isn’t of very great use when designing something complicated like a chandelier or a bookcase… It’d be faster to model them in Blender I guess.

Substance Designer looks good, but it’s integration with Blender is a problem I suppose… The only way now is to export the maps as bitmaps and then reapply them… Is it possible to export the UV meshes as well?

Any other software you would recommend?

The pipeline between designer and blender is fine actually. Some other apps have plugins to make process more direct, but all you would do is export the UVed mesh and import it into substance designer. There you can create or use your own substance nodes to create certain effects, when you are happy with the result you can export the maps, which are then loaded into blender. Its also great for generating maps from both 2d and 3d assets. Its basically nuke for texture artist.

If you have photoshop, theres ndo2 + DDO which was released for free (version 1). Its a photoshop plugin that can get similar effects but also has an easier interface to work with.