ZBrush 3 stands ready to further shake the paradigms of digital art and asset creation. One of the first things you will notice is the new ZBrush interface. All images courtesy of Scott Spencer, unless otherwise noted.

Upon the release of ZBrush 2 everything changed... In a short span of time, modeling started giving way to the idea of true digital sculpting, and the forums saw an influx of highly detailed creatures and characters of steadily increasing quality. ZBrush 2 was a defining moment in the evolution of a medium, which can truly be called groundbreaking. Not only did Pixologic redefine modeling, they helped usher in a new era where artists could truly manipulate form in the computer in ways that were previously unheard of. As a sculptor myself, it was the first time I was confident I could use the computer as an artistic tool without feeling like I was leaving something behind in the clay.

Here we are four years later and ZBrush 3 stands ready to further shake the paradigms of digital art and asset creation. Originally envisioned as a 2.5 update, this long awaited release has evolved into a full version upgrade, which appears to be a rewrite from the ground up.

As the digital art director at Gentle Giant Studios, I was fortunate to be asked to join the initial beta test of Pixologic's ZBrush 2.5. My team has been present to watch the evolution of this amazing piece of software into the powerhouse sculpting and design tool it is today. I would like to share some of my impressions of the new features and improvements to the program that are found in ZBrush 3.

Here are examples of ZBrush 3's realtime shadowed clay shaders.

Among the additions are a sleeker interface, more production friendly options, as well as a toolset, which has grown exponentially into a true sculpting workshop. Just a few of the new options available to the artist include customizable brush presets, viewport sculpting independent of Projection Master, sculpting rakes, layers for both painting and sculpting, subtools and Remeshing tools, which allow you to recreate the underlying topology of any model in ZBrush without sacrificing hours of sculpted detail. High-Definition sculpting allows for billions of polygons at a time while code revisions make ZBrush more stable and much faster than before. Also rewritten is the OBJ exporter, which will now allow you to export millions of polygons to a single OBJ file for use with rapid prototyping and exporting to applications such as XSI. This functionality was previously only available in the Mac version of ZBrush 2. All of this and it is entirely free to registered 2 users!

Interface Upgrades
One of the first things you will notice is the new ZBrush interface. Now even more customizable than before, artists seeking a more standard set of menus will find the Rapid Start mode especially compelling. Designed to help learn the basics of ZBrush rapid start features a standard file edit menu as well as persistent edit mode. It is impossible to drop the tool you are working on. This sculpting mode is extremely useful and can be easily expanded to include other menus. Another long awaited improvement is a persistent perspective camera, which remains active while you sculpt. There is even now support for rotations around a single axis, much like what many of us are accustomed to in other 3D packages.