Saturday 22 June 2013

Mudboxing

Ok so I might have been a little pissed and over-exaggerated a tad in that previous post... well maybe not... whatever, I just hate unnecessary extra work, and I now have proof that it can be done easy! Which brings me to the subject of this post: Mudbox!

O. M. G.

I just got the trial. Either I am about to shit myself, come over my screen or cry like a baby, this is so easy. What a breeze compared to zBrush. I'm not joking, 10 minutes into Mudbox and I can do almost as much with it as I can with zBrush. In zBrush that would've literally taken me hours, and still have trouble remembering what how and in which order. Now its like: take a brush and start painting. Its almost like Mudbox is saying "DUH" to me!

Its clear that these two apps have their different strengths, zBrush being very very specialized in detailed modelling. Some features of zBrush are still unparalleled, like its Unwrap UV function, and some of the sculpting tricks. So I won't chuck zBrush out the window yet. But my my my, Mudbox's UI is pure sex, the painting is so easy... and they help you out all the time with little tips and advice. It seems like its the very tool I've been craving for...

I think I'm in love.

9 comments:

  1. Hmmm. So you are recommending Mudbox then? Is that the way I take the discourses and ranting about Zbrush? :) I severely dislike overcomplicated GUI's too.

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    1. From what I can tell for now, I think there's no way avoiding zBrush entirely because some of its features are still incredible and unrivaled, but at least Mudbox gives me the chance to avoid 80% of the painful zBrush experience and get my work done a lot faster.

      Mudbox is just much better and easier to use when it comes to 3D painting and simple sculpting work. That's perfect for most of my work, and now I can do it faster and with more pleasure. ZBrush remains superior when it comes to UVUnwrapping, and probably mesh creation (the dynamesh idea), although for us Poser users its a little useless because we'll need to consider polygon flow. Mudbox does have some very very handy features like remeshing, something zBrush doesn't have from what I've seen. However, ZBrush has Mesh projection and other similar things. I'm definitely missing a bunch of things but for me those things are most important.

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  2. I down loaded MB last week but have had a hard time finding a way to import the poser models, tried OBJ but the thing pukes all over it when importing. Have you found a link that explines how to get the model sin and out of Mudbox?

    Thx

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    1. I managed to get V4's OBJ file loaded fine but didn't get further than that yet. Tomorrow I'm going to check it out in more detail. I'll let you know.

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  3. ok thanks man, im not waning to buy ZBrush just yet ;) ill play around today more on getting v4 in also

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  4. Some time ago, I downloaded the ZBrush Trial, after seeing what could be donw with it.
    Watched tutorials from the official site. Two days later, I couldn't remember anything, because it was so damn unlogic....
    Never tried another version of it again.

    There are some programs which I really don't like at all. One of them is ZBrush.
    Another one is Blender, but this sometimes changes, because of its benefits like beeing completely free and for commercial use, and it's huge possibilties like 3DMax.

    I heard that Mudbox is supposed to be great, but I don't want to download another useless trial and waste my time with it. But if you can really recommend it, I might have a look ;)

    Btw, if you really want to use ZBrush, you should try to find a 2-3 days workshop.
    1 day doesn't help anything.

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    1. dude, I've used zBrush for well over 4 years, it still feels like I'm working with two left hands when I'm in it. I work with great software packages, they never give me problems, but its just zBrush that completely fucks with my Xi, even after all these years.

      I SHOULD actually be recommending zBrush, but I just can't. The way they set that app up is just pathetic. It reminds me of my days back in the Geological Survey when I worked with this monster Software package called Petrel used in Seismic Data analysis. That app had like a billion functions stooped in intense mathematical realms (think fourier transforms and 3D matrixes) that would just suck the life out of you before you could figure it out, unless you'd memorize the step-by-step procedure in the manual. ZBrush reminds me of that, although not as bad, but you have to indeed memorize all these hop-skip and jump routines to get shit done.

      Now Mudbox seems like a very pleasant program to use compared, but it doesn't feel like its really worth the $700 they want for it.

      Myeah blender. Tried it several times, felt like I was working in a steam engine powered cotton factory... I'm still faring well on my 3DMax 9 student licence <3 <3 <3 love it love it!

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  5. hehehe, I thought about an analogy for working with zBrush.

    Its like working in a workshop with hundreds of awesome tools, some of the best, but they have been scattered EVERYWHERE without any logical order. Its like some mad scientist's laboratory, with the flux compacitor sparking in the corner, Harry Potter's Nimbus 2000 at the door, and all these bubbly test tubes with pipes randomly running over the cieling...

    To mold your clay dolly you have to climb up a few steps to look for that one brush amidst hundreds, unless you break your flow and type something in this rusty old console on a table in the middle of them. Then if you wanna load a picture into your dolly you have to go to one end of the room and load a texture, then run to the other end and open a box, then somewhere in that box is your texture and you must activate it. But if you wanna paint on that dolly you must close that box, run to the other side of the workshop besides an IDENTICAL (but useless) box and select some material, then you have to go to the west side of the workshop and subdivide your dolly, then you paint. When you done you go back to your first box and press a button... how to export, I don't know. That is some console on the attic. To use a spotlight you must go back to that end of the room and load a texture. Then somewhere under the table is an obscure little button that does magic. From there you need to leave the workshop and go to this library and pick up the codes to use this spotlight. Then its back to the second box... hahahaha, yeah, that's zBrush

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    1. oh yeah don't forget to switch off the air-pressure to the molder at the north side of the workshop before you start painting... and whatever you do, don't touch the big switch in the corner labelled 'T'. If you do, the workshop will explode and you'll have to sweep the floor and start again.

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Hey, because of a sudden influx of spam, I need to moderate comments from now on, unfortunately. I'll try find a work-around in the meanwhile. Cheers!