| Ian Mankowski September 19, 2001 The latest ZBrush from Pixologic is undergoing its maturing process. Although feature wise Version 1.23b doesn't offer anything new, the update is in direct response to concerns over usability and the learning curve of this unique piece of software. For those of you not familiar with ZBrush, it is a unique program that utilizes pixols, or pixels that retain depth information to provide a very unique painting experience. The result is program that is more then a paint program, but not quite a 3D program. What's New? As said before, Version 1.23 is for the most part, a functionality update to the program, improving on ease of use and stability. Pixelogic has implemented a few dramatic little features that help realize the functionality goal as is to be expected from such an innovative company. The most important feature is the new interactive tutorial that Pixelogic has introduced. Truly an incredible idea, the interactive tutorial must have been very developer intensive, but it is a harbinger of the direction all programs should look into. Essentially, the interactive tutorial is a file that Zbrush loads. With text directions, you follow the steps of the tutorial, if at any time you need aid determining where a tool is located or what it does, Zbrush provides blue "links" which highlight the tool, and opens up the tool palette as well as displaying any modifiers the tool may have. If you're confused as to exactly what you are supposed to do with the tool, you need only click on the red "links" within the tutorial and Zbrush will then perform the step for you. Although still somewhat buggy, (the tutorial started creating some really goofy objects half way through) it is a radical step in the direction that all software should be taking and Pixelogic should be applauded for this brilliant step in software development. 
Those of you who read my last review of ZBrush may have recalled my frustration with ZBrush's document save system which employed a very non standard and foreign save dialogue system which would easily result in clicking the wrong option and losing hours of work. I am very pleased to announce that this part of the program has been fixed. Everything is standardized, well nearly, using all caps and the specific terminology that Zbrush employs does not fit the Mac OS standard at all, but the basics are there. I no longer have to think about what I'm doing when I save. The save dialogue prompt says what it should and it's in the proper place. While the program should never have had the problem in the first place, it is simply one more place where Pixelogic has demonstrated that they are interested in user input and are more then willing to fix the glitches. Pixelogic also used to have a frustrating lack of a New Document button, meaning that you had to exit the program and reenter to create a new document, this too has been fixed. Overall stability has been improved as well. ZBrush has a much lesser tendency to leave stray pixels around the document workspace and there were no crashes or freezes that were encountered in the last version. Issues and Bugs  While Zbrush has made great strides in ease of use and functionality, it still has quite a way to go.
Zbrush tool palettes frequently have clipping problems. While following the tutorial, it asked me to utilize tools that I couldn't find. Further exploration revealed that the names of the buttons were being clipped by their bounding box as evidenced by the screenshot to the left. This is a problem that can be found in several different tool palettes. For those of you hoping to be able to utilize your fantastic ZBrush imagery for commercial print purposes will still have to wait for another version. ZBrush still does not support anything higher then screen resolution. There are several reasons for this. For one, ZBrush is very resource intensive, sucking up a ton of RAM if you've got it to spare. RAM is cheap however, so I threw at a Gig of it at Zbrush to see how it would handle. Response time was perfectly acceptable, however ZBrush's "compacting memory" function that ran periodically got in the way of true creativity as it took a while to clean and compact the gig of Ram that I had given it. Furthermore, perhaps the greatest obstacle to high resolution documents is that Pixelogic has locked the draw size down to 128. With other programs you can override the defaults to create bigger brushes when painting in high resolution documents. In ZBrush however, 128 is the biggest size a brush can get, and it is an insignificantly small brush when painting on the biggest canvas ZBrush can create; 4096x4096 pixels. ZBrush is very demanding of computer resources as well, periodically calling upon the whole computer to do some task in the background. I would assume that this is the clearing and compressing of data in ram which periodically happens as evidenced by the little flashing bar at the bottom of the ZBrush screen. Curiously though, Zbrush would halt my background tasks frequently for something as simple as switching tools. Definitly some optimization could be had here. The interface is still a gripe for me. The more I use it, the more I can recognize what a slick job Pixelogic has done with the interfaces that dynamically scroll out for use or tuck themselves away when not in use. Parts of it however remain frustratingly non standard. In the tools modifier pallette a second set of deformation modifiers were finally found by a small arrow which revealed a hidden set of options to the right of the current pallette. Not only did ZBrush have vertically oriented pallettes, but later in the game you find it has pallettes located on the horizontal axis as well. Truly a confusing shift in paradigms and definitly a pain to find. Some things are non standard for no really good reason that I can discern as well. 3D software has been constantly evolving and changing and as a result, a "standard" interface can't be described to them, however, even 3D programs consistently visualize layers as per the Photoshop standard, a vertical array of layers drawn on top of each other. ZBrush tosses this idea out and uses a box array which dosen't help the understanding of layers and dosen't provide any advantages I can see. Finally, tools act inconsistently, the best example I can come up with is while following the ZBrush picnic tutorial there was a step where I needed to mask off a part an object. Holding down the control button and following directions I was successful in drawing a rectangular box which masked the desired part of the image. A subsequent stroke however made my cursur start painting the mask like a brush. Several strokes later it again returned to creating an alpha mask as a rectangular box despite that the strokes were identical to each other and the exact same procedure was being followed. Inconsistancies like these can quickly make a fun project an exercise in hair pulling. 
Bottom Line This version is about increased functionality and bug killing. While a hundred times more usable then its predecessors ZBrush still has quite a way to go before it can become a valuable tool to a professional's toolchest. For the hobbyist however, ZBrush remains a fun program and with the interactive tutorial feature, a much easier program to learn then before. Pixologic ZBrush, For Windows and Macintosh. $585 ($292.50, limited time offer) Pixologic, Incorporated
336 West 31st Street, Los Angeles, CA
90007
www.pixologic.com Strengths: - Innovative
- Fun
- Powerful organic modeller
- ZBrush interactive tutorials are a revolution in software learning
Weaknesses: - Inconsistent tools
- not possible to change resolution beyond 72 dpi
- interface paradigm is inconsistant
- Weak documentation
A thousand times better then previous incarnations with the potential to be a thousand times better in the future. With Pixelogic's open mindedness to criticism and dedication to improve, I feel confident that ZBrush is on the right track for a truly excellent 2.0 release. Minimum System Requirements Macintosh
200mHz PPC, G3 or G4 processor
128MB RAM (can be Virtual Memory)
1024x768 monitor resolution set to Millions of Colors
System 8.1 or later | Copyright © 2001, Ian Mankowski, All Rights Reserved |