Vikki Olds September 1, 2002

I was extremely lucky to run across ZBrush 1.23b about a year ago and even luckier to be able to review it then. I feel even luckier to be able to review it now. ZBrush is a 2D, 2.5D and 3D painting and modeling application.

ZBrush is so unique and so powerful an application that there is no way I can review it in one page. Therefore, you may want to make a pot of coffee and get comfortable as this review is going to be quite long as I try to give you a picture of what ZBrush is. I will explain the interface, show some beginner style completed works and then in the end, I'll show you the images of some of the advanced users of ZBrush. It is very unfortunate that I can't include all the wonderful images of all levels of users but space just doesn't allow it. I will provide links to the larger versions of images posted at ZBrushCentral in this review and it would benefit you greatly to hang around ZBrushCentral after reading this review and looking at all the great styles and uses ZBrush has. I will also provide links to images that I can't include in the review due to size so you can see those also.

Let's first get acquainted with the interface. ZBrush 1.5 has a very unique interface. It can be customized to fit your needs. Below represents almost the default view. I've done very little customizing at this point.

Main Interface

(click here to see a larger version)

You can close palettes to make your interface less busy as shown below. You can also move palettes from the left and right side by simply clicking on the toggles. The palettes then move to the top of the interface ready for access when you need them.

You can also close the left and right panels to give you more room to work.

Preferences Palette

Since the interface and our personal preferences is part of what makes our application experience pleasant, we'll cover the Preferences palette first. On first use of ZBrush the preferences palette is open on the left side of the interface. I've moved mine to the top menu type bar and it is represented by a square with a checkmark in it.

At the very top of the palette are two icons. The first icon will expand the Preferences palette to show all the options included in it. The second is the toggle to move it from the side bar to the top bar.

The first options on the palette are the draw modes available.

    
Grphc                                              Dots

Poly Frame

Now let's move on to interface adjustments. Below is the Preferences palette broken done into two pieces. There's so much available to make choices about!

ZRestore is used to restore the default ZBrush interface. URestore is used to restore the user interface. Init ZBrush is to initialize ZBrush, removing any tools and work that has been completed since opening ZBrush.

The Interface option allows you to set whether you see Popup Info and Large Popups lets you set whether the Popup text should be large or small. Inconized is a treat of an option. It allows you to set whether or not you want icons for the ZBrush palettes or text. Show Values sets whether slider values are always shown or not. Auto Collapse sets whether palettes are automatically collapsed or not and Left Tray and Right Tray allows you to set whether those trays are expanded or collapsed. Accelerated sets accelerated scrolling. Float menu allows you to turn off the Quick Menu floating palette. Colorize allows colorizing of the active float menu and Quick Menu toggles the Quick Menu off and on.

The IColors palette really gives you some power over the colors of your interface. My interface is set with the default colors but, they can be changed easily and saved so that each time I open ZBrush I will have my own default color configuration.

    
From this                          To This

And if after changing it I don't like it; I can just click on ZRestore or URestore depending on what I want.

The Picker palette lets you set a sample size for the Picker tool.

The Memory palette allows you to set how much memory is available to ZBrush before it starts to compact memory to a virtual file. ZBrush compacts memory automatically after you have reached the Compact Mem size you've set. Mine is set to 256. It is recommended that it be set to 75% of your available memory.

The Marker palette allows you to set the size of the Marker Radius. This is very important if you are using the MultiMarker tool and have lots of objects grouped closely together. You'll want this to be set to a small value in that case.

The ZScript palette allows you to set whether ZScripts start being recorded automatically when you open ZBrush. We'll get into what a ZScript is later.

In the Draw palette you can set your maximum brush size. The default is 128. You can also choose your polyframe color, opacity and whether you want it anti-aliased.

The Utilities palette gives you information about ZBrush. For instance, one of the numbers below, 1004, is the window id of my canvas.

That pretty much covers the Preferences palette so we'll move on now to the Document palette.

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Copyright 2002, Vikki Olds, All Rights Reserved