Another great update by Pixologic. New features in the sculpting, painting and detailing software include:
- Polish by
Features – A new set of Polish sliders has been added in
the Tool >> Deformation sub-palette to improve your
surface and make them cleaner, especially for hard surface models and
product design objects. It includes Polish by Features, but also Polish
by PolyGroups and Polish by Crisp Edges. DynaMesh functionality has
been greatly enhanced and can now retain more of your shape in a lower
polygon count than ever before, thanks to the new Polish by Features
volume preservation characteristic. - Curves by
Features – Creates curves based on the model’s PolyGroups,
creased edges or its outline. These curves can then be used with any of
the curve-based sculpting brushes. - Panel Loops
– Based on PolyGroups, this feature will transform the selected model
into individual panels with thickness. Or it can extrude those panels
from the surface with clean borders and bevels, perfect for hard-edge
sculpting. - Delete Loops
– Allows you to remove unnecessary edge loops. At higher settings it
can also drastically change the shape of your model. - Align Loops
– An alternative to the Delete Loops feature, this produces the same
visual effect but doesn’t change the model’s topology. - Dynamic Brush
Size – Makes it possible for the brush size to dynamically
change as the model moves closer or further away from the camera. This
becomes extremely helpful when sculpting items such as bolts, alpha
pattern, scales, and etc. No matter the distance the model is from the
camera the bolt, alpha pattern and scales will remain the same size due
to the brush dynamically changing. - PolyGroup
Enhancements – Several functions have been added relating
to ZBrush’s PolyGroup options. You can now group by normals, merge
stray groups (useful when groups have been auto-assigned), crease or
uncrease by PolyGroup and also a Smart Polish By Feature function to
improve your mesh shape without losing volume. - Posterize
– Posterization takes a smooth gradient and converts it to fewer steps
with abrupt changes between them; a staircase kind of effect. With
additions made to the profile curves, Material Mixer, BPR Filters and a
new 3D Posterize feature, you can now easily create a cell shaded
render. - See-Through
Mode – Makes the entire interface transparent so that you
can see open windows behind ZBrush. As an example, you can use your
browser to find a reference image and sculpt against it without even
needing to import it into ZBrush - Auto Save
– ZBrush will now periodically and automatically save your work in a
temporary project file. It will also auto-save when ZBrush is idle,
such as if you’re away from your computer or switch to another
application without first closing ZBrush.
Plus many other enhancements and additions. ZBrush 4R5 is a free-of-charge update for all registered ZBrush users. More on the ZBrushCentral and ZBrush 4R5 pages.
