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3d coat or Zbrush


cj31387
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Hi, I really like 3d coat but really need to learn it. My trial is getting closer to being over with. I can't quite decide if I want to go full in on learning 3d Coat or Zbrush. So far I am liking 3d coat a lot more. Mainly I like concept modeling real fast and mainly hard surfaces I hardly ever do organic. 3d Coat seems to do hard surfaces 1000x better than Zbrush.

Here Are some pros and cons I see in both programs

3d Coat

Pros:

Hard surface modeling seems easier and way better than Zbrush (like I said I'm a Gun Sword Sci-Fi Space Ship type modeler not organic, organic bores me so this is a huge plus)

The UI is very good

It has kit-bashing which Ive heard of in the past but could never figure out how to do it until tinker tools. Rather I've tried to figure it out in 3d max but had no success.

UV mapping is WAY better than zbrush

Retop is insanely better than zbrush

Cons:

It seems like you cant get into as insane detail with sculpting as Zbrush, this isn't as much as a con for me because I suck at detailing anyways.

I fear that 3d Coat might die off for some reason. So many more users use Zbrush (Can someone tell me if 3d Coat can really stay in the game competing with Zbrush)

3d coat seems to have a small community afiak while zbrush has a huge community and tons of tutorials.

Havent fully tested this but It seems painting textures in zbrush is better than 3d coat

Zbrush

Pros:

I somewhat know how to use it, at least more than 3d coat as of now

You can do way more detail in it AFAIK.

Cons:

The UI is horrible I hate it, Its super hard and buggy to customize the UI.

Hotkeys are horrible they are buggy and rarely work right

More for organic even know they have made some strides with hard surface recently but I still think 3d coat is better at hard surface for instance one of the main features I want in zbrush is the ablity to draw straight lines over models with a spline tool, 3d Coat already has this and it works good.

Zbrush has a huge learning curve.

So those are just my thoughts I know you guys will be biased towards 3d coat but I'm asking this anyways. Should I buy the educational version of 3d Coat. I really need to know if 3d Coat is going to stay in the game. Also how often does 3d coat get updated? Thanks

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In this feature chart, of all the four major pipeline segments they share, 3D Coat is hands down better than ZBrush in 3 of those. Now that Voxels have had 4-5yrs to mature and with LiveClay having taken some major strides very recently, 3D Coat has become a very viable option for high-end sculpting (hard surface or organic).

Raul re-worked the architecture of LiveClay before he headed back to Cuba recently, and it made high detail work a real joy now. Pixologic copied 3D Coat's implementation of Voxels (Dynamesh), but is nowhere near as capable. They copied the Sketch tool (Shadowbox) and even the Kitbashing toolset. So, they are definitely taking notice...to the point that they bought Sculptris (similar technology as LiveClay). But 3D Coat is ahead of the curve, in that it is integrated tech...and I think this is the future of sculpting.

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As a hobbyist who just recently purchased the educational version, I have no regrets at all. This program has so many ways of creating stuff, its just fun to play around and experiment with it. I have never used zbrush, but I have used Blender, xwing, Poser, uv mapper and Bryce 3d. 3D Coat in my opinion is so much easier to use, and just plain fun. Money well spent.

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Zbrush over 3DC have only 1 killer PRO

Render-Shader settings & Render Passes

ANY model rendered in ZB look awesome in the first try.

Using 3DC you need more time and an external composition app to get same result

Zbush Cons ?

The code implementation is OLD. Do you thinking why still there isnt a ZB 64bit version ?

3DC have far away more potential development future, taking note that is a young software -half aged that ZB-

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The code implementation is OLD. Do you thinking why still there isnt a ZB 64bit version ?

Holy smokes, I didn't know that. The last version of ZBrush I was working on was x86 V3-something. But I was more than sure they've made their V4 64-bit. What a surprise. :blink:

Right after reading your post, I've stumbled upon an article on Pixologic site where they claim that V5 is gonna be x64. Release date: undetermined.

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more ?

Pixologic buy Sculptris, right ?

Why there isnt 1 code line implemented from sculptris to ZB ???

They add Dynamesh like a big news... c'mon, dynamesh was in the code forever... ZB always make cache to disk, just now users can change the settings

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I like both for different reasons. However, I've used both and feel that ZB has more mature brushes...they "feel" better to me and seem to work a lot better for organic stuff. That said, I find doing hard surface sculpting way easier in 3DC. There appears to be a bigger community using ZB, but I recall beta testing it when it wasn't even a well known program, so it's been around a while.

ZB is awesome for a lot of things, but I feel that their approach tends to pull too far away from human thought, at times. Doing something in ZB tends to be anywhere from ridiculously easy to equally hard. Granted, the more you play with a program, the more you'll get used to it. That said, I found 3DC way easier to pick up and learn, once I got past some of the terminology and workflows. I'm still learning it, but I'm very close to getting it down.

I will say, however, that like many people have said before, the two programs really compliment each other well. If you have both, you can easily leverage the strengths and weaknesses in your favor.

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Holy smokes, I didn't know that. The last version of ZBrush I was working on was x86 V3-something. But I was more than sure they've made their V4 64-bit. What a surprise. :blink:

Right after reading your post, I've stumbled upon an article on Pixologic site where they claim that V5 is gonna be x64. Release date: undetermined.

That's one thing that has kept me out of ZB, too. Lack of 3D Connexion device (SpacePilot) support is another.
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