#Mudbox vs zbrush series#
#Mudbox vs zbrush free#

The texture and sculpt layers palettes feel like a familiar adaptation of Photoshop, and there is no clutter.

It is dead easy to pick up, and if you're a Cinema 4D or Maya user, the navigation will instantly make sense. Mudbox was obviously developed as an alternative to ZBrush-making the interface as accessible as possible was clearly paramount. If you also need a good texture painter, read on.

#Mudbox vs zbrush free#

Fortunately, there are a lot of free tutorials on YouTube to get you up and running with ZBrush-you'll need them. If you are a sculptor getting into computer-based work, ZBrush's posing tools, the gravity brush modifier, and the impressive clay tools in ZBrush 3.5 all make it the easy choice for natural media effects. Don't mistake this for a rant-it's tough love.ĭespite the terrible interface, ZBrush's sculpting tools are more mature than Mudbox. Pixologic really needs to make an alternate 3D-oriented interface, or more people will be pushed to Mudbox without even getting to touch this deep, powerful program. This is the one thing everyone complains about with ZBrush and it is putting a visible dent in the number of new adopters of the program. If you think I'm exaggerating, just read any ZBrush vs. ZBrush's interface actually gets in the way of its brilliant tools (not to be confused with meshes). Meshes are called “Tools,” 3D objects can be flattened to the canvas inexplicably, and the model texturing workflow felt like a hack. Ultimately, ZBrush's legacy as a painting program muddies its use as a 3D app, so everything 3D feels tacked on. Confusing me was no small accomplishment-I'd been using a variety of 3D programs for 14 years, and I was stumped.

#Mudbox vs zbrush series#

Nothing made sense, and I spent far too much time learning what nonsensical series of buttons to click since none of the conventions of any 3D program were used. I picked up version 3.1, and, while I loved the sculpt quality, I loathed the interface and the way it works. My own experience with ZBrush is typical. Decimation Master plug-in is the best triangulation and reduction tool around.Doesn't require a high-end GPU with lots of memory (you could use it with a laptop and onboard graphics and it would be fast if you had a dual-core machine).Feature parity across both platforms and versions (ZBrush's ZMapper and ZApplink plug-ins are still only for ZBrush 3.1 for Windows).Sculpt layers with fading and independent masks.Better painting, texturing and layered texture tools.Interface and workflows are far easier to learn and just make sense.If you're an independent artist or freelancer wanting to learn one of these, they both do similar things but each has distinct advantages. If you're looking for a job in character animation or gaming, you will need to learn a sculpting program, and one of these two programs is what you'd be using if you got that job today.