Some of my zBrush to Sculpty tutorials recommend a zBrush script called Material Baker. It was the best way I had found to capture the material and shading of a sculpted object. That script no longer works in ZB 3.5r3. Good thing to , ‘cuz it lead me to these two, much better, material baking methods.

I linked to the first vid just the other day, but I’ll mention it again. This demo shows how you can use Photoshop and Zapplink to ‘bake’ the shading of your object. Super slick and it also helped me understand just what Zapplink is doing.

The other vid was recommended by a Shiny Life reader (maybe Vivienne?). This method captures the material and shading details right from within zBrush by using a Displacement Map. Baking zBrush material to a texture map.

I recently upgraded to the new - awesome - zBrush 3.5r3. Love the new tools in 3.5, but I noticed a bit of a glitch when rezzing my new sculpts in-world with Sculpty Rezzer. They were not rezzing with the proper proportions, the XYZ scales of the object was not getting set correctly. After much fiddling about and pontificating I think I’ve tracked down the problem.

I think that maybe that the scaling of an object is different in zb3.5, the virtual scale that represents the mesh as data. Sculpty Rezzer was being told to make the objects too small for SL, so the XYZ scale info was getting lost. I seemed to have fixed the problem by bumping up the Scale setting in the Export menu from 1 to 10, then using the zSculpty plugin to export the sculptmap as usual.

I’ll fiddle with this a bit more and post a short tutorial to explain. Actually I’m thinking about doing a whole new series of tutorials for zbrush 3.5 and sculpties. I’ve learned a lot since making my first round of tuts and it’s be nice to get all that info updated. Plus, I’ve been surprised by the steady stream of interest in zBrush and sculpties. Over 100 people a day come to Shiny Life looking for sculpty info.

Those tips we got from Bytedreams and Vivienne set me off on a 3 day binge of zbrushing and tutorial watching. :) I hadn’t really used zbrush for months, and this new version 3.5 seemed like a great excuse to take some time and mess around a bit. Some of that info must’ve sunk in because I feel like I understand ZB a little better now.

Here’s a quick list of my favorite zBrush tutorials:

Canned Mushrooms (AKA Jason Welch) is a tutorial makin machine. I learned all the basics from him while watching his first series of vids and he’s recently created an entirely new series of classes using ZBrush 3.12. He covers all the basics and has a relaxed but thorough delivery. Best all around series of free tutorials I’ve found. You can watch em all on YouTube, as well as a dozen other topics.

Free vids at Gnomology. You have to register for a free account, but then you can access several free samples of their well made tutorials. The one about creating new materials right from within photoshop was a real eye opener.

I paid for a couple of Gnomology vids by Ryan Kingslien and enjoyed them very much. Great presentation and you get a bonus anatomy lesson. He really knows his muscles and bones. Ryan has several free videos on his personal blog.

Eat3D has some free sample tutorials, too. Don’t miss this short series about the new features in version 3.5 r3. BTW, you can download HD video files of this series for only 6 bucks. Great deal! I like to vote with my wallet for this kind of low cost, high quality, indie content.

This one by Andrew Kline is another mini anatomy lesson and a demonstration of the new zSketch tool. Or watch this 11 part series as he creates a big nasty critter.

Pixologic has created some of the best vids for learning about zBrush, but they are kind of hidden away in an annoying flash interface. I think that you can watch all of the Pixologic videos on this YouTube channel. And here is the official Pixologic page on YouTube.

Still hungry for more ZBRush knowledge? Here’s another 50 or so that should keep ya busy for a while.

I also took a look at how other folks use zbrush for producing video game content. I kind came at this 3D modeling and texturing process through Sculpties and Second Life and I’ve never been exposed to a professional production environment. Learning a bit about how that process works has filled in some of the gaps in my noggin – now the limitations of sculpted prims make more sense. Wow will it ever be nice if we get that Mesh Import feature that has been promised!

Do you have any suggestions for other tutorials I should add to this list?

A couple of fellow zBrush adventurers have recently posted some great info in the comments. Bytedreams Slade points us to this video that explains the new texturing options  in zBrush 3.5r3. Yay for multiple textures! This looks pretty tasty. Might be enough to get me to update. :)

Vivienne Daguerre recommends this tutorial by CannedMushrooms that shows how to Material Bake a complex zBrush object. She also shares her method for backing textures in zBrush 3.5r3.

A short, energetic machinima by West Engine & QiQi Studio.