Yin Shiuan's Blog_I Have A CG Dream: August 2010

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

ZBrush 4.0 Unleashed!!

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?t=091973

Features:

ZProjects
* Save all loaded tools, document size, light, material, timeline and render settings in one click.
* ZBrush 4 even includes sample projects to help you discover new features.

Best Preview Render
* Renders Shadows, Ambient Occlusion, Fibers, SSS and Transparency with advanced anti-aliasing.
* Multi-pass rendering with Shadow, Color, Ambient Occlusion, Mask and Depth as separate maps.
* Render for still images or animations.

Project presentation
* Timeline for more than just simple turntables and animations.
* Keyframe management: copy, move, etc.
* Audio support with color beats for manual animation synchronization.
* Fade in/out and cut keyframes for nice transitions.
* Ease in/out keyframes.
* MDD animation file format support for exporting and importing animation.
* Animation-capable layers, Tools, ZSpheres, background and more.

Concept creation
* Shadow Box for free-form creation.
* Move Elastic Brush to create stretch-free extrusions.
* Reproject improved for more finely tuned control of the results.
* Mannequin for quick scene setup.
* TransPose units to help you in proportions and sizes.

Hard Sculpting
* Clip brushes for slicing your models.
* By Radius and By Polygroups modes for the Clip brushes.
* Shadow Box to create original sculpting bases, combined with radial symmetry.
* New Strokes: Circle, Square, Curves.

Major brushes:
* MatchMaker, the perfect brush to deform your mesh to conform to other 3D models.
* Deco brushes, turn, spin - perfect for creative patterns!
* Clay Buildup will be your new Clay brush for the rough sculpting.
* Move Elastic, Move Topo, Move Parts: Stretch and deform with no constraints.

Strokes:
* Roll mode improved with the Roll distance.
* New lasso/marquee selection mode, circle by center, perfect circle, curve for masking and hiding.
* Marquee, Lasso and Circle strokes working with symmetry for hiding, masking and slicing.

Pipeline and Productivity
* GoZ with Autodesk Maya (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011), Autodesk 3DSMax (2009, 2010, 2011), Luxology modo 401 (Sp2 to sp5), Cinema 4D R11 and R11.5
* GoZ SDK for integrating GoZ in additional software packages.
* Xpose to explode all SubTools, making it easy to work on a hidden one or create stunning animated effects.
* SubTool Duplicate and Insert, List All + ABC, Merge All for more flexibility when working on complex models.
* Solo mode to quickly isolate the current SubTool.

3D Painting and Materials
* PolyPaint Layers for more freedom in 3D painting.
* SpotLight to edit textures on the fly and then use them to paint by projection.
* Gradient transparency for anti-aliased transparency in PolyPainting.
* New shaders: Fast Overlay and Fresnel Overlay for more effects in your materials.
* New Fresnel and SSS settings for more realistic materials!
* New Blinn Specular added to the default shader for a better skin specular effect.
* Large number of blending modes between materials: Add, Subtract, difference, darken, etc.

Misc
* Topology auto masking to protect closed areas which are not directly connected.
* Elasticity settings to stretch your model without stretching the topology.
* Orientation settings: rotate your alphas while sculpting.
* Tile alphas for more creativity with brushes.
* Non-Square alphas are supported, avoiding distortions.
* Contact support for SubTools: deform multiple SubTools while maintaining your defined contact points between them!
* Relax Deformation: relax your topology without altering the shape.
* Inflate Balloon Deformation for a variation of the relax deformation.
* Deformations are now in real-time when moving the sliders, giving you live feedback.
* New File menu to manage all content.

Plugins
* Decimation Master is now 64bits.
* Original size is kept when exporting with 3D Print Exporter.
* Unwrap all SubTools at once with UVMaster.
* New Multi-map exporter for fast and easy creation of many maps at once including: normal, displacement, ambient occlusion, etc.
* Various additions in SubTool Master and TransPose Master.

ZBrush4 Videos:

ZBrush 4 BetaTesters Forum(you can see a lot of ZB4 new features in this page)

最近都在忙著處理父親的後事，就在作天，ZBrush4終於發售了。

這次和以往一樣推出了許多讓人眼睛為之一亮的嶄新功能，像是shadow box我就挺感興趣的。不過卻也讓我感到滿失望的就是，大家期待許久的texture/painting layer和blending mode並沒有出現，看來要在既有的zbrush軟體核心上加入上述的功能還有一段路要走。

Pixologic是有推出PolyPaint Layers for 3D painting的功能，不過離我們的期望(像Photoshop那樣的layer)還差很多。反觀，Mudbox以及3D-Coat在這部分就超前ZBrush許多，Mari當然就更不用說了！另外，在retopology部分似乎也並沒有強化，看起來Pixologic好像也不打算管這塊了，也許打算就由第三方專業的重新佈線軟體來處理就好了，這類的軟體現在也已經很多了，這麼看起來未來的製作流程除ZBrush外可能要再搭配另外的佈線軟體(雖然現在也是這樣啦~)。

不知道Sculptris的作者加入Pixologic開發團隊後，會不會替ZBrush帶來革命性的演變呢？^ ^

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

最漫長的一天

這個周末就是八八父親節，看著各個相關慶祝活動熱鬧起來，然而這卻是我再也無法體驗的日子。

凌晨快要三點，接到醫院打來的電話，要我和家人趕到醫院探視父親最後一面，趕到了醫院，我父親已經沒有生命跡象，結束了心跳，冰冷地躺在病床上，陪伴我們一家人的父親在這一刻往生了。

自前年捐肝給我父親至今，約莫兩年多左右，這一路走來我父親吃盡了苦頭，這一刻也算終於獲得了解脫。一直以來陪伴在我父親旁，也是最辛苦的母親，也終於能好好休息了。

從住進加護病房開始，看著父親身上插滿管子、沒有意識、全身水腫、到最後身體發黑全身多重器官衰竭而過世，大約一個禮拜的時間。某種涵義上覺得實在很短暫，某種涵義上又覺得實在很漫長。

出了醫院，替自己的父親辦後事，看著平常最親近的家人成為毫無呼吸心跳的遺體躺在那裏，蓋著往生被，總是有股莫名的感覺。禮儀師的照料、法師的誦經、親戚的陪伴，當遺體運走後，我們就了解到真的再也見不到父親的面容了。

出生為人就是痛苦的開始，嚐盡人世間所有的苦難與折磨。所以，當離開之時，是解脫的時刻，我為我父親感到高興，不用再受苦受難了，誠心地希望我父親永遠幸福快樂。

Yin Shiuan's Blog_I Have A CG Dream

Pages

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

CityEngine_National Geographic Asia -"Megacities"

ChumBuddy^ ^

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Cool fluid show! emPolygonizer2

Pixar, PTEX and Mudbox

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

ZBrush 4.0 Unleashed!!

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

最漫長的一天