Get into ZBrush by Glen Southern

• Introduction to the workspace

• Part 01: ZBrush Program Overview
• Introduction to the workspace
  • The Title Bar
  • Floating Palettes and how they can be configured
  • How to use and setup side bars
  • The Document Window and the clipping plane
  • Setting preferences including the interface colors
  • Startup document and how to create one
    
• Introduction to Interface items and palettes - A brief overview of the dropdown interface items including where to find and how to use the following:
  • Alpha brushes
  • Color
  • Document
  • Draw
  • Edit,
  • Layer
  • Light
  • Marker
  • Material
  • Movie
  • Picker
  • Preferences
  • Render
  • Stencil
  • Stroke
  • Texture
  • Tool
  • Transform
  • Zoom
  • ZPlugin
  • ZScripts
    
• 2D Painting
  
  • Alphas
    • Brush shapes
    • Made into 3D object with Alpha skinning
    • Used as masks
    • Used as stencils
    • Used in materials as custom bumps
    • Used in fog
    • Can be converted to texture
    • Serve as displacement maps or for inflating masked areas.
  • Draw
    • Main centre for drawing, painting and sculpting actions
    • MRGB, RGB and ZADD and ZSUB drive most of the actions
    • Perspective mode to help the illusion of depth.
  • Focal Shift
    • Changes the ZGraph alpha setting to make the brush more or less abrupt around its edge
  • Stroke Palette
    • The way in which the tools react with the canvas e.g. Drag rectangle, drag dot etc.
  • Layers
    • Using and creating layers
  • Materials
    • How to pick a material and adjusts its sliders to give the desired result.
  • How to Save and export
    • Save and export Brushes, alphas, textures, ZTool, OBJs etc.
  • Pixol Based tools - Tools and brushes that react with pixol based items in the document canvas including:
    • Simple Brush
    • Single layer brush
    • Bump brush
    • Eraser brush
    • Smudge tool
    • Snake Hook brush
    • Hook brush
    • Fiber brush
    • Cloner brush
    • MRGZB grabber
    • Deco brush
    • Directional brush
    • Roller brush
• 3D modeling basics
  • Getting a ZTool into the document window
  • Entering EDIT mode
  • Using the Gyro manipulator
  • Gyro Transformations
  • Transformations in EDIT mode
  • Freehand sculpting modes
  • Draw pointer edit mode
  • Deformations sliders
  • Initialize sliders
  • Symmetry
  • Re-Symmetry
  • Polyframes
  • ZSpheres intro
  • ZSpheres adaptive skinning
  • Polymeshes
  • Multi res levels
  • Partial mesh visibility
  • Edge loops
  • Creases
  • Displacement maps
  • MaskingMarkers
  • Multimarker tool
  • Morph targets
    
• Alpha Skinning
  • Make3D button in the alpha palette
    
• Part 2: A modeling project
  
• ZSphere modeling
  • How to create a ZSphere model from scratch. Switch back and forth from ZSpheres and Polygons in Adaptive preview mode.
• Making an Adaptive skin
  • A breakdown of how the settings in the TOOL>Adaptive panel effect the final polygon mesh
• Adding edge loops
  • Adding detail in targeted areas and defining edge loops to improve the topology
• Dividing the geometry
  • Dividing the Geometry stage by stage. How to go up and down the Multi resolution stages. Detailed use of the Geometry pull down menu in the TOOL palette.
• Detail the high resolution mesh
  • Adding detail to the mesh as it is slowly Subdivided into a Million Polygon+ model. Using Alpha Brushes, the Projection Manager,
• Using Projection master to add detail
  • How to use projection Manager to drop the mesh to canvas and add 3D detail.
• Modifying a material
  • Choosing a material for the model and altering it to suit our needs.
• UV mapping and adding a texture in ZBrush
  • Choosing a UV mapping mode for the model. Creating a 2048x2048 texture map and add some texture detail using Projection Master
• Lighting and environment settings
  • Choosing a light setup for the project.
• Rendering the scene
  • Altering the Render settings and setting up the environment to suit the project.