main stream zbrush/mubox

[needse]

hi guys quick question

should i be focusing on learning to use zbrush/mudbox etc?

i am comfortable modeling most things in 3ds max but...........

is it a expected skill when being a 3d modeler now days ?

[paulius-st]

well as much as i encountered - sculpted stuff isnt the most recent stuff i have to doo, but it helps to push the details to another level. its mostly for the character modeling and texturing. but market in lithuania and in other countries is diferent. here is mostly comertial and arch viz action so sculpting isnt required and most of the studios are cautios about zbrush and mud and most of the times when they see that you have lots of sculpted stuff they aproach you as sissy that doesnt know how and what to do. i my slef 90% of the time use max and PS
but as i said - it depends on the market that you are aming at.

[needse]

ok cheers paulius

i dunno where im going at the moment feel a bit stuck

[paulius-st]

from what i seen you should work on lighting and shading more and textures.

[TekNeek]

It really wouldn't hurt, and you'd be able to crank your work up to 11 easily.

You being you, I'd recommend you checking out Mudbox rather than Zbrush.

What I mean is: Zbrush really excels (especially after the r2 update) in conceptualizing and creating stuff exclusively in it. Mudbox much rather fits into a working 3D pipeline, where it's an extra tool to sell the 3D work.

Mudbox's environment isn't alien to somebody used to other 3D packages (read: working in it makes sense). Also, the texturing process i. It surpasses Zbrush by far (layer systems with blending modes and projection painting that doesn't suck ass). So, it's more industry friendly alltogether, while Zbrush is much more individual friendly.


But also, this all depends on what you want to do dude. If you're thinking about p,unging yourself into Character or Environment development, then sculpting's pretty much a must. But, for inorganic modelling, I'd say it'd be nice, just to give your stuff an extra 'oomphf' and helping with the texturing process also .

But! I think it's good to be specialized in one field, but being able on most sides.

[TekNeek]

But, if you do find yourself being stuck, dude, challenge yourself!

Leave the comfort zone. Clearly you've pretty much triumphed inorganic modelling, turn your head towards something different.

[needse]

@paulius arghhh ya didnt need ta sink ya teeth in that early after my hallway image lol
but yeah ya right mate still got more work to do on that

@tekneek yeah see i dont think i wanna go character modeling either but ive got mudbox so gonna start having a decent look at that again.
i think i need to get some work with a studio or something coz teaching myself im getting stuck with where i should be going and what i should be doing to improve. need some real world guidance if im going to continue doing this other wise back to decorating lol or maybe collage ?

hard work and dedication aint getting me nowhere

[paulius-st]

i allready forgot this hallway image . i ment all of your models need some serious texturing and shading love. and ofcourse some more dramatic lighting.
as for studio work - all studios i have worked with had given me some valuable inside info and some practise i now use when working. but you can never take one studios direction as your main direction.
a biggest lesson i have learned form the biggest pros in my countrie is that you must try to exel at what you feel comfortable at and where you feel you belong, and gain some experiance at aditional stuff that is related to stuff you do best. and you will never be good at everything. there are only rare exeptions when someone is great at allmost averything he does.
look at this as it was army - you can not be a one man army like arnold or stalone or willis - you can only be good at something one.
so my advice would be to expand your modeling skill and gain more experiance at texturing and shading and lighting the sh$t out of your models, and some sculpting to pimp your models.

[astroAJ]

Needse I think ur lacking a sense of direction, what exactly is your future goal, where do you see yourself working and kind of work do you enjoy. If you want to work on movies doing VFX then maybe it would be better to learn how to do camera tracking with Syntheyes or improve your understanding of shaders etc

In terms of what sculpting program I've been using Mudbox for texturing everything because it’s just so awesome I've fiddled with Z and the sculpting tools are far more natural but since I want to work on vfx and environments I probably won't focus on sculpting a huge lot. Also Mudbox's latest release is a Joke this shows Autodesk's lack of involvement with the software so long term u might be better off with Z?

Just my take on the situation

[needse]

cheers astro yeah ya right mate because im sitting here trying to direct myself lol

the thing is i like doing everything 3d from particles and fliulds/fume to modeling and texturing so i wanna just be part of the whole picture or be able to tackle most problems in 3ds which i can pretty much do to a fairly good standard

so 3d generalist i suppose with i few advanced skills

over the years ive learnt tons and tons of stuff not jut modeling i just wanna put it all together and create some awesomeness but i dont think its gonna happen on me own

[paulius-st]

if you want i can direct you .

[astroAJ]

U already do that paulius

[poopipe]

If you want a job, learn to rig in Maya