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General => Open Discussion => Topic started by: TheBadger on April 27, 2012, 06:58:32 AM

Title: Sculptris by pixologic is free for everyone!
Post by: TheBadger on April 27, 2012, 06:58:32 AM
Hi.

Was looking at z-brush and complaining to my self that I cant spare the cash right now. And then I saw this!!!

http://www.pixologic.com/sculptris/

Download full unrestricted version for free MAC+PC. You can even use it for commercial purposes.

Just got it my self, looks rather nice.

Good bye Hexagon? We will see.


**oops sorry guys! I thought I was still in Open Discussion :-\ Staff please move for us, and forgive my mistake :-*
Title: Re: Sculptris by pixologic is free for everyone!
Post by: TheBadger on April 27, 2012, 07:19:19 AM
Made this Fish Face head in less than 60 seconds. I don't even know what the hell Im doing! lol Fun.

Any of you who know more about his stuff than me, (which is all of you) Please check this software out and tell me what you think. I think I found something good.
Title: Re: Sculptris by pixologic is free for everyone!
Post by: TheBadger on April 27, 2012, 07:35:45 AM
Sculptris community

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/forumdisplay.php?110-Sculptris-Main-Forum
Title: Re: Sculptris by pixologic is free for everyone!
Post by: Zairyn Arsyn on April 27, 2012, 07:46:52 AM
great program, simple too.
need to start using it again.

i just wish it could export/create texture up to 4k size.

first image: Ole' Staggy
second image: The Terraformer
Title: Re: Sculptris by pixologic is free for everyone!
Post by: TheBadger on April 27, 2012, 08:06:18 AM
Thats pretty cool zaai.
Those images you made would have taken forever in Hexagon!

Maybe you know the answer to this... Sculptris is an alpha version? If so, then I expect that it will in the end version, do what you want it to?

Title: Re: Sculptris by pixologic is free for everyone!
Post by: Zairyn Arsyn on April 27, 2012, 08:23:39 AM
yes,
i was thinking later version could have that, so i will just have to wait.
Title: Re: Sculptris by pixologic is free for everyone!
Post by: otakar on April 28, 2012, 12:29:22 AM
There's been no update to Sculptris for a while. It's really a great intro to ZBrush, and ZBrush costs (big) money. The biggest issue for me is the texturing. You really need to take it out into another program for some good mapping and material assignments. If you can live with simple colors applied I guess it would do, but not for detailed models with varying parts (for material assignment). Also, you can't jump back to modeling once you flip the switch so that's another drawback. The tool itself is amazing though, you can actually accomplish things without having to study countless tutorials and read the manual :)
Title: Re: Sculptris by pixologic is free for everyone!
Post by: TheBadger on April 28, 2012, 01:51:04 PM
Just leaning this stuff, so Im not sure if this is what you guys are talking about, but, The painting part goes up well over 4K; see image.
Title: Re: Sculptris by pixologic is free for everyone!
Post by: Kadri on April 28, 2012, 04:38:22 PM

Which formats does it have for export ?
Title: Re: Sculptris by pixologic is free for everyone!
Post by: Zairyn Arsyn on April 28, 2012, 04:55:24 PM
@Kadri: it only exports OBJ

@TheBadger: you have a different version, i have the Sculptris 6 alpha, apparently support for 4k texture maps has been removed.
Title: Re: Sculptris by pixologic is free for everyone!
Post by: Kadri on April 28, 2012, 05:37:40 PM

Thanks Zaai  :)
Title: Re: Sculptris by pixologic is free for everyone!
Post by: TheBadger on April 28, 2012, 07:30:36 PM
Quote from: zaai-three-nine on April 28, 2012, 04:55:24 PM
@Kadri: it only exports OBJ

@TheBadger: you have a different version, i have the Sculptris 6 alpha, apparently support for 4k texture maps has been removed.

Um, ok , yes you are right. I just checked. I have the same version as you do. It only goes to 2048k. The screen cap is from a tut.
Strange that it would limit us like that? Likely it will change.

*By the way... I tried to import an .obj, and got an error message; "to many connections to a vertex". The model was made in Hexagon and I want to paint it in sculptris, because if I can get it in there the auto un-rap would make thinks so much better for me. Can some one tell me what the error message means? How to fix it? And what other free program I could use with a good auto un-rap?

*One more question. Why do you guys need 4K? Even if you were working on an image in photoshop that was bigger than that, the model your making is not likely to be so big in the image? What are you outputting work for?
Title: Re: Sculptris by pixologic is free for everyone!
Post by: Kadri on April 28, 2012, 08:50:35 PM
Quote from: TheBadger on April 28, 2012, 07:30:36 PM
...
*By the way... I tried to import an .obj, and got an error message; "to many connections to a vertex". The model was made in Hexagon and I want to paint it in sculptris, because if I can get it in there the auto un-rap would make thinks so much better for me. Can some one tell me what the error message means? How to fix it? And what other free program I could use with a good auto un-rap?
...


It is not installed on my machine but you could try to triangulate the object.
Looks like there are faces with more then four edges.


Quote from: TheBadger on April 28, 2012, 07:30:36 PM
...
*One more question. Why do you guys need 4K? Even if you were working on an image in photoshop that was bigger than that, the model your making is not likely to be so big in the image? What are you outputting work for?


Big image use depends how you work and what you do. I used 20 000 x 20 000 images in TG2.
Was it absolutely needed? NO!
But TG2 could handle it and when i wanted from a very far POV to a closer look in an animation everything was ready to go.

Let say you have a render that is 2000x2000 .
In the middle is a cube that is half the pixel amount 1000x1000 .
But you want to spin the cube (how original :P) .
Now you have 6x1000x1000 .
You could use them separately or in one texture (as a UV map for example) that is now 6000x1000 .
And this is when you are not going to get closer to the cube.

But in principle it would be good to use small textures so far you can get away.
You might get memory problems or unneeded longer render-load times etc quite easily if you use them to much relaxed :)

But i tend to do the opposite. I make them mostly more then needed.
Because sometimes i want to get closer and make  a different render. This makes it more flexible for me.
Title: Re: Sculptris by pixologic is free for everyone!
Post by: Zairyn Arsyn on April 28, 2012, 09:26:10 PM
found this earlier when searching for Sculptris 1.02

http://download.cnet.com/Sculptris/3000-6677_4-75211273.html
Title: Re: Sculptris by pixologic is free for everyone!
Post by: TheBadger on April 29, 2012, 03:58:41 AM
Quote from: zaai-three-nine on April 28, 2012, 09:26:10 PM
found this earlier when searching for Sculptris 1.02

http://download.cnet.com/Sculptris/3000-6677_4-75211273.html

Thanks! May be good later. I wish they would fix the vertex thing. I have been reading up on this program, and everyone who comments on it thought it would be fixed by now. I guess since they give it away they dont care.

By the way, there is no demo version of z-brush!? I wanted to see if it had the vertex problem too. Does anyone know?
Title: Re: Sculptris by pixologic is free for everyone!
Post by: TheBadger on April 29, 2012, 06:24:29 AM
Oh yeah, as I said, z-brush has withdrawn its demo. no demo. So has anyone here used mudbox demo? I want to know if there are any restrictions on the demo other than time, watermark, size, output?
Title: Re: Sculptris by pixologic is free for everyone!
Post by: j meyer on April 29, 2012, 10:29:03 AM
...."to many connections to a vertex".
That refers to a so called pole with too many edges connected to it,like say a 12
sided polygon divided into regular triangles,which results in 12 edges connected
to the middle vertex.Sculptris doesn't like these and the way to fix it is to change
the topology.You can do that in your modeler of choice.
ZBrush does not have this problem.
Title: Re: Sculptris by pixologic is free for everyone!
Post by: TheBadger on April 30, 2012, 03:05:35 AM
@kadri

Hi,
Thanks for what you wrote. If possible could you please post a link to an image that you know the pix ratio of. I think I understand what you were saying, but frankly, its hard for me to visualize the differences.
Also, one thing that I don't understand... In hexagon (for example) I can select the pix quality of a texture, but the texture image its self is a .jpg at 512x512pix. If the image is projected on, what difference does a large pix size make? Are you saying that I just cant zoom in any closer than the .jpg would allow in photoshop before becoming pixilated? If so then that does not worry me to much.

Not sure if I am asking this in a way that makes cense.

Quote from: j meyer on April 29, 2012, 10:29:03 AM
...."to many connections to a vertex".
Sculptris doesn't like these and the way to fix it is to change
the topology.You can do that in your modeler of choice.

ZBrush does not have this problem.

Thank you.
Do you know of a tut on how to go about changing topology? The stuff I have found on line is very confusing and not well written.
Also, are you sure about what you said about z-rush, because as I said there is no demo version any more, so I have no way of testing.
Title: Re: Sculptris by pixologic is free for everyone!
Post by: Zairyn Arsyn on April 30, 2012, 08:28:09 AM
Quote from: TheBadger on April 28, 2012, 07:30:36 PM


*One more question. Why do you guys need 4K? Even if you were working on an image in photoshop that was bigger than that, the model your making is not likely to be so big in the image? What are you outputting work for?

i had a object i made in Sculptris which i imported into TG2, i wanted to do close up renders (not too close), and found that 2048 didnt do well enough.

Title: Re: Sculptris by pixologic is free for everyone!
Post by: Zairyn Arsyn on April 30, 2012, 10:22:19 AM
Quote from: TheBadger on April 29, 2012, 06:24:29 AM
Oh yeah, as I said, z-brush has withdrawn its demo. no demo. So has anyone here used mudbox demo? I want to know if there are any restrictions on the demo other than time, watermark, size, output?

i dunno but, i have the educational version of Mudbox 2012, i'm not sure how it compares with zbush for texture painting, but i do think its better than Sculptris, at least for texture / UV painting, though it has one flaw which in my case makes it hard to use for me.

when Mudbox is running it creates a log file in the temp folder or a similar location, this file can grow rapidly, sometimes, from 0 kb to 6 GB or more, which would cause the program to crash if you run out of space on C drive.

i had topology errors when importing OBJs from Sculptris and required some topology optimization with Maya/3DS Max, or another application. (probadly because Mudbox uses Quads and Sculptris uses Triangles)
Title: Re: Sculptris by pixologic is free for everyone!
Post by: j meyer on April 30, 2012, 10:28:57 AM
" Do you know of a tut on how to go about changing topology? "
Sorry,I don't.But in cases like yours it's really no problem at all.
Let's take that hypothetical 12 sided polygon again,which consists of
12 regular triangles and such has 12 edges connected to the center pole.
The easiest way would be to just delete every second edge so that you
end up with 6 edges connected to that pole.
There are other ways of avoiding poles at all and you can find
good examples in some eye tuts for example.Poles with more than 4 edges
can cause other problems in some apps.
Then there are some good tuts on modeling in general by Grant Warwick,but
you should know your modeling app quite well before going through stuff like
these,because they are for 3ds max and you'd have to translate it to your app.
A good way to practice topology changes and other stuff is to download free
models and fix them btw.( a tip I picked up from a modeling pro)
This is a wide area so to say,so give yourself some time.

..." are you sure about what you said about z-rush "
Yes I am!
Title: Re: Sculptris by pixologic is free for everyone!
Post by: Kadri on April 30, 2012, 02:45:52 PM


Not sure if i understand what you ask TheBadger...
But  i made some tests anyway.
If this is not what you asked there might be newbies who would find this  usefull maybe :)

Because many users here use tree objects i used a cylinder.
In 01 is a 500x500 texture.

[attach=1]

In 02 is a 1600x1600 texture. Not much a difference because the Cylinder is not close and the texture is not problematic.

[attach=2]

In 03 is the same 500x500 texture and in 04 the same 1600x1600 texture.

[attach=3]

[attach=4]


Now you can see how the 500x500 texture gets blurred.


But if you have a problematic texture you can get bad appearance without much getting closer too as in these 05 and 06 images.

[attach=5]

[attach=6]



Until now was the part i think i understand what i say. It doesn't have to be so of course  :P

Now the other part...
The renderer can not add pixels where there aren't any.
I do not know how TG2 does render the textures.
But from the tests and renders i made until now i think if you put big textures on an object, TG2 renders the texture better with bigger textures because it actually uses the pixels that are in the texture(so to speak).
But if or how deep (?) it does i do not know actually .

I would not downsize an image unnecessarily .
Only if the image is unneeded big like in some Nasa images or for memory related problems etc.
Downsizing does destroy the image.
Make an  letter in Photoshop ,Gimp etc. Save it (Save it rasterized. Do not leave it as a true type or similar).
Downsize it in half now. Then up-size it to its first 100% size again . Save it ones more .
Now compare the first original and the later downsized and up-sized images.
They are not the same anymore.

As in anything there is more about this like the filter you use etc.
You can look here for example. There are very nice things in this website.
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/image-resize-for-web.htm
Look at the other links above too in this page guys.

But as a last word do not think that i calculate all i do with objects textures etc.
It is mostly instinctively and what matters is the last look.
If the image does look good , has no blurred surfaces there is no problem for me.
In this aspect it does not matter if i use a 256x256 or 10 000x 10 000 texture .




Title: Re: Sculptris by pixologic is free for everyone!
Post by: Zairyn Arsyn on April 30, 2012, 04:26:58 PM
Quote from: j meyer on April 30, 2012, 10:28:57 AM
..." are you sure about what you said about z-rush "
Yes I am!

all i was saying was i hadn't used z-brush, i have nothing against it.
Title: Re: Sculptris by pixologic is free for everyone!
Post by: TheBadger on May 01, 2012, 04:21:23 AM
Quote from: zaai-three-nine on April 30, 2012, 04:26:58 PM
Quote from: j meyer on April 30, 2012, 10:28:57 AM
..." are you sure about what you said about z-rush "
Yes I am!

all i was saying was i hadn't used z-brush, i have nothing against it.

No worries Zaai, he was responding to me. I wanted to be sure about something he said because I cant test it for my self.
Title: Re: Sculptris by pixologic is free for everyone!
Post by: TheBadger on May 01, 2012, 04:27:33 AM
Thanks Kadri, everything is clear now!


On another note...
UV mapping complex surfaces SUCKS! At least in hexagon. I really like the auto mapping in Sculptris. But getting a model into the program is a pain in the ass, and changing topology pisses me off! >:( ;) Can you guys tell me if Mudbox has an auto mapper, I am thinking that z-brush does?
Title: Re: Sculptris by pixologic is free for everyone!
Post by: TheBadger on May 01, 2012, 06:10:19 AM
@ zaai

Hey I just logged into autodesk ED and my accounts still up. I never used it lol. I got a copy of MudBox to learn from. Can you tell me if it pastes some watermark on whatever I do with it? I would hate to have something like that making my portfolio ugly.

I dont plan on rendering with it, if it even has a renderer, so?
Title: Re: Sculptris by pixologic is free for everyone!
Post by: Zairyn Arsyn on May 01, 2012, 08:31:07 AM
lol
Quote from: TheBadger on May 01, 2012, 04:21:23 AM
Quote from: zaai-three-nine on April 30, 2012, 04:26:58 PM
Quote from: j meyer on April 30, 2012, 10:28:57 AM
..." are you sure about what you said about z-rush "
Yes I am!

all i was saying was i hadn't used z-brush, i have nothing against it.

No worries Zaai, he was responding to me. I wanted to be sure about something he said because I cant test it for my self.
Title: Re: Sculptris by pixologic is free for everyone!
Post by: TheBadger on May 02, 2012, 06:41:25 AM
@zaai-three-nine

Quotewhen Mudbox is running it creates a log file in the temp folder or a similar location, this file can grow rapidly, sometimes, from 0 kb to 6 GB or more, which would cause the program to crash if you run out of space on C drive.

Is this a temp file that only exists when the project file is open (in use), or does is stay until I delete it?

Also, Do you know the answer to my last post, The part about wartermarking?
Title: Re: Sculptris by pixologic is free for everyone!
Post by: Zairyn Arsyn on May 02, 2012, 08:53:25 AM
it cant be deleted when mudbox is running, it remains there until the program closes.

i haven't gotten any watermarks when creating texture maps