For all the users of Zbrush: the latest and exciting upgrade for Zbrush4, release 7 is now available.

I got this announcement in my mail today. It will have a lot of new and amazing features like Zmodeller, Array mesh, Nano mesh. I have seen some promo videos of these features and it looks very promising.

Unfortunately the site is probably overcrowded and unreachable, so I have to wait till the rush is over to download the upgrade.

It looks I will have little sleep the next coming weeks.

Best regards,

Bopper.

Thanks for the heads-up, I was expecting them to leave it until the last day of January :-D
I think I'll leave downloading until later, those poor servers!

Woot!  64-bit support

And yes, the site is unreachable.

I'm just waiting on an activation code. So frustrating but totally not Pixologic's fault...well mostly not anyway.

I couldn't reach the upgrade via the link in the email and on ZB Central but I went to the Pixologic site and downloaded it d=from there. It was surprisingly fast, Only had to try once and it took maybe 10 minutes at most. Now I just need to learn a bunch of new stuff in a program I'm still trying to learn...

it's pretty awesome so far. As I suspected it would be. 

no more leaving zb to do basic modeling. 

and it has fbx import/export.

If that FBX feature means what I think it means, then it must be able to bring a Poser figure in with all the maps applied!
Something tells me it won't, but it would be fantastic if it does, and even better if the FBX can include animation.

Anyway, I suppose I'd better get my current installatiion de-activated, I always do that just in case something goes wrong with the activation.

That's pretty much exactly what FBX means. But I haven't tested it yet so I can't comment on what limitations it might have at the moment.

If you're using 4r3 or above you don't have to deactivate. In fact they recommend not doing so as that might cause more problems for you when trying to activate. You just have to request a new activation code through the site. It's not an upgrade, it's a separate install. 

Cheers Shane, just got it downloaded and am reading through the New Features Guide that came with it.  I just noticed there's no mention of that awesome new modeler they showed, weird how it's not listed in that document!  Plus, after installing it I can't even see it, I still have 4R6!

I've got a 4R7 folder with everything but the exe in it :-D

 $795.00 (USD)

Fixed it, I deactivated but forgot to uninstall the old one first.

It's called ZModeler, it's in the brush pallet.  The PDF for the new features is in the documentation folder, where ever you have it installed. And the installer installs the 32-bit and 64-bit version by default. But I'm not familiar with how linux handles all that so your experience may be different. 

Supposedly z-remesher has been improved but I see no difference. Ah well. 

I've not installed it on Linux yet, just put it on Windows 7 for now and I just found out what caused the problems as well, it was lack of space.  I couldn't even load the complete guide, but after freeing-up a bit of space, I can see it all now - my system is totally choked.  I'll have to get on with that reformat, been putting it off for over a year now, does my head in.

Regards Z-Remesher, I haven't tried it yet but I get the impression that it only works with the new method if you use the new features along with it.  For example, they made a new way to do edgeloops and stuff with the modeler, and I think the new Z_Remesher reacts to those new ways of doing it (just guessing though).

Was just playing with the new ZRemesher, seems great here, you might have left a setting unchecked or something.  I just doodled a quick bust out of Dynamesh by using a bunch of objects melted together and then smoothed.  I tried ZRemesher on it and the result was actually flawless, didn't even need to give it hints using the flow curves.  Don't know how you're getting along with it now, but all I can think is maybe you accidentally tweaked a ZRemesher setting before you first tried it.

It's pretty neat, and I can't remember if it could be done before, but even the Topology Brush seems improved cause you can click directly on an end point and drag it, and it will continue the topology line for you if you'd made it too short, no need for a keyboard shortcut.  Not sure if that's new, but I don't recall being able to do that in the previous release.

No, I didn't miss any settings. I've experimented rather extensively with zremesher since its debut. It has its usefulness for some instances, but even this latest iteration is no substitute for laying out topology by hand so that every edge is exactly where I need it to be. It just does not follow muscle flow the way it needs to in order for a mesh to be viable for animation and morphing. At least not when it comes to models built for use in programs like Poser. In fairness however,  most humanoid models in higher end apps tend to have very basic edgeflow, and that is mostly what zremesher produces. The guide curves don't really seem to have much bearing when I want it to follow detail and produce animatable topology, such as in areas like the face where proper loops are pretty vital. 

It no longer creates spiraling topology however, which is much appreciated. For quick retopo for sculpting, it does the job decently. I wouldn't use it as a final production ready mesh though. For that I still have to rely on topogun. sigh I hate building topology. I think I prefer UV mapping over that, and I truly loathe UV mapping. But I'm also rather anal when it comes to perfect topology with the least bit of waste as possible, so I have to do it manually. 

Hopefully ZB5 will offer a way to combine the features of the topology brush and zremesher, so that the zremesh results can be edited before being finalized. I can hope at least.