I'm new to Poser and am interested in a sculpting/modeling program to use with Poser. What are the pros and cons for Blender and ZBrush, other than the significant fact that Blender is free! Thanks.

well both are good ... use ZBrush for modeling and then you can use Blender for the rigging of your models or at least for the grouping if you plan to make standalone models . this sure would be a great combination. Using blender will let you save as it will give you great articulation results. just that Daz Studio will not support such so you would be limited with Poser. with Zbrush you will not be able to get your models articulated , with Blender you will not get as detailed models :)

the better results you wish to have the more Programs or features you will use I can not count anymore on one hand how many I use to get my models done , especially many small applications and well the most Important is the Notepad++ I even use Excel for modeling

Actually it is for every artist totally Individual you grow into it and build up Unique setups for your styles

gate posted at 4:54PM Tue, 03 December 2019 - #4372183

well both are good ... use ZBrush for modeling and then you can use Blender for the rigging of your models or at least for the grouping if you plan to make standalone models . this sure would be a great combination. Using blender will let you save as it will give you great articulation results. just that Daz Studio will not support such so you would be limited with Poser. with Zbrush you will not be able to get your models articulated , with Blender you will not get as detailed models :)

the better results you wish to have the more Programs or features you will use I can not count anymore on one hand how many I use to get my models done , especially many small applications and well the most Important is the Notepad++ I even use Excel for modeling

Actually it is for every artist totally Individual you grow into it and build up Unique setups for your styles

Thanks for the info!

I bought Zbrush back in 2011 and Pixologic have never charged yet for an update, so IMO it's good value. Not the easiest to learn and compared to more conventional 3d apps it can be deeply odd, but there are things it can do that a conventional app wouldn't have the first clue about. Plus there is the GoZ bridge for Poser.

3DCoat is a possible alternative; Mudbox (subscription only from Autodesk) does sculpt/retopo/paint too. With all these sort of apps though its best to try as many different demos as possible before spending money, personal preference counts for a lot.

Blender is free, so download it regardless ;)

Blender, nothing special that stands out over any other 3D modeling program, its just free as you said. thats about it. Zbrush on the other hand kind of stands alone when it comes to Sculpting,sure Blender can sculpt also but no where in the same league nor with all the options which come with Zbrush. Just choose the one based on what your trying to create (as in if all you wanted to do was create weapons or hard edge objects, sure Zbrush can do that but not at a price of 895 dollars , when the same can be done for free in Blender,basically make sure you get whats best for you.and what you want to create.

Caisson and CHK2033, Thank you for your input!

Also important to keep in mind that, if you want to create HD morphs for Poser, Zbrush is currently the only program you can use to do that natively (other than Poser's own Morph Tool). I've seen a method for using Blender, but it's tedious, finicky and prone to loss of quality.

Thanks Ohki, HD morphs will probably be what I do most. I'm a natural media artist: www.glennfoy.com and will be using Poser primarily to develop reference images which I will then draw or paint. This, I think, was Poser's original purpose. These days the digital images are the art objects.

But I do need to morph the various Poser character. If anyone else has had experience using Blender for HD morphs, I would love to hear about it!

It depends how you plan to work. If you pose the figures in Poser, you can bring them into Blender and sculpt any details you want to add. If you don't want to chang the pose after you started scuplting, this would work.

You could also use a programm like xnormal to create a normal or displacement map for your Poser figure and apply the fine details that way. You would need to render the image to see them, and you will probably have some losses.

With ZBrush, you can use a method called GoZ to bring your model into ZBrush, sculpt it there and send it as a morph back to Poser. This is very convinient, but I don't know if it's worth the price for you.

Many thanks, Bantha!

Blender is free so go get it and there are a million tutorials to get your feet wet

You can get a trial of ZBrush 2018: https://pixologic.com/zbrush/trial/ do that also and play with it. Soon you'll get a feel for them and be able to decide. You don't really have to choose because Blender is free :) Also, Blenders' unwrapping algorithm is very good.

Movida, thanks a lot!

Also I forgot to suggest you hang out for a while at ZBrush Central (their forum) You'll be astounded at what is done with that program :) I think you should be advised, up front, that this stuff is addictive

Another free program worth looking at is Sculptris (bought by Zbrush a few years ago, but still free).

@PencilsandLight - fantastic artwork on your site btw!

@caisson, thank you!

bantha posted at 7:18PM Wed, 04 December 2019 - #4372281

You could also use a programm like xnormal to create a normal or displacement map for your Poser figure and apply the fine details that way. You would need to render the image to see them, and you will probably have some losses.

I tried to download xnormal and it appears their download page is 'down'. Thanks for the info, though.

caisson posted at 1:39AM Thu, 05 December 2019 - #4372312

Another free program worth looking at is Sculptris (bought by Zbrush a few years ago, but still free).

@PencilsandLight - fantastic artwork on your site btw!

I thought I heard on the ZBrush forum that Sculptris was not getting anymore support or updates... Is that true? I haven't been on the forum for several years.

I don't think that Sculptris gets updates, but when I last checked, it worked like a charm. I do have ZBrush (which has a newer version of Sculptris included), so I don't need the free version. But I did work with it before, it's an amazing program.

A word of warning about sculptress. It enables symmetry by splitting your model in half an mirroring the remaining half over.

Not good for morphs require ing consistent vertex counts.