This is Joseph Drust. Welcome to ZBrushCore.
In this tutorial, as it may be your first introduction to the world of 3D sculpting,
we will talk about the fundamentals of ZBrushCore.
We will talk about navigation, the brushes and other elements
as we create a 3D printable key chain.
To start, launch ZBrushCore and look at this window at the top.
This window at the top is called Lightbox.
Lightbox is ZBrushCore's file management system.
In here, you see a series of projects you can load to start sculpting on.
Through this Open File button here, you can import files from other applications
or load a previous saved file.
For this tutorial, we select this key chain heart here.
To select an object, simply click on it and to load it in, double click.
After you double click, you should see the model loaded in ZBrushCore here.
Before we start sculpting on this mesh, let's talk about navigation.
To rotate around a model, simply click on a blank spot on your canvas
and drag and this will perform a rotate.
As you are rotating your mesh, if you hold down Shift,
this will allow you to snap into certain angles.
If you hover close to the front of your model and hold Shift,
it snaps to a front angle.
If you hover close to the side of your model and hold Shift,
it will snap to a side angle.
Using this rotation option along with holding Shift,
you will be able to snap into different angles of your model as you work.
After you have rotation down, we can talk about moving or panning.
To perform a move or a pan, simply hold down the Alt key,
click on a blank spot on your canvas and drag and this will move or pan.
That process again: hold down Alt, click and drag on a blank spot
and that will allow you to move your model like so.
Now we can rotate and we can also move our model.
Now in addition to rotating and moving, we can also perform a zoom or scale.
One method of doing this is to hold down the Alt button, like a pan,
click on your canvas and hold it, release Alt and drag and that will zoom your model.
That process again: hold Alt, click on your canvas,
release Alt and drag and that will allow you to zoom.
If you do not feel comfortable using hotkeys to navigate around your model,
there are also buttons over here.
This move button, if you click and drag it, will perform that move.
The zoom 3D button, if you click and drag it, will perform that zoom.
The rotate button, if you click and drag it, will perform that rotate.
Using these buttons here or the hotkeys
you can now start navigating around your model as you sculpt.
Now you have navigation down, we can talk about ZBrushCore's brush system.
At the bottom, there are a series of brushes.
To load a brush, just click and that brush will be loaded.
With a brush loaded, such as ClayBuildup, if you come across your model
and click and drag, this will perform a sculpt function.
This allows you to sculpt positively on the surface of the model.
If you hold down Alt and then click and drag,
this allows you to perform a negative sculpt or carve in your model.
So to sculpt positively, just click and drag.
To sculpt negatively, hold down Alt and click and drag.
That allows you to change the surface of your mesh as you work.
In addition to sculpting positively and negatively,
you can also smooth out the surface.
To do this, hold down Shift and click and drag.
This will perform a smooth function.
Now you can click and drag to sculpt positively.
Hold Alt and drag to sculpt negatively.
Hold Shift to smooth out those areas.
If you want to change the size of your brush at any time,
navigate to the Draw Size slider at the top and click and drag to change the brush size.
If you are over the top of your model, click the S button
and this will open up the Draw slider.
You can now change the Draw Size here.
This allows you to change your stroke size in order to sculpt various levels of detail.
ZBrushCore works with the pressure sensitivity of your device.
If you do a very light sculpt on your mesh,
you get a light stroke.
If you press down hard and drag,
you get a harsh stroke.
Using this pressure sensitivity, you can sculpt your models in varying degrees.
Shift brush respects this pressure sensitivity as well.
If you hold Shift and press lightly, it will do a light smooth.
If you hold Shift and press hard, it will do a strong smooth.
If you make a stroke on your model and you are not happy with it,
you can undo that stroke.
If you press Ctrl + Z, this will perform an Undo action.
If you keep pressing Ctrl + Z, you can undo back to your original model.
As you can see, I return back to this area of my mesh.
If at any point you went back too far, you can hold Ctrl + Shift + Z to Redo.
Ctrl + Z will undo.
Ctrl + Shift + Z will redo.
As I sculpt this model, I am doing it in a symmetrical fashion.
If I sculpt on one side of the mesh, the stroke is repeated on the other side.
If you want to disable symmetry, press X on your keyboard to turn it off.
Now if I come across this side of my model and sculpt,
that effect is not happening on the other side.
To turn symmetry back on, hit X and that will turn it back on.
Pressing X allows you to toggle symmetry on and off as you work.
In addition to brushes like ClayBuildup,
there are other brushes down here that are interesting.
Come down here and select the Move brush.
To select the brush, click it and that brush will now be your active brush.
I hover over an area of my model and tap S to bring up the Draw Size slider.
I increase the draw size like so.
I rotate my model around and click and drag with the Move brush.
As I click and drag with this brush, it allows me to move the surface geometry.
I can start pulling areas of the model out.
This allows you to make large profile changes on your mesh.
As you pull this out, the surface of the model becomes a bit angular.
If I look here, it is pretty smooth.
Then up here it is a little bit rough.
This is happening because we stretch the surface of the model as we work.
Now I switch back to the ClayBuildup brush and hit S to get a smaller Draw Size,
I want to make a mark from here on the model all the way up to here.
If I click and drag and draw this mark out,
you see as I reach this area here, my stroke is depreciating.
This area up here does not look the same as this area down here.
This is because we pulled or distorted our mesh to this point.
ZBrushCore has a function called DynaMesh.
DynaMesh is ZBrushCore's digital clay.
This function allows us to redistribute the surface of our model.
If we make a stroke here and continue it all the way up to here,
the stroke will be consistent.
DynaMesh lives under the Tool palette.
Navigate to the Tool palette over here and open the Geometry tab.
Then open the DynaMesh tab and you will see this big DynaMesh button.
This model has DynaMesh active.
This means if I hold down Ctrl and drag off the model and then release,
the model will be re-DynaMeshed.
You can see the model surface has changed.
Now if I come back and sculpt from here all the way to the top here,
you will see I get a consistent stroke all the way across.
Let's undo this and show it one more time.
Let's take our model and we will grab that Move brush again.
Hover over the surface of the model and hold down S to get a large Draw Size.
Pull out the model like so.
Let's get it really rough.
You can do this with any of the sculpting brushes as well.
I switch back to ClayBuildup, go to small Draw Size
and carve into the model like so.
If you start seeing this roughness at any point,
simply hold Ctrl, drag off your model, release and it will redistribute the surface.
Then hold Shift to smooth that area out and then continue sculpting like normal.
Using this DynaMesh option, along with these sculpting brushes,
you can start pulling out really large shapes on your model.
If I go back to that Move brush, change that Draw Size and just start pulling these out,
then hold Ctrl and drag off to re-DynaMesh.
You can continue pulling on the surface of your model
to get really interesting designs and detail.
Another nice thing about DynaMesh, is that if I set a small Draw Size,
and then start pulling this surface and bump it into the other surface in the middle,
if I re-DynaMesh, it will now weld those two parts together.
Now these two parts are joined.
Now I smooth this out.
I can bridge areas of my model like this.
If I want to make another bridge between this surface and this one,
I click and drag, make sure they connect, then perform that re-DynaMesh option.
Now they have been connected together.
You can use this functionality to make really intricate designs on your meshes.
Now we have talked about DynaMesh, there is one more thing to talk about.
That is masking.
I am going to open up Lightbox
to go back into our ZBrushCore file management system.
I will locate that key chain heart again and double click it.
This will reload this project.
It will ask if I want to save changes to my current mesh.
This time I will choose No.
Now I will be brought back to a new version of that key chain.
Inside ZBrushCore, as you use a brush like the ClayBuildup brush,
if you want to protect an area of your mesh at any time,
you can hold Ctrl and this will put you in a masking brush.
So while holding Ctrl and having this masking brush selected
if you come across your model and drag this forms a mask on the surface of the mesh.
This masked area on your model is protected from any sculpting you do.
With the ClayBuildup brush still selected,
I come across the model and drag a stroke out and go through that mask.
You will see that that masked area has now been protected.
This will allow you to come through and mask certain areas of your mesh
and create interesting designs or shapes around them.
Let's undo that back to our mask.
If you mask an area on your model and you want to clear the mask,
simply hold Ctrl and click off the model, like we did a re-DynaMesh,
and that clears the mask.
Apply that mask again by holding Ctrl and clicking and dragging.
Let's say we want to invert the mask now.
To invert the mask, hold Ctrl and tap off the model.
That will invert the mask.
Those processes again:
Ctrl + drag to mask the model.
Ctrl + drag off the model to clear the mask.
Ctrl + click to invert the mask.
Using these options, you can mask different areas of your meshes
to get different shapes or designs.
We have covered most of the fundamentals of ZBrushCore,
we can now start sculpting our key chain.
Before I do this, I will reset my scene again.
I navigate to Lightbox, locate the key chain heart and load that back in.
Now I have a fresh scene here with the key chain and I am ready to sculpt.
I want to make a quick elephant key chain.
I will have a sculpted elephant in the middle and ears on the side.
Then have his trunk come down and bend to one side.
I select the ClayBuildup brush and I will describe some of these forms.
I will flesh out his ears here and give them a curlicue type feeling.
If you are working on thin pieces of geometry and you use a large brush size,
let's increase my Draw Size here.
You may notice that if you sculpt on one side of the model,
it will affect the other side as well.
We can disable this by turning on Backface Masking.
Go to the Brush palette here, open up the Auto Masking tab,
there is a button here called Backface Mask.
If we activate this and sculpt on the model with a large brush again,
you will notice that it only affects the front side of the model.
If you have thin geometry like this key chain and you use a large brush size,
navigate to the Brush palette, open Auto Masking and turn on Backface Masking.
This will help you sculpt some of these details.
At this point, I will go back to this small Draw Size
and start sculpting these details.
Just using the positive functionality, clicking and dragging on the mesh to sculpt.
Then holding Alt to sculpt in a negative fashion
and then Shift to smooth areas out.
This is all the processes I will use to create this key chain.
Using the ClayBuildup brush to build these forms.
If my topology gets too stretched, just hold Ctrl and click off the model.
That will apply that DynaMesh again for an even surface.
Then I come back in and smooth and sculpt more details as needed.
The only other part that is a little complex is the creating of the elephant's trunk.
I want it to go down and go to one side.
I will turn symmetry off as I draw this one.
Start drawing it out like so, add a little more interest and design.
Then I go back the body in a crosshatch fashion
to build that connection from the trunk to the rest of his head.
Then I will turn symmetry back on, to generate his tusks.
Come across the area here and start drawing in a circular fashion,
I re-DynaMesh that.
Then select the move brush
and go to the side and move these parts to get the tusks fleshed out.
Smooth those down.
Using that Move option.
Then go back to the ClayBuildup brush, re-DynaMesh and continue sculpting.
I will jump ahead here to the final version of the elephant that I sculpted.
Here we have the completed elephant key ring inside ZBrushCore.
I used the processes we talked about to sculpt the different areas of the model.
I used a lot of the smoothing processes
and the alternate functionality to carve in and out of these surfaces.
I came through and described the forms to get the shape of an elephant.
After you have completed the model and are happy with it,
you can now export it for 3D printing.
ZBrushCore can export to multiple file formats.
It can export to an OBJ, an STL or a VRML file.
ZBrushCore has the ability to sculpt on millions of polygons.
This is great for describing different details and forms on your meshes
but not always great for 3D printing.
Inside ZBrushCore, there is an option to optimize your models for 3D printing.
Navigate to the File menu and open that up.
There is a 3D Printing area.
Open this up. There are three buttons here.
The top button is called 'Optimize for 3D Printing'.
This will take your model, look at the sculptural details
and optimize the areas where there are no details.
This reduces the polycount of your mesh.
This mesh is currently at 600,000 points.
If you know that your 3D printing software can not handle this many polygons,
come to the File menu and click 'Optimize for 3D Printing'.
This will look at those details and reduce your mesh.
Depending on how many polygons you have, this process could take a while.
After it is complete, you will have your model in its reduced state.
You can see the Active Points now are down to 100,000 polygons.
If I undo the process here, you will not see any change.
Here is the model at 600,000 polygons.
If I redo the optimize process, here is the model at 100,000 polygons.
This process is extremely powerful at reducing your model
but holding all your structural details.
If you are doing 3D printing,
it is recommended to optimize your mesh before printing.
Directly below this button, you have buttons to optimize and export to STL,
and optimize and export to VRML.
The STL file format does not support color.
If you have painted your model in ZBrushCore and you want to create a color 3D print,
you need to use the 'Optimize & VRML Export' button.
If you need to export your model as an OBJ, you can do that through the Tool palette.
If you navigate to Tool, there is an Export button,
and this will allow you to export your mesh as an OBJ.
That is the process of quickly coming through
and creating a key chain model in ZBrushCore for 3D printing.
Thanks for watching and I look forward to seeing what you create with ZBrushCore.