Mudbox Vs Zbrush

[casey33]

ok....so, can anybody out there offer up some comparisons between the two? the good? the bad? the ugly?
does one do something much better than the other?

i'm most interested in hearing about how the texturing works in mudbox.......anybody with some experience there?

thanks!

casey

[casey33]

anybody else think that pixologic had always intended to wait until the official release of mudbox was "on the shelves".......?

[joojaa]

They both have their sides. However i can only feel the pain of zbrush, i mean mud box has all theese nice features and it feels like working in maya. Downright to keyboard shortcuts. THing is i feel much more confident working in mudbox than i feel in zbruses quirky environment.

Im not saying zbrish is bad but way easier to do certain stuff in mudbox. Now only mudbox does not paint textures the way zbrush does.

Zbrush has all these wonderful features but ist kind of falling into the we have our own way trap. So the overhead to learn how do something i zbrush is like 10 time sthe overhead of mudbox. And yet mudbox feels sometimes lacking a bit of features. BUt thenagain mudbox is for sculting only and it does do it very well.

So mud box is currently sculpting only with a working no nonsense gui

[casey33]

yeah, the texturing in zbrush is pretty cool and easy to use....probably its biggest advantage over mudbox.
i'm excited to see if the next version of zbrush will have all the texturing functionality without that dang projection master thing. that is the only thing i don't like about texturing in zbrush.....drop, paint, pick up, rotate, drop, paint, pick up, rotate, etc, etc, etc.

seems like everyone complains about the interface for zbrush....and while it is kind of alien at first, once you learn it....it is pretty easy. mudbox is stronger there, for sure.

i also think mudbox's local subdivision is really cool. although not totally sure how you go about extracting normal and displacement maps when certain parts of the mesh are on different levels.

does zbrush have something like local subdivisions?

also heard the rumor that zbrush 3 will be the next release and 2.5 went the way of the dinosaur. and with a possible unveiling at the next siggraph. anyone heard this?

[joojaa]

Why would it be a problem to create normal maps if the local division is different? Its just a texture that it gets converted to. So i see no problem there.

But i think mudbox will put painting in as well. but i still think z brush is going to be a more complete package. I think mudbox is sortof a supporting tool first and foremost. Whereas zbrush is a output art tool aswell.

But as it is nw mudbox offers me much better workflow.

[casey33]

i guess i'm confused about the extraction process when certain parts are subdivided on different levels, because when you go to extract, it asks you to pick the highest level for the normal or displacement map.

....i was thinking if the highest level, lets say level 6, only contains a small portion of the model, would it ignore the lower level detailing on the rest of the model?