When I asked Pixologic if they were considering porting ZBrush for Linux I was told yes but no definitive answer as to when they will offer such a port. So I decided to start a poll over at ZBrush Central which is the help forum run by Pixologic for their product ZBrush. Basically the question asked is if you would like to see Pixologic develope ZBrush for Linux (Yes or No). This helps the company decide whether or not there is enough interest to port the product to Linux. Currently the only way to run ZBrush on Linux is with Wine and for myself would prefer to see it run natively on the OS, not emulated. See poll here http://206.145.80.239/zbc/showthread.php?t=27650 You can find out more regarding what ZBrush is here http://pixologic.com/home/home.shtml
Zbrush/Pixellogic only has 1 programmer. He can only do so much, which is why it is going to take a while for the Linux port.
People tend to forget that many of these small companies do not have the huge resources like an Alias or Softimage to just port to any platform they want in the blink of an eye. These guys first priority is to support their current user base before they think about other things like porting to other platforms. 1 person can only do so much.
When I had contacted Pixologic previously the response I received was that they would definitely consider porting to Linux as long as there is enough interest from consumers to warrant the port. Since ILM, Weta Digital and other studios have used ZBrush at one time or another on projects it won't be just the freelancer or hobby artist that influences this port. The poll should hopefully provide them with a better understanding of how much interest there really is as long as people take the time to voice their opinion.
As for the programming issue I'm sure with enough interest from consumers to warrant a Linux port of ZBrush can convince the company to hire additional programmers to complete developement on time. After all the software has already been a success on Windows and OSX. They may also be able to attract interest from other programmers in the Linux community that typically work on open source projects as long as they sign a NDA since ZBrush is closed source.
Problem with polls like this is that they are unreliable.
Most people that using linux form the political point WILL answer yes even if they have no intention to buy it.
I'm very excited about a linux version. I'm just letting you know that if it does happen, it could be a while. Look at Particle illusion. It took him 3 years to get around to doing the osx version of PI 3.0 because he had to get around to learning how to write an app for osx (PI also has only 1 programmer).
I've posted on LinuxForum.com/forums/ and Linuxiso.org/forums/ a request for any programmers interested in helping out on developing a Linux port of ZBrush to contact the company. Though I did add that a NDA may be requested by the company to be signed as ZBrush is not open source. Hopefully this will speed up developement of porting ZBrush.
Hey,
it's strange only14 votes in one week for now...
It would be interesting to know more about actual zbrush dev environement...
It looks like they use a very custom gui library (which rocks!) that would make the port even harder ...(they'd 1st need to port that lib). Same about their really quick 3d engine (it must be full of processor optimised assembly and threads code to handle so many polys so quickly!!).
Also they got a wonderfull scripting engine, so that's at least 3 big libs (gui - 3d - script) to port to posix!
It's definately not a Qt , wx, tcl, fltk or wathever crossplatform lib based software i am afraid... even if the core is openGL based (not even sure)
I guess the osX and the win32 codes are very different.
Also i saw that they were just looking for a new developper i guess they will be very busy finishing the 205 version.
I wasn't aware that zbrush ran fine under wine though that's a great news!