ZBrush for Jewellery Training Options
ZBrush was originally designed as a digital painting tool with 2.5D features which allowed illustrators to use 3D models and relief tools to enhance the realism of their digital imagery. They patented a “pixol” architecture which stored 3-dimensional information with colour pixels for easier and more sculptural relief editing. However, as time went on, the 3D sculpting tools enclosed within this 2.5D program proved more and more compelling to users, and their functions and features grew with each release. Its utility ended up expanding into CGI and digital effects, and eventually into product design. Then some time in the early 00s, jewellers like Thomas Wittelsbach and Nacho Riesco started pioneering using the sculptural tools for jewellery CAD design. Ever since people started seeing the sophisticated sculpture the tool was capable of, it has become one of the few truly sculptural tools available for CAD jewellers, and Zbrush for jewellery training has been proliferating.
Zbrush’s Advantages and Disadvantages
Zbrush is an incredible tool in the hands of the skilful. Even a cursory glance at work of Zbrush artists will quickly show the unbelievable potential this software holds for being able to create texture and sculpted surface detail on any CAD model.
What the Zbrush forums and website don’t tell you is just how steep a learning curve the tool is for newcomers to 3D modelling. In short: Zbrush training is not particularly easy for newcomers. While the software over the past decade has moved in a big way towards being a bit more user friendly for people using it for 3D printed models, there are still many aspects of the interface which remain confusing and not-intuitive when learning. For example, many of the tools we would use for jewellery work in the software were designed for another purpose. And tasks that would be straightforward in other CAD programs (controlling scale, importing files, Booleans) are quite tricky to learn.
Once you finally get used to using the software, however, it is hard to underestimate just how powerful the texturing and sculpting tools in this software can be. Indeed, I know I’m not alone among 3D CAD jewellers when I say this may be the most powerful secondary software package you can get for creating complex jewellery. Assuming, of course, you’ve already become skilled at using a first software package.
Of course, there’s more to it than just that. I wrote a Frequently Asked Questions page all about the specific strengths and weaknesses of different jewellery CAD programs relative to each other.
If you’d like to know more, you can also Contact me to discuss the advantages of Zbrush relative to other jewellery CAD programs, and whether Zbrush is the best jewellery CAD software package for you.
To Learn More About Jewellery CAD/CAM
If any of these above whets your appetite for ZBrush for Jewellery training for your CAD jewellery design and manufacturing, I am currently piloting a new short course curriculum for using Zbrush for sculptural and organic modelling specifically for jewellery. I am now able to offer this course via private tuition. If you are interested in learning Zbrush for jewellery Contact me directly.
I have recently gone through 3 months of training with ZBrush with their demo license. It’s fantastic and extremely powerful. Although I have to say the biggest issue I too had with it is scale. Easiest way to get something into the program is starting in an external CAD and get it to scale there and then bring it in. It’s still a bit weird that way but it does definitely work. Still a very difficult program to learn and I still have a long ways to go with it.
Indeed. Most people seem to work with Zbrush this way, using another program to confirm the manufacturing tolerances of the pieces made in Zbrush. Rhino works well for this purpose, but it’s not the only one I’ve seen used.
Thank you for the post. It’s very helpful.
Is there any free CAD software you would recommend for getting the scale right and then importing to Zbrush?
Hey Heather:
While there are (very limited) measuring tools in Zbrush, you need some sort of product design CAD software to back it up. Most people’s weapon of choice is Rhino, because of its flexibility with importing and exporting. But while it is cheap (especially for students) it is not free, except as a temporary demo.
There are several cheap CAD options out there, and I’m researching them now, but my experience so far tends to be you get what you pay for.
I hope that helps.
I will say that zbrush is ONLY easy if you forget everything you ever learned about any 3d application. I bet 99% of users would say that forgetting everything is actually hard. That is, unless you have some sort of brain injury that allows for that.
When I first started using zbrush, I took a lynda course for it. It was great. It took a week of intense devotion before I actually started feeling liek I could use it without thinking too much. There are so many options and concepts that have no link to real life or cad concepts. You do just need to go into it without thinking about what you have done in the past. it is it’s own beast.
In the course, they spent about an hour describing the interface and how unintuitive it is. They went into how the interface evolved from the original 2.5d painting interface and how that created terms that only zbrush uses. the concepts of subtools, layers and other concepts that just do not easily come to anyone jumping in to the software. Blender has gotten better in the past few years so that jumping in is a bit easier than the old interface. It also had a learning curve that takes a while to get comfortable with. Zbrush is in no way intuitive. Saying that it is will make so many users give up after they cannot figure anything out. You must, at the very least, go through pixologics learning channel on your tube to get a base understanding.
imagine opening the program for the first time. is it at all logical to hit the comma button on any program every to get rid of the interface? What about editing? Zbrush is amazing. It is hard to learn and worth the effort to get to a point in which an artist can feel like they are an artist in the software.
If anyone really wants to use the program, I suggest the lynda course. It will answer so many questions about the thinking needed to use the app. You still will spend years before you understand most of the software. I bet most people will find options after years of use that they had no idea existed. It is a huge and complicated application that is in no way easy to use.
Well said. I agree.
Hi Michael,
I went through your experience which you have shared here. However, I would like to have more clarity from you, as am part of jewelry industry. If i sculpt a design either in 2.5d or 3d as a design, heard that meshes would be more in zbrush. In order to take the design as a print, we need to get these designs to another software for conversion. I would like to have your experience on sharing which another software is best to render these zbrush designs for printing.
Hi R. Ashok.
I’ll answer this one for you.
The meshing tools, especially with the 3D Print Hub and Decimation Master plug-ins, are excellent nowadays with more recent versions of Zbrush. It works quite well for exporting to .STL provided you’re smart about your settings. So you don’t actually need another piece of software for exporting.
However, there is one reason why it’s good for jewellers to have a secondary tool with Zbrush– checking tolerances. Zbrush measurement tools can be relatively frustrating. I prefer to check tolerances in a program like Rhino.
I hope that helps.
Hey Jack! Great articles here on your site.
I just wanted to say that it is actually quite possible to get ZBrush to create models with exact tolerances…I’ve been working on a course for awhile that will be out here shortly, and one of the things I cover is how to not only create freeform shapes, but how to hollow them to exact thicknesses, add precisely sized stones, and sculpt.
You can use the Transpose Line in the Move mode as a measuring tool. Things can be a little tricky if you’ve imported a model in from another jewelry CAD program because there is a scaling factor, but the Transpose Line can be used to measure with great accuracy. If you’re working actual size in (the full version of) ZBrush, the XYZ Size slider can be used to create accurately sized stones and settings. Thicknesses of pieces can be measured and modified using the Transpose Line. It works quite well.
Boolean operations have become much simpler, and there are ways to simplify the interface. I have a custom interface available and easy documentation to show how to install it.
I’ve paired ZBrush with a Formlabs Form 2 printer, which I’ve had for over four years. Learning to design and have that immediate feedback is helpful. By printing a calibration block, I know that my prints are slightly smaller (9.96mm on a 10mm block), but I can accommodate that in the slicing software. Casting or shooting waxes adds a little more shrinkage, but it’s been easy to accommodate.
And yes, there is a learning curve. OMG, this piece of software literally made me cry in the beginning…I just didn’t “get it.” But as a former tech trainer for Apple (and jewelry artist), my goal is to make it easier for people to learn. It’s also important to work efficiently…so many artists are working in polygon counts that are far too high and adding so much detail that simply doesn’t show up.
I appreciate your sharing of knowledge and expertise…thanks so much for your educational posts!
Hi Kat!
Thank you for this information. I very much look forward to seeing your course, and your plugin. Anything you can do to make the program more cooperative for production is a welcome change.
All the best.
Jack
Kat, I’m Asif from India, how can I buy your course?