Why i quit Zbrush for Blender as professional 3D Character artist?

[@robertmoats1890]

Blender is definitely one of a kind. It's completely free, yet the devs still make decent money through donations. I've donated to them several times. This is how it should be.

[@edstar83]

Free and Open Source.

[@danielr5000-d1s]

I think we are just so lucky to have Blender. I don't know of any other free software that is this competitive with paid software.

[@mbg4681]

@@danielr5000-d1s >> I don't know of any other free software that is this competitive with paid software. The end-user desktop is really the last bastion of paid software. Open-source has overwhelmingly dominated web development, smartphones, embedded devices, and the infrastructure of the entire Internet for decades now.

[@eng3d]

@@danielr5000-d1s I think the advantage of Blender is not only that Blender is for free but because it is for free AND loved by the community. Many people claim that Maya is for pros, and it is true, but it is for pros because big studios have many scripts for Maya developed for decades that the average Joe does not have.

[@starwarz8479]

​@@danielr5000-d1s Agree! If you're using it for work I'd make donations to it to keep the dev going. It's way cheaper than those insane subscriptions fees with Maxon, Autodesk tools.

[@TonyG718]

I first started using Zbrush in 2019 and you were one of the first Zbrush channels I saw. I was so inspired by your high level skill set, I bought your course on Udemy. I support you no matter what platform you use, As a 2D animator trying out 3D for the first time, I couldn’t believe how the hell you made such phenomenal and detailed character anatomies. You’re incredible, sir.

[@chrisproductions6262]

I actually started back in 2023 and it's so easy to get the hang of, though Blender gives you more options to improve upon it like adding special add ons to make Retopo easier

[@athinasdesigns]

Ty for letting us know the courses are worth it. I saw recently 2 courses 1 with a dragon and 1 with an assassin and i love his details. Right now i don't have time to focus on learning sculpting but i am thinking of buying them for the future

[@lucasbittencourt8290]

Finally someone talking about transitioning from Zbrush to Blender. Thank you Niko, you're the best!

[@SwiftyGazz]

I think Blender is better for sculpting :)

[@georgefromjungle5211]

@@SwiftyGazz Did you even watch the video ? 2:06 5:58

[@SwiftyGazz]

I did and my opinion is that I think Blender is better for sculpting then Zbrush@@georgefromjungle5211

[@3dguy839]

Finally Congress is investigating 🛸 🛸 🛸 UAPs

[@rogerdltj]

@@georgefromjungle5211 did you even read his commentary? He said "I think", it's his opinion.

[@Namtar3D]

Zbrush is no longer an option for freelancer, hobbyists and small budget artists. I have a perpetual license and love it even if it doesn't update anymore (thank you very much Maxon), but I know eventually I'm gonna need to move on to blender.

[@chadvoller2031]

This is where I'm at. I bought ZBrush for $250 many moon ago, I think around version 2. Best purchase I have ever made. I was expecting Pixologic to start charging at some point, and I would have paid them for the updates as they deserved it. Now that Maxon owns it, they aren't getting a dime from me. They did the same thing with the Red Giant plugins and priced me out of using them. I'll use the last version that I have licensed, for as long as I can. Then I'll learn Blender just to do sculpting. Autodesk still rents out Mudbox, fairly cheap in comparison to ZBrush too, but they haven't done any development in it for years. Which is sad, because it had a decent following for a while that Autodesk just left to die.

[@Namtar3D]

@@chadvoller2031 3D coat is a nice option too*

[@anab0lic]

its always an option, zbrush is completely free if you know where to look.

[@chadvoller2031]

@@anab0licThere's rewards for turning in businesses that use pirated software. I would not even think of doing that. All it takes is one employee to turn on you.

[@anab0lic]

@@chadvoller2031 I'm a one operation I don't think I will be turning myself in haha. For learning purposes/hobbyists/starving artists just torrent it tbh if money is tight... if you are scaling up to a larger more profitable business then the monthly licence fee really shouldn't be an issue.

[@scpk2246]

Wow! So full of HONESTY! straightforward talk! Kudos

[@arthurbrown3D]

Speed char is the most transparent and honest 3D artist and tutor I know. The guy is just too real lol

[@Burgervfx]

I use both, Zbrush for sculpting and Blender for everything else, perfect combination.

[@Savorychicken41]

Me too. I have to give blender sculpting a second look.

[@XellosShinomeiYT]

how u manage to use hotkeys? dont u get confused while using them?

[@DVFHAFYT]

@@XellosShinomeiYT Uh I don't, the human brain can hold more than 1 set of hotkeys.

[@M2008tw]

Sad to see what a greedy company like Maxon can mean for the industry. When they bought Red Giant (plugin for After Effect) they started to flush out their former customers. When they then bought Z-Brush I knew it was time to look elsewhere. Thanks for sharing your experience with Blender. I'm seriously considering switching from Maya to Blender, but haven't quite had the guts to switch yet... have tried Blender a bit. What appeals to me most about Blander is their community and their willingness to share knowledge, something that all the other players don't come close to.

[@Jez1963UK]

Hi, I don't know what your situation is, why you haven't had the guts to switch, but I'm probably a lot older than you (60) and I have had 3DS Max in my life for over 25 years (not used it every day so I had it for that amount of time, but you could say I've only used it for maybe 10 years :) ). Anyway, over the last 3-4 weeks I've been learning Blender (didn't think I could do it) and I am now very comfortable with it, and am absolutely sold. There is something about Blender that makes it a joy for me to open up and use (every day). It's made me more creative (honestly) and I've started doing personal projects (something I've not done in 3DS Max for decades). Honestly, I regret being with Autodesk for too long, it's the psyche of using an old, unloved piece of bloated software (for that nasty company) that literally made me dread opening it (it has a couple of idiosyncrasies that I've never been able to accept and would drive me nuts every single time I'd use it). Now, I'm just having a ton of fun in Blender doing personal projects one after the other. And now, I've just bought this Nikolay's Blender Character for Beginner's course (to do my very first ever character). Bottom line my friend, is don't delay, get on with it! It is an absolute joy to use. PS - I'm selling my zBrush copy - I've had it for years and it too, whilst being the 'best' simply doesn't inspire me to use it (because it's too hard for me, compared to Blender, which has everything in it, and is soooo simple. And if it's good enough for Nikolay, it's plenty good enough for me!).

[@alexiapri]

i love your energy!! you have great charisma

[@badoli1074]

That's why i'm using blender. Most people want the best, but actually don't really need the best. I'd rather have something really good that i can use for everything instead of having to learn a new user interface for every new tool. And i've worked already more than 20 years in 3D. Is it perfect? Hell no, it's just another buggy app like all the others. But the blender team has convinced me they are actually about cleaning up their shit. They overhauled blender majorily already two times despite the danger of pissing off their fans, which earned my deepest respect. 2.5 was great, but 2.8 was a milestone that kicked the butt of every competitor and changed 3D graphics forever.

[@marko8095]

Advantage to blender for sculpting: viewport that matches other applications and rendering so you actually see what you are working on in an actual context with real light and materials.

[@Stillenacht3D]

I'm in the same camp. I use Blender for pretty much the entire process. The three main things I still wish to see in Blender's sculpting are morph targets, sculpt layers and a way to fix symmetry the same way zbrush does with the smart resym function.

[@izeta3d]

It must be a pain to move to Zbrush just to do all that super basic stuff

[@Stillenacht3D]

Indeed. It'd be nice to see these things addressed at some point@@izeta3d

[@TommyGunsXL]

I don't know what exactly you mean with "morph target sculpting" and how it works in Zbrush but Blender has "shape keys" and you can also create them in sculpt mode. I use them for facial expressions, eye blinking, muscle flexing and other smaller details. Unreal engine also uses the term morph target and it will recognize blender shape keys as morph targets after exporting.

[@Stillenacht3D]

Yea, I know about that workflow but I don't think it works with the multi resolution modifier. That' s primarily how I'd like to be able to use it. @@TommyGunsXL

[@Wenedi]

I wish blender improved it's PBR texturing tools to be more substance-like rather than having to set up everything manually. At least improve the baker D:

[@szkrukowski]

I appreciate your honesty regarding the money aspect of blender courses. It's refreshing. Thanks for being honest and sharing your true opinions

[@Shalfatk01]

it is always about where you are beter, faster more variable etc... doesnt matter if you use blender maya z-brush. if you can deliver final product use what ever you want to .

[@MlleMarinax]

it is also about what you can afford. what tools you have access to learn and get better.

[@maximilianomoretto258]

The Blender community is huge and highly interactive

[@spacekitt.n]

and theres literally answers for every problem out there. zbrush its harder to google answers for

[@gordontarpley]

I've been planning the same move. Been a zbrush user since 2005 and Maxon ruined the experience. Blender has SO many tools that zbrush doesn't have and the sculpting is getting closer and closer all the time. Thanks for making this vid. It completely reinforces my own thoughts.

[@claudiosettiart]

Agreed! It's shameful how Maxon is handling the program and its user base. I have also been using zbrush since 2005 when it came in the mail 😄

[@mikerusby]

yeah i think i started usng it around then , might have even been a beta version, not sure now. My sculpts were very lumpy in those days :)

[@mikerusby]

I use blender more than anything these days, used to be a 3dsmax user+ maya+ zbrush( 20 years +) I haven't quite got in to the blender sculpting yet, though have done a few head sculpts. But yeah Blender is perfectly fine for nearly every aspect of 3d these days. all the models/animations/characters on my channel are done in Blender

[@lilyounggamer]

How many polygons can blender handle?

[@mikerusby]

@@lilyounggamer I don't think its as many as zbrush, but you can still do fairly complex stuff. Some people go beserk with the subdivison levels. not always necessary TBH

[@mikerusby]

@PlusHappylab well been doing it since 1995, so mainly modelling and texturing, bit of animation

[@mikerusby]

@@lilyounggamer not as many as zbrush, bit its still ok for blocking out, base sculpting

[@mikerusby]

@PlusHappylab well its not a case of either or, blender sculpting is fine for getting your model to a certain level, but I find that zbrush can handle a lot more polys without any problems

[@peterfrank1572]

I'm not following Maxon down the subscription rat hole, but in my view when it comes to sculpting, Zbrush is just better. I do think however, that as time goes on and Blender improves while my 2022 perpetual license gets outdated I will eventually move to Blender permanently. Today every time I try working with Blender I eventually go back to ZBrush.

[@raphaelprotti5536]

I'm not paying a sub, either, unless it's more affordable for a hobbyist. I don't do paid work from home, so free software at home is the way to go.

[@pawnzrtasty]

⁠@channelofstuff6662for sculpting zbrush is more intuitive and way easier to use. I don’t need pbr or nodes or animations. I sculpt things to print them. As far as updates go I’m good with the version I have and will be forever really as it does everything I need it to do. People seem to forget the state of pc programs 10-15 years ago. This is how it’s always been. You want the new better version you have to buy it. There is nothing wrong with that. They don’t give remastered games out for free. All those are updated versions of the game you already have. You’re not entitled to have it just because you have the original version.

[@travotravo6190]

Every release of Zbrush used to be exciting. Haven't felt that way once since Maxon bought them out. The program is still full of a ton of features, but I feel other sculpting companies can surpass them over time. Even VR sculpting apps are starting to become usable.

[@valleybrook]

I think this is the best marketing-video for Blender I have seen. An obviously very competent 3D-creator who has worked with many different 3D-SW-program is saying that Blender is good, and even really good. And remember, it is the skills that matters, not the tools, so if you have excellent free SW like Blender, nothing can stop you!

[@nosirve9458]

people remember to donate to blender to help the team to develop even better features!

[@yasinyorur1]

Dear Niko, thank you for your sincere explanations. While learning Zbrush, I mostly benefited from your content, although I used blender before you, I still learn from you. I'm so glad to have you..

[@ianfavreau9776]

The reason I made the switch was the cost, but also it's so much easier to do things like add new geometry and modify the texture, light, and render. It will also look more accurate to how it will in the software you render it in because it doesn't have matcaps ingrained. You have so many more options including geometry nodes, easy, non-destructive hair, shader editor, animation and rigging, and not to mention rendering stills and animation. I think ZBrush is best if sculpting is all you ever will do, but Blender is such a blessing to artists because it will always be free. Thanks for being transparent about this - its something not everyone will admit because they get bullied into paying for ZBrush by its user base.

[@MWSculpts]

Great to see you transition to Blender. Showcasing that you're a great artist no matter what software you use.

[@charlesbooth3176]

I've been wanting to ask you this forever! Thank you for addressing this.

[@msandersen]

Great talk, very interesting. Bought a number of your courses, appreciate your humour and skill. And your head is perfect for the Zoom blur filter! I watched another video a while back by a ZBrush character artist trying Blender discussing something she found to be a game changer; she set up lights on a virtual turntable so she could test the contours more easily as she worked! She reckoned while ZBrush is better for details, Blender is better for the initial sculpting up to the high-poly work, partly because it is true 3D, not 2.5D, and can have proper perspective and lighting. And there’s been a significant upgrade to the sculpting tools since, inc the hair system.

[@macronomicus]

Blender is my favorite app too, & its continually improving thanks to the active community, & the ongoing donations many make. By the way, there are more sculpting & higher-poly handling upgrades coming in the future as well, so these areas will continue to improve. More sculptors engaging & making feature requests/ bug reports, etc. this also helps for an area to get more focus in progress.

[@Wernimations]

Blender is a jack of all trades. With some addons (free and paid) it has incredible potential.

[@Raramation]

Great video! I'm a maya and ZBrush user for quite some years but switched to blender recently. In comparrison to maya I really like it as much, but for sculpting I prefer ZBrush for now. However I have to say I only started Blender two weeks ago so I have to get accustomed to it some more for sure.

[@Bokaj01]

For many years us old timers had a great price range on Zbrush with free updates, before they began to up it and charge for updates as well, which is fair enough. Alas now they, as many others, got sold and ended up in subscription hell which will definitely scare new potential users away. From that POV it makes total sense to take on Blender, it's an awesome package.

[@drewgamble8380]

I love you so much my man. Keep spittin truth!

[@janvollgod7221]

i followed a lot of your tutorials, and since we both from the Balkans, I was always very sympathetic to the mentality. Most importantly, I learned that you don't have to take everything so damn seriously. Names don't count, because at the end of the day, it's the skills and the tools that count. Sadly, my transformation in sculpting is not finished, so I need zbrush still for high density concepts. But I am working on it. Especially now since they joined the dark side. Thank you for your honest video.

[@pieminator6969]

I learned Zbrush from your courses, and later on Blender on my own. Zbrush is extremely powerful... but Blender is way WAY easier and faster to use, that won me over. While Zbrush is industry standard, Blender has the potential to be as powerful in a few years.

[@gasia112]

In my country (Thailand). Many young students who interesting in 3D, 90% of them use blender. 10 years from now on I hope blender will be on industry standard 🥰

[@staterstat]

Very useful video. Thanks, Niko!

[@sourlemondude]

Open source is the future. It really is amazing how much easier it is to learn these programs when there's just such a vast amount of people creating and teaching online

[@barulicksama3838]

You're like 12 or something? Cuz I was like 12 when I first heard that open source is gonna be a future and that was 20 years ago. And Linux is still there nowhere close to commercial operating systems.

[@i01binary]

@@barulicksama3838 you use android which is linux and open source, steam os is linux,most servers are linux,microsoft uses linux,im a game developer and i use linux on all of my pcs and im doing well. no pain. it is about user not about product. you can use whatever you want but you cant say some crap about something you dont even use.

[@fastlearner292]

​​​​@@barulicksama3838Linux is used almost everywhere in big VFX studios so you are dead wrong lol. But personally I also wouldn't say open souce is the future, just that it will be more than viable for things later on

[@reekinronald6776]

@@barulicksama3838 Open source may not be the future, but it will certainly become a greater portion of the software universe. Also, using Linux as an example, is not great, It pretty much runs the internet and most of the corporate world. It really depends on what companies do with paid software. 20 years ago, it was pretty easy to pirate software. Hell, Windows probably exists because it was so easy to pirate and become the defacto Desktop standard. More difficult to pirate software now and the subscription model is less attractive to hobbyists, than an reasonable single payment on something that you don't make money from.

[@edstar83]

​@barulicksama3838 Why do you think more people don't use Linux? Because it's not supported by software developers. Why is that? I'm sure Bill Gates has nothing to do with it and it's just a coincidence that new PC'S are shipped with Microsoft Windows spyware pre installed.

[@Ziflinz]

I ditched ZBrush for Blender after forking over the big $ and then less than a year later they sold out and started charging for updates. I could kinda deal with ZBrush's terrible UI, but for indie GameDev work, it's nice being able to use as few apps as possible (free is great too). So now it's just Blender and Substance Designer (ditched Substance Painter for Blender as well). Keep the Blender tutorials coming!! :)

[@Tertion]

What is your workflow for using Blender instead of SP ? Do you use addons ?

[@philmehrart]

This is my thinking too, if you can stay in Blender which has true perspective, and be able to do everything in one 3d suite, why not I don't know if I'd ditch painter altogether, there's a lot of nice things to use for a texturing workflow.... But blender has some cool stuff, materials, the shader editor is aolid

[@Ziflinz]

@@Tertion I have a custom sub-graph node that blends two sets of PBR inputs using a mask (similar to layers in SP). The mask can also be used to add or subtract height (say like paint over parts of metal or mossy patches over a rock) where you want to physically layer one thing on top of another. I also use it with negative values to create simple sculpted details like damage/wear or say beveled edges between boards in a wooden crate. And I use it as a mask to layer in some procedural noises for roughness or color variation . Nothing super crazy, but I find it easier to reuse certain things than with SP anchors or whatever they're called. (And it doesn't result in a 100MB-1GB file like in SP which makes using version control less painful...) I have a custom sub-graph node that I use for generating the additional Color/Roughness/AO/Metallic/Emissive (to pack several into a single texture, etc.) outputs the way I want for baking. I use an addon that I wrote to batch bake all the outputs (or just selected). I also wrote it so you can flag objects to *not* batch-bake for certain cases where you have multiple versions of a single object (say for a broken crate) and don't want it to try and bake areas twice where UV space is shared. And the addon has a drop-down to preview individual PBR textures like just the roughness or metallic similar to SP. I also wrote a batch exporter (I use glTF, but it also works for other formats) and that comes in handy when working on several variations of the same object (or similar objects that will be packed to the same set of textures). I should probably write a blog article for all this soon, but feel free to ask any questions.

[@i01binary]

if using unreal engine you can use quixel bridge but to me i would always use blender as it is most flexible to do any 3d work. :)

[@seansersmylie]

I've been using Blender from 2004 and I bought Zbrush not long after it first came out. I think it was about £350 at the time. The problem with Pixologic is that they were too generous, which is crazy compared to Autodesk etc. I and I'm sure most others would have happily paid an upgrade fee for the milestone releases, now instead we have Maxon taking the piss. Meanwhile, Blender has improved consistently year after year to the point where I don't need an external render engine, the UV workflow is great and there are hundreds of great plugins. The sculpting isn't quite on par with Zbrush but I imagine it will be in 2 or 3 years. I'll use my last free upgrade of Zbrush until then but honestly I could also switch now without much hassle.

[@OnePatrix]

Keep doing your work, you don't even know how much you helped me to achieve what i achieved. Maybe Im now frustrated with proper face texturing, but I think that I'll learn it as time passes by (and Im still pretty new in Sculpting and 3D overall... maybe little more than a year). You are a great teacher :D

[@SubsurfaceTalks]

Great ! I sculpt in Blender an find it cool. I tried using Zbrush but haven't gotten used to it. This reassures me that I should probably stick with what I know and just hone the sculpting fundamentals.

[@ey891]

I recommend to use both

[@tlilmiztli]

I cant even think of going from ZBrush to Blender. I feel too comfortable in ZB, my nerves and time have a price too :D BUT I agree with Nico 100%. Specially if you are barely starting - no need for ZBrush. Besides - like Nico said - sculpting itself, anatomy - all that is the same no matter what software you are using. I am still watching Nico sculpting in Blender even if I am not using it because techniques apply to any software. Also Nico - props for saying openly that one of the reason is popularity of Blender and fact that you can sell more tutorials on it. Its not something people would openly say - they would rather hide it behind "because Blender is so AWESOOOOMMEEEE!! And FREE!!!". blablabla. Youre a great guy. Hope to see you coming back to ZBrush one day - because mate, they are adding some pretty cool things (and I dont mean Redshift hahaha). So maybe in a year or two you will have plenty of reasons to check it out. Much luck and thanks for great videos. My characters got WAY better since I found your first video on YT ages ago. You thought me a lot and you keep on doing so. Greetings from Mexico!

[@xanzuls]

bro just get a life, every time I see a blender related video, I always see you commenting justifying how happy you are that you've switch from Blender to other programs. If you are really that happy and satisfied, why do you feel the need to mention in under every blender related video? Just use whatever works for you.

[@tlilmiztli]

@@xanzulsI never switched to ZBrush though because never used Blender for sculpting so... not really a case here LOL. You know why I am commenting so often? Because Blender Bros are polluting every possible 3D related video with their "Blender is THE BEST! And FREE!!!" nonsense. Taste your own medicine "bro".

[@Jez1963UK]

@@tlilmiztli Just for the record and totally unrelated, I cannot stand that BlenderBros - they had one tutorial on KZbin I saw about connecting cylinders and it's absolute rubbish. They really need to take that video down because it is the absolute worst way of connecting cylinders in Blender (or any other package).

[@TiagoRKrummenauer]

Congrat on the video! I switched from zbrush to Nomad Sculpt + Blender and nothing has changed in my working time.

[@kuniklo-igc]

muito bom, eu uso o blender ha mais de 20 anos e não troco por nenhum outro, por ser open ainda temos a vantagem de qualquer pessoa criar addons. o blender faz qualquer coisa que o zbrush faz; se não nativamente, certamente você encontrara algum addon pago ou não. mas o senhor tocou em um ponto crucial que é. o blender é uma ferramenta mas quem faz o trabalho são os artistas e para isso é necessário anos de estudos e praticas. abraços do brazil.

[@angelogadelha7029]

Depois de 20 anos trabalhando com 3D e motion, usando Maya, Max, C4d e agora estudando Houdini, estou começando a me interessar pelo Blender. Vi que o pessoal da Entagma tem uma aulas interessantes

[@kuniklo-igc]

@@angelogadelha7029 ola amigo eu conheço o seu trabalho no 3d e é muito bom. se vc quiser migrar para o blender tem como vc colocar todos os atalhos do jeito que vc usa pode até configurar como maya ou max isso facilita a transição. embora eu ache melhor já acostumar com os atalhos do blender. blender vale a pena. diversos estúdios só não migram devido ao workflow que levaria alguns meses; mas tem estúdios que já estão começando com o blender.

[@Ahoy123]

i agree with you electroboom brother. blender is more efficient if you understand the shortcut, unlike zbrush which is very hard to find one specific ui button. but zbrush is more better when sculpting high poly model, for me blender will just crash when too much polygon. I love blender but the software can't process high poly model.

[@uzairbukhari99]

I purchased the ultimate stylized character sculpting course. I'll see if zbrush is worth keeping

[@Uradamus]

Ya, for most things Blender isn't the best possible tool available, but with that said it is still a very capable tool at pretty much everything it does - well beyond the minimum necessary to do professional work. And there is some knock on benefits to having nearly everything in a single package and not having to mess around so much with export/import and switching gears in your mind to match the conventions of different tools.

[@carlobarley1985]

zbrush is still top tier, blender feels like sculpting in mudbox or 3dcoat..which is not a bad thing! especially with that physically accurate camera! that maxon subscription paywalled a lot of artists, so blender is a great choice for sculpting especially for those starting out.. but if you can and if you wish to fit in a studio pipeline, learn zbrush or whatever tools they use!

[@cwtjones]

I will buy Niko Blender tutorials, when i am done learning 3DCoat. I learned so much zbrush from his course, fun and easy to follow along.

[@AARREESS]

Blender is future . More and more people use it. Soon a lot of companies forget about Zbrush in pipeline . Thats all. As Duck Hutson said : "You wanna know when you need to live? Newbies will tell you"

[@AtrusDesign]

I am not a pro in character design, I do landscape design, but I tried to sculpt in both software. ZBrush can handle huge amount of polygons smoothly, blender can’t. UV maps sucks without plug-in in Blender, ZBrush no, same for remesh. The only true advantage is it’s free, and this is the reason why Blender Tutorial sell more. As pro you don’t pay subscription in ZBrush, Client pay it, it’s charged in the price. Of course you can achieve same things in Blender, but it has a lot of issues again and at Pro level I’d use the best. I love Blender and it’s growing in an incredible way, I use it daily, it’s just my idea about the topic.

[@ChristianJB38]

I'm glad to hear that, hopefully see a tutorial of female and man sculpt in blender

[@IbrahimYounes]

I switched from 3ds to blender. When blender 2.8 was released. I thought i really want to give it a try. I was absolutely surprised. The speed. The workflow the technique the placement of buttons and shortcuts all make much more sense on blender. 3ds max suddenly felt old out dated slow and buggy. I never looked back. Super excited to use it every day for work. Lucky to be able to work with blender everyday.

[@heckensteiner4713]

You can't go wrong with learning Blender! It's free AND highly capable. I moved from working in a VFX studio using Maya for 5 years to running a tiny (1 person) animation studio for the past 4 years. I haven't missed Maya at all and using it would have cost me almost $10k by now. But, I did have to set up hot keys similar to Maya because Blender's default controls are atrocious. Also, the community Addon support is incredible and a total lifesaver for a small studio where I don't have time to build everything from scratch.

[@NUCLEARARMAMENT]

Maya has ngskintools, brsmoothweights, geodesic voxel binding, FxHair, Qualoth, FumeFX, Krakatoa, XMesh, nRigid/nCloth/nParticle/nDynamic, XGen, Yeti, CreateVR/MARUI, direct integration with Unreal Engine via at least two programs (not including LiveLeak) supporting raytracing, Bifrost procedural node-based system that can generate all sorts of different geometry to running complex fluid and MPM gel simulations, the OpenGL-based Viewport 2.0 viewport is multithreaded and optimized to handle tens of millions of polygons for a character rig at 20+ FPS in 1080p res on a GTX 1080 GPU whereas Blender's viewport struggles to maintain more than 10 FPS in Workbench (Blender's OGL viewport), parallel rig IK evaluation is exclusive to Maya as far as commercial software you can get goes and that ties in with the multithreading and optimization that Maya has. I could go on but this was just off the top of my head.

[@seragx99]

Hey! What's the community add on? Never heard of it!

[@ScraggyDogg]

Agreed, I have your Zbrush tutorials, and I can still learn everything and port it to Blender, I swapped 2022 from Maya/C4d/Zbrush so glad to see you did the same I can catch up on sculpting again. Plus Zbrush is very different workflow than normal 3d whereas Blender isn't. Plus it's free, great when I'm not earning!

[@klontjespap]

​@@Adieusss"muh industry standard" Lol keep stifling competition being a mouthpiece

[@oomegator]

Super nice to get the perspective from someone as experienced as you on this topic.

[@MarioJBGugisch]

Im not much of a sculpter and havent used zbrush much (i have used a bit more of Mudbox) But for overall 3d modeling i have used 3dsmax for nearly 20 years. Switched to Blender about 1.5 year ago and i have not a single regret. The funny thing is probably had more usable updates in this time than 3dsmax had in the past 10 years. And for my use Blender is better (or at least equivalent) in every aspect i can think of.

[@MIDNIGHTSMAC]

Thank you sir for your blender tutorials

[@Meteotrance]

there still some function on Zbrush like radial multi symmetry brush or Zsketch, that i can't replicate on Blender and it help me a lot, especialy for making roots on tree or very organic stuff, on the other side, Sculpt mode is phenomenal on Blender, also Geometry node, but need a lot of time consuming to achieve similar result. Blender is my main render and animation and particule FX tool of choice of course, but when it's about sculpting fine detail Zbrush with Substance Painter is my main combo.

[@paulbirkpowlly]

Thank you, looking forward to your next Blender course.

[@vangistar7936]

I love both blender and zbrush but the fact blender crashes on me with high poly models also is very gpu dependant, and zbrush has dynamesh, not having to get worried about poly count is the reason I use zbrush for making characters ,but every thing else I use blender( texturing, animation, rendering,etc..) it's a great beginner program ,the UI is simpler and the add-ons are very useful,am able to use both and i like them for different purposes.

[@amrishpatel3501]

I do like Zbrush's sculpting tools. Though I don't like how clunky & not so user friendly their interface is compared to Blender. Also I hate how Maxxon ruined Zbrush as well, after buying Pixologic. I still got my 2022 version.

[@nahiyanalamgir7056]

Which version of Blender and how many polys did your models have?

[@FLYSKY1]

I worked with Carrara for many years but also had an eye on blender but never tried it out. But when i wanted to create characters, Carrara was very limited within it's functionality why i was beginning to work with blender and to be honest, i never regret that step as from what that software can do it really is a great program. Compared to the price with other software, blender is the best choice. One thing that can be better within blender is if you have a specific amount of verts, it gets very laggy even if you have lots of RAM blender could use and from what i've heard is that zBrush can easily handle millions of verts.

[@zzxd7720]

And the best part is that Blender is evolving much faster than the competition.

[@dudeman0811]

I always felt blender had everything 3dsmax 5 and 3dsmax 8 had but without the cost (I'm old, yes). It's all about which is most comfortable in the end.

[@VictorEstivadorebarbudo]

thats funny to hear that, I did the same experiment a couple of years ago when I'm working doing characters for a company, and doing the hole pipeline, so it had Zbrush for sculpts and Blender for everything else till a day I had to sculpt a new character and I tried sculpt it in Blender, it was in 2018 so the sculpting tools are not that great, but was amazing don't bother with Zbrush UI that I never liked, it was really cool to move to do everything in Blender. As a generalist I sometimes pass months without sculpting stuff doing other 3D/2D stuffs, and your videos always make me miss sculpting, its so cool to see you process.

[@unraveledultimatefate]

Not bad, but to me it's like trying to cut through a steak with a spoon instead of a fork and a knife, as much zbrush is intuitive, cheap and available for most users on budget, and it's like eating through a decent fork and a good knife.

[@wernerziemerink]

I have to agree. After using zbrush for many years, I started using 3dCoat and fell in love. Now I jump between 3dcoat and blender. Nothing can compete with zbrush when it comes to bad UI. It just killed my love for sculpting.

[@CrusaderGabriel]

I need my clay buildup brush translated into blender (working just as in zbrush... Clay strips is garbage at least for me) and I'm willing to migrate 100% to blender. Some minor things I don't like much on blender (vs paid programs) but definitely not deal breakers are: •Retopology: way easier in maya •UV: again maya wins for me, but the king would be rizomUV if it wasnt another ultra expensive tool •Adding displacement: Zbrush is just like press 2 buttons (new texture or load texture, load displacement map), blender you have to do a slight ritual to setup •sculpting layers: this may probably be a unfair comparison but when dealing with realistic characters there comed the time to break symmetry and it definitely helps you handle things non-destructively... Probably im missing more from blender sculpting mode but only alternative in blender i can think of rn is just git gud. •Hair system: i know geometry nodes were a game changer, but comparing strictly blender particle system vs maya xgen I'm more used to xgen On the good side its really monstruous that blender can do basically everything in one software: sculpting, modeling, retopo, uv, texturing, rigging, animating, etc. and all for free! Also seeing how d-bag Autodesk as a company is i really prefer to encourage people to use blender than giving the greedy autodesk more money (not talking about the Jack Sparrow alternative here *Wink wink*), in the end the absolute best selling point i can talk about blender is addons, there are really few things you are used to in other software that doesnt have an addon (although some are paid, but most of the time its cheaper to pay for a blender addon than the software that created that specific workflow).

[@morplagro1545]

I believe you can mimic the clay buildup very well by fixing some of its settings (I could be wrong) but Outgang seems to have gotten it down in the video "Pro Zbrush artist sculpts in Blender for the first time"... take a look! Edit: Also thought I would add, I think that a lot of those things you mentioned also go backward, I'm not very into the other software but from what I've heard blender has a lot of useful features that those ones don't, in the same way you mention. And yk, people always talk about how these are better for that, and forget that blender is not an exception, use it as part of a workflow, not a one for all, just like any other software. Many aren't going to do everything in zbrush, they will sculpt, then texture in substance and assemble in something else like maya. I think blender should be used as just the final place to assemble the whole project and scene. Since you can make the changes you want easily without then going back through the whole pipeline.

[@heckensteiner4713]

I use Blender daily for my job and I agree with everything here. There is a fantastic remesh tool for Blender, but it's paid and at that point it's no longer free software.

[@Zaptruder]

@@heckensteiner4713 Way cheaper to pay for quad remesher than to buy Zbrush tho.

[@choicesii1]

​@heckensteiner4713 it's a retoppo tool that costs 100 dollars one time payment, versus maya that costs how much?

[@choicesii1]

Sounds like you're comparing vanilla blender. I don't really know many people who use vanilla blender. Blender can be any program with addons and its not that expensive in comparison to other software.

[@cinnabunvi]

Very earnest spoken word on Blender and Zbrush, thank you my friend!!

[@rallekralle11]

i went from sculptris to zbrush core and then down to meshmixer when i couldn't afford it any more, and now blender. i'm very happy with it. wish i knew blender could do sculpting earlier.

[@BlacaPerosio]

Nice review. On thing: In your comparison you forgot to add 3DCoat

[@Muhammad-Jacobs699]

Agreed with all the points. Blender being Free makes it's really easy to just jump into anything 3D related. Even if you don't end up becoming a sculptor you're free to use it for any other digital work too. ZBrush being niche software for sculpting only with such a steep price is certainly not helping.

[@MrERJ1992]

Honestly, I wouldn't be opposed to buying Zbrush, all things considered.

[@MrBrigadierArchived]

Blender is free, but the thing I also noticed is that due to lots of addons if you take care to choose them and have $1k, then you can pay only once to make Blender even a head above most of the AAA-software (which will take the same price monthly).

[@testfreak6493]

Niko let me tell you a story, each time when I see your videos and close my eyes I can hear arnold schwarzenegger talking

[@Carlosmatos-nx4uc]

Holly cow, you are right

[@ealdie24]

we're just talking about sculpting here, you can also do so much stuff in blender from animation to special effects and procedural generation. It has everything.. yes its not the best at everything but your skills make the results not just the tools

[@MetalGearTrav]

I absolutely despise zbrush’s interface. I have your latest blender character course too so I’ll be trying that out soon thank you!

[@Killswitch1411]

Normaly the people who dislike Zbrush's interface never really used Zbrush for long periods of time.

[@DaynJo]

Brilliant video. Subbed. Just REALLY hoping they continue Pablos work in sculpting, and increase the poly count, to a level closer to Zbrush.

[@HimmelBlau081]

Finally, the Original Niko with the blue t-shirt is back

[@Dante_8183]

I too was skeptical of blender coming from 3DS Max. But being at a budget office they only used Blender. I was surprised that in a lot of ways it is better than 3DS, there were annoying bits but after you get used to it they go away. I will try sculpting next in it.

[@Robbeddall]

I have a similar story. I've been an environment artist in the games industry for ~20 years, using Max, Maya and Modo. I wanted to try Blender so when I got an environment brief across my desk I decided to learn Blender while doing the brief. I haven't opened Maya, Max or Modo since and I very rarely use zbrush now. Yes, you need some 1-time-payment paid add-ons to really make it sing... but Blender is getting better with every release. I would never go back to any 3D software I've previously used.

[@quadconjurer]

What are the best bang-for-buck addons in your opinion? So far i've only dropped money on HardOps.

[@synectic37]

One big thing you have to mention is that you can customize your hotkeys in blender, this was a huge problem for me getting into zbrush. I just cannot work with native zbrush navigation.

[@barulicksama3838]

You can customize zbrush hotkeys all you want.

[@bruhliot]

i hope i can make the same change as you... i really like the real camera view, real materials and setup in my work in progress in blender, but it's hard to give up zbrush. I mean it's like moving into your new home where you have to buy new furniture, get used to the environment and new layout, create a new workflow, etc.

[@MEME-mt1qz]

Welcome to the B community Brother :)

[@SiluSisupalan]

I also have been using Blender recently for Rendering my sculpts and it's damn good. I am encouraged by you to use it for sculpting too. Will sure make a move. Thank you

[@nightlyknight7970]

Hi nice video, what would you recommend for realistic character design hardware specs, and what your hardware do you use to character design. Maybe a video about it.

[@Niko_3D]

Zbrush should be free for learning same as 3D coat with limited or no exports at all. Point is to train 3D artists in industry standard softwares...eventually most if not all will buy it. When I was just starting out with 3D coat I used it for free just learn how to hand paint, once I started making money I bought it. For Zbrush it wasn't the case because I had to... you know...

[@shanester1832]

Very well. I'm still going to ask this question every 15 minutes on your livestreams though.

[@Dingle.Donger]

Wow I never thought I would see the day. I've never used ZBrush but I've heard a lot of people prefer it - or at least they did just a few years ago. By the way, I love your demon huntress course!

[@cgiink]

Thanks Nico! Very nice view

[@armwrestlinginfo]

I would not agree with this opinion. As a character artist you would anyway need Zbrush skills to find a job, because big studios do not work with Blender like they work with Zbrush. You can do the same things in Blender when it comes to sculpting but you will have to use multiresolution for it not to freeze, meanwhile in zbrush you just work using dynamesh and it works very fast.Or you have to hide one part of the mesh to work on the other part to make it easier for your computer. Zbrush has a lot more functionality other than just basic sculpting tools and so much more brushes. Zbrush can handle much more than 20M polygons and in blender it is already very bad when you work with such amount of polygons. If you make models for 3d printing and you need to remesh all parts in one mesh it can take a long tyme in blender, but in Zbrush it is very fast by using dynamesh. Even if you have a 10 years old computer with very bad hardware and without a GPU it will still work better when it comes to sculpting in Zbrush then your new computer with a good GPU in Blender, because Zbrush is very much optimized for such things and blender is not. Maybe Blender is a more popular program for beginners but I think when it comes to sculpting Zbrush is more popular then Blender by miles amongst professionals. The fact that you can sell more courses in Blender does not mean that Blender is more popular than Zbrush in sculpting. There are so many professionals who work in Zbrush but not blender and they just do not need to buy courses,because they already good in it.

[@Arthr0]

Blender is the fastest all rounder tool, you can do most of 3d things inside blender which saves a lot time in exporting from software to software for a definite thing

[@Milan23_]

You are totally right, the best thing about blender is that blender tools are evolving fast and getting more and more reliable. So blender is slowly entering industry stantard mode. I use it for VFX last 3 years

[@MaxManipulator-w8q]

Thank you very much for sharing your insights , considering all the experience you have this is very valuable information for someone like me who doesn't have the budget to pay for a Zbrush subscription and would like to get into 3d modelling and sculpting.. Merci

[@CptEnoch]

Had Blender installed for over a year and kept meaning to learn it. I think the difficulty is that navigating on the default is not the same as Maya, 3ds Max, and Zbrush which I have used for so long. I kind of feels like starting over each time I open Blender at the moment.

[@Damian_DH]

My experience with blender was friendly because the first thing i did was set up all shortcuts like 3d max. So i feel like i was in home. The only downside of this approach is when ur not working on ur desktop and u face the default settings.

[@CptEnoch]

@@Damian_DH I paid for a plug in that set's up blender to work like Maya. I think I'll give that a try and see if I become use to blenders working (menus locations etc) over time

[@tlilmiztli]

@@CptEnoch And then every time you watch tutorial you will be wondering "so what should I press now?" ;) If you want to really learn software - just jump on it as it is. Otherwise you are making it harder for yourself. I made reversed transition - form Blender to Maya. And I wasnt trying to pretend its Blender - just used Maya defaults. It helped me a LOT.

[@rajendrameena150]

I think blender's hotkeys are very well organised as per the window you are using. You just have to correctly understand it first from good person or yourself

[@splatterling4539]

Yea same.. I've been using Maya since version 7. (Not 2007 mind you). But to be honest with you, in Blender I can do things that are just quality of life to me whereas in Maya I have to use a tool that's been the same for over 15 years or so. It's ridiculous. Also the viewport in Blender in combination with it's internal render engines is just bliss. Yes Maya has something similar, but doesn't even come close, with Arnold. But I am using Redshift for work and with that you barely see anything represented in the viewport. Lookdev like this in Blender is so insanely quick, I can focus more on the actual lookdev you know. Sure Maya can do things blender can't too, but blender feels like it's actually improving and adding new, useful(!) Stuff. Also, to really get the most out of Maya you just have to know MEL, no way around it. It is powerful, sure, but blenders geometry nodes are powerful too, etc ..

[@chrisproductions6262]

I actually love using both software as ZBrush feels like I'm sculpting with Clay, whilst Blender felt more artificial, which I love for making hard surface models and environments, but for softer models like Humans, Animals, plant life, etc, I prefer ZBrush as it gives me a more organic feel. However, both work so well together with Blender being my Retopology tool, whilst ZBrush is my Sculpting and Modeling tool, Houdini is basically my VFX tool for animations. I'm always software Agnostic now a days

[@unskillgg6961]

Keep doing what your doing! You have very wonderful and easy to understand lessons. And I also like your English). Thank you

[@DrakosInfernos]

I love blender i really do, however it is just not as consistent nor even close to the capability of zbrush. I tried to transition myself , but it was soooooo frustrating. Not from a capability standpoint, but from how often wonky and stupid crap would happen in blender. Don't even get me started on the crashes. What took me 2 hours to try to do in blender( i failed) i did in zbrush in under 10 minutes.

[@Dodgecharger-68]

Ouch, I buy Zbrush when I see your Work and discover your tutorial on Udemy. I love your video and your tuto. Thank you to share your knowledge.

[@NikolaNevenov86]

Well...technically blender isn't free. It's community supported so anyone who use it daily and makes money should consider donating to the developers. Minimum is 5$ or euro for EU countries. But yeah it's free to use and I personally think it's a great start for a beginner in sculpting.

[@denischetyrin6980]

i decided to swith from blender to zbrush (in sculpting) because of the quad remesher addon, is the same monthly cost as the zbrush program it self but comes whit zremesher, the same as quad remesher

[@yugi9710]

Hey Niko, Just wanted to say, you have a perfect temporal line, the plane change looks so good as if you used trim dynamic and hpolish then zremeshed.

[@Kreuzrippengewoelbe]

He's using himself to point out that detail in his courses.

[@yugi9710]

​@@Kreuzrippengewoelbefair enough 😊