AV3 Software has announced that whether it’s browsing the internet for inspiration or accessing pictures from a database or library on your computer, Pixologic’s ZBrush 4R5 gives you unparalleled artistic freedom to do what counts: design. With the addition of features like Quick Save, Mouse Wheel Support and a new See-Through mode, you’ll have more time for exploring your creativity without leaving ZBrush.

Here’s the techy stuff:

Topology and Geometry

Panel Loops

With Panel Loops you can convert your model’s PolyGroups into panels of polygons with or without thickness, or even as extruded surfaces. The edges of these panels are created with a custom bevel around them defined by an editable curve. This is a great companion to ZBrush’s existing Mesh Extract feature, providing advanced control over the final result.

Delete Loops

The new Delete Loops command analyzes your model’s topology based on a user-defined angle setting. With a single click it removes all unnecessary edge loops – polygons that don’t contribute to the shape of the model. Not only is this a blessing for artists who must work within a polygon budget (such as game designers), it also allows you to push your high resolution sculpting farther. After all, unnecessary polygons add up quickly when you subdivide your model several times!

Incidentally, pushing the limits of the Delete Loops settings can be an interesting way to quickly explore alternate designs by producing original models derived from the original polygon structure.

Align Loops

A companion to the Delete Loops feature, Align Loops uses the same settings but doesn’t actually remove any polygons. Instead it moves them to what you would get if you’d used the Delete Loops function. In this way you can push the settings to their extremes in a non-destructive manner and quickly explore new directions.

PolyGroups

As mentioned above, the new Panel Loop feature is the newest in a series of functions that work from your model’s PolyGroups. To that end, ZBrush 4R5 provides even more features for quickly and accurately assigning PolyGroups to your model. The new Merge Stray Groups function lets you “clean” the results of ZBrush’s automatic PolyGroup creation tools such as PolyGroups from PolyPaint.

You can also now automatically create PolyGroups based upon Surface Normals.

Creasing can be added to a surface or removed from it based upon PolyGroup edges alone. This ignores creases that are elsewhere on the model, running through the middle of the PolyGroups.

Polish by Feature

The Deformation sub-palette now has Relax options including Polish by Feature, which intelligently improves your mesh’s shape without sacrificing volume. It produces beautiful by analyzing the model’s PolyGroups, creasing and split areas.

Improved Frame Mesh

The Curves Frame Mesh option can now create curves based on the model’s PolyGroups, creased edges or outline. These curves can then be used with any of the curve-based sculpting brushes like Curve Multi Tube or even QRemesher Guides.

Workflow, Usability Improvements and More

Quicksave

Saving your work has been streamlined with the addition of Quick Save. This feature supplements your regular saves by creating uniquely named backups which can be made with or without the Project History. Each time a QuickSave is called for, it creates a new project with incremental numbering. By default, ZBrush will cycle between ten QuickSaves but you can change it through the Preferences settings to as many as one hundred.

Auto Save

If you have ever become so focused on creating that you’ve lost track of time and forgotten to save your work (and who hasn’t had this happen?) you will appreciate the new Auto Save feature! If you step away from your computer or switch to another application for a few minutes, ZBrush will add a new QuickSave to the existing series. This turns QuickSave into an Auto Save process!

This feature isn’t limited to inactivity either. You can also set ZBrush to automatically perform a QuickSave after a specified amount of time has passed since your last save. This gives you total freedom to save when you wish, but also security for those times when you simply forget.

See-Through Mode

Sometimes as you work you might find yourself searching for reference images on the internet or maybe referring to an image already loaded into another program. Or maybe you’ll be working through an online tutorial and don’t want to constantly switch back and forth between ZBrush and the instructions. Whatever your reasons, the new See-Through option lets you make the entire ZBrush window partially transparent so that you can see what’s in the other windows behind it.

You can now save time by skipping the need to switch between windows, print stuff out or even load reference images into ZBrush to be able to work against them!

Mouse Wheel Support

Scrolling your mouse wheel up or down can now be assigned to any slider in place of a hotkey. Simply assign the hotkey like you normally would but scroll the mouse wheel instead of pressing a key.

Switching Between the Mask and Selection Brushes

To improve your workflow when using the Selection and Masking brushes, you can now use the Ctrl/Cmd key to between the various Selection and Masking brushes without the need to cancel your current stroke.

Dynamic Brush Size

Makes it possible for the brush size to dynamically change as the model moves closer or further away from the camera. This becomes extremely helpful when sculpting items such as bolts, alpha pattern, scales, and etc. No matter the distance the model is from the camera the bolt, alpha pattern and scales will remain the same size due to the brush dynamically changing.

Click for more information about ZBrush 4R5.