What is Zbrush?
History of Zbrush
Zbrush was founded by Jack Rimokh and Ofer Alon. This tool was created by a company named Pixologic Inc. In the year 1999, Zbrush was first presented to the world at SIGGRAPH. After three years , the demo version 1.55 of the Zbrush was released in the market. In 2007,version 3.1 was introduced.In April 21, 2009, ZBrush 4 was announced to be released for Windows and MAC. Finally, it was released in September of the same year.

Zbrush and Pixol Technology
Zbrush is a kind of digital sculpting tool that uses a “pixol” technology. This tool is used to store information about the lighting, color, material, and depth of different objects on the screen. Unlike the other traditional modeling packages, Zbrush is best known for sculpting.

Zbrush for High Resolution Images
Zbrush combines 3D/2.5D modeling, texturing and painting in one tool . With this ability, Zbrush can create images or models with for games, movies and animations. This tool can create models with a resolution as high as ten million polygons. Companies like ILM and Electronic Arts use this tool to create images for their video games and other productions.

Zbrush for Sculpting
Since Zbrush can be used for various levels of resolution, sculptors who use his tool are now able to make changes to their models locally or globally. ZBrush is famous for its capability to sculpt medium to high frequency details. Traditionally, this can only be done by painting them in bump maps.

Features of Zbrush
3D Brushes
ZBrush initially includes 30 3D sculpting brushes. There are other sculpting brushes that are available for download. Since each brush has its own characteristic and distinct quality. ZBrush users are able to use specific brushes for different stroke types and shapes.

Polypaint
Anyone who uses ZBrush will be able to enjoy polypainting by allowing one to paint over an object’s surface without even assigning a texture map.

Illustration
Since Zbrush also has the ability to sculpt in 2.5D, this tool includes various brushes for 2.5D sculpting. When sculpting or illustrating in 2.5D with Zbrush , a pixol that is put down contains information about its color, depth, material, position, and lighting.

Transpose
Zbrsuh is also suitable for animation experts and enthusiasts. This tool is similar to skeletal animation in other 3D programs. The transpose feature of allows Zbrush users to remove a part of the model and pose it without the necessity of skeletal rigging.

Zspheres
ZSpheres is a unique featrue of Zbrush that allows its users to create mesh with clean topology which can be converted into an image that can be sculpted. With this feature, Zbrush users can create an image or shape by extracting spheres until they get the basic form that they want to sculpt on.

GoZ
Goz is a Zbrush feature that was introduced in ZBrush 3.2 OSX version. This feature enables setting up of shading networks for normal, displacement, and texture maps of the 3D models that are enabled in GoZ enabled applications.