What’s New in ZBrush 2021.5

ZBrush artist: Joseph Drust

Welcome to ZBrush® 2021.5

ZBrush 2021.5 further enhances creativity and productivity with major new features allowing artists to work even faster and with more freedom. This version further realizes the ZBrush goals of encouraging experimentation and natural-feeling workflows.

Get ready to unleash your creativity and explore the new features below!

Thick Skin

For the true sense of adding and removing clay or moving it across a surface, try Thick Skin – it allows you to work in a free and natural manner. Added details can be removed and smoothed back to the original mesh with quick, flat strokes.

Sculptris Pro improvements

Sculptris Pro is a dynamic tessellation sculpting workflow that makes it possible for you to ignore the constraints of polygon distribution and just — sculpt! With Sculptris Pro you are able to begin with any shape or model, whether it has ten polygons or millions. There is absolutely no need to worry about having enough polygons to capture details.

Sculptris Pro will now work with partially hidden meshes. This means that it is easier to work on very dense meshes with improved speed, simply by hiding the parts that you’re not currently sculpting.

Contrast

Didn’t sculpt those wrinkles deeply enough? Need to enhance the details of those fish scales for a 3D print? The new Contrast options provide you with the ability to globally enhance all sculpting details or focus on specific areas to heighten your sculptural details.

ZModeler Additions

Don’t let the walls of your topology restrict your creative process. ZBrush 2021.5 introduces three new features to ZModeler:

Slice Mesh

Slice your topology along an edge, face or point to control the direction in which you want to take further construction of polygons.

Crease Shortest Path

Crease multiple edges with two clicks to maintain that hard surface crispness.

Read more about Crease Shortest Path here.

PolyGroup Fill

Use the PolyGroup Fill option to mark the faces where you will add an extra layer of topology, such as to create a suit of armour for a figure or to add the right touch of detail on a utility knife.

Preview AO

Sculpt with real-time render accuracy that shows every stroke applied to your mesh in detail. The real-time ambient occlusion feature gives you the ability to quickly visualize what portions of the model need that extra touch.

Curves Helper

Need to tie a knot around your character’s waist, create a flow of wires through a mech or apply laces to a shoe or boot? Curves Helper is your answer!

Axis Rotation

Lock your model to one rotational axis to give you that real world feeling of working on a sculpture stand, just like the clay masters did.

3DConnexion Device Support

Navigate in a way that frees you from a keyboard – ZBrush 2021.5 adds support for 3DConnexion devices.

Read more about 3DConnexion Device Support here.

BPR Filter >> Radial Overlay

The Radial Overlay filter lets you focus your render on a specific part of the scene, creating an effect similar to that of a spotlight. The direction, radius and intensity of the effect can be adjusted.

Read more about BPR Filter >> Radial Overlay here.

Other Additions and Improvements

- SmoothAlt brushThe Alternate Smooth brush, an alternate smoothing algorithm that used to require a key/click combination to access is now available as a separate brush.
  
  Important!
  Note: Holding Shift, clicking on the mesh and holding the click while then releasing Shift will still work to switch the Smooth brush to its alternate algorithm. Conversely, when the Alternate Smooth brush is selected this same combo will switch to using the regular Smooth brush.
- Two new Render Presets have been added.
- Various plugins have been updated.
- Four new Demo Projects have been added to be used as a basis for many sculpts.
- Several brushes have been added to take advantage of the Thick Skin feature.
  
  Important!
  Note: Some brushes previously available at launch may have been moved to the ZBrushes folder in order to make room for these new brushes. They are still available through LightBox or by browsing to them.
- The ZBrush to Keyshot bridge is now cross-platform, allowing use on Windows and/or macOS machines. All existing licenses have been converted, and all new license purchases will be cross-platform from the outset.

- for features introduced in ZBrush 2021 see this the New in ZBrush 2021 page