by David
Nagel
Executive Producer
dnagel@digitalmedianet.com
Pixologic has announced it will ship ZBrush 1.2 March 22 at the
Game Developers Conference. ZBrush is a painting application that
offers 2D, 2.5D and limited 3D capabilities. It's been around
for less than a year, and the Macintosh version was launched just
back in January at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco.
Version 1.2 of ZBrush adds a number of features, including scripting
capabilities, new brushes and orientation-sensitive intensity.
The new scripting capability, called ZScript, enables users to
automate all ZBrush actions. ZScripts can also combine complex
actions into one button click and can be loaded and executed on
demand within the ZBrush environment. New ZScripts will be created
and made available for download, free of charge, to all ZBrush
users from Pixologic's Web site.
New brushes include reflect and refract brushes, which allow the
user to paint reflections and refractions in real time. New orientation-sensitive
intensity allows automatic variance of color and depth intensity
based on the orientation of "pixols" in a 2.5D ZBrush image. ("Pixol"
is Pixologic's term for pixels that contain 3D information.) It
also includes an instant replay feature to allow the user to replay
a stroke with additional information, such as transformations.
ZBrush 1.2 will be available online at an introductory price of
U.S. $292.50. Version 1.2 is a free upgrade to current registered
users. Following the introductory offer, ZBrush will be available
at a suggested online price of $585.00. A free downloadable demo
version is available at Pixologic's site. It requires a 200 MHz
G3 Macintosh or Pentium II Windows machine. For more information,
visit http://www.pixologic.com.
