STEP BY STEP

USING CONTRAST FEATURES IN ZBRUSH

01 CONTRAST IN THE DEFORMATIONS PANEL

The easiest way to pump the surface detail is to use the slider in Tool>deformation>contrast. This increases the high areas and brings down the low areas of the mesh. This is useful if you’re printing a small object and just want to add a little definition across the sculpt. I use this a lot to tweak the final look of creature sculpts with fur or feathers.

02 MASK THE SAFE AREAS

If you want to use the Contrast slider in the Deformation panel but want to protect a small area of the model, you can simply mask it off. Drag across the model holding down Ctrl, and you’ll be able to mask the areas you need. If you want finer control then change to Mask Lasso to mask a more detailed selection. Ctrl and click the model to blur the masked area.

03 CONTRAST TARGET BRUSH

The Contrast Target brush is found in the Brush Panel. You can call it up by hitting ‘B’, ‘C’ then ‘1’. The brush will add contrast until a specified target has been reached. You can set that target by adjusting the slider found by following Brush>modifiers>brush Modifier. The Contrast Target brush also works in reverse, as holding down Alt will remove the contrast, smoothing out the mesh.

04 CONTRAST DELTA BRUSH

The Contrast Delta brush is similar to the Contrast Target brush, but it has no set limit on height or depth, so make sure to be careful with this one, as you can end up with huge spikes in your mesh if you don’t watch out. The brush is great for experimenting, but not so useful for just improving the look of your model in a subtle manner.