Why this pack?
One of the hardest things to achieve in the digital world is the little imperfections of ‘real world’ objects. I’m a huge fan of the look of real clay, especially at the early stages where the pieces of clay and marks are really rough and sketchy.
A few years ago, I started a series of very rough sketches in ZBrush that I rendered with a simple ‘real clay look’. Then I released a free ebook covering the creation process of a Clay material in ZBrush… so now I’m making my favorite brushes available with a series of additional maps to recreate a more complex and convincing ‘Digital Clay’ effect!
Below are some examples showing the combination of a few clay brushes with some of the PBR tileable textures over a simple plane (The renders are from Marmoset Toolbag 3).
The brushes from this pack have different purposes and have been organized in different categories. For instance, you have the CLAY BASES which are brushes to produce the basic look of a rough clay sculpture. Then you have SCULPTING brushes that can be used like the default clay brushes in ZBrush but with a lot more details on the stroke. The DETAILS brushes are precisely for high-frequency details like ‘fingerprints’ and other brushes like RAKES are ideal to accentuate the rough look of the real clay sketchy sculpture.
Overview
The ZBrush brushes in this pack behave like sculpting brushes such as the Standard or clay brushes… so the effect of the clay imperfections is created as you sculpt and refine the surface.
The additional textures and maps are a great way to generate even more details and complexity at render time. For instance, you can choose not so sculpt fingerprints (with the brushes) and just add a fingerprint normal map (included) at render time!
The example sketch on the right has been 100% sculpted and textured with the brushes and resources in this pack. (3D base to display meshes also included).
Breakdown
- The Digital Clay Pack comes with 30 custom clay brushes for ZBrush (All brushes created with ZBrush 2020.1.1).
- 20 sets of various clay PBR textures at 2K (Metal-rough). Including Base Color, Normal, Height, AO, and Roughness.
- Bonus: 10 sets of 2 tileable maps to add details (Normal and Displacement maps).
- Bonus: FBX file with Base mesh to display your models with two sets of PBR textures.
- A Quick Start Guide in PDF format, with a short description of what each brush does, and tips on how to use them to achieve the best results.
Bonus Material
The bonus maps that come with this pack are custom tileable textures that were created manually by sculpting a plane in ZBrush using the brushes from the pack.
This means that you can also use the brushes to create even more maps and more resources to use in your projects
Creating additional tileable maps is a great way to further refine the look of your sculptures within the render engine of your choice.
A sculptor once said – ‘Ideas Born in Clay’.
Today I am excited to share with you the stunning brushes Pablo has created, that exactly mimic the feel of clay in digital art. Use them and unveil your creativity!
