A Tribute to Sculptris

I decided to delete my last post on the what are you doing thread as on close inspection it deviates too much from Knacki's intention. At the same time I feel it's important to be able to relive the past. To say that I wish Dr. Petter had never sold it to Pixiologic would be an understatement. But. If he hadn't I would never have had the opportunity to meet and correspond with a number of people I respect and admire. Truthfully. Had it not been for Sculptris I wouldn't be here now.

Taron and Knacki are part of what I call the First Wave of Sculptris being veterans of Dr. Petter's forum. I didn't get into Sculptris until it was bought out by Z brush which I have owned since 2004. Those were magic times for me. I kept links to my favorite threads when things went south for the newer forum. I am still mad at Pixilogic. Going through old threads has rekindled my enthusiasm and I will start painting some doodled models which I never got around to. Look how good the models are in their threads.

Somehow my links got broken but I have repaired them.

First Taron's thread
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread ... -s-gallery
and of course Knacki
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread ... -sculptris!
and then my less colorful thread which nonetheless contains what I consider my best 3d image. It actually won an image of the week at rdna.
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread ... -sketches-
These were magic times

There are many more threads that can be added if anyone wants to. Thanks Dr. Petter for shining the light that brought me here.

Me, I was already late. Unfortunately most pictures are gone, but it‘s still worth to have a look at the original forum on Dr Petters site.
http://drpetter.proboards.com/board/10/sculptris

Even though there are options today, sculptris is still the most humanised sculpting experience invented.

[Taron]

Awww, what a beautiful blast from the past!
Yes, I couldn't agree more, Knacki! I still think it's the only true 3d doodling tool. I said it before already, but every now and then, when the 3d mood overcomes me, I go into Scultpris for some sketching.

Thnak you for the links - so I will try scupltris too

btw. about 3D - I'm happy that SILO from Nevercenter is not dead - for me also a nice modeling-tool.

It´s really magic how much sculptris influenced me.
The secret is behind the organic feel and the easy and intuitive UI.
Zbrush never reached that for me. Not even close. Sure one can do monster cool stuff with zBrush, but the artistic easy...no way.
I was close to buy 3D coat in this consume madness last week.
But hey, it would have been just another tool with plenty of functions hidden in a complicate UI.

SculptGL, a Web based sculpting tool is feeling nice but the UI is crap against sculptris.

Dyntopo of Blender....Never got it working like sculptris.

But best of all was the community around sculptris, no doubt. And tarons motivating comments.

[Taron]

Oh, man, Knacki, drpetter's forum has been my massive inspiration. The atmosphere that we all had created there was brilliant. We all loved it and what we did with it. You could feel the appreciation and how we knew we were sitting the same boat and what a great boat that was. So, yeah, and Tomas' updates and responsiveness was so excellent. We all felt involved and if there's anything I could've hoped for is that we have carried some of that over to here. To me it certainly feels that way, even if I must apologize for the very long dry spells at times. Even when I wasn't updating, I always have an eye on you all here, because I love it and it does make me deeply happy. I love seeing artist grow here, too. I do wish there were more, for sure. I also do wish a few other things, haha, dang...but at the end of the day, I feel like we were able to hold on to some of the awesome spirit that once was in the Sculptris forums.

So says the First Wave hehe, I wish had been there riding that wave on my Surf board but I caught the second one and had a grand time. For a number of us in Zbrush it was trans-formative and Liberating! The second forum was boiling over with creativity and Community. A lot of that was because of Dreamz and his challenges but of course as time went on and Zbrush didn't give the program any real updates people wandered and the second forum stagnated. Out of all the people that hung out there, there is only one person that has held the torch and that is the magnificent Spork Fu Master

Sculptris is the tool you both say it is. The ultimate 3d doodle tool I could never have done my Satyr in Z fighting against the interface.So my links are only to the second forum but what wonderful links they are. If you notice, the first few sculpts in Sporks second forum thread are refugees from the First forum.

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread ... ork-s-WIPS
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread ... n-the-road

He is a true Master

Taron, there is no doubt in my mind that the Verve forum has achieved the spirit of the original Sculptris forum which carried over to the second one. Community is key and it has attracted some very fine people of varying degrees of skill and it's fun watching them grow. Verve is resilient enough that it can survive the ebb and flow of the tide of creativity that we all possess when other things gravitate us for a time. My first exposure to that type of forum was the old PFO or Poser Forum Online in the late 90's. There were friends made there I still correspond with. This was followed by Renderosity of which I was one of the founders of. But then came the flames of the Poser wars that left such a bad smell in the air. I fled that atmosphere and found Z brush who had approached me years earlier when I was Renderosity's 2d forum moderator in order to promote Z and it's wonderful 2.5 d painting capability. Z didn't have 3d capability at the time. The early Z brush was an entirely different forum. Pilou was the very first person to greet me followed by Bas Mazur who became one of the best friends I have ever had But as time went by and Zbrush grew as a program the community dissolved in some ways not because of lack of people posting but because of the absolute flood of people slamming into the forum like a tidal wave. Posts started getting lost as they were pushed off the boards in minutes and that forum lost the warmth and feeling that it had when it was a smaller close knit community.

Then Sculptris arrived. Looking back I think what pulled me towards it the most was not only the elegance of the program but the people who were there, most of who came from Dr. Petters forum. That spirit of community has made it's way here

[Taron]

Isn't it sometimes amazing just how small this "virtual" world can be?! I know exactly what you're talking about. That alone is kind of an indicator, isn't it, haha!?
Really an interesting question, though: How much would I mind to face the challenge of too many people coming aboard, hahahaha?!
But I'd be hoping that we could keep the core together and would happily hold on to what we've got.... SHOULD something of that kind ever happen. I do have the sneaking suspicion that this won't be trouble anytime soon...

I do wonder, though, whether this kind of correspondence was just waiting for me to hook up this smiley:

Knacki,

I am not leaving you out of the conversation I just feel you deserve your own post. As long as I have been around and seen your posts in different forums you have always been helpful, informative and encouraging. No I am not trying to make you blush You have taken your time to create tutorials to help those who might not understand the nuances of a program. And I am quite positive not only Verve. I took your advice over the other 2 well meaning people about Sculptris Zbrush and rigging. I never needed to get fancy with it and now it's incredibly easy to rig a sculptris derived model after optimization in Z. But I digress. What I am saying is this. It takes people like you to provide an anchor to a small internet community. It takes people like Pilou to push new ideas and ways of thinking, something he has always done and enjoying every minute. It takes all of us, not only veterans but new people who bring their own visions and experiments to the table. What you said about community is undeniable. I have seen many forums rise and fall. I like to think this one will be around for awhile