Mudbox vs ZBrush

Advancement of technology has opened new doors of opportunities for modelling, animation, VFX etc. These are used in almost every industry from advertisement to entertainment. Nowadays companies are using 3D designs and models for marketing and advertising their products. Animation makes complex topics easy to understand and helps in gaining customers’ attention but the process of making 3D models and then animating them is a difficult task which requires advanced software. Mudbox and ZBrush are two of the most popular software used for such tasks, so we will compare both of them to find out the best one.

Mudbox is computer software which is used for 3D sculpting and painting. Originally it was created by Skymatter and later developed by Autodesk. It contains all the sculpting tools along with 3D layering functionality for storing object details. The first version of Mudbox was released in 2007 and its stable version was launched in 2018. It was built using the C++ programming language.

Advantages of Mudbox

• It has a user-friendly interface which makes complex modelling and sculpting tasks easy.
• It has an easy installation and configuration process.
• It supports importing files from other Autodesk software.
• It provides a large number of brush tools which helps in precise model designing.
• It allows a large number of plugins to enhance its capabilities.

Disadvantages of Mudbox

• It requires large disk space in the user’s system.
• It is expensive software.

ZBrush is computer software for digital sculpting and it is an advanced tool which is used in creating high-quality models. Its best feature is that it can combine 2.5 and 3D modelling and texture. Initially, it was released in 1999. It is available for Windows and Mac operating systems.

Advantages of ZBrush

• It allows sculpting with millions of polygons with very little impact on computer speed.
• It comes with automatic reTopolizing features along with a manual which saves a lot of time.
• It allows material modelling like textile, stone, clay etc.
• It allows to paint and UV unwrap models easily.

Disadvantages of ZBrush

• The user interface of ZBrush is difficult to understand.
• The rendering process is slow.

Following is a table of differences between Mudbox and ZBrush:

	Mudbox	ZBrush
1.	It can be understood as a digital painting and sculpting tool used for creating 3D environments, characters and models.	It can be understood as an advanced tool designed especially for texturing and sculpting purposes.
2.	It was developed by Autodesk.	It was developed by Pixologic.
3.	Its subscription starts at $10 per month.	It charges $39.95 per month for a full ZBrush suite.
4.	It uses a proprietary software licence.	It uses a commercial proprietary licence which means it does not allow using software for free.
5.	It was developed in 2007.	It was developed in 1999.
6.	It is available for Linux, Windows, MacOS etc.	It is available only for Windows and Mac operating systems only.
7.	It does not have any trial for its customers.	It allows a 14 day free trial to its customers.
8.	It is capable of creating only 3D models.	It can create 2.5D and 3D models.