Rendering in ZBrush

ZBrush has a feature called Best Preview Render (BPR). This function generates high-quality renders with shadows, anti-aliasing (AA), subsurface scattering (SSS), and ambient occlusion (AO) in a short amount of time. In this section, you’ll learn how to create these kinds of renders and export them for further editing in Photoshop or another image editing software.

Important note

While rendering times in ZBrush are fairly quick, ZBrush is not known for the high quality and realism of its renders. If high fidelity and photorealism are the goal, external render engines are recommended. Maya’s Arnold Renderer, V-Ray, and Cycles in Blender are all powerful render engines that allow you to get more out of your model. Here is the difference in realism and quality between a ZBrush BPR render, and an Arnold (Maya) render:

Figure 7.16 – ZBrush BPR render (left) versus Arnold render (right)

That being said, rendering...