Friday, November 8th, 2024 Posted by Jim Thacker

Maxon releases ZBrush for iPad 2025.1


Maxon has released ZBrush for iPad 2025.1, its first update to the new tablet edition of ZBrush, its industry-standard digital sculpting software.

It introduces more features from the desktop edition, including support for bitmap textures, UV layouts, displacement maps and surface noise, plus new options for customizing the toolbars.

ZBrush’s core functionality, repacked in a UI designed for use on a touchscreen device
Released earlier this year, ZBrush for iPad is a much-anticipated tablet edition of digital sculpting software, widely used in concept art, game development and visual effects.

It includes the core functionality from the desktop edition, including over 200 of the most popular sculpting brushes.

Other key features include dynamic tesellation system Sculptris Pro, plus DynaMesh for true clay-like sculpting, and Live Boolean modeling.

The tablet edition also includes ZBrush’s Dynamics toolset for simulating cloth, and applying soft-body dynamics to sculpts.

For texturing sculpts, users get 3D painting toolset Polypaint.


New texturing options from the desktop edition, including texture map and UV controls
ZBrush for iPad 2025.1 extends those texturing options considerably, since the update adds the Texture Map, UV Map and Displacement Map sub-palettes from the desktop edition.

The new tools make it possible to apply bitmap textures to sculpts, convert Polypaint data to textures for export, UV unwrap models, and import models with an existing UV layout.

Maxon has also added the desktop edition’s Surface Noise feature, for applying procedural noise to sculpts: one nice change in the tablet edition is the option to use photos from the iPad camera as a source of surface noise.


Workflow and interface improvements
UI and workflow improvements include the option to add any control from the software to the customizable bottom toolbars, not just brushes, materials, texture and alphas.

The Apple Pencil’s roll feature is now supported for changing values on the four main brush sliders, and tooltips are displayed on hover on devices that support the Pencil’s hover feature.

The iPad edition also now supports the same set of languages as the desktop version, with the update adding localizations in Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Korean and Spanish.

Price and system requirements
ZBrush for iPad is compatible with iPadOS 17.0+ requires an iPad with a A12 Bionic chip or later.

The base app is free, but is export-disabled. Access to the full feature set requires a paid subscription, which costs $9.99/month or $99.99/year.

ZBrush for iPad is also included in subscriptions to the desktop edition of ZBrush, which now cost $49/month or $399/year, Maxon having raised its subscription prices in September.

Read an overview of the new features in ZBrush for iPad on Maxon’s website

Read a full list of new features in ZBrush for iPad 2025.1 in the App Store


Have your say on this story by following CG Channel on Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter). As well as being able to comment on stories, followers of our social media accounts can see videos we don’t post on the site itself, including making-ofs for the latest VFX movies, animations, games cinematics and motion graphics projects.