ZBrush

In 1999, the software company Pixologic publicly showed ZBrush for the first time at the SIGGRAPH conference; the application combined 3D and 2D painting and sculpting tools.⁠[1]

In its 2006 SIGGRAPH exhibitor description, Pixologic presented ZBrush’s ZSphere technology and multi-resolution subdivision editing, saying models with millions of polygons could be sculpted.⁠[1]

At the 86th Scientific and Technical Awards on February 15, 2014, Ofer Alon received a Scientific and Engineering Award (Academy Plaque) for the design and implementation of the ZBrush software for multi-resolution sculpting of digital models.⁠[2]

In December 2021, the software company Maxon announced an agreement to acquire the assets of Pixologic, the developer of ZBrush, expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2021. The announcement named Ofer Alon as Pixologic’s founder and CEO.⁠[3]

Around the same time, ZBrush changed its perpetual licence policy: perpetual licences bought after December 29, 2021 would receive only critical bug-fix updates, with new features requiring a separate upgrade licence.⁠[4]

On January 11, 2022, Maxon announced that all financial and regulatory requirements had been met and that it had completed the acquisition of all of Pixologic’s assets, making ZBrush a Maxon product.⁠[5]

ZBrush 2023, released in January 2023, integrated the Redshift renderer and added native Apple Silicon support. It was the first update that perpetual licence holders had to pay for; Maxon had said ZBrush 2022.0.7 would be their last free update.⁠[6]

In November 2023, Maxon released ZBrush 2024, adding a “Repeat to Similar” feature and Cinema 4DCinema 4DCinema 4D is 3D animation, modeling, simulation and rendering software developed by the German company Maxon, known for its MoGraph motion graphics toolset and its integration with After Effects, and widely used for broadcast graphics, advertising and film and television visual design. It grew out of FastRay, a ray-tracing program written on the Commodore Amiga by brothers Christian and Philip Losch, and has been released under the Cinema 4D name since 1993; Maxon is now a brand of the Nemetschek Group.Open the full entry’s noise types. Maxon said the version would not be available as a perpetual licence and that existing perpetual licences could not be updated to it.⁠[7]

In August 2024, Maxon announced subscription price increases effective September 1, raising the ZBrush monthly subscription to $49 per month. Cinema 4D and ZBrush had already dropped perpetual licences in 2023.⁠[8]

On September 10, 2024, Maxon launched ZBrush for iPad. The app has a feature-limited free plan; the full version is included in ZBrush and Maxon One subscriptions or available as a standalone subscription, and it requires iPadOS 17 or later and an A12 Bionic chip or newer.⁠[9]

ZBrush 2026.0, released in September 2025, added Python scripting support as the main new feature of the desktop edition; the iPad edition released alongside it gained the 3D Print Hub and Scale Master plugins from the desktop version.⁠[10]

ZBrush 2026.1, released in December 2025, added a Retopo brush for manual retopology to the desktop edition, while the iPad edition gained a photogrammetry feature for building models from camera scans.⁠[11]

ZBrush 2027.0 was released on October 14, 2026. The desktop edition gained a UV Editor built on Cinema 4D’s UV technology and Selection Sets for saving different states of a SubTool; the iPad edition gained Spotlight reference projection and 3D Layers, both for paying users only.⁠[12]

As of October 2026, Maxon presents ZBrush as a tool for digital sculpting, modeling and painting, and its official product page lists the current version as ZBrush 2027.0.⁠[13]

The desktop edition of ZBrush is available only by subscription; as of December 2025 the price was $49 per month or $399 per year, including the iPad edition, and it supported Windows 10 or later and macOS 14.0 or later.⁠[11]

Maxon: Official website: https://www.maxon.net/ (opens in a new window)⁠[13]

ZBrush: Official website: https://www.maxon.net/en/zbrush (opens in a new window)⁠[13]

X: Official account: https://x.com/maxonzbrush (opens in a new window)⁠[14]

YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry: Official account: https://www.youtube.com/@MaxonZbrush (opens in a new window)⁠[14]