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When comparing ZBrush vs ArmorPaint, the Slant community recommends ArmorPaint for most people. In the question“What are the best 3D texture painting softwares?” ArmorPaint is ranked 4th while ZBrush is ranked 7th. The most important reason people chose ArmorPaint is:
ArmorPaint allows artists to paint across multiple maps at once. This allows for easy creation of coherent color, roughness, and bump maps.
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Plays well with others
Can transfer work between other packages via AppLink and/or Bridge seamlessly.
Pro Powerful brush system allows for lots of creativity
ZBrush lets the user sculpt an object in fine detail with customizable 3D brushes.
Pro Best for hi-poly modeling
Due to the nature of the program and how it uses high poly mesh sculpting it is best to consider this app when wanting high poly models, as that is what it aims to do best.
Pro Has low poly modelling tools with 4r7 version
Pro Can easily simplify mesh topology
Meshes sculpted with ZBrush can contain billions of polygons, but tools are provided to cleanly reduce the poly count.
Pro Always evolving and innovating
Every iteration of Zbrush has evolved beyond the last and has kept all other 3D package devs on their toes consistently.
Pro Best support
No other 3D package has had continued support from their parent company or community like ZBrush has had since inception.
Pro Paint on multiple maps at once
ArmorPaint allows artists to paint across multiple maps at once. This allows for easy creation of coherent color, roughness, and bump maps.
Pro Entirely GPU-run
Supports GPU acceleration. Since it is run entirely on the gpu, it makes painting huge maps nice and smooth on modern graphic cards.
Pro Node-based brushes
A simple and robust "blender-based" node system to modify brush channels.
Pro Open-Source
ArmorPaint falls under the zlib license. The zlib license has been approved by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) as a free software license, and by the Open Source Initiative (OSI) as an open-source license. It is compatible with the GNU General Public License. As such, the program is FREE if you compile it from source, and (as of August 2, 2020) costs only €16 to purchase pre-compiled binaries.
Pro Epic MegaGrant's recipient
ArmorPaint received a $25,000 Epic Mega Grant. This is a large donation of money given by Epic Games through their MegaGrant Program to programs that show great promise. These grants are unconditional and recipients are expected to continue program development as they see fit. These grants can not be used to purchase unpurchasable software (open-source software).
Cons
Con UI is far from user friendly
Though, it's fully customizable. Like for any software, there is a learning curve.
Con Expensive
A single-user license for ZBrush costs $795.
But, Pixologic has not charged a penny for upgrades to licensed users since inception. Anyone who has purchased Zbrush has not been left behind.
Con An odd perspective view
Does not lend itself to cinematic or artistic renderings due to a strange perspective system found nowhere else in 3D which warps according to the relationships between models and rendering viewpoint - there is no real 'camera'.
It is sufficient for rendering your work on a sculptural piece or industrial design, but KeyShot Pro or any other PBR rendering program that uses a camera are recommended for scene rendering, at least in 4R7.
Con Open, Save, Export, Import not conventional standard UI
Authors refuse to use standard layout and the New, Open, Save, Export, Import are in unexpected positions. There will be no UI improvements.
Con Hi-poly only
Not, the case as there is now the Zmodeller Brush system which has a full suite of polygon Modelling options.
Con It's NOT free (even though it's open-source)
Armor Paint is open-source, but the official binaries are not available for free.
Unless you can compile it yourself, or you run Arch Linux or a system based on it and can use an AUR package that'll build it for you - you'll have to pay to use this program.
Con Beta
It is not completed yet, which may lead to support drop, or a software that is not entirely usable.
Con No lossless upscaling of brush strokes
When exporting your maps in higher resolutions in Substance Painter - it'll re-draw all your strokes in the background to make sure the exported textures have as much detail as possible. Armor Paint doesn't have such a feature so far - if you paint on a small resolution texture - you're stuck with it, or you'll have to manually re-paint it yourself to get a higher resolution texture.
Con No projection on normals
The brushes are projected with a simple viewport projection, which can lead to weird warping of the brush on irregular surfaces.
