Rendering in Redshift 

Welcome to Redshift for ZBrush 

In this chapter, we will be covering how you can set up your beautiful renders directly inside of ZBrush’s viewport using Maxon’s Photorealistic Render Engine: Redshift.  

Maxon Subscriptions 

Before we start diving into how to render with Redshift, it is important to know that you must have a subscription to Redshift and the latest version of ZBrush. Redshift is also not just a renderer for ZBrush but also for other applications such as: Cinema 4D, Blender, Maya, 3DS Max, Softimage, Houdini and Katana. There are a couple of ways to purchase a subscription on Maxon’s website: www.maxon.net. What is an important takeaway is that if you have a Maxon One subscription, you will be able to install both products as they are already included in your plan. The versions that we will be covering in this chapter will be ZBrush 2025.1.0 and Redshift 2025.2.0 and up. Please keep in mind that feature updates to Redshift for ZBrush, as well as all other Maxon Products, are ever changing. We advise you to always look at Maxon’s latest documentation in order to stay up to date with the latest information, which you can find here: https://help.maxon.net/ 

What is Redshift? 

Redshift is Maxon’s award-winning Photo Realistic Render Engine which is used to create stunning images and animations in many industries such as Animation and VFX, Architectural Visualization as well as Product and Industrial Design. It has both GPU and CPU versions that are supported for both Mac and PC computers. Redshift is known for its speed and performance, allowing artists and creatives alike to render with confidence. Now that Redshift has come to ZBrush, this allows renders to be performed directly into ZBrush’s viewport without the need to reduce your mesh density. Because Redshift is incredibly fast, this allows ZBrush artists to see their creations come to life right before their very eyes. Furthermore, ZBrush has created specific Redshift materials that can be modified just like any other ZBrush material an artist would be familiar with, which we will discuss later in this chapter. Currently as of January 2025, Maxon does not have Redshift support for Apple iOS devices, so when we mention Redshift for ZBrush, we are referring to ZBrush for Desktop and not ZBrush for iPad. While Maxon has announced that changes to Redshift for ZBrush will be on-going, we do expect updates to occur as Maxon continues to develop Redshift for ZBrush. 

In this chapter, we are going to be walking you through how to perform a Redshift Render straight inside of ZBrush. This chapter is designed to get you started rendering with confidence. If you wish to dive deeper into the Redshift menu system, custom material building and much more advanced techniques, make sure to visit the documentation page as well as Maxon’s websites for more training content. Without further ado, let’s get started! 

Installing and Activating Redshift for ZBrush 

Installing ZBrush and Redshift is quite a straightforward process and just requires having a Maxon account and Maxon’s App Launcher installed. You can find this installer on Maxon’s website, under the ‘My Account’ tab of your Maxon account. From there, you can install the latest version for both Redshift and ZBrush (see picture below) by following the instructions of the installers. As Mentioned prior, you will need to have both ZBrush and Redshift installed in order for ZBrush to access Redshift. If Redshift is not installed, ZBrush will present you with an error message that Redshift could not be found. If you have this error message, just make sure that Redshift is installed before continuing.  

When it comes to the GPU or CPU versions of Redshift for ZBrush, depending on which one you have will depend on which one is active. If you only have the ZBrush Subscription that Maxon offers, the CPU version is included with this subscription. After installation of Redshift, the CPU version will become activated. Same is true with the GPU version. If you have a Redshift Subscription, after install, the GPU version will be active. At the time of this chapter being written, there is no way to switch between the CPU or GPU version of Redshift for ZBrush. While other DCCs might offer this option, Redshift for ZBrush at this time does not.  

Getting Started with Redshift in ZBrush 

Opening a Redshift Project 

To start rendering inside of Redshift for ZBrush, you first need to open a redshift project. ZBrush 2025.1 or higher ships with this project file by default, so we will be using that project to learn the inner workings of Redshift rendering. First, open the Lightbox menu by hitting the comma key on your keyboard. Under Projects, you will look for the project ‘RS_Demo_Test.zpr’. Double click to open the project and make sure to save any work that you might lose. Once the project is open, open the ‘Render menu which is at the top of ZBrush’s UI.  

Activating and Rendering with Redshift 

From there, click the ‘Redshift’ button to activate the Redshift Render Engine. When Redshift is turned on, pressing Shift+R on the keyboard or by pressing the BPR Button, Redshift will start to render your current scene.  

Bucket vs Progressive Rendering 

By default, Redshift's Bucket Rendering option is turned on. You can switch between Bucket Rendering and Progressive Rendering by toggling on or off ‘Progressive Rendering’ in the Redshift menu. Bucket and Progressive rendering has a few differences that we will want to call out. Bucket rendering focuses on rendering a single chunk of the final image to produce a high quality image. Progressive rendering focuses on rendering the image from a low resolution to a higher resolution; gradually improving the final render until complete. To adjust the quality of your bucket renders, you can adjust a slider called ‘Error Threshold. The smaller the number, the better the image quality. When Progressive Rendering is active, adjusting the ‘Progressive Iterations’ slider will control the overall quality. Unlike the Error Threshold slider for Bucket rendering, the smaller the number the lower the quality; while the higher the number value, the better the quality will be. The different sliders within this menu will help you adjust the quality and speed of your render times, but these two sliders will handle the bulk of your render times. For now, we are going to leave these numbers alone, but I highly encourage you to play with these values and see how it affects your final results.  

Performing your First Render  

Let’s go ahead and press Shift + R on the keyboard to get your first render. Depending on the complexity of your materials, lighting, render settings and even down to your computer hardware specifications, it might take a little bit of time to render. Feel free whenever performing a render to sit back with a nice cup of coffee and enjoy the process. Now that your first render is complete, we can take a closer look into the Redshift materials to see if we can get a different look to our model. Just a quick reminder: ZBrush 2025.1 or higher ships with this project to test with. After you get the hang of Redshift for ZBrush, try different materials, lighting settings with different HDRs and much more. 

Redshift Materials

Types of Redshift Materials 

With Redshift for ZBrush, Maxon ships two different Redshift material types specifically designed for ZBrush. First, there is Redshift Polypaint Materials, which is a Redshift material that will recognize any subtool with polypaint applied. Second, there is Redshift Present Color Materials which will overwrite any exposed polypaint and replace it with a material color. While there are ways to edit your own materials inside of ZBrush for Redshift, we will only be focusing on using the provided materials for this chapter. To access the different materials inside of ZBrush and pick your favorite, go to the left side of ZBrush’s UI and there you will see a material called ‘Plastic 1’. Click on the material and a material selection menu will open up. While there are 4 different material types, the Redshift materials are located at the bottom of the menu. See Figure 7.3.  

Applying and Modifying Materials 

You can pick any one of these materials to add to your model. If the material is not baked or painted to the model, once you select a material you will notice a material change immediately. In this case, the materials on this model are baked on the subtools so we will change that. To change the material, simply click a material we would like to work with. Choose the ‘RoughMetal’ material which is located under the Redshift Polypaint Materials menu. Once selected, press and hold the spacebar on the keyboard to open up a hidden menu. From here, locate the button ‘M’ which is on the right hand side of the menu and make sure to click it on as shown in figure 7.4. 

Navigate to ZBrush’s right hand side of the UI and look for the menu ‘Polypaint’. Open up the menu and press the button ‘FillColor’. See the image above. This will fill the backdrop subtool with the new material we selected earlier. Now, let’s render to see the difference between the first render and this new one by pressing Shift +R once more.  

Render Recall 

Once the render is complete, I would like to draw your attention to a special ZBrush Redshift feature called Render Recall. Render Recall allows a ZBrush user to call back to a specific render setting that was once rendered. As you experiment with your different settings, i.e. lighting and HDRs, material settings, filter settings and render adjustments, Render Recall will remember those settings for you to call back to at any time during your ZBrush session. It is important to remember that at this time, Render Recall does not save with any ZPR or ZTL file type. It is only active during the session and will clear once ZBrush closes. This feature is located in the Render menu at the top of ZBrush’s UI. Use this feature to allow yourself the time to explore different settings to find the render look and style you are going for. So, go ahead and explore the different ways you can make your model look great. 

Redshift Lighting: HDRs and Lights 

Using HDRs for Scene Lighting 

Lighting is by far one of the most important elements in any render. Just like photography, without light, we can not see the image captured by the camera. Same concept is true in any render engine, Redshift included. While this scene has lighting already set up, we are going to be changing the lighting to give you a sense of how to approach your own renders moving forward.  

Adjusting HDR Settings 

There are two different ways we can apply light to any scene inside of ZBrush. One way is with an HDR. You can combine both HDR and ZBrush Lights to your scene very easily.  Personally, I like to start with an HDR as it can give your model a specific look and feel that can make your work stand out. To access the HDR menu, we need to go to the menu ‘Light’, located at the top of ZBrush’s UI. Open the Light menu and then open the submenu ‘Background’. Next, click the ‘On’ button to access the HDRs settings. Here, you will see a few different sliders that will help you adjust the look and feel of your HDR. I want you to pay attention to the Exposure and Redshift Exposure sliders as well as the Longitude and Latitude sliders of the menu. These will be your main sliders to adjust and fine tune your HDR lighting. Go ahead and play with these sliders and then perform another render to see how your scene will be affected. As you adjust these settings, you will notice Redshift taking a few seconds to update the light in the scene. This is because Redshift is actively handshaking with ZBrush whenever a change is made to the scene. This will help you more accurately make the changes you desire as you experiment.  

Importing Custom HDR Files 

To change your HDR, there are two ways you can do that. The first way is to open the Lightbox menu by hitting the comma key on the keyboard. At the top of the Lightbox menu, click on the menu Texture and then double click on the folder Panoramas. This is the folder that has a few HDR and EXR light scenes you can use to light your scene. To activate one, just click on the HDR you want and then double click the scene to activate it. From there, you can go back to the Light menu and Background submenu to make changes to the HDR.  

If you have your own personal HDR or EXR you would like to load into ZBrush to use, from the Background submenu, under the ‘On’ button is an image of the current HDR that is active. Click that image and a hidden texture menu will pop up. Down at the bottom of the menu is an import button. Click on import and select the HDR or EXR you would like to use from your computer. Then, click open. This will load the new HDR into ZBrush and become editable.  

Adding and Adjusting ZBrush Lights 

Next, we will want to adjust the ZBrush lights to finish lighting our scene. Just above the ‘Background’ submenu is the different ZBrush Lights you can adjust to your liking. There are 8 lights in total. Each light can be set as a foreground or a background light. This will help you add more variety to your scene. You will notice that by default, only 1 light is turned on. That is because this scene is mainly using the HDR to light the scene.  

We are going to add a second light and give it some color. To the right of the active light, press the second light button once to select the light and then press the light a second time to turn it on. When these buttons are orange, that means that light is active. If these buttons are grey, that means they are turned off. Now that we have a second light active in our scene, we can position that light by using the light orange dot on the sphere by clicking and holding the mouse button, then dragging it into the desired position. If you click on the orange dot on the sphere, this will switch the light from the foreground position to the background position. This helps add rim lighting or fill lighting to your scene depending on the look you are going for.  

You may not notice a big change right now, but we are going to change the color to see a difference to our scene. In the light menu, you will notice a few sliders and a color swatch. The intensity slider adjusts how strong the light is affecting the scene. The Ambient slider determines the overall lightness of your scene. And the Distance slider affects the infinite distance of your scene. The Distance slider is also only activated when the Perspective Camera is turned on (P key on the keyboard to turn perspective on or off).  

To change the color of your light, click on the color swatch directly and select the desired color. In this case, we are going to pick a green color as it will stand out nicely against our model. Let’s also turn the light intensity up to about 1.0 and then let’s render. You should have something that looks like what is shown below. Even though we may not have the exact same render settings, you should be getting a sense of how Redshift is being affected as we make these changes. Take some time to play with different lights and HDRs to give your scene a fresh look. 

Redshift AOV Render Passes

Understanding and Exporting AOV Passes 

Once you have something rendered that you like, we will want to export out our render to either take into another program like Photoshop or to share with the world. Open up the ‘Render’ Menu and open the sub menu Redshift AOV Passes. Here, you will see a few different types of AOV passes that you’ll be able to export. To select which AOV passes you will want to activate for rendering, open the sub menu below called  AOV Passes. The different types of AOV passes include: Beauty, Shadows, AOcclusion, Sss, GI, Depth, Background, Bump Normal, Diffuse, World Position, Reflection and Refraction. See the images below. These buttons can be turned on or off to activate which passes get rendered. You can also select the All button to turn them all on or off with a click of a single button. For this demonstration, let’s click the All button to have all AOV passes active during the render. Let’s go ahead and render once more. 

After the new render you might notice a difference in the AOV Passes section. Since we activated all of the AOV passes, we can see that we have a new render available for export. Each one of these renders can simply be clicked on in order to save. Let’s click on the first render, Beauty. Immediately, you should see a save box open up. Select where you would like to save your work. Before you save, please note that you have a few different file types you can save as: JPG, PSD, PNG, BMP and TIFF. Choose which file type suits you and then press save. Repeat this process for every AOV render you wish to export. As a personal note, I prefer to save my passes as a PSD as I will be taking them into Photoshop to finalize the render. Due to the fact that we have all of these render passes saved out, we will want to take advantage of them and composite them to a final image. 

Side Note: For this final render, we will only be using Beauty, Shadows, AO, GI and Diffuse AOV passes for this final render when we move into Photoshop. Feel free to explore and experiment with other AOV Passes to see what you can create. Remember, with any project you create, exploration is a key step to play with your project and discover happy accidents.  

Redshift AOV Passes and Photoshop Compositing 

When compositing the final render, we will be in the latest version of Photoshop; which at the time of this chapter being written is Adobe Photoshop 2025. The version of Photoshop you are working in will not be a big issue as we will not be doing anything too complex or feature specific. As mentioned before, this chapter is designed to get you to a final result while giving you the tools you need to repeat this process for other projects.  

The easiest way to composite your AOV passes into Photoshop, is to open Photoshop, then locate your Beauty Pass and drag and drop it into Photoshop. This will allow the file to open to the exact project file size you need to work with. Once it is open, make sure that you see the Layers tab open to make it easier to edit our project. If you don’t see the Layers tab, go up to Window, and then check Layers to ensure that the tab is open (see figure 7.8). 

AOcclusion, Shadows, and Diffuse Passes 

Now that we have our primary base image in, it is time to bring in our other AOV passes. In this process, I like to bring in one AOV pass at a time. This is my preferred method, and I recommend that if you are completely new to this process to follow along until you get the hang of it. Once you have a good understanding of these steps, it will be easy to repeat this process for all other AOV passes and layers you decided to bring into your final project. 

Next, we are going to grab our AOcclusion pass into our project. Simply locate the file and drag and drop it into your scene just as we did before with our Beauty pass. When you drag in a new image into your project, you will be met with your image stacking on top of your previously selected image and the transformation option will be available. Once presented with this option, press the ‘Enter’ key on the keyboard to accept the new image change to your scene. Now that you have the AOcclusion file successfully in your scene, it is time to edit the image. Since this AOcclusion pass has deep, indirect shadow information, we will want to isolate that information to display and allow the underlying image to show through. This can be achieved in many ways, but the simplest way is to use a Blend Mode. To activate a blend mode, under the Layers tab we have open, select the drop down that has the word Normal. This will open a few different options. With this AOcclusion image type, we will be selecting Multiply. This will now isolate the darker shadows and allow the underlying image to shine through the whites of the image.  

You might have noticed that once we selected Multiply, the image changed quite a bit. What I like about this approach is that it is a non-destructive workflow, meaning that we can adjust this setting at any time to get a different result or experiment with a final look for our scene. There is an Opacity slider next to the Blend Mode menu, which allows us to adjust the overall intensity of the effect at any time. I highly encourage you to play with this slider to see what results you can get. For me, I will be setting it to 50% as it is the setting I like the most for this project.  

Next, we are going to be dropping in our AOV Shadow pass into our scene just like we did before with our AO Pass. Simply drag and drop it into your scene. Now, you might notice that this AO Shadow Pass looks a bit different. The shadow areas of this image might appear white when you might think they would be dark. If this is the case for you, you can press CTRL (command on Mac) + I to invert the image. The AO Shadow pass should look a bit more similar to that of the AOcclusion pass we had before. From here, we will repeat the previous steps before and set the blend mode to Multiply and set the Opacity to around 60% or something to your liking. You should now have something like this:  

You can see now how the image itself is coming together. It’s already a night and day difference between the simple Beauty AOV pass we exported from ZBrush and now with these two AOV passes we have introduced. This is the power of using these passes in an external application like Photoshop to really boost the look and feel of your scene. Now that we are almost done with our main composite, we are going to bring in our last two AOV passes into our scene. Let’s go ahead and bring in our Diffuse AOV pass to our scene. The Diffuse layer will bring in some of the color to your scene as well as some light information. From here, we will be setting the blend mode to Overlay with an Opacity of 50%. Again, play with some different blend modes and experiment with what you like. While we are walking through a process here, it is important to explore and discover. You never know what you will find! 

Global Illumination and Final Export 

Lastly, let’s bring in our Global Illumination (GI) AOV Pass. This pass allows you to adjust how the light is interacting with your objects in the scene. This pass will bring in some nice bounce to your scene, making it feel more natural in your render. From here, let's go ahead and set the blend mode to Lighten with an Opacity of 30%. GI pass can be quite strong sometimes, so don’t be afraid to adjust the values lower if you don’t like the final result. At this point, this should be your final look: 

Once this step is completed, congratulations! You have now successfully created your first full render pipeline starting from Redshift in ZBrush to Photoshop. You can go ahead and save/export this render by heading up to ‘File < Export < Export As..’ to then save your work to share. This is a very common workflow and is widely used in many final renders worldwide. Of course, this same process can be used for all of your renders moving forward. No matter if you are starting from scratch or using a pre-existing scene such as the one we started with at the beginning of this chapter, you can create beautiful, eye-popping renders inside of ZBrush without worrying about the density of your mesh.  

Redshift for ZBrush is designed to get you looking at your final results of your projects without having to worry about mesh density or the overall size of your file. What makes Redshift for ZBrush so powerful is that you can render your project at any point and see what it will look like rendered. This is great for project concepts, client approvals, social media posts and much, much more. And since you are using Redshift, you can be confident that you will get nearly identical renders in other DCCs that are also using Redshift. This is designed to help keep the work consistent throughout the entire pipeline and to have confidence in the work you produce. Now that you know how to properly navigate Redshift for ZBrush, it is time to open your own projects and get to rendering.