Jay - Summer Challenge - Page 5 - Simply Maya User Community

# 61 01-09-2007 , 12:20 AM

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Join Date: Apr 2005

Location: Wagga Wagga, Australia

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Great work user added image

Out of intrest, how many polys did this end up being?

"If Less is more then think how much more more would be..."

Winner June 2009 Spaceship Challenge

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# 62 01-09-2007 , 01:23 AM

Lead Modeler - Framestore
Join Date: Feb 2003

Location: UK

Posts: 6,287

Probably around 2.5million in the end, that includes eyes, tearducts, anemone body and tentacles, plus the snail shells and bandana.

Jay

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# 63 01-09-2007 , 01:53 AM

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Join Date: Nov 2003

Location: Sweden

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The colour choices are excellent I think. It strengthens the design, emphasizes the concept and are visually very interesting.

The mouth's just class too. I was wondering for the longest how you'd pull it off as a pirate, but the final image is very convincing user added image

It's very cool how the forehead hints of corroded and rusty metal without reading like metal. Deffo ties him to the deep sea.

Reminds me of an ancient brittish saying that I truly enjoy:
"A Smooth Sea never made a skillful sailor"

Currently working on reclaiming Space
The Salvation Prophecy

Last edited by AlphaFlyte; 01-09-2007 at 01:58 AM.

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# 64 01-09-2007 , 02:06 AM

Lead Modeler - Framestore
Join Date: Feb 2003

Location: UK

Posts: 6,287

An insight to the Pirates creation in Zbrush3

A bit of insight for those interested on the zbrush side of things.

Okay, well first off the base was done in maya, and holds around 6000 polys. It was then imported as an obj to Zbrush. Once in zbrush I basically pulled the mesh around more, as its faster to do it in ZB as opposed to point pulling in Maya., Once the base was satisfactory it was then divided twice and then I imported the eyes.

Now the thing with Zb is that you cant just import a new obj, you have to Append the tool you are working with. This is where the Subtool pallette works its magic. By opening the subtool pallette I could see that my base mesh was already sitting on a 'layer' so then by hitting the 'append' button the tool pallete pops up and I picked the 'Star' object. This is then loaded into the subtool pallette, below my mesh. Then selecting the Star 'layer' (Dont confuse this with the layer pallette) I then went to the tool box and imported my eye objects. These then replaced the star object. Cool, we can now get sculpting the head and have a good guidline to how our eyes sit in their sockets and not havingto guess the socket shapes!

I repeated this process for all the imported objects. the anemone was created in Maya as a whole object and then I separated the object using the group split 'command' in the Subtools palette. this put all the tentacles and body into separate subtool layers.

Okay separate Materials, this bit was fun to find out, it does seem odd at first but its actually straight forward once you 'get it'.

At first all your objects will have one material assigned to them, but by selecting each object in their subtool layer, you first make sure you have MRGB selected in the main window above the canvas (Zbrushes gui) then select a material from the Material pallette, the go to the Color menu, pick a color in the picker and simply press fill object. This will then fill the selected subtool with that new material and color. repeat this for all objects, or keep the same material depending on your objects, I had a few tentacles so I kept the materials.

One of the strange things I found with it all was the use of textures of different objects. Now Im not sure if it was me (most likely) but I did a lot of digging around the ZB helps and on the site. But I found that to apply a new texture to a new object I had to switch off the other texture objects visibility in the subtool pallette. It may be a bug, it could be me but it pissed me off none the less. however once I got my ZB brain cell in gear things were fine.

Now, the texturing of the face. I made a booboo at the start of the process, I deleted the uv's! But I did however create a morph target from the original obj in ZB and put them back, whew! But I did it again (like an arse) so then decided to test out the AUV tile method in ZB. It works like a dream! but the great thing was I didnt apply the uvs again until after I painted the model, how cool is that!, This enables you to pick any size texture to export from 256 to 8k!! Pity Maya cant hack the 8k stuff though!!

for the texture color and displacement of the mesh I did it solely in ZBs 3d space, I didnt use the Projection master as good as it is, but Ive never felt that comfy with it. I used a plethora of brushes and color and also adjust the the materials to to bring out the color more, even the sss in Zb is bloody powerful, you only have to nudge the slider and bam - SSS. Also the cavity settings are great for those dark recessed areas. I just basically played around with those until I was happy.

Rendering is pretty straight forward. Though some improvements could be made. It took me a bit to figure that whatever res your canvas is, this is your render size. But again its pretty easy to sort (now I know) simply clear the canvas, and resize it to your final size, redraw the tool (model) and start placing lights into the scene. The lights are seriouly powerful but have the drawback of having ambient being turned on everytime. So your render tends to glow a bit and shadows are reduced unless you turn it off. which is pretty easy to do but still a pain everytime you add a light.

Overall I found the whole process an education, and am hoping to improve on this workflow and incorporate it into my work moreso than ever as I found it to be very quick at most things. I reckon it wont be long until Im producing 90% of my character models in Zbrush.

I hopethis helps you guys and girls out...

Cheers for now
Jay

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# 65 01-09-2007 , 02:12 AM

Lead Modeler - Framestore
Join Date: Feb 2003

Location: UK

Posts: 6,287

Alphaflyte

Many thanks for the kind words

Cheers
Jay

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# 66 01-09-2007 , 02:35 AM

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Join Date: May 2005

Location: Manchester Uk

Posts: 6,300

Cheers Jay.

I think the texturing part with sub tools is actually part of Zbrush, I found that out! LOL

I started out using the projection master but gave up when I started sculpting with alphas, really powerful!

The poly paintings amazing aint it, took me a while to remember to re import my uv's into the model to convert it to a texture so that I could then export it, for a quick flip in photoshop before applying them in maya.

Oh on a side note I found that exporting the displacement maps you have to switch one of the settings to auto or off, cant remember what it is of the top of may head something like A U or something, in the multi displacement exporter, otherwise the maps are faint.

Oh I ve also got a nifty 32bit tif to .map converter, just drag the tiff onto the converter and it converts it to mental rays .map, i'll e-mail it to you jay.

Cheers

Steve

"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle

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# 67 01-09-2007 , 06:04 AM

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Join Date: May 2005

Location: Manchester Uk

Posts: 6,300

Hey Jay

Been thinking I might actualy do most organics straight in Z, especially with the retopology tools available, start with a sphere, sculpt with freedom use the retopology tool to get the base mesh. Or for a full body use the Zspheres, you tried em? bit fiddely to get used to but great when you get cracking.

"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle

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# 68 01-09-2007 , 06:37 AM

Lead Modeler - Framestore
Join Date: Feb 2003

Location: UK

Posts: 6,287

Hey Steve

yeah I tried Zspheres when I first got Zb2, then I got into them more once I got the intro DVD as its explained very well on there. Theres more to them than meets the eye!

Its a good way to start modeling but Im in the habit of using one really good base mesh for my other characters. Once Im done with those I plan on doing some more one off stuff like this Pirate. I really enjoyed do this...

Cheers
Jay

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# 69 01-09-2007 , 05:32 PM

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Join Date: Sep 2002

Location: U.S.A.

Posts: 2,140

Hey Jay, Just wanted to drop by and say how much I enjoyed your entry in this challenge. It's not often we get to see a mod enter one. Your entry is first class. I only wish you could have modeled a body for him. Cheers! user added image

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# 70 01-09-2007 , 09:49 PM

Lead Modeler - Framestore
Join Date: Feb 2003

Location: UK

Posts: 6,287

THX

Thanks. Even before I was a moderator I always had intentions of entering these, but I could never find the time...I still cant LOL, also I do forget that I'm a mod here too...I like being one of the guys

Cheers
Jay

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An insight to the Pirates creation in Zbrush3

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