new project
 

base mesh...

whatcha got goin' on, arran?

sculpting-town?

yeah, as you can see i'm going to shake up sculpting-town.

blocking things out.

Looks like a good start,

The edges loops around the eyes seem.... weired! Maybe you could re-work them?

Not much more to add.... as this is the base mesh, and the project really begins when you start sculpting. ;)

Good luck!

yeah - only just started the eyes - so lots to still do. :)

Looking good arran.

Get a good base mesh before going into sculpting it will help you when adding the details in z or mudbox.

I always feel the project starts with a good base mesh and the sculpt is the cherry on the cake, not when the project starts.

What you going to use for the sculpt?

cheers mate. :)

finally got my hands on zbrush last week - so i'm hoping to take this in there.

Cool!

The best bit of advice I could give you in learning it is to go slowly up the levels, its so so tempting to just divide a few times then sculpt in the high levels but move up and gain form at each level.

Do a lot of little sculpt strokes with a low Z intensity, pull/push it a bit more than you need then smooth it back to fit, you can gain a lot of the overall form using the move brush and then onto the std brushes to refine.

I found it hard to get details such as pores, and wrinkles in there when I started, hell I still do on a human model, a fantasy one it dosent really matter and its a good place to mess about with alphas etc.

Just my workflow

edit - Make sure youve got a tablet! I tried for about 6 months using a mouse, silly boy!!!

ha ha - thanks for the good advice mate - i'll keep that in mind. i'm sure i'll have plenty of questions...;)

bit more...

No probs mate,

Ive got a few settings for pores etc using the standard brushes and alphas so I could give you the settings if you want, Ive also got some alphas too, send us an e-mail if you want.

nice xD

I tend to do this often too, but it looks like you're overworking your mesh. If you're using zbrush as a fine detail tool then that's fine, but i'd opt for a less specific mesh to give you more freedom in zb.

(BTW, if you are going that route especially, one thing you may notice is that zbrush will 'shrink' your model as you subdivide. This will cause issues when you take it back into maya. After importing the .obj, just store a morph target first, subdivide a couple times, step back down and apply the morph target again to fix it.)

looking good arran :)
the character is coming out well

Simon

cheers! :)

Funky - thanks for the tips mate. :beer: I'm not planning on adding any more detail - it's just a case of pushing and pulling now. I also need to work out the rest of the body before i take it into zbrush, so i may model a couple of other heads to practise on. :)

that is starting to look very good man. Looking forward following this new project of yours.

made a start blocking out his clothes. might change his coat and boots...

started modeling some other stuff for my character...

...

Who is this guy ? an international jewel thief by the look of it ..lol

This is coming along great arran , gonna keep watching because you got me intrigued.

ha ha - i'm going to keep you guessing.... :)

Coming along nicely

Look forward to seeing his ZB treatment.

Gio

did a bit more work on this project...

i think i've finished modeling the basic character. now I am going to start rigging to put him in the final pose.

damn, this guy is really looking good arran. I like all the detail so far. He looks really good. Can't wait to see him posed and textured. And what exactly he does with all those keys!

thanks alexanderH. :)

Looking good Arran, you still going to sculpt this dude?

yeah - i'm planning to, but as my z skills are still non existant i'm in no hurry. this guy should have quite a lot of pieces so i'm still trying to decide how i want him posed in the final shot. I'm planning to take some ref photos next weekend.

Looks like a solid base mesh.

Looking forward to seeing him sculpted.

Nice work!

thanks mayamaniac. :)

so i have a quick question - at the moment the hands of my model are pretty low poly. I was planning on posing him with each of the hands in a different pose. so i was wondering, can i do some sculting in zbrush before posing, add the sculpt as a normal map, rig and pose each of the hands and then do some further sculpting in zbrush? otherwise i would have to pose the hands and then sculpt each seperately which seems counterintuitive... any advice would be great!
:beer:

you can continue sculpting after posing in maya.

but keep the morph target, otherwise you will get small problems of incorrect normal maps on the geometry.

You can sculpt them in the default pose and export your normal map. Then rig and pose the figure and hands and re-import the base level hands and it should retain all the higher level detail. As long as you don't do anything in maya to change the point order so be careful with your import settings in maya, make sure you turn off 'create multiple objects' tickbox in the OBJ import dialogue.

Gio

thanks for the info aikoworld and gio - i'll take a look at morph targets - time to start experimenting!
:beer: :beer:

little explanation so you get it 100%

So when you have your first fase sculpted in zbrush.

You do the standard export obj and displacements.

Set it all up in Maya, then as you want to pose it, create you rig etc...

Now because you will resculpt or add detail, there will be small changes on the lowest level of subdivision so to prevent that.

Before you continue sculpting you switch on morph target.
What this dose in Zbrush is keep the vertexes in the lowest subdivision at the same place. It will not move. But you can still sculpt in higher levels without having a problem of re exporting the displacement.

As if you dont do this you will get incorrect displacement calculation as the lowest base mesh has been changed.

If you want to know more about zbrush.

Buy Digital Tutors dvd`s, very good.

at http://www.3dtrainer.com/zbrush/ it was for free, but it seems to have changed. but there not so great.

DT is the best, or gnomon.

hey aikoworld - thank you very much for taking the time to explain that - that makes a lot of sense and i think I have a better idea of the workflow now. thanks for the excellent info.
:beer:

I'll definitely take a look at those videos. I also have a gnomon one that I'm slowly working through as well. Just trying to get my office scene finished up and then I can focus on zbrush. :)

hey - so i need this character to have chains wrapped around him. i've been experimenting with a chain using a spline ik and clusters, but it's proving difficult to adjust exactly as I want it. so i'm wondering is there a better way i can wrap chains around him? He doesn't need to be animated - the final image will be a still shot. i'm going to try playing with animation snapshot next, but is there a better way?

any ideas? :)

I always envisioned Marley a bit more gaunt. Perhaps cheeks sunken in and a bit thinner - seeing how he is dead and all. But then, to each his own.

Yeah it's a good job

ha - how did you know he was marley? :) i suppose it's kind of obvious when you add some chains. yeah, i might make him a bit more gaunt - i kind of like him as he is though.

thanks dutch and ysN

i think the chains hang fairly well as they are.