Welcome to the forum, feel free to ask questions here.
I am not an expert, but doesn't the workflow normally go the other way? That is create the low poly mesh in maya or zbrush, then subd to a bazillion polys in the sculpting app, then generate the normal map of the high poly sculpt, and then send the normal maps (and the base 0 mesh if you created it in the sculpting app) back to maya? I have also seen where the sculpt program is used to down rez, by hand painting polys onto the high poly mesh, but I don't recall seeing anything about down rezzing a high poly sculpt inside maya. But I am not a sculpt modeler so I apologize if I am speaking out of my butt.
@Rhetoric Camel: For your dog walk in the park yes For dog modeling you should be able to build quite well on the techniques in the cartoon dog or the quadrupeds modeling, http://simplymaya.com/autodesk-maya-...=152&sub_cat=1 I'm not much of a modeler but either adding resolution to build a high res mesh from the cartoon dog or sculpting out muscle definition and bump mapping based on the quadruped should give you that just base it on your own dog refs. For lighting content we'll have lots I love this field and it's not well covered. We'll do mental ray both for specific shaders and indirect illumination, we'll do interior lighting with direct illumination and physical sun and sky plus exterior illumination. I'm actually building a scene now to use it's based on a park around the corner from my house so you should like it. Hopefully I'll get some water in as well and both day and night time lighting. It's gonna take a while though, end of january probably so might work with the dog walk timing.
Hey Nilla lol rock on!! I like the sound of that too Rhetoric camel:Thats kind of interesting doing the more realistic dog model. I actually found theres mored to the dog anatomy than first meets the eye. The eyes area is quite interesting around the lacrimal (tearducts) have a look. I did a few hero dogs and tons of blendshapes on Marmaduke earlier in the year and last year and I tell you it was not an easy job to do...anyway its a good idea for a tute. cheers Jay
Dog's are really tricky to draw as well, you're absolutely right Jay abot the anatomy, I have problems as soon as I try to make something different than Pluto. You should have a look at Jay's showreel on his site Rhetoric Camel, he's got a really interesting shot of a talking CG dog in it. For tut it sounds great then, I look forward to watching you go back and remake all those blendshapes Jay
Just a idea A lot of people have access to cam corders, putting special effect with them.....dave