What Next...

The course ended a couple of weeks back and since I have stepped away to get some perspective on the past months.

I started this digital journey in September and have fallen for the process. The control over the character is the greatest asset of ZBrush. Utilising Layers many alternate versions of the character can be contained within a single tool.

ZBrush still has many features which remain either unused or barely explored. ZBrush combines the disciplines of drawing, painting, modelling and sculpting... and it does all well. Very well.

For now I will continue with the Minotroll, making his arm in Maya. The next step is to begin to build a libary or 'graveyard' of characters and tools. When you have many assets it is easy to steal parts from each... hands from this guy, legs from here, this old head... Frankenstein modeling, or kit bashing it is known as - it basically helps get the base mesh of your character together quicker.

So I plan to:

1) build a base mesh.

2) Adapt this to get a male and female form.

3) From these two meshes adapt each further to make three specific but still basic body shapes. Which will represent the athletic, thin and obese forms. From these I could develop any amount of humanoid characters. These will give a good base of assets to begin with for further projects.

The three ideal forms are based upon the somatotypes (endomorphic, mesomorphic, and ectomorphic) a simplistic classification of body types, developed in the 1940s by American psychologist William Sheldon.

Below is an example of somatotypes from the book: Figure Drawing without a Model, Ron Tiner. David&Charles (27 Feb 1992)

Available from: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Figure-Drawing-Without-Model-Tiner/dp/0715397850/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204412976&sr=8-3

Posing the Character

Here are some images from first attempt at posing the beast within ZBrush using TransPose Master.

For the Transpose Plugin and a great demo of it in action, head over to Ryan's Blog: Sculpt Paint Create.... http://www.pixologic.com/blogs/ryan/category/transpose/

Happy Slappin'

A quick experiment at 'happy slappin', and a character strip/turnaround.

Sculpting Digital Characters - Week 06 Second colour pass

Here is the colour version (with teeth!) slightly more progressed...

The eyes are simple jellybean textured sphere's, sans iris/pupil.

Sculpting Digital Characters - Week 06

I've been slow with this recently.
I kinda hit a wall with week five. The making of UV maps and building the Minotroll's mech arm is proving to be a whole new ball game. In a nutshell I need to learn Maya. I so far have used 3ds max (I say 'used' but I mean opened, got frustrated and closed again) as an external 3D application.
All the advice I have been given and research I have done points to using Maya as THE 3D app. It is the industry standard for production and if Maya cannot do it... it is unlikely that any other app can.
So my next track of learning will be to grasp the fundamentals of Maya, and eventually get those elusive UV maps nailed down.
As far as my course goes I have sidestepped the UV process and began to colour the beast within ZBrush. Here's where I'm at so far...




















and some quick teeth I knocked up (not very detailed but... they should do the job)

Sculpting Digital Characters - Week 05: Texturing (HD detail)

Almost finished, detailing almost complete. Still teeth to add and his mech arm - which I still have a lot of learning within 3ds max to complete.

Colours next, and perhaps another attempt to make UV maps for this beastie.

Sculpting Digital Characters - Week 05 Refining the Form

Thought I would get this up to show - refining the form before adding textures. Still some modelling to do on face, fingers and lower legs, then to texture the skin and add some warts, scars etc.

Horns and eyes have been added which help the model feel more complete, teeth still to add.

Sculpting Digital Characters - Week 04: RETOP (detail)

Here you can see the new mesh, five spans per joint for smooth deformation later on when posing the character. You can also see that the Minotroll has no eyes, teeth horns etc. Which all will be added as sub-tools soon.

The detail level yet to apply is making me feel excited; Deep wrinkles, fine creases, scars and skin pores will be added to the model in the HD sculpt. Now that I'm past the re-creation of the mesh there should be a lot of fun doing this next passover. :)

Sculpting Digital Characters - Week 04: RETOPOLOGY HELL!

So I spent two weeks drawing squares on this guy, my first atempt at retopology, and I must say it took me to the edge!

After 10 days solid working at day retop at night - bashing away at trying to get all those lines to match up across the figure, I entered a twilight zone of my own. Every time I closed my eyes I could see topology mesh covering what I had just been staring at. I'd shut my eyes and the room walls and furniture would be there, all mapped up perfectly like architectural frame models, the Kitchen sink and taps... covered in lines, peoples faces....... pristine topology! Like being in the Matrix... but without the super powers - just the crushing reality of all thoses squares staring me down...aaaaaahhhhh!, It was exhausting work and my mind was just taunting me.

Here's what I ended up with:

first up the retop'ed model (with the original model just visible underneath).

The second figure is the adaptive skin from the recreated topology (the Level 1 skin, which will be used to make UV maps later)

...And third we have the new mesh with the details of form the original sculpt projected onto it this is at density Level 3. This is the model I will take forward and add the real detail too using ZBrush HD geometry tools.

The second image, below, shows a turnaround of the new topology on the model at a lower density of 2

Sculpting Digital Characters - Week 04: Retopology

Week Four: Refining your sculpture... retopology
Hands and feet explored, why we should sculpt these first
Wrinkles, subcutaneous... what's that and why should we pay attention to it
Compression and how it affects what we do
Gravity why it's important
Stencils... Converting an alpha into a stencil
Retopology. How do we create a base mesh that will work for animation and production?
What is good topology?
Projecting details
Assignment: Refine character Sculpt base you've created and retopologize

Sculpting Digital Characters - Week 04: T-Pose

I have had to repose the model so that I have plenty space to work around the model during the retop.

The repose was done using the Transpose method; masking the areas you do not wish to move then using an action line to scale, rotate or move the desired section. This required another passover to adjust the muscles in their new state, which also causes a knock on effect with all the other muscles attached to the affected area.

Sculpting Digital Characters - Week 03: Hands and Hooves

Another passover to get the form right. I reduced the mass of the body and bulked up the legs to give correct the anatomy, The last post shows how the upper form was growing too big as I worked on it.

Next I need to 'retopologize' the model. I'll talk about this in the next post.

Sculpting Digital Characters - Week 03 Foundation Turnaround

Second sculpting pass over figure...

Sculpting Digital Characters - Week 03: Foundation

Week Three: The sculpt, knowledge is power.

Resources, seeing is believing. So why don't we have more of it?
Foundation is king!
Sculpting form vs. details
Dynamic Levels of Resolution
Layers and morphs, why are they your best friends
Polygroups, Uv regions - how can these help me?
Broken models, why they happen and how to fix them
Masks how they work and why you'll use them often
Using the canvas as a sculpting medium.
Assignment: Sculpt character form based on design you've created.

Here is the first pass over of sculpting the form of my character. Doing this I learned that I should have modelled the forearms with the palms forward. The way I modelled it here was difficult as the rotation of the wrists causes the muscle flow harder to follow. The fingers and legs are still to be finished.

Sculpting Digital Characters - Week 02: basemesh

Week Two Objectives:
Creating a base mesh for our character using Zspheres
ZSpheres as a mesh generator not as a sculpting tool
ZSpheres for topology: head, hands
Attractor ZSpheres & Unified Skin
Modeling with Image Planes
Assignment: Design and create base mesh for your character using Zspheres.

...And Here is the mesh, generated by making an Adaptive Skin from the ZSphere armature.
ZSpheres are essentially Mesh Generators which are used to create the base shape for whatever you wish to build. The below mesh was generated the pulled around using the move tool to fit closer to the shape of the orthographic drawings (front and side views attached to the X plane or image planes)

Sculpting Digital Characters - Week 02: ZSpheres

Here is the ZSphere armature which I built within the Image Planes, set up from last weeks orthographic drawings .

Sculpting Digital Characters - Week 01: Preperation

I have begun the eight week long course on Sculpting Digital Characters. The course is run through the CGSociety and the teacher is Cesar Dacol Junior, a professional in the field of digital sculpting, recently working on the visceral carnage of 300.

"Perfection is a by product of observation!"

http://workshops.cgsociety.org/courses/000055/

Week one was getting the foundations in place - First I had to consider and write up where I was in life and what I wanted from the course.

Secondly I had to draw front and side orthographics and flesh out the backgroung/history of my character. I have chosen to do a Minotaur type character again, starting from scratch and taking more considerations into the character, and fleshing out some background information to back up the design process (see below what I wrote). Also I made a dozen Alpha Brushes, textures for the final model such as skin texture; pores, wrinkles, warts and scars etc.



Bael, an Elder Bull Ogre, (Minotroll.) Eldest and second last of bloodline.

2024, spring, first quarter full moon, early morning...

Bael sighed and removed his glasses the fire light danced in his watery eyes, heavily burdened by what they have seen. He closed his tattered diary within his giant mecha hand and wearily stood up, straightening slowly exhuming another sigh which exploded into a cough, dry empty and ancient, like gravel pouring through parchment.
‘sh-shit’ He spat, steadying himself.
His chest heaved and his rheumatic hand shook never worse than when the sharp cold of spring morning slowed his bones. The arthritis was a result of six years of heavy labour in the scorching desert planes, as part of the Yeung Railtech mobile site. The Slaves of Hydra. ‘Driving progress across continents.’ But his sorrow today was not memories of past terror, but a bittersweet tension; expected at mid day his granddaughter Leeota, the only of his kin shall arrive. Seven years since he seen her last the summer before the accident. Before she leaves Bael must tell her his secrets. A burden perhaps better to take to the grave, but the Truth must heard.
Bael shuffled across his dusty apartment, a basic dwelling which belongs to a cluster hamlet, in the Black Feather Rock. Too many years he wished to live in the northern Isles, in the fresh green forest of Nuropia or the sub tropics of Yalliv, where it is said the Silvertail River empties crystal clear water, so pure it is said, that drinkers are cured of any illness, bathers re-grow limbs and the indigenous folk of its shores live forever.What good of that he thought, its waters would surely dissolve this ill fated, fragile husk and the blood on these hands would taint the seas for seventy moons....


[Bael as a youth, grew in the foothills of Akkari The Strongest of seven Sons of the Bakshi Clan, travelling with the Talon Academy, trained in combat and dropped into Twelve years of slaughter; a battle for the planet itself.Education.Not as youth, but self learned in later years
Significant events: Warrior in War against the Red Talon Federation. 12 years.Near fatal wounding – lost right arm and eye.Hard Labour camp. after 7 years granted Freedom
Now lives in reclusive mountain hamlet hut, bad plumbing and satellite radio, bana reed and cured timber furniture no paint on walls, unlike most hamlets this one is not painted externally but has chosen to shrink away from view.
He no longer travels far but gazes the sky with his LGX telescope. Looking out into the near cosmos and charting planets and comets, trajectories and timelines. Scribbled runes and diagrams poured into his oversize hard bound Journal, stained and bleached from years of use in the arid hills.
Dislikes: dust, sand, snakes and the twin Suns, VTOL aircraft and The Empire
Likes: telescopes, the black narcissus flower and it's psychoactive petals. Alchemy and Poetry, dreams of utopia and death]


The winter was harsh this year and many fevers were fought, deaths hand refused again and again... determination to complete his tale carried him through it all. Now the pages were final, on the eve of his telling his body feeling like it has already begun to shut down. He will never see the summer, and the storm he was about to unleash. The hand, designed for demolition and destruction... and Death. A construction limb, grafted on after Bael suffered an almost fatel mortar attack which resulted in the loss of his right arm and the sight in his right eye. Bael suffers Rheumatic arthritis and the weight of his mecha arm has become a burden...


So here are my Orthographic drawings for the creature (Minotroll) that I will be building over the next few weeks... the mecha arm will be added in later with clothing and accessories. The drawing represents the naked version of the creature, so symmetrical anatomy can be worked unhindered by garments and such.

Sculpting Digital Characters with Cesar Dacol Jr

So I signed up to this online course: ZBrush - Sculpting Digital Characters with Cesar Dacol Jr, which starts in November 2007. For more information, see: http://workshops.cgsociety.org/courses/000055/. This should be a great help in getting to grips with the nuances of digital character creation. I will post my results here in time.

I have not yet returned to the minotaur to retopologize it, I knew it would be a thankless and slow operation and I have shyed from it. When learning things the hard way (blindly) it takes time to learn each step, much research is needed and many of the terms mentioned at first seem alien and require further investigation. Since installing ZBrush a few weeks ago, my progress has kept me interested and I find myself dwelling on this digital approach constantly. In the studio working with traditional materials, I begin dwelling on the pro's and cons of the two sculpting processes and the possibilities of bringing these together to form a new workflow.

I have also played with MudBox, which seems a solid and intuitive program, my first impressions was that the sculpting material 'felt' more like a clay, wetter and easy to texture. Some time will be spent using MudBox in the future when I get these initial projects behind me.

I'll post some more pictures soon, and begin to gather my thoughts on the differences between the two sculpting medium.

Recreating Topology in ZBrush

Using ZSpheres, you can create new topology in ZBrush as well as shrink wrap that topology to your existing model.

There are several reasons you may want to adjust your model's topology: To Remove Polygon Stretching and adjust the edge flow of your model. And/or to Create an animation ready low resolution base mesh.

Although I do not intend any of these early models for any use beyond my own learning, I understand that becoming aware of possible difficulties will be beneficial down the line.

It was becoming aware of topology that made me stop working upon the octopus before it’s completion. I may recreate the octopus from scratch at some point because it had a great form to work with... and I really like octopus.

The ZBrush Manual is found here: http://www.zbrush.info/docs/index.php/Main_Page

Some good introductory tutorials:

http://www.zbrush.info/docs/index.php/Tutorial:_Warrior_Image

http://www.zbrush.info/docs/index.php/Tutorial:_Sculpting_A_Skull

Document size: 3840 x 2880
HD Geometry divided twice giving: 52.69 million points (3.293 million active)

MINOTAUR 3

Here is the first passover with the sculpting brushes in ZBrush. I spent maybe 3 or 4 hours on this over two days before my wacom tablet drivers decided to die... so I'm posting this before I update and reboot...


3.293 million active points.

Once all the symetrical sculpting is complete I plan to repose the creature, give it some asymmetric quality and perhaps accesories.
The components such as eyes, teeth, garments, belts/buckles and armour will all be modelled seperately and added as subtools.