1 ZBrush Tutorial Making of Manolia 1/2 Mon Sep 27, 2010 8:11 am
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by Stuzzi, France Web: www.stuzzi.free.fr
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Introduction
I do appreciate the special mood of the studio’s photography’s. I thought it could be interesting to reproduce this feeling in CG. Even if I haven’t practice this exercise before, I believe it has already been done by talented artists. Rather than taking inspiration from them I prefer to take advice of the photographers about how to set up the composition.
Modeling and UV
I started from an existing low poly mesh. The morphology of this base has already some interesting features. This starting point could save me a lot of time later once I’ll need to block a nice silhouette. Because I don’t have much time to finalize this illustration, anything that can speed up the process is welcome.
The Essential is to keep the topology as even as possible. We can have some exceptions though. As far as I’m concerned some edges could be pinched at this production step. It helps me as references plus adds some more irregularities at some strategic localization. This allows me not to subdivide too much once sculpting with Zbrush or Mudbox. I always keep in mind to optimize stuffs to make the rest of the process easier by limiting the resources. I don’t believe whether it is the number of polygon which makes the model; it is more about exact features and of volume.
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I already know the overall look of the final illustration. As I know which parts are visible at the end, for evident reasons of optimization I remove the backfaces -almost the half of the head. I’ll have some more definition with UV’s, Render process and speed up my ZBrush’s performance.
In this case, the level of detail of the displacement shouldn’t be too high. There is a fundamental difference between high and low frequency. The data of these levels have to be stored into a specific map for an optimal use. Once subdivided, I consider that in most cases the female face shouldn’t exceed 300K polygons.
I use the transpose tool to adjust the neck rotation. Brushes like inflat and move, allow me to block quickly tendons and muscles. Some news features of Zbrush can be useful to modify the topology if the edge flow is not matching with the fine details. Sometimes the retopology tool of Zbrush appears not intuitive enough; I believe some other alternatives ways exist to recover details from an arbitrary mesh. I like to combine different approaches and software’s.
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I try to add details with subtlety. Adding too much detail without a proper adjustment could alter the realism of the model. Some artists prefer to exaggerate the details in order to make them obvious but I think that it’s better to leave it as it should be in the real life. We just need to feel that something happen with the surface. I paid attention to give a feeling of weight and materials at this step. The bones and cartilage tend to be solid whereas the fleshy parts have rather a perturbed surface.
Here is the level of displacement. I’m satisfied with its definition and its visual effects latex mask look.
At this point the morphology of the character is distinct. The curvature of the nose and the eyes sign a Eurasian type. Hopefully the pulpy mouth will add some more glamour. The facial expression is strengthening with the subtle opening mouth. The neck will take a large part of the picture; the finest details appearing under the skin will add some more fragility to the character. A sphere is used as a reference in order to make sure that the shape of the eyelids is consistent. It can be benefit to break rules and stereotypes. I mean that we see often recurrent morphologies in computer graphics. I take time to refine the imperfection and turn it as a characteristic. Anything that is not common may accentuate the nature of the character no matter if the nose is too short or the eyes not as big as it should be.
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The last level of subdivision is not that heavy (170K polys). As long as we are making a still image, in order to make my life easier I decided to export this level. The lowest level is exported as well for the UV unfold task. I take in consideration the size of UV shell depending of their exposition from the camera and details. Even if some painter 3d give the opportunity to work out the seams, I prefer to avoid them as much as possible or hide the at least. It’s very meticulous to refine the pores and other finest details with UV border edges.
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As I’m using the highest level of subdivision for my render, I have to input the new UV contains in the lowest mesh into the high-res one. To do this, I re-import the base mesh with the unfold UV within my ZBrush tool. I make sure that « Suv » option is selected while creating the subdivisions. Now, I have my higher resolution with the proper UV’s. Although I try to keep the UV layout clean, it does not really matter as long as I plan to use camera projections. However I take in consideration the scale ratios of each UV shell. In certain cases it could be annoying to unfold UV with automatic process. As far as I’m concerned, I prefer to have a good visualization when grooming the texture with Photoshop.
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The parametric properties of the nurbs are pretty useful to obtain accuracy with elements such as the eyelashes. The geometry of the eyelash is an extruded polygon shape along a path which is a nurbs curve. However it could be boring to tweak these elements one by one. For this reason I recommend to write a script to have much more flexibility with it. I can go back at this step at any moment of the production. I noticed that small groups of eyelashes tend to be clamped together at their tips. I generate them keeping in mind the idea to path of each item has to be perturbed to give a more natural look. Tweaking each nurbs CV’s for this case is just fine. Anything that could break the perfect world of 3d is a good approach.
The ribbon around the head uses almost the same method. The extruded shape has been exported to Zbrush. The brush snakehook allow me to add some fraying at some specifics areas especially where the degrees of curvature weaken the ribbon. Generally, details are not always evident at the first sight. I find more interesting to play with several different degrees of subtleties that can be catch if we really pay attention. The brush flattern and magnify help me to create imperfection to the surface.
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Mapping and Hair - It is important to start the texture task with a good base of reference. I recommend the website www.3d.sk which provides some good texture resolution and a large data base. I prefer to pick up the references that have a constant light so less effort to remove shadows and hard light when refining the texture with your favorite 2d painter such as Photoshop. I know that my illustration at the final stage will be black and white; it will make the job easier for the color map and shaders.
It seems that I’m able to recover much more details with the tanned skins and a little wet. So I tend to focus with this kind of reference for our case.
There is several different ways to project a texture on a surface. The ZBrush way of doing it is quite intuitive due to the Zproject brush which allows us to paint on the mesh from a canvas. This process is also possible to do with miscellaneous 3d packages. There is not only one way to achieve a result, I believe that everyone has to choose the solution that fit his philosophy and production’s constraints.
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Introduction
I do appreciate the special mood of the studio’s photography’s. I thought it could be interesting to reproduce this feeling in CG. Even if I haven’t practice this exercise before, I believe it has already been done by talented artists. Rather than taking inspiration from them I prefer to take advice of the photographers about how to set up the composition.
Modeling and UV
I started from an existing low poly mesh. The morphology of this base has already some interesting features. This starting point could save me a lot of time later once I’ll need to block a nice silhouette. Because I don’t have much time to finalize this illustration, anything that can speed up the process is welcome.
The Essential is to keep the topology as even as possible. We can have some exceptions though. As far as I’m concerned some edges could be pinched at this production step. It helps me as references plus adds some more irregularities at some strategic localization. This allows me not to subdivide too much once sculpting with Zbrush or Mudbox. I always keep in mind to optimize stuffs to make the rest of the process easier by limiting the resources. I don’t believe whether it is the number of polygon which makes the model; it is more about exact features and of volume.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
I already know the overall look of the final illustration. As I know which parts are visible at the end, for evident reasons of optimization I remove the backfaces -almost the half of the head. I’ll have some more definition with UV’s, Render process and speed up my ZBrush’s performance.
In this case, the level of detail of the displacement shouldn’t be too high. There is a fundamental difference between high and low frequency. The data of these levels have to be stored into a specific map for an optimal use. Once subdivided, I consider that in most cases the female face shouldn’t exceed 300K polygons.
I use the transpose tool to adjust the neck rotation. Brushes like inflat and move, allow me to block quickly tendons and muscles. Some news features of Zbrush can be useful to modify the topology if the edge flow is not matching with the fine details. Sometimes the retopology tool of Zbrush appears not intuitive enough; I believe some other alternatives ways exist to recover details from an arbitrary mesh. I like to combine different approaches and software’s.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
I try to add details with subtlety. Adding too much detail without a proper adjustment could alter the realism of the model. Some artists prefer to exaggerate the details in order to make them obvious but I think that it’s better to leave it as it should be in the real life. We just need to feel that something happen with the surface. I paid attention to give a feeling of weight and materials at this step. The bones and cartilage tend to be solid whereas the fleshy parts have rather a perturbed surface.
Here is the level of displacement. I’m satisfied with its definition and its visual effects latex mask look.
google_protectAndRun("render_ads.js::google_render_ad", google_handleError, google_render_ad); |
At this point the morphology of the character is distinct. The curvature of the nose and the eyes sign a Eurasian type. Hopefully the pulpy mouth will add some more glamour. The facial expression is strengthening with the subtle opening mouth. The neck will take a large part of the picture; the finest details appearing under the skin will add some more fragility to the character. A sphere is used as a reference in order to make sure that the shape of the eyelids is consistent. It can be benefit to break rules and stereotypes. I mean that we see often recurrent morphologies in computer graphics. I take time to refine the imperfection and turn it as a characteristic. Anything that is not common may accentuate the nature of the character no matter if the nose is too short or the eyes not as big as it should be.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
The last level of subdivision is not that heavy (170K polys). As long as we are making a still image, in order to make my life easier I decided to export this level. The lowest level is exported as well for the UV unfold task. I take in consideration the size of UV shell depending of their exposition from the camera and details. Even if some painter 3d give the opportunity to work out the seams, I prefer to avoid them as much as possible or hide the at least. It’s very meticulous to refine the pores and other finest details with UV border edges.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
As I’m using the highest level of subdivision for my render, I have to input the new UV contains in the lowest mesh into the high-res one. To do this, I re-import the base mesh with the unfold UV within my ZBrush tool. I make sure that « Suv » option is selected while creating the subdivisions. Now, I have my higher resolution with the proper UV’s. Although I try to keep the UV layout clean, it does not really matter as long as I plan to use camera projections. However I take in consideration the scale ratios of each UV shell. In certain cases it could be annoying to unfold UV with automatic process. As far as I’m concerned, I prefer to have a good visualization when grooming the texture with Photoshop.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
The parametric properties of the nurbs are pretty useful to obtain accuracy with elements such as the eyelashes. The geometry of the eyelash is an extruded polygon shape along a path which is a nurbs curve. However it could be boring to tweak these elements one by one. For this reason I recommend to write a script to have much more flexibility with it. I can go back at this step at any moment of the production. I noticed that small groups of eyelashes tend to be clamped together at their tips. I generate them keeping in mind the idea to path of each item has to be perturbed to give a more natural look. Tweaking each nurbs CV’s for this case is just fine. Anything that could break the perfect world of 3d is a good approach.
The ribbon around the head uses almost the same method. The extruded shape has been exported to Zbrush. The brush snakehook allow me to add some fraying at some specifics areas especially where the degrees of curvature weaken the ribbon. Generally, details are not always evident at the first sight. I find more interesting to play with several different degrees of subtleties that can be catch if we really pay attention. The brush flattern and magnify help me to create imperfection to the surface.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Mapping and Hair - It is important to start the texture task with a good base of reference. I recommend the website www.3d.sk which provides some good texture resolution and a large data base. I prefer to pick up the references that have a constant light so less effort to remove shadows and hard light when refining the texture with your favorite 2d painter such as Photoshop. I know that my illustration at the final stage will be black and white; it will make the job easier for the color map and shaders.
It seems that I’m able to recover much more details with the tanned skins and a little wet. So I tend to focus with this kind of reference for our case.
google_protectAndRun("render_ads.js::google_render_ad", google_handleError, google_render_ad); |
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