ZBrushCentral

Commander--Process Thread

Starting a new project for something interesting to texture; instead of a material test ball I’mma make a character, because why not! I’m recording the process as I go, so it should be pretty easy to translate into a video series when it’s all wrapped up.

001_Blockout.jpg

Tried something different this time to block in the body; I started with the Ryan Kingslein skeleton found in the tool tab in the Lightbox (hit the “comma” key, click tool); to isolate the skeleton, select the skeleton subtool, then go to subtool > delete other.

To pose the skeleton, I turned x symmetry on (hit “x” or go into the transform menu and turn it on), then used lasso visibility to select most of the arm (ctl+shift+lasso visibility), then ctl+shift+a to grow visibility to the entire arm, then hit ctl+w to polygroup that arm in case I needed it as selection later.

While it was visible, I ctl+clicked the document to mask visible, ctl+shift+clicked the document to bring everything back, then ctl-clicked the document again to invert my mask. Then I used transpose to pose the arms how I wanted; did the same process for the legs as well.

To get some meat on them skeleton bones, I duplicated the skeleton, went to tool > deformations > inflate, then did a tool > dynamesh so I could start blocking it in. It’s nice to have the skeleton in there to provide quick landmarks and proportion; hit the transparent button while you work occasionally to see where things are at.

002_Blockout.jpg

Not exactly sure what I want to make, but quickly adding stuff in to feel out the masses and see if there’s anything that catches my fancy. You’ll notice I’m skipping the hands for now-- I like to dynamesh in the body at a certain low resolution, and hands just get in the way at this point.

Actually I’m just lazy :smiley:

003_Blockout.jpg

Need a big metalic hard edge thing in there to texture later, so why not his arm! This with his robot jaw is giving him a very trapjaw look, so I’ll roll with that. You’ll notice he has a hand now! I went to Brush > IMM BParts and just inserted his hands, then did a subtool > split > split unmasked to put them in their own subtool. If I dynamesh it with the body at this resolution, the fingers will web; it’s best to keep them separate and sculpt them as-is, then if you need to combine them, wait until the body is at a higher resolution and dynamesh them then (or, keep them separate the whole time, then zremesh > project all later to combine them).

Changed the finger pose a bit using mask and transpose (mask lasso works great, don’t need a lot of smoothing, but if you want you can hold down ctl while you drag a transpose line along a finger to follow the mesh topology with a mask)

004_Blockout.jpg

While I block pieces in, once they get to a point where I want to start refining them separately, I’ll mask an area, do a subtool > split unmasked points, then dynamesh it and start refining it separately.

I’ll post more as more stuff gets done! Thanks for stopping by!

thanks for sharing your procces I learn alot from your tutorials on youtube and Gumroad!

Glad the vids are helping! I also want to mention this will be an asset used for substancedays , something with a lot of different stuff on him to test materials and techniques on!

005_Blockout.jpg

With the gun arm still attached, I’m making modifications to get it to work with his overall body; his body pose is still a bit wonky, that’ll need to be fixed; I’ll discuss this later on down the page~

006_Organic_Refine.jpg

Now that I’ve got his body blocked in, I’ve dynameshed his blocked out hand back on, and continued to raise the dynamesh resolution as I’ve begun detailing. Since I don’t see myself making any major changes, I’ll probably end up duplicating > zremeshing > projecting all to get my details back, then sculpting on that mesh to do his final detail pass.

007_Organic_Refine.jpg

Back with his jaw plate back on, he was looking a little scary. Should be fun to texture in Substance Painter later on though!

008_SketchRefine001.jpg

At this point I’ve got everything blocked out, have separated out some pieces to refine, and am liking the overall shape. Also added some braids from the zbrush IMM repository page, and made them long because HE’S NEVER LOST A FIGHT #cyborgDothraki

009_WeaponRefine001.jpg

Since the overall weapon is working with his body, I’ve split the weapon into its own file to refine, putting it right in the center of the world, with several pieces mirrored down the x-axis to save me some time as I refine–

Attachments

005_Blockout.jpg

006_Organic_Refine.jpg

007_Organic_Refine.jpg

008_SketchRefine001.jpg

009_WeaponRefine001.jpg

this ones gonna be epicalistic … legendarylistic …awesomastic as i always say keep em comin:+1:

truthhunterthis ones gonna be epicalistic … legendarylistic …awesomastic as i always say keep em comin:+1:

hahah, hope you’re right, still plugging along!

010_SketchRefine002.jpg

rebuilding some of the forms with zsphere topology / topology brush / zmodeler / combination of all of the above, getting some nice crispy shapes to play with later

011_AmmoMagPouch.jpg

made a mag pouch for what I’m assuming he’s going to use to plop in his gun-arm for now; this one ended up being more box modeling than I expected; 90% of the shape was simple polymodeling, then about 10% sculpting a bit on each piece to “soften” it up. I’m going to add the stitches in the texturing phase to be a little less destructive, but adding those with an insert curve brush is easy enough if you want to do it at this stage~

012_BootRefine001.jpg

took the rough sculpt of the boot and broke out the major parts to get them nice and clean; just like the ammo pouch, 90% simple polymodeling to get most of it done. The laces were done using zsphere’s converted to polys using the adaptive skin function (easy to place the zsphere chain exactly where I need to, and modify the polygons later if needed, than trying to thread a curve); pretty sure I got this idea from Paul Gaboury’s book:

013_BootRefine002.jpg

after the 90% poly blockout, a little bit of sculpting to “soften” it up and I’m good to go. Again, I’ll do the detail work when I get to the texturing, but you could go ahead and do that here as well

Attachments

010_SketchRefine002.jpg

011_AmmoMagPouch.jpg

012_BootRefine001.jpg

013_BootRefine002.jpg

It’s looking awesome! Thanks for detailed breakdowns! Top Row!

lkruelIt’s looking awesome! Thanks for detailed breakdowns! Top Row!

Haha thanks Luiz! It’s getting there, I don’t think he’s pretty enough just yet…

014_WeaponRefine002.jpg

rebuilt dome of the main forms using zsphere retopology / zmodeler just like on his body, still trying to figure out how I want this thing to come together and function. Most of my time spent on this thing is tumbling around wondering how it’s going to work lol

015_BodyRefine001.jpg

merged it down, decimated the weapon, and threw it back into his body file to see if that gave me any ideas, and to make sure that everything “important” on the weapon is reachable by his human hand

016_WeaponRefine003.jpg

I was wishing I had an insert mesh library of weapons and machine parts, and I remembered that I modeled a turret weapon / heavy machinery for the ZBrush beta waaaaay back when: http://pixologic.com/zbrush/features/ZBrush4R7/gallery/

017_WeaponRefine004.jpg

Boom! much faster. I wanted him to be able to fire behind is spring loaded hammer, so he could cut a line through an object, then punch it apart (and use the hammer as a shield while firing if he wanted). Everything’s easier when you have a parts library!

Attachments

014_WeaponRefine002.jpg

015_BodyRefine001.jpg

016_WeaponRefine003.jpg

017_WeaponRefine004.jpg

018_BodyRefine002.jpg

Put the ammo box from the original file on his back like a backpack, but it didn’t really work; looking at a barrel ammo feeder to help flesh him out. The bullet feed is a custom insert mesh brush, but ZBrush has one under the Brush > IMM Army Curve as well–

Attachments

018_BodyRefine002.jpg

I hope this plugin helps to add more details https://youtu.be/bmaKfFPwGMM

catblues1987Look soooo goood
I hope this plugin helps to add more details https://youtu.be/bmaKfFPwGMM

I saw that, SUPER useful, Drust is always pushing workflow and functionality, I love it!! Oddly enough…and this is going to sound weird because I usually love detailing everything in ZBrush to the X-TREME, but I’m going to try and just use ZBrush for the silhouette changing forms mostly, and leave the detail work for the texturing in Substance Painter, see how well a non-destructive workflow ends up. Fingers crossed, worst case scenario I can always hop back in ZBrush and go nuts!!

020_BodyRefine003.jpg

Swapped his box ammo feed out for a barrel ammo feed; the scale might be a bit “off” for this type of ammo feed usually mounted on ships used to destroy incoming cruise missiles, it’s a bit “stumpier” than it should be, and is missing a few major components…but hey, artistic license and all that. Looks cooler than a box on his back anyway.

021_WeaponRefine005.jpg

Weapon blocked out! not tons of detail yet, and even though I’m going to do most of my greeble detail in the texture, it’ll be a little more involved than this blockout, but at least the major pieces are there

022_BodyRefine004.jpg

Took off his flame-retardant jacket so you can see what’s holding his backpack on. There’s also no baggie to catch the shells pouring out of this thing, so they’re going to be bouncing off the ground and ending up smoldering in his back pockets if he’s not careful

023_BodyRefine005.jpg

Back view with the tactical cloak of mystery off, you can see how the barrel attaches. Also ended up removing his hair for the most part, it may make a re-appearance after www.substancedays.com

024_BodyRefine006.jpg

And a front view. Not sure what the grab handles are for. I guess he can flip the latch holding his straps on and pull that off when he’s done for the day, hang it all up in his closet after a hard days work shooting holes in things I suppose

Attachments

020_BodyRefine003.jpg

021_WeaponRefine005.jpg

022_BodyRefine004.jpg

023_BodyRefine005.jpg

024_BodyRefine006.jpg

That is totally superb and jaw-dropping character. I also should admit that by design it reminds me Unreal Tournament (the 2007 one)… maybe because the weapon slightly resembles Impact Hammer from it. Anyways, I’m eager to see the final textured version.
BTW can you say how long does it take to sculpt all this stuff? Approximately of course. It is always interesting to know how much time professionals spend doing such a complex characters so beginners like me would know what to aim for.
PS Thanks for posting your thoughts about creation process and design solutions.

haha a healthy dose of impact hammer and trap jaw for sure, I don’t think people will accuse me of being overly-original on this one.

He’ssssss probably going on 55-60 hours for the high res, complete, from 3D concept sketch to what you see here (?); I’ve got the entire process recorded, but don’t have it all pulled in to see exactly how many hours, but somewhere around there I believe.

025_WeaponRefine006.jpg

Weapon pretty much done; all the simple stuff I kept as zmodeler subd preview meshes (creased what needed to be creased on a low poly mesh, and hit “d” to activate geometry > dynamic subdivisions and shift-d to toggle that off when needed); the complex stuff I ended up subdividing, dynameshing together, doing any detail work (slicing, dynamesh with group to make panels, alpha stamping, clipping, that sort of thing), then zplugin > decimation master to knock the subtool down to something reasonable. If for any reason I needed to go back in and detail it later, all I would have to do is re-dynamesh it with the settings it already has (decimation master won’t kill your dynamesh settings, you just have to ctl-drag in the document to re-dynamesh at any time and start working)

Some kind-of dated movies on detailing and slicing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_amkUAopow&list=PLkzopwqcFevZ2zkL0O7svqvUr8nNKY0Q4

026_BodyRefine007.jpg

The final weapon ended up being pretty lightweight at the end of the day, about 40mb; I still keep a version mirrored down the x for retopology and baking reasons, but I went ahead and merged visible > appended the final gun into my body file so I could work on integrating the two files together properly. Because I was a bit pressed for time, it ended up being pretty light work–just a few cables and bolts to attach.

027_BodyRefine008.jpg

028_Boots.jpg

Skull boots! The pouch and boot creation ended up being (surprisingly?) more box-model-y than I would have thought-- it’s 99% low poly modeling, creasing and subdividing, then at the VERY end, doing some quick wrinkle work. I’m going to do a more thorough breakdown of the boots creation in a bit, but for the soles, here’s a good trick:

  1. I used zsphere topology to get the bottom of the foot shape,
  2. gave that topology some thickness (either under the skin thickness option under zsphere topology, or just append the adaptive skin and zmodel or extract out a skin thickness)
  3. then I used the topology brush to make all of the little “cubes” very quickly
  4. Separated them out into their own subtool, moved them around to get them to sit as nice and “flush” as possible
  5. creased and subdivided the sole and the cubes, dynameshed them together, did a little hpolish / smooth cleanup where needed
  6. zplugin > decimation master to get it down to a reasonable size
  7. then zremeshed the entire sole.

Now I have a nice, tight, low res sole that I can subdivide once for my high res. No masking, no transposing, no inflating. Just model, dynamesh, zremesh!

Attachments

025_WeaponRefine006.jpg

026_BodyRefine007.jpg

027_BodyRefine008.jpg

028_Boots.jpg

029_Glock_ammo.jpg

Lower body accessories have all the functionality I’ll need; I guess compared to his arm cannon he can use the glock that I stole from my GDC2015Female to pick his teeth or something. I was notified on my Artstation page that you could, indeed, load that pistol one handed if you were so inclined…should make for a nice awkward animation!

030_Backpack.jpg

Backpack bits all in there, strapped in and a few swivels to allow him to shift weight if he needs to. Forgot to mention, his pants and tactical “cloak” were done in marvelous designer

031_Head.jpg

Cloak off so you can see his backpack attachments

032_ArmAttachment.jpg

Where his robot arm plugs in!

Attachments

029_Glock_ammo.jpg

030_Backpack.jpg

031_Head.jpg

032_ArmAttachment.jpg

033_armattachementBack.jpg

All his harness and attachments off so you can see his metal attachment knob

034_Detail_face.jpg

Slight closeup on his face; I used Tony Reynold’s skin alpha brushes for the micro detail; took about 10 minutes of detail work once the secondary forms were in place

arealight_001.jpg

Keyshot render; I used area light geo instead of IBL this go-around; time lapse video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HplOkEF-EfU

arealight_002.jpg

Attachments

033_armattachementBack.jpg

arealight_001.jpg

034_Detail_face.jpg

arealight_002.jpg

alright, heading to substancedays, when I get back I’ll have some process breakdowns. In the meantime, here’s some obligatory clay renders!

clay001.jpg

clay002.jpg

clay003.jpg

clay004.jpg

Attachments

clay001.jpg

clay002.jpg

clay003.jpg

clay004.jpg

clay005.jpg
clay006.jpg

clay007.jpg

ColorFrontBack.jpg

Attachments

clay005.jpg

clay006.jpg

clay007.jpg

ColorFrontBack.jpg

great, nice detail. hard surface, mask, cloth and body.

Great job as usual!!