Gus's Guitar (brief tutorial added 1/10/02)

[brn]

Way back when I posted some work I had been doing on a model of my friend Gus's guitar. Well, I thought it was a good time for an update.

http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1010342405wzy.jpg

I haven't done much with materials, lighting or composition yet, but the model is pretty much finished and I'm ready to go do something else for awhile. Your comments are appreciated.

[banez]

cool i like it.
you might think about the black going around it i think it should show a little more of the wood so i would go over the wood with black with intenistiy low and RBG to give more of a FADE look..
but besides that it looks real good :tu:

[aurick]

I'm certainly impressed! I like the colors, the modeling, etc. The materials that you used for around the opening and along the frets are awesome. Very believable mother-of-pearl. Thanks for the update -- it's superb work!

[Stonecutter]

Wondefull update...I'll be watching for more!
:tu: :tu: :tu: :cool:

[drjjwow]

thanks for the update .. looking good.

[Kathy]

VERY nice.

My only thought (as I look at my husband's ovation) is the size of the neck and the size of the body. I think the body of the guitar is a bit small.

But you sure have the classical denotation of Ovation acoustic guitars dead on.

:tu: :tu: :tu:

[DeeVee]

You have acomplished your mission admirably. Very well done.

[robotalk]

Very Real !! Excellent Work !! :tu:

[Smiles]

Brn, its coming out great! My husband < who was peeking over my shoulder lol> also thinks its comeing out great, but sounds a little hollow ;)

[Stargo]

Very nice :tu: :tu:
Great modeling,texturing and lightning :tu: :tu:

stargo

[PinheadPaul]

Outstanding work...one of the first images I saw here was an earlier version of this.
Fantastic!

Paul

[juandel]

what a GREAT instrument, brn! bravissimo and kudos re: patience and going for perfection... what an outstanding work it is already!!! :tu: :tu: :tu: ....

- juandel

[Muvlo]

A well done image. a fine example of photorealistic modeling and textures. :tu: :tu:

[brn]

Thank you for all your comments. Kathy - I have to agree with you about the proportions. I just sort of eyeballed it and it does seem that the body is a little small. My plan is to ZBrush a caricature of Gus next and then come up with the final composition with Gus and the guitar. I'll keep posting my progress.

[jibberish]

brn, this is totally amazing. i should have commented on it sooner...don't know why i didn't. could you make a tutorial or script on how you made the guitar? i want some electric guitars in a picture i'm going to make but i have no idea where to start. i'd really appreciate it if you could tell me how you did it.

josh

[brn]

jibberish - I will try my best to explain how the guitar was done. Unfortunately, because I am only able to Zbrush an hour or two at a time, there were a lot of starts and stops (and loads of do-overs!) on this project and I don't have any scripts. OK, here goes:

The guitar is made up of the following parts:

Guitar body - created from a Sphere3D. I put the vertices of the sphere at the front and back so that the sides could be modeled smoothly. I used the
flatten deformation in the Z direction to flatten the front face. Once I got the shape the way I wanted it, I selected the front face and used HidePts to make the body hollow.

Guitar face - created from a Circle3D. I created the outline shape with the center part of the circle selected. The outer part of the selection was distorted as I created the outline but the inner part of the selection remained circular. When I was done with the outline I cleared the selection and then re-selected the circular, center portion. Then I used HidePts to create the sound hole.

Fretboard - created from a Cube3D. I modeled the basic shape and then subdivided along its length until the divisions were small enough to make the raised frets. I selected where I wanted the frets to go and then used the inflate deformation to raise them up.

Bridge - created from a Cube3D. I put the vertices of the cube at the top and bottom and then subdivided the living daylights out of the front face. From photos of the actual guitar, I created an alpha brush for the sculpted leaves. I used this alpha and the inflate deformation again to get the raised effect.

Headstock - created from a Cube3D. The vertices are at the front and back and the sides are highly subdivided to get a smooth shape.

Neck - created from a Cylinder3D. The vertices are at the top and bottom and I used the flatten deformation to make the front surface.

Keys - created from a Cylinder3D.

Strings - created from a Cylinder 3D. I set the number of divisions along the length very low to keep them simple.


ASSEMBLY: I initially created the guitar using multimarkers so that I could save it as a polymesh tool. As I struggled with trying to texture it, I realized that the only way to get it the way I wanted it was to leave the parts separate and texture them individually. So, after everything was textured, I reassembled the guitar from its parts.

TEXTURING: I'm pretty pleased with the way this came out, thanks to the Texture Master script. I extracted most of the parts of the textures from photos. For the guitar face, I used the Simple brush with the DragRect stroke and a photo sample to create the wood grain. I used the Highlighter brush (with the Alt key) to darken the edges. I created a stencil from the basic outline of the guitar face so that I could add the Mother-of-Pearl edge. I created the Mother-of-Pearl texture using the texture creation utility that comes with CorelDraw. I used this same texture for the inlay on the fretboard. The inlay around the sound hole is taken directly from a photo and applied with the Simple brush and the DragRect stroke. The Ovation logo was added by painting inside a stencil made from a photo.

THINGS I DIDN'T DO: I meant to spend more time with materials and lighting, but I just didn't get it done. The wood could certainly use some nice specular reflections to show that it is varnished. I had hoped to display guitar and stand on a wooden stage with some nice shadow effects, but I didn't do that either. Ultimately I chose not to go any further because I intend for the final composition to include the guitarist as well as the guitar.

I hope that this makes sense and is useful. I have learned so much by reading the posts in this forum that I'd like to contribute in return. If anyone needs more info I will gladly provide what I can. Also, if there's any interest I can upload the individual tools.

[Stonecutter]

Thanks for a very interesting and informative walkthrough, brn...
I think you did a very nice job, and I hope you intend to post your finished image here, because the concept sounds great!
:tu: :tu: :tu: :cool: