Step by Step, (more or less) Max and ZBrush

[ReplicA]

Hi,

First, I'd like to say that I'm excited about finally being on the zbrush boards. I've been using zbrush for a couple of months now, but I just never got around to coming to the forums. Hopefully this will turn out to bea fun little project.

This pic is where I'm at now, not done yet, but most of the work that's left is just a few details, and tweaking. Oh, and if you have suggestions, I'd love to hear 'em.

While this is my first post here, I want to make a few things clear at the start. Since this is a "step by step" thread, it's more than likely going to be a bit wordy. Also, this is the first time I've tried to write one of these types of threads, so please bear with me. I do a few things over and over again, so I'll explain what those are, and why, and where I do them, in a little bit. Right now, though, I want to explain that the way I model is to make 3ds max, and zbrush work together. This means I jump from one program to the other a lot, and there are holes in some of the steps. I'll do my best to explain what those holes are, though, so don't freak out. :D Also, I'm a modeler, not lighting artist, or texture artist, or anything like that, that's why I went with the GI lighting, and that he's still grey. I might texture him later, but it's doubtful.

Alright, enough jibba-jabba, let's get to it! AlienGuy_NearFinish.jpg

[EDIT] And like an idiot, I forgot to mention the things I do over and over again in these programs.

First, in order to keep things equal between the 2 programs, there's some stuff you need to check in your exporter. From the max2obj dialogue, make sure the "group by" box says object, the "geometry" box says "quads", and make the "Vertex Scale" 1.0 so everything's the same size when exporting, and importing. Then under "File", make sure the "# of digits" is at 10 if you want to preserve your UV's.

On the Import dialogue, I like to keep my objects seperate, so under the "Import Options" I tick the "multiple" box. Again, make sure the "Vertex Scale" is set to 1.0. After you import your model into max, you'll notice it doesn't have any smoothing groups. So to fix that, I select it, convert it to editable poly, go into poly subobject, and hit CTRL+A to select all the poly's, then go down to polygon properties, and hit the "1" box to add smoothing groups.

[xrecar]

Dude, I hope your a professional... if not... you should be.

That is a totally wonderful character mesh.

Did you use other programs first and import the mesh into Zbrush?

-Xrecar

Keep up the awesome work.

[ReplicA]

This is one of those places where there's a hole in my "step by step" thread. I forgot to render and save the pic as I was modeling in max. :o

AlienGuy_Max.jpg

But I'll go ahead and tell you what I did to get this far. I started out with an 8 sided cylinder, and scaled down the verts along his stomach to give him the shape his torso needed. I then created another 8 sided cylinder for his arm. I scaled, and rotated the verts to make a very blocky arm, then attatched it to the torso. I extruded the legs, and added the hands which I had done in another file. The head came along last, is very basic, I just needed to get a shape I could use in zbrush.

I then chopped the model into pieces, representing the torso, arms, legs, boots and head. I also detatched polygon's for the forearm armor, and glove details. After exporting the arms, and head to zbrush, I got this, AlienGuy_Zbrush_01.jpg

It's a little over 100,000 poly's. Not bad at all. In zbrush, I stick to adding as much detail, and shape as I can in the lower poly resoutions as I can. They may look a little choppy at first, but when you dvide later, the choppy bits soften, and it helps to avoid the "lumpy" look you can get with zbrush if you just try and jump to the hi-res stuff first.

Now, I know there's a lot of problems with it at this point, and I'll address those later. Since this is a step by step, I wanted you to see all the problems I ran into, and all the ugliness of the model at the beginning. Most of the issues get fixed later, so bear with me. :D

[ReplicA]

Now it's time for his pants. There's not even 40,000 poly's in them yet, that will come later.

AlienGuy_Zbrush_02.jpg

This guy's got problems already, his legs are too short, and the end of thepants have come away from the rest of the model (which proves to be good later down the line). Also his waist and legs are too small. How do we fix this? Back to zbrush we go. I need to make his legs bigger, but I've got all that detail already on there. Enter the inflate tool. It's a life saver in this situation. Make the zintensity low, like 3 or 4, and make the brush big enough to cover almost all of his legs. Now, slowly inflate the mesh to match the rest of proportions of the model. This was a little bit of guess work, cause I was working with the pants only in zbrush. So I didn't have a referance for the proportions, and while I didn't nail them down perfect, I was able to get pretty darn close.

Now the reason the pants coming away from the rest of the model is a good thing. since his torso was too short, I was able to just extend it till it got the top of his pants, making it look a little better.

AlienGuy_Zbrush_05.jpg

[ReplicA]

Now that I have a good base for the details, I can start doing some more modeling in max. Since I know how big his arms are, I can now start the forearm guard, and glove details.

AlienGuy_Zbrush_06.jpg

Yes, they are pretty basic right now, but that'll get fixed later.

Unfortunately, I knew something was extremely wrong with his proportions, but I couldn't figure out what it was. So I decided to take him into zbrush, and see what I could fix. I made a very bad decision, and made his arms bigger to see if that would help.

AlienGuy_Zbrush_07.jpg

Obviously that was the wrong thing to do. :o There's 2 major things wrong with him, (that I saw) can you spot them before I get to the fix?

Oh, and this is where I decided to do some lighting to help you guys see what's what.

[ReplicA]

In this one, I started working on his breastplate armor. That was done in Max. It's basically just simple extrusions, and bevels, but it helps to bring out the character a bit more.

AlienGuy_Zbrush_08.jpg

Now can you see the problems I was talking about in my last post? I made his arms WAY too big, they didn't fit proportions, or the character, and his legs are still way too short. Of course there's still other problems, but those 2 are the most glaring of the bunch.

Now this is where I start adding real details, and correcting more problems. I added some more armor around his middle, and gave some detail to his stomach.

I also changed his head a bit in zbrush. I lowered the size of his cheek bones, and added some smaller details to him. I think the smaller cheek bones helped out a lot, but there's still a problem with him that I'll address later.

AlienGuy_Zbrush_11.jpg

Also, you'll notice I gave him some eyes in this one. In order to get the eye lids to correctly cover the eyeball, I had to mask the eyeballs. So, holding CTRL+SHIFT, I clicked one eyeball to hide everything but the eye, and holding CTRL, marquee selected it to mask the hole thing. CTRL+SHIFT click on nothing to unhid the othe objects, and repeat on the other eye. Now I can go ahead and sculpt away without worrying about messing up the eye while I work on the eyelid.

[8BIT BOY]

Good effort man, but I think if you upped the resolution of your mesh, you could do those extrusions with masks in Z, instead of resorting to a second app....

*8 :tu:

[ReplicA]

Again, more detail in his head. But that modeling problem is still plaguing me! What is it?!

AlienGuy_Zbrush_13_Pcount-341656.jpg

By now the mesh is at 341,656 poly's. Still pretty low.

I also figured out one of the problems that's been driving me mad. He has no shoulders. Simple, but annoying. Here he is with some fixed shoulders, and some more character details.

AlienGuy_Zbrush_17.jpg

[ReplicA]

Now it's just a matter of tweaking, and smaller changes that need to be made. I finished his boots, and added some more little details.

AlienGuy_Zbrush_19.jpg

Hopefully this little step by step will halp someone out, but if you have questions, post 'em and I'll be glad to help as much as I can. Thanks, and have a great day! :D

[ReplicA]

Good effort man, but I think if you upped the resolution of your mesh, you could do those extrusions with masks in Z, instead of resorting to a second app....

*8 :tu:


There's several reason why I don't do that. First and foremost is, like I said, I've been using zbrush for a couple of months. I don't know all the great stuff it can do yet. And of course another big reason, I don't like modeling with zspheres. Call me old fashioned, but I find it easier to do my base mesh, and mechanical details in MAX, I don't have to have huge ammounts of unnecessary poly's floating around. But that's just me. I offered this thread as a (possibly) helpful hand to others that use Max as well as Zbrush.

[EDIT] By the way, if I seem offended by your statement, I'm really not. I'm tired, I've been writing too long (for me anyway), and I didn't mean to sound like a jerk. :o ;)

[Giantsun]

Great character and a good step by step on character development. :D

[ReplicA]

Thanks, Giantsun. I'm a little nervous about doing a step by step thread, I just hope I can help someone out.

And xrecar, thanks but I'm not a professional, I'm hoping to be one soon though.

[ryankingslien]

very cool. thanks for the step-by step. its great to see someones process. the musculature is just awesome. i relly like this piece.

r

[MacGyver007]

Very Very nice, would like to see him textured :)

Just wondering, but what was your inspiration or were you working from a reference pic?

For some reason, reminds me of Bossk, the bounty hunter from star wars.... perhaps just me.

[ReplicA]

Very Very nice, would like to see him textured :)

Just wondering, but what was your inspiration or were you working from a reference pic?

For some reason, reminds me of Bossk, the bounty hunter from star wars.... perhaps just me.


It's funny you should say that, my brother said the exact same thing yesterday. I had drawn up a quick design, but it was mainly to show a good workflow between Zbrush and Max, not really to be much else. Any resemblence is purely coincidental. :D

I might texture him, but like I said, it's doubtful. If I do, though, I'll post it.

[bongob]

Hey!

I like this threat - i am a demo user and most zsripts are
exclusively for zbrush 2...

I like the design with the exception of the head. Its not that its bad designed...i think a more human (smooth)
head would fit even better to this dude...

well its more about personal preference probably but the armor looks very straight - the big (concerning proportions) head is very "eye-catching".

concerning the proportion i think its almost perfect!

http://www.fineart.sk/show.php?w=898

mfg felix

[ReplicA]

I'm glad you liked it.

I understand what you mean, I'm not sure why, but this model seemed to fight me every step of the way. I'm happy with it, and I feel it could hold it's own against a lot of other models, but of course it's also got issues to address.

I made him primarily for this thread, I needed a subject that was interesting enough to hold peoples attention, but not so much that it distracted from the point of the thread. Which was to give people a few pointers on max to zbrush modeling.

[wierdPal]

This guy is Awesome.

I don't completely understand his facial features though. It appears he has a nasal cavity, or place where a nose once was (like a skull), but has he evolved into that? His lower face (jaw area) also resembles a skull. I'm curious about this because by his chosen ware (clothing) he seems evolved on the same scale, or level of man, but his skin has not adapted, or evolved with him.
I like the upper head area a lot, and It does remind me of that bounty hunter a little as well.

I'm not trying to be overly critical with criticism, or anything. I always try and look at CG characters like "what if?" If this is how they are, why do they look the way they do to help understand their native environment, evolutionary ladder - maybe to resolve problems I have with their appearance. Would they evolve in this way, and if they would, or wouldn't - what would be different.

Food for thought...

Although as a fictional fantasy based game character, or something of that nature he is awesome IMO, and a great job you have done on him.

allgood.gif

[ReplicA]

I appreciate that, wierdPal, and I understand what you're saying. I guess just calling him an alien and slapping some crazy head on him just doesn't cut it sometimes. I'm still working on him, and I'm looking into things I can do with his arms, to make him look a little more alien.

A lot of people have had the same reaction you did when looking at this model, so it can't be that it's someone elses problem. It's a design problem, pure and simple, and I'll get working on fixing it, and bring an update as soon as I can.

Since this is a "step by step" thread, I'm also going to re-read what I wrote, and make some updates to that as well. I really wanna be able to show that using Max as well as zbrush can make some awesome results without having to cram 10 million poly's onto a model. It also has other perks as well, like being able to animate your model, and that if you do your uv's in Max before you export to zbrush the first time, you don't really have to worry about them as much later. In fact, collapsing the stack after doing your uv's in Max, then export to zbrush, gave me uv's thatI was able to use after the model was done, and a few 100,000 poly's.

Anyway, I'm working on this model right now, so I can give an update soon. If I get back to work, that is... :D

[souleat]

thats good! work and thanks for sharing it !
its all learning,learning..and with such threads its easier..

[ReplicA]

Ok, I changed his arms to make him look more alien, and to get the design to flow a little better. Let me know what you think. AlienGuy_21.jpg

[dzip]

great modeling!
I think now the armor seems to be borrowed from another character though: it contrasts with the nice horns you made for the shoulders, or the facial design. One one side, you have a slick armor, almost robotic, and on the other, you have a character which is becoming more and more organic every day. The question is : how to make the armor a bit more adaptive...
otherwise, bravo!

[Junk]

good character

sharp elements lke the teeth should be separate elements, lke the armor.

The renderng are ZB made or insifde MAx with displacement (if so, what is your workflow?)

You could rounded the belly it's a bit flat, while the belt below is rounded.

Not sure for the wrinkles in the pants, maybe t would be better if oyu spent time to modelisez it with MAx, it 's a bit blooby right now

Good work

[ReplicA]

Well it seems like you found at least most of the issues with this guy, Junk. You're right about the pants, that must have happened when I used the inflate tool to get them to a better proportion. I'll fix that soon.

The renders are in Max, but I don't use displacement. Honestly, I think it's a pain, and not worth it. I like to know that what I made in zbrush, is exactly what I get in Max without tweaking settings and wasting time with test renders.

And, dzip, thanks for the crit. I'm actually pretty happy with the armor the way it is. I'll look into other styles, but I doubt I'll change it, though.

[ReplicA]

AlienGuy_23.jpg

I added some detail to his shoulders, and the back of his neck. I also changed the spikes, I made them smaller and slightly more detailed. I worked on changing the detail on his pants, and I'll post that when I get a chance. I'll also try to fix the armor at his stomach, and round it out a bit more.

On the Step by Step subject, does anyone have questions about that? I'd like to know if I wrote decent one or not, cause I'm getting requests to write another one. I need suggestions on what to clarify and/or leave out. Thanks.

[Jason Belec]

Love his outfit, reminds me of the space suits in Space:1999! :lol:

[vlad74]

ouuuuuuu. I love it.:tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu:

[ReplicA]

Ok, here's another update. I changed the armor on his stomach, rounded it off to better match his pants. I also added some subtle detail to his shoulders, and head.

AlienGuy_24.jpg

And this is what I've done to try to fix his pants "bloobiness"... ;) AlienGuy_25.jpg

I'm starting to kind of like this model. It's starting to take shape better than I thought it would. Lemme know what you think.

[ZippZopp]

looking really cool, the only thing i was thinking is to maybe make his body a bit bigger, his head looks just a tad bit big on the body. also, what are you rendering in?

[ReplicA]

Ya know, I've had a lot of people say the same thing about his head, but when I scaled it down just the tiniest bit, it looked awful. Like a shrunken head. Maybe his head needs thinned out a bit instead? That could make him look a little better. I'll give it a try and get back to you.

Oh, and I'm rendering Max.

[archMage]

While I also think that the characters head could be a wee-bit smaller, I think the main problem is that the armor is entirely too tight (or small). The volume of the armor (inside) doesn't seem to quite fit with the overall musculature of the model (which is outstanding by the way). I think if you 'bulk-up' the torso armor, even just a little, it'll look much better.

Awesome all around though. :D
--
troy

[ReplicA]

Yeah, I see what you mean, the shoulders look like they kind of taper in towards the armor, instead the armor accomodating the shoulder. Good eye, I totally missed that till you said it. I'll get to work on that when time lets me.

Thanks a lot! :)

[DreamWalker]

Wow, great model!

I have a question though... In the beginning you had the low-poly model in MAX. You broke it up into different pieces for head, torso, arms, legs and boots, right? Then what did you do?

Did you bring each element into ZBrush, work on it, then export it back into MAX? You would have to stitch it all back together, right? Do the vertexes all line up for you to weld? The model looks great, and I too prefer to model low-poly in MAX then import it into ZBrush.. I just havn't had time lately to play with either :(

[ReplicA]

I guess I should have explained that, huh? Well, I do export them in different piecs to zbrush, and import them back into Max. However, I do not stitch them back together, they are all seperate shapes. If you've messed around with high poly models in Max, you know it slows down a LOT. But for some reason, it doesn't slow down as much if you have that same model chopped up into seperate pieces.

I haven't been able to learn much about the in's and out's of Normal Mapping, but from what I understand so far, you can have as many pieces as you need. Sometimes, though, you might need to attatch them all back together into one mesh, but the chunks shouldn't be a problem. Again, that's as far as I understand. I could be way off here, but it seems to really just depend on what program your using for normal maps.

Also, since I do extrude the mesh, let's use the vest for example, into the vest, there shouldn't be any animation problems either. You just need to be aware of how far into the object you're extruding, and how many poly's are there, for good deformation.

All in all, I have not been able to find a single draw back to modeling this way. It just seems to work. Of course I haven't tried all of the possible ways that it could become a problem, but I guess that'll work itself out in time.

[bongob]

Hey Replica!

You improved the design flow - head and body fit very well since you added those nasty looking spikes!
(they remind me of diablo)

Moreover you added this "skin look" underneath the spikes. The contrast between the materialities of skin and armor makes this dude outstanding...

Just look in his eyes and you know what to do next
(or what i would like to see) :eek:

[ReplicA]

Thanks, bongob, I'm glad you like it. I've been very busy lately, thus the lack of updates, but I did some more work on him today to try and address most of the issues people had with him. I shrank his head a tiny bit, changed his armor to fit him a bit better, Got rid of one of the spikes on his shoulder to better accomodate motion, added some more smaller spikes, and just made some smaller improvements. I still need to fix his jaw, the place where joint should be is WAY too small.

But I Hope you like this one too.

AlienGuy_31.jpg

[ReplicA]

Here's a better view of the smaller spikes I spoke of. The lighting causes them to look a bit dull, but like I said, I'm no lighting artist. AlienGuy_33.jpg

[bongob]

Hey you didn't get my point!

You cant stop pushing it huh? - nothing is perfect....so just move on - i would like to see it colored! You mentioned that you consider yourself as a modeler - why?
Are you working as a modeler or is it just your preference. Just tell me something about ya background....
moreover i am interested in the conception of this guy.
Did it evolve while in progress or did you work it up from thumpnails to a more detailed sketch and so on...?

mfg felix

[ReplicA]

No, I can't stop pushing it... Actually a lot of people had some issues with the model itself, and since a lot of those people had the same issues, it seemed something needed to be improved. And yeah, I think it's just about done, maybe a few tweaks here or there, but not much more than that.

I consider myself a modeler, because that's what I'm good at. I'm a so-so texture artist, in that I can get some subtleties, but the level of detail is pretty weak. Animating is something I just can't get, too technical and if you miss a tiny little movement, it looks fake. It's just that I really like modeling, I'm good at it, and it let's me make characters like this guy, which I love to do.

As for the concept of this model, I had a vague idea of what I wanted when I started, so I drew out a quick sketch of him. Nothing detailed, simply costume design, and a little bit of character to help give me an idea of how I wanted the character to look and feel. A lot of the details were just stream of conciousness, trying to find something that would make the character pop, and look deadly, and flow with the rest of the design. I think I did that. I'm pretty happy with the way he looks right now, so I think I'm done modeling. If I had a better computer, I might have been able to crack the 1.25 mil poly barrier I keep running into, and add even more detail. Oh well.

About my background, I'm 29, and started modeling 4 years or so ago. I didn't go to university, I'm not a professional modeler yet, but hopefully that will change soon. Everything I know about 3d, I either taught myself, or got from tutorials online. I also spent a LOT of time trolling the spiraloid forums, and just paying attention to what those fine folks had to say.

Anyway, did I answer your questions to your satisfaction, or are there more? :p If there are, just ask, I don't mind. But for now, I gotta go. Later.

[bongob]

"Anyway, did I answer your questions to your satisfaction, or are there more?"

yeah thx!

...ohh i've got one more: How long did the process take?

[ReplicA]

It's taken me a little over a week. I had done the base modeling in 3 days, to make this step by step thread, and then there was the improvements.

[custom_junk_mail]

I really love this model. The details work beautifully together. However, if you don't mind me saying, I think the proportions give him a bit of an 'action figure'-look. If this is the intention then please ignore the rest of my post.

I'm not an expert in proportion, but I think the reason he comes off this way to me is because of his thick arms, legs, and neck but relatively thin torso. He only looks about 5 heads high, and that makes him a sort of short, stubby character by human standards, but usually you see characters like this with a great deal of girth to make them look broad and massive. I think if you broaden his shoulders and waist (especially around the lats) it would give him a much more menacing, powerful look (if that's what you want). Sizing his head down a little might also enhance this effect, as well as scaling his body vertically. The arms and legs are already pretty thick so I think the body is the one that should be broadened the most.