Newbie Challenge #4 Z-headz

[Moochie]

Newb Challenge #4

Low Poly Heads

Okies .. it was going to be putting eyes in heads this challenge. But all the ZScripts I've made fail to show a lot of the actions, so I'm trying out some screen capture progs instead .. Yay! Movies! In the meantime, I thought, "this is a good opportunity to look at creating low poly heads in ZB". Honestly I did. So at least we'll have heads to put our eyes in, in the next challenge.

Background

There are loads of ways to create basic heads in ZB, mainly because it can handle huge numbers of polygons. Lots of people begin with a blob and start painting. This can result in a realistic head, but usually doesn't. You'll have noticed a lot of the really skilled posters often start with a basic mesh created in another app (Maya, Silo, C4D, Modo etc), which they then import into ZB for detailing. They do this because they can make low poly models using tools like 'Extrude', which ZB doesn't offer. But it is possible to make good starting meshes in ZB and, since it's a good way to learn several tools, that's what we're going to do.

What's Happening in the Script?

Let me start with a quick disclaimer .. I'm no trained artist / sculptor / modeller. This is more an example of tool use than how to sculpt a head. And yes, you are allowed to giggle when I cock up my edge loops half way through. As long as you gasp with admiration when I rescue myself.

Starting with a ZSphere, I add two small spheres for eye sockets and a larger one for a neck. The 'eye' spheres are moved back into the main sphere so they become transparent .. when turned into a polymesh, these will be indented into the head. To get the lowest number of polygons, I turn Preview on and turn Density down to 1, IRes to 1 and turn Mc on. This is then turned into an Adaptive skin. I could use ZSpheres for ears, mouth, nose etc, but I thought it'd be fun to use edge loops instead.

The next job is to isolate polygons where I'm going to want more geometry. I use Ctrl+Shift+drag to isolate a circular set of polys which will become mouth, cheeks and eyebrows. I then apply an edge loop to this set. I do the same thing with the neck to create a torso / shoulders. Same for a nose and again (several times) for the ears. Notice how using X Symmetry and Move make the whole job pretty easy.

Why are we doing this? Well, when you sub-divide in ZB, every polygon is split into 4. For most machines, the optimum starting base mesh has between 1,000 and 2,000 polys (2,000 sub-divided 5 times gives you 2 million polys). Or 4x lower (250 - 500 polys). The head in my example has 152 polys at its lowest resolution (608 when sub-divided once), so I've got the scope to add more detail if I wanted to.

The Challenge

Use ZBrush only to create a head mesh with fewer than 2,000 polygons. If it still looks pretty much like a head at one sub-division lower (up to 500 polys) then you get extra kudos! Post your pics and/or ZScripts in this thread. Good luck!

Hints & Tips for the Non Artist

Initially aim for a Spiderman look to the head. With his mask on, his nose and mouth are obscured and the whole face is flattened. It's much less intimidating to get this basic shape than trying to create fully-formed nose, lips etc from the start. When viewed from the side, imagine your character wearing glasses. Not Spiderman, obviously, cos his glasses would fall off. The arms of the glasses should be horizontal, which will help with getting the eyes and ears at the right levels. Both are approximately half-way down the head. The sides of the head (ignoring the ears) are often pretty flat. Hairline > Eyebrows, Eyebrows > Nose tip, Nose tip > point of the chin are all approximately the same, and the face is often two of these lengths wide. The pupils are approximately one of these lengths apart.
headz.jpg

[Moochie]

As with the last challenge, I'll be taking part cos I have much to learn. As with anything you're not experienced at, practice is the key. Now I've given myself a pep talk, here's my continuation of the head from the ZScript above. I've added some edge loops for the collar bones and main neck muscles, as well as the mouth and some more loops in the ears. 906 polygons at present at the lowest resolution. Incidentally, as you add extra geometry, it's a good idea to use the Smart Resym tool (Tools > Deformation) from time to time.

906.jpg

[pixelsoul]

well heres my try not so good.. but im trying :p

354 poly's

[Blaine91555]

Hi moochie,

Just got back from a weekend trip and I see the next challenge is up and running. You will definitely be "SEEING" me here:lol: "Thanks for getting these going. It's much easier to learn this way and your efforts are appreciated:tu:

[Moochie]

That's a pretty good start, pixelsoul. The secret now is to select Move and X Symmetry, and start moving those vertices around. Find a decent 'profile view' photo of someone's head. Make the photo a size that'll fit into your ZB window and write down the photo's size ..save it as a psd (photoshop) file if you can. Clear your ZB window and in the Document menu set the size of your ZB window to the size of your photo, then 'import' the photo in the same menu. Then, when you load your model again, you'll have a photo reference to help you get the head shape right. It's not cheating .. almost all the Pro's use photo references when modelling. Keep going and show us how you get on. :tu:

[Moochie]

Update.

1080c.jpg

[Moochie]

Enough tweaking for this evening. G'Night. 1148 polys.

1148a.jpg

[pete330]

:tu: and g'night moochie! hope to join soon but it might be a few days before i have time...

[Moochie]

No worries .. this is an open-ended challenge. You can always come back to this one when we've looked at smaller detail in later challenges.

[Moochie]

Just added some edge loops where I'll want some nice creases and wrinkles. This is 1318 polygons, and I'll put this model to one side for now. When sub-divided 5 times, I'll have 1.35 million polys to play with, distributed in pretty much the places where I'll want detail.

This evening I'll post a script for making a low poly head just using ZSpheres. Time to stop play and go and do my day job. Bums.
1318.jpg

[Moochie]

As promised, here's a script of making a head (as in the pic) starting with ZSpheres for head, eye sockets, nose, ears, neck and shoulders. I got a bit carried away, I'm afraid, so it's a bit long. Did it all in one session, when I should have been doing something else that's overdue. Oh, the guilt!

A few things aren't clear in the script. If you're a real newb, you'll see a couple of ZSpheres turn transparent early on. Those are magnet spheres (or 'attractor' spheres), and are created by Alt+Clicking on the connecting spheres in Draw mode. Later on I forget that you can't create an edge loop when you're not at the lowest resolution level. When a message appears on screen, just click it or hit 'Enter'. And at the end, your tool palette may extend off the bottom of the screen. There I'm just using a few deformers for fun. The one I end up using is sbend (Smooth Bend) on the X axis.

I suggest you only select 'Show Actions' and move the Repeat Delay slider to about 500. That way you'll get the gist of what I'm doing. It'll still last for about 30 minutes though. Heh heh. You'll notice my head looks totally naff almost all the way through the script. That's the one thing I'd like you take away from this .. not that I do crap work, but that as long as your mesh has the right layout, then keep tinkering and eventually something good will result. And all the time you're playing, you're learning.
newhead.jpg

[pete330]

>>When a message appears on screen, just click it
hey having stuff like that in scripts actually helps me learn! thanks for posting it. now i gotta find some time!

[Moochie]

Had a little time to play this evening. Added some teeth and drawn in some crude wrinkles and lines. I can go up two more sub-divisions from here, when I'll make the creases and muscles nicer, and add some texturing and stuff. I know the challenge isn't to make fully-blown heads, but this one seemed promising, and ya just gotta go with the flow, huh?

btw, this is the same model from my last post. I just used the same techniques you've already seen to develop him .. mostly using Move, but also drawing (using the Standard Brush). I haven't touched Projection Master yet.


with_teef.jpg

[Moochie]

Hehheh .. I just realised I might be scaring people off. Look .. I never showed anyone this before. Promise to keep it a secret? Promise not to laugh? Here's the first head I ever made in ZBrush .. 27th February this year. That's just under 7 months ago.

Oh, you rotter. You promised not to laugh!

yikes.jpg

[pete330]

lol! :tu: on your progress! ain't zb cool? i'd show you one of mine but i threw 'em out! actually they're here on the forum somewhere in oblivion... :)

edit:
>>tools like 'Extrude', which ZB doesn't offer
hey by the way you actually can extrude in zb. sort of. hide everything except what you want to extrude. then move it and hit edge loop. zb will fill in the missing geo. bascially an extrude. just a tip for those like me ;)

[Moochie]

Good tip .. thanks! I think I saw that documented somewhere once, but didn't realise what it meant at the time and promptly forgot about it. :idea:

[slocik]

I'm gonna watch your script and learn more, thanks :D

[pete330]

i'm a noob. i've been reading tuts. so they're fresh in my mind. think this was in aurick's plane (edge loop) tut. i'll forget it by tomorrow i'm sure! :rolleyes:

think i'll have time next week to work on this challenge. looking forward to it. your whole model's great but i'm really impressed by the ears, moochie. ears have always been tough for me. think trying this one will help. thanks again for posting!

[Blaine91555]

OK, finally got going. As you can see I totally “BLEW” the nose but thought I’d post it anyway. Sorry for the bad humor :o render1.jpg – it’s late! I’ll have to go back and redo it but I think everything but the nose is ok? The overkill on the mouth is anticipating modeling the interior with tongue etc..

[Moochie]

Nice one, Blaine. How long did it take you to get to this point in the modelling? I've found I can make these 'base heads' in a couple of minutes now. Do a few of them, and you'll start to think of ways to improve the 'flow' of the mesh. This method will never give you the best possible starting mesh, because of the way ZB produces edge-loops. You'll find places where there are 3, 5 or 6 edges all meeting at one vertex, and that can cause problems at the later stages after you've sub-divided a few times. That's one of the reasons the experts often produce the basic meshes in another program. But this is perfect for making quick heads and you've used several of the most important tools in ZB and made a good job of it too. Excellent! Now all you've got to do is keep going! :tu:

btw .. make sure you over-size the ears a bit. They'll reduce in size considerably when you start sub-dividing.

[Blaine91555]

Hi Moochie,

Thanks for the kind remarks. It took about 2 hours. I suspect the next one will take an hour or less. It seems quite simple once I figure out the tools. I need to experiment more. I got sidetracked watching the hurricane.

[Blaine91555]

Finally had a little spare time. I discovered that you can do partial edge loops which helped. I think this follows facial contours better but I still think I need to experiment more.

render2.jpg

[Moochie]

Splendid stuff. This'll give you a good base to develop head models from. And, over time, I'm sure you'll find better ways of arranging the head topography so that it gives you efficient and clean meshes. Cool! :tu:

[Blaine91555]

Thanks Moochie - I learned a lot from this.

[ryankingslien]

sp_comp_web.jpg

Thought I would post an image of a face I have been working on. This is just a WIP. Working on the anatomy of expression.

Base mesh is 1,672 polys. The higher renders are a bit more. ;) Started as ZSpheres. Posed in Maya. It is relevant to note the simplicity of the edge loops. Remember that in production things like forehead wrinkles are really painted or sculpted displacement maps so it is useful to have as simple and as uniform poly faces as possible. Uniformity is key!

Another consideration is for extraordinary vertices. These are verticies with 5 or more sides to them. Every edgeloop creates these so you want to be careful where you add them as they are always difficult. Catmul-Clark subdivision does not provide a consistent way to deal with these verticies so every program will deal with them differently. :)

[Moochie]

Beautiful work .. thanks for this! I know you're really busy, but if you got the chance to show us a bigger shot of the poly lay-out for the lower resolution models (side on too, please), I think we'd find that really helpful. Did you do all the loop work in ZB?

And thanks for letting us newbs know that we're part of the bigger picture .. that may sound a bit odd, but most places don't give learners a second glance. That's one of the reasons this place is so special. :D

[herdmann]

This is my 484 poly zsphere base head (top left) transformed into various variations. The lower row is those divided once to 1963 polys. lowpolyzheads.jpg

and heres a zip of the base mesh
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/attachment.php?attachmentid=18799&stc=1

[pete330]

ryan and herdmann - those are great and a big help! i keep messing up my edge loops. nice work and thanks!

[dzip]

This is mybasemesh POLYS 441
Subdivided once on the lower row.
ZGrab01.jpg

[Moochie]

Hi all. Great work!

Herdmann .. wonderful mesh and a brilliant job of showing how it can be tweaked to create all sorts of heads. Thanks for sharing the mesh.

dzip .. really nice work! Just watch that profile .. the base of the cranium should be quite a bit higher than the jaw. Run your hand round the back of your head and feel where your spine meets your skull. Good flow to the mesh.

Next challenge (adding eyes to a head, modelling eyelids and posing the eyes) should be up in the next day or so. The one after that will be ears!

[Blaine91555]

ryankingslien - Great expression! I too would be gratefull to see the side of the mesh. Your's and Herdmann's seem quite similar. Make more sense than mine.
herdmann - thanks. Nice mesh.
dzip - Thank you also.
moochie - I look forward to the next challenge. Ears are the hardest thing I've dealt with so far. Your methods should be very helpfull. Thanks.

[joe_seig]

Hi to Moochie and the Edge Loop Posters,

Thanks for starting this, thought I'd give this a go... all zbrush edge loops that is. Quite a challenge indeed.
Started this as mouth-centric (animating), so no z-sheres for eyes, just looped those instead to avoid the six siders.

1.jpg

2.jpg

3.jpg

4.jpg

Will we be able to edit/split/redraw polys in 2.5?

5.jpg

Here's the model divided 3 times at various stages, and open mouth 5 times.

I noticed that after creating an edge loop it's best to smooth that area (3 divides) leaving Frame on (to see the effect) .
It rounds out and destroys some of the previous sculpting, but keeps the polys uniform as you continue forward.
I'll try this again. There has to be a way to avoid a six-sided intersection in the very beginning.
So thanks all, I usually do this in maya and import, so it's a nice challenge, a pure Zbrush process, and pretty colors!

[Bonecradle]

There has to be a way to avoid a six-sided intersection in the very beginning
Hey Joe

You could try:
-Inserting another zsphere in the neck below the point with the six-edge pole.
-Play with the IRes of the head zsphere
-Change the XYZ resolutions of the head zsphere independently (you can use the XYZ adjust zscript (http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=3405&highlight=adjust) for this after the zspheres have been created).

[Moochie]

Wow .. that's quite something! Not only great modelling, but the polygon layout has taught me stuff too. In particular, your solution for getting polys for the triangular fossa in the ear is nothing short of brilliant (it had stumped me). And the way you've started the stumps of the arms is ingenious too .. enough polys to lay out fingers and thumb when extended. So simple and obvious when you see it done .. which the best solutions always are!

Will we be able to edit, split or redraw in 2.5? Well .. Pixo have advertised a method of redrawing topography using ZSpheres. I don't know whether you'll be able to integrate any new mesh with an existing mesh (as with Silo's Topology Brush, for instance). It would be wonderful if we can. In fact, a few simple poly modelling tools wouldn't go amiss (extrude, connect, edgeloop selections etc). We'll see.

Anyway .. thanks to everyone for taking part. I'll leave this challenge open, as it's one that folk can come back to as their experience increases over time. The Eyes-in-Head challenge will be posted later today. Rock and Roll.

[Blaine91555]

Thank you Joe - Great sollution.:tu:

[joe_seig]

headBuild_finishViews2.jpg

Thanks Bonecradle for your excellent suggestions. After alot of trial and error I opted for starting as shown above.
No six edged poles this time.
The link to TVeyes' XYZadjust script is much appreciated. I'll need to play with it more.

Hi Moochie - Thanks, glad you found the images useful.
That ear fossa thing just worked out, looked like a good place to return a loop across the top of the head.
Much happier with this one, it's lighter, and feelin maya-free... (for the moment anyway).

I also have a sequence of loop construction images, which might be of interest.
They're really just for remembering how to redo it all.
Bit of a mess really.

three-quarter views (http://www.joeseigenthaler.com/files/CG/zbrush/HeadBuild_3-4View.jpg)

profile views (http://www.joeseigenthaler.com/files/CG/zbrush/headBuild_Profile_View.jpg)

Hi Blaine91555, I've learned alot from others, so if this helps you out in anyway... cool.

[Blaine91555]

Thank you Joe - great stuff. :tu: