Artists in Action: Thomas Mahler (with Video)

[ryankingslien]

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The Artists in Action Series Presents Thomas Mahler, Modeler



Thomas Mahler takes us through his modeling process and the ZBrush tools that he finds most useful. In his video, Thomas takes us through:

:b3: Local Transform
:b3: Mouse Average
:b3: Using materials as a modeling aid
:b3: ZBrush’s versatile and unmatched masks!

:b3: :b3: :b3: Click here to download the movie (1024 x 820, 16 mb) (http://206.145.80.237/zbrush/media/thomasMahler_5_comp_2_web.zip) :b3: :b3: :b3:

We hope you enjoy this series and look forward to bringing you many more artists and their workflows for ZBrush 2!

Please post any questions or comments in this thread.

Thanks!

The Pixologic Team
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[Ancient-Pig]

Good video.. I appreciate the narration.

Learned about the mouse averaging.. was a new one for me..

Thanks

[SolidSnakexxx]

Great Vid Tutorial ;) I like how Pixologic has now very active in creating tutorials and such

[aminuts]

cool

Thanks Thomas and Pixologic

always fun to see how folks approach things!

[willog]

Well done, great idea to show whats used by established artists in their workflow. I look forward to more.

Thanks to Thomas and Pixologic for this new theme.

Bill

[lemonnado]

Dohhh now I feel like a retard... I only masked for 'paint jobs'.... Never considered it for deformations while modeling with the move tool.
Excellent!!!!
:tu::tu::tu::tu::tu:
LemonNado

[WillBellJr]

Thanks Thomas and Pixologic - great tips indeed! :cool:

-Will

[Thomas Mahler]

Thanks, guys!

I thought, after Carolines great time-lapses, a quick recap over some tools might be helpful. ZBrush is really streamlined, but some of its tools can be used for tasks that maybe aren't that obvious, so I thought it'd be cool to quickly talk about them (that was the first time that I recorded stuff, man, that's hard work! ;)).

Also, here's another quick one:

http://members.chello.at/digital.sculptor/doodle01.mov (206.145.80.237/zbrush/media/doodle01.mov)

Shows another masking quickie, together with some color map tests.

So, enjoy! :)

[Dickie]

Woo Hoo! A Thomas Mahler Turorial! Nerrick is one of my favorite Z-Brush characters, so this was a real treat for me. Thank you Thomas and Pixologic.

I too never used mouse averaging. I needed it yesterday and never knew it existed. I just started using masks lately too. They are quick to use, once you learn to think to use them...:D

Really good thread and Tutorial, Thanks again...

Dickie

[erilaz]

I'm so happy with the quality of support you guys keep showing this community! Little tidbits all the time helps workflow so much! :D

[javierloredo]

This is actualy a good thing... Video Tutorials are very helpful for those who can't buy those expensive Zbrush DVD's. I think by having more of thise tutorials is going to motivate others to join the zbrush community. Talking about DVD's, I bougth my self the Glen Southern Dvd in which you can find it at kurvstudios.com. This is a great Tutorial by the way... Great work!

[javierloredo]

I forgot to ask where I can find more tutorials or full DVD's from Thomas Mahler. If you guys know about one let me know. Ive learned a few new sfuff with this quick tutorials and it would be nice to have a full video. Thx Pixologic and Thomas Mahler.

[Webhead]

The mouse average info was very useful. Thanks!

[The ripper]

Great stuffs... thank you!

The ripper.

[lm]

I like the video. Mouse averaging is something I'll have to use it. Plus, good tips on using masking while modeling. The second video was helpful too. That dwarf shader worked out well in the rendered version.
:tu:

[Thomas Mahler]

I forgot to ask where I can find more tutorials or full DVD's from Thomas Mahler. If you guys know about one let me know. Ive learned a few new sfuff with this quick tutorials and it would be nice to have a full video. Thx Pixologic and Thomas Mahler. Hey man,

Sorry to disappoint you, but I haven't created more video tutorials yet. I think I'll do some sculpting time-lapses as soon as 2.5 is out, so that I record some modeling sessions, maybe show some retopologizing stuff too.

I started to work on a short-movie this summer, so I didn't have as much time to model, but this'll change soon.

I'll keep you guys updated! :)

[daleo]

thank you.
drewdaleo

[Moochie]

Brilliant! Thank you so much. :D

[javierloredo]

Hey Thomas, Thx a lot for your response! Yeah I know everybody has a lot of work. Same with me, I'm studying computer animation and right now I have a lot of drawing classes and 2d animation to work on. But i love to sculpt, thats why im very into zbrush now and want to learn the most I can from it. Hey but thx anyways... The tutorials you posted were very helpful, good techniques. Yeah so, keep us informed of any new stuff you can share with us, it is great to learn from artist like you.:tu: Thx again and have a good one!:D

[wenna]

Thanks so much for taking the time to do these wonderful mov's!! Much appreciated!

[joe_seig]

Hey Thomas,

Really great modeling info here.

For animating, the masking technique you demonstrate is very useful for creating facial blendshapes/morfs.
Just import, do the Thomas, and export back out.
(I imagine the masking is helpful also for creating and animating between different displacement maps, but I haven't gone there yet).

Also when you seperate the lips and open the inside of the mouth, it really seemed as if you were painting skin weights in maya.
Nice to see a similar "look and feel" technique between different apps.

Glad you posted the second video.
Thanks for the tips.
js

[Sav]

Thanks Thomas, really useful
Sav

[abgrafx3d]

Thank you Thomas - very useful info :tu:

[Thomas Mahler]

Hey guys,

Joe: I haven't used this technique for creating blendShapes yet, but of course, Masking could really make your job a lot easier in this area too. I use masking for so many things while sculpting, another thing where masks are damn useful is to smooth out highPoly details after projection master sessions. So, let's say you sculpted some wrinkles with the decoBrush and want to smooth these areas out, so that they look more organic: You could just paint a mask over the deco-brushed areas, invert the mask and then apply a smooth deformer and maybe even an inflate deformer to make these parts look even a little more organic. Masking has lots of uses and is extremely helpful while sculpting.

Good to see you here, by the way! :)

Carthic: Nope, I'm not changing the topo. That's just how the inside of a mouth looks if you're starting from a ZSphere structure, heh! :) I just worked my way inwards by using the Standard brush (it's important to use the standard and not the inflate brush in areas like that, using the inflate brush in this area could have resulted in vertex overlapping and that's one thing you want to watch out for) and the Smooth Brush.

Glad you guys like the video - I'm currently into learning XSI, I think I'll record some sculpting time-lapses once I feel comfortable with XSI. I really like XSIs polyModeling toolset, combined with ZBrush it's one kick-ass sculpting set-up! :)

[javierloredo]

Hey Thomas!! I saw in one of the posts that your starting to learn Xsi Softimage... I'm a Maya user, I've been using it for almost 3 years now, but now people have been telling me and now that you said softimage and zbrush are a good combination for modeling and sculpting, I was thinking to give it a try. I just downloaded the free trial version of Xsi to try it out. It's not that much different from maya but the interface its a lil confusing right now. I was wondering if you know any good website or tutorials to start practicing with it? Thomas thx again... :D :tu: :tu:

[Thomas Mahler]

Hey Thomas!! I saw in one of the posts that your starting to learn Xsi Softimage... I'm a Maya user, I've been using it for almost 3 years now, but now people have been telling me and now that you said softimage and zbrush are a good combination for modeling and sculpting, I was thinking to give it a try. I just downloaded the free trial version of Xsi to try it out. It's not that much different from maya but the interface its a lil confusing right now. I was wondering if you know any good website or tutorials to start practicing with it? Thomas thx again... :D :tu: :tu:
Hey Javier,

I use these pdfs here to get myself started:

http://www.softimage.com/products/x..._quickstart.pdf (http://www.softimage.com/products/xsi/v35/media/maya2xsi_quickstart.pdf)
http://www.softimage.com/products/x...si_quickref.pdf (http://www.softimage.com/products/xsi/v35/media/maya2xsi_quickref.pdf)

And I feel your pain, heh! It's really a bit different, there are many things that XSI does way better than maya but there also of course a few drawbacks. The polyToolset is pretty much kick-ass, really. I don't think that you'd need more than one or two days to get yourself started with modeling inside of XSI. Also, the built-in guide is really concise and detailed.

[javierloredo]

Hey Thomas!! Again, Thx very much for the help and for taking time to help others. Thats something that good artist have... the will to help others. Thats how I like to be. Actually ill be doing a workshop about zbrush in my college and I also doing another workshops about how to sculpt and make character maquettes. I guess one day other than been a good artist, can be a good teacher. hehehe :D Hey but thx again Thomas and I appreciate the effort to help people here at zbrushcentral.

[Sleepwalker]

Heya Thomas, thx a lot for sharing this quick doodle and recap on masking, never thought of material this way for the blendshapes, makes more sense now.
What material are you using for the last render, is it a custom one?
Never managed to make a nice render out of zbrush, yours looks gorgeous.
Keep it up man, it rocks !!

[grungenie]

Hi all.....I wonder if the thread is still alive.....the gifs dont open and the video page is not accessible.....something could be wrong with my internet settings...but other pages open fine....Could anyone suggest me some way around to this problem...I'd be grateful......thanks.....