Video Lessons In Zbrush (cannedmushrooms style)

[cannedmushrooms]

Level breakdown

Noob = I'm a traditional artist that has just discovered a mouse and having a hard time with how a pencil wont work on my monitor.

Mid = Im a 3D artist that is coming from another 3D package, but really never learned the first one all that well. So I'm basically looking for a 3D Package that is easyier to use.
Basically making you a noob in two 3D Packages.

High= I have mastered a major 3D package. And have some traditional skills as an artist. When people talk to me I faze them out because I'm thinking "gees I wonder if I could sculpt a head from a goat onto a squirrel"

Masterful nerdium= I have Zbrush Running on your Cell phone and have discovered it is more stable than my PC version. Sometimes my hover-round at work looses its bluetooth signal so I have to update its firmware with telepathy.
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Lesson 1 (Noob level)
Video Dealing with Navigation within Zbrush and how to start off if you were a complete noob to the program It was produced in Zbrush 3.0
v91451765yhe8Kr
Lesson Files (http://www.houseoftutorials.com/veohfiles/Lesson1_ZbrushC.zip)
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Lesson 1 Recap (Noob level)
Video Dealing with Navigation within Zbrush and how to start off if you were a complete noob to the program It was produced in Zbrush 3.1
This deals with how to use these videos with the newest brushes. Explains such things as where the heck did the tweak brush went.
v1010770RjsXjgxc
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Lesson 2 Prequel (Noob level)
More Brush Information that you will need before you start sculpting a human skull in the next lesson
v1010771CSJ5KeE7
Lesson Files (http://www.houseoftutorials.com/veohfiles/lesson2_ZbrushC_recap.zip)
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Lesson 2 (Noob level)
Sculpting a Human Skull using Image Planes

v1410950mBtD4E3Y

Lesson Files (http://www.houseoftutorials.com/veohfiles/lesson2_ZbrushC.zip)
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Lesson 3 (Noob level)
Lesson Dealing with Render Passes with Zbrush and Photoshop
v914515ZG4S6qNX
Lesson Files (http://www.houseoftutorials.com/veohfiles/lesson3_ZbrushC.zip)
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Lesson 4 (Mid level)
Making a simple Biped out of Zspheres an teh settings that will work correctly with poseable sym.
v1409314ap8fAkyw
Lesson Files (http://www.houseoftutorials.com/veohfiles/lesson4_ZbrushC.zip)
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Lesson 5 (Mid level)
Building Good UVS in a free program called Blender and how to switch the UVS
v1130993cwD4KfWZ
Lesson Files (http://www.houseoftutorials.com/veohfiles/lesson5_ZbrushC.zip)
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Lesson 6 (Mid level)
Sculpting High Res Detail on an Object
v914521pm7p5QFE
Lesson Files (http://www.houseoftutorials.com/veohfiles/lesson6_ZbrushC.zip)
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Lesson 7 (Mid level)
Using the Painting Tools
Cavity Masking
v914518nJd5mwws
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Lesson 8 (Mid level)
Modeling with Subtools TOPO tools and how to use them
v941627eecm2aCb
Lesson Files (http://www.houseoftutorials.com/veohfiles/lesson8_ZbrushC.zip)
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Lesson 9 (high level)
Rigging and posing your model
v1013323WQyb4r8P
Lesson Files (http://www.houseoftutorials.com/veohfiles/lesson9_ZbrushC.zip)
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Lesson 10 (high level)
Poseing your Mesh accross Programs
Using Maya to pose
v1409317sWDYqqRM
Lesson Files (http://www.houseoftutorials.com/veohfiles/lesson5_ZbrushC.zip)
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Lesson 11 (high level)
This is my Complete workflow for doing 16 bit and 32 bit Displacements/ normal / color / spectral maps on the characters and how to render in mental ray
v1010769atcExB6y
Color Map


v1010774qzx4dejg
32 Bit Displacements


v1010772xYgrDwES
16 Bits Displacements


v1010773HTa8t6ay
Spectral Map
Lesson Files (http://www.houseoftutorials.com/veohfiles/lesson11_ZbrushC.zip)

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Lesson 12 (Mid level)
This lesson I will be making an axe and showing how to use the TOPO tools to produce weapons very fast.
Part 1
v1409319cMmS4znN

Part 2
v1409320c9MmNa5W

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Lesson 13 (high level)
Multi UV range in Blender / Zbrush
v1034237bBrmF2A5
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Lesson 14 (high level)
Crash course on how to animate your Zbrush character in Maya
v10454013wKCJRTy
LessonFiles (http://www.houseoftutorials.com/veohfiles/lesson14_ZbrushC.zip)
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Lesson 15 (Noob level)
How to Setup your image planes with new pictures in Zbrush
v1042151jdyRWkyZ
LessonFiles (http://www.houseoftutorials.com/veohfiles/lesson15_ZbrushC.zip)
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Lesson 16 (Noob level)
How the Zbrush Lighting System Works
v1074846jabmB44z
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Lesson 17 (Mid level)
Shapeing a human face
v1119616etTNzMX2
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Lesson 18 (Mid level)
Topology on the human face rebuilt using topo tools
v1433604dp79P2nz
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Lesson 19 (high level)
Joining two models together using the topo tools
v1119613Qw75AhEh
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Lesson 20 (Noob level)
How layers on Meshes work
v12503232REBz9d8
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Lesson 21 (Mid level)
Using Layers to make Character Morphs
v1433605f9TREAZD
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Lesson 22 (high level)
Using Topo tools to make Armor and how to make it so you can pose the armor with the model
v1277915NkmwCErN
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Lesson 23 (Mid level)
ZappLink how to video
v1304790nhCzjQzd
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More uploading now
(Went to lunch)

[cannedmushrooms]

Ok so these are the popular lessons that were most requested and outside the lesson based tutorials.
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Transfering Hair from Maya to Zbrush
v11232485XMC9mzN

Lesson Files (http://www.houseoftutorials.com/veohfiles/zbrush3_lesson_hair_C.zip)
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Rendering SSS in MAYA with all the painted textures from Zbrush.
Part 1 of 8

v14055856wgghmas
For the Rest of the series go here
http://www.veoh.com/series/houseoftexture
Lesson Files (http://www.houseoftutorials.com/veohfiles/SSS.zip)
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Rendering Glass in Mental Ray
You zbrush stuff will never look better;)
v1459467Jbey9gsB

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[malachi666]

Hello Canned,

I just wanted to say thank you for your wonderful vis. I am relatively new to ZBrush and these have been a big help. I was wondering though, if you were going to re-post vid number 2?

[cannedmushrooms]

ya its on its way I'm having a tuff time getting veoh to swallow it;)
but all the Zbrush videos will be in here soon;)

[malachi666]

Many thanks again!

[malachi666]

Hey It's Me Again.


I couldn't help but notice that Lesson 11 is missing part 3, It has part one listed twice, part 2 and part 4. Just thought you would want to know about it.

[malachi666]

Hello, me again. I am interested in purchasing the lessons that carry a fee. How do I do this?


Also where do I find your Maya lessons?

I just wanted to say that I love your tutorials and lessons. They are difficult enough for me to have to work my butt off. Also in your vids you refer to your class? Is this a class you teach in real life of do you teach via the internet?

[cannedmushrooms]

mali
All the lessons should be free now.
I'm updating veoh a little at a time but sooner or later they should all be up on veoh.com

Maya lessons are located in my signature at the boot of this post.

I teach both at Career and Technical level. Which is like a really well funded pre college for grades 11 and 12 and as a college instructor at a local college here in Jackson Michigan.

The videos were first developed for the 11th and 12th graders since there is one of me and 50 of them. This way the students are at their own pace and I just answer questions.

But at the college I give the students a video disk And tell them to watch the videos in their spare time. ;)

Glad they are helping you out;)

[malachi666]

Wow, thank you!


I have found that only lessons 21 and 18 still have price tags on just so you know.

I sure would have loved a course in something like this in high school.

Well I will keep working at it for sure as I am having a great time.

[cannedmushrooms]

doh thought I had all those free

I'm re uploading 18 and 21

thanks mala

[djdna]

i have to show my thanks to canned mushrooms for these videos, if it wasnt for people like you a lot of us would be too detered from 3D modelling, so thankyou canned mushrooms!!! :D

[Disco Stu]

GENIUS:tu: :tu:

[beach07]

Hey there Jason :D

First I must say, you are a GOD in my 3D Bible, which happens to be full of a million text-tutorials that I never cared to follow, until I came across your video tutorials =) Thank you so much for making these. It's been a while since I looked up your videos. When I first came across them, there were only 10 and they were mainly focused on zbrush and a bit of maya integration. I was recently planning to buy some Gnomon dvds just to learn how to create specular maps and I came across your videos once again realizing I didn't have to waste a nickel :lol: So once again, thank you...

Now, I have a little problem and google isn't helping me answer clearly enough for me to follow. I'm on lesson 10 of your videos. At the very end, you imported your .obj from maya back into zbrush. Now that I can easily follow, and I my model isn't exploding everywhere or anything. However, I did notice that it is completely mirrored from the model I had in maya. I even noticed this when watching your video.

In maya, you posed the character to where his right arm is the one strutting forward and his left is swinging backwards. But when you imported it into zbrush, it was the opposite and his left arm was the one strutting forward, etc. I was just wondering if maybe you had a way of fixing this or is there some way to mirror it back? I'm not sure if I would need to change some kind of axis in maya or if there was a simple mirror button I can use in zbrush.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and once again thank you for all these videos!

[beach07]

ok disregard that last post. haha. I went through a good 20 minutes looking for a mirror button in zbrush and finally found one. :rolleyes: But thx in advance for reading the last post

[spaceboy412]

beach you might want to check your Import/export settings in preferences, there are buttons that flip your model there.

[GulagOne]

thanks for these lessons. They are helping me out a ton.

[cannedmushrooms]

Promote.jpg

This video is great for peeps that are using maya to produce sculptable meshes in Zbrush. It's a fast way to stitch together Forms of the body and start seeing large masses as shapes.


v1684529GaKJtpxG

New and improved audio also (thanks santa for new audio mixer)

Happy Holidays!

[slashpot]

Keep 'em coming mate!
like so many others I am indebted to you for your generosity and patience. Your brilliant method of teaching makes yours a beloved name among ZBrush beginners, and quite a few pros I bet. I still check into your Veoh site when I want to brush up on a subject that is giving me grief. This lesson set is one of the great ZBrush resources, and should probably be on the disc.

Many thanks from one of your multitude of grateful students.

[SNARK]

Hey, Jason!

It seems you have completed your migration to Veoh. Great! Congratulations. Now, I have no complaints, ever, about your willingness to teach, to share, so anything I offer is simply in the spirit of comment. The biggest difference I see in your Veoh presentations and your Camtasia downloads is in the area of visual clarity. In your personal downloads the typefaces in the menus were crystal clear and easily read. The typefaces in the Veoh films are quite blurred. And while I can figure out the clicks and selections from familiarity with the program, some noobs might be frustrated by an inability to read the text in the tool bars and menus. Minor point but I thought you might want an objective opinion on appearance.

I am new to Veoh so my ensuing comments might not make sense. I take that chance. When played in Full-Screen mode, there appear to be no ‘Play’ controls. When I hit ‘Pause’ the video stops and restarts from the beginning. There is no scroll bar. Because I have ‘Real Player’ on my machine I am always afforded the option of downloading to Real Player. So, I do. Because I have ‘Play’ controls at Full-Screen.

Final Note. I have looked at a lot of books and articles and forum tutorials but your videos have helped me the most. I think this is because your teachings are a ‘Living Document’ that you continuously update to stay current with the software and your personal experience with it. So, a big 'Thank You' for your effort and experimentation. I have benefitted greatly and look forward to the New Year and your continued success.

Merry Christmas! (In a non-denominational kind of way)

~S.~

[cannedmushrooms]

thanks snark and slash;)

Ya snark they have this feature in camtasia that lets you export WMV at a higher RES but it says I need to install Windows media encoder. SO away I went to download it, and install it, and after beating my head against the keyboard for a few days trying to get to work I realize that the button is just a fancy way to turn on my neighbors bathroom light on and off. I placed an order to santa for camtasia 5.0 which hopefully exports at a higher res;)

Merry Christmas to you also, Ala be praised, and shalome (did a miss anything there heh)

[KyHighlander]

Jason,

Thanks so much. These videos are great! I watched most of the skull video, but accidentally hit the tabs in the top of the veoh screen and now will have to start again. LOL but that is not a problem cause I probably will catch something I missed the first time.

Keep it up, your filling a hole that needed to be filled. By any chance you wouldn't have any videos planned for Cinema 4D? LOL Just asking.

KY

[SNARK]

Jason,

Quick note: Your Veoh lesson on 'SSS' (the first one) won't play past the 12:17 mark when it should play until 16:40.

~S.~

[cannedmushrooms]

works.jpg
I uploaded it over the top of the old one, snark that always seems to repair that stuff.
I downloaded it just to make sure it plays all the way through now;)

You were right about the clarity of the menus. Trying some new wmv settings to clear that up a bit;)

[DDS]

wow. You seriously rock man. I can't believe you do all this free of charge. I'm enjoying some of them a lot!

[SinisterUrge]

Thanks very much for all the many hours of free videos Jason!! Your teaching is in valuable

[XxCLUBZxX]

hey nice vids helped me alot and i was wondering if there a topo tool on ZBrush 3?

[RAMWolff]

Hiya,

I was watching your tutorial on UVMapping in Blender... have you considered using UVMapper Pro?? Upon loading your object, layered or not, into UVMapper Pro, as long as it's able to read your various layers in some way, you can turn off and save out different UV's or create a huge map by moving them around. I've only begun to scratch the surface of this tool. It's not that expensive and there is a free version so you can see if it's going to mess any of the vertices up (which I don't think you can as long as you don't resave the obj file)

If you don't know about this program then check it out here: http://uvmapper.com/index.html

[KyHighlander]

there is a free uv mapping program called mapper magic or some such. works very well, i've used it a couple times. You can move the verts around in the free version of it.

[cannedmushrooms]

lesson 17 and 18 for the topotools rundown on a head.

Thats a pretty cool program wolf I've played with it before on my quest for a UV program worth its salt.
I'm a pretty huge blender fan. I really need to update that video since i have figured out how to hide various parts of the model as you do UVS to make UVING all the easyier. Then Unhide it at the end to have the whole UV set displaying. Great for Grouped models.

[RAMWolff]

Glad you found the link useful, to at least look. I myself can not get the hang of Blender but then again I'm also ADDA so my mind is always 3 steps ahead so I don't "get" something pretty quick it's not likely I'm going to stick with it too long. I've not had that issue with ZBrush so far. I dont' understand most of what it can do but I understand enough to keep me coming back for more!! :cool:

I have VeohTV and have downloaded as many of the tuts as it could find but I just seem to missing most of them. You go by cannedmushrooms and Jason Welsh, correct? I do most of my work in the Poser community so I'm very interested in texturing in ZBrush more than anything else. Eventually I want to get into morphs too but not much else. Modeling just overwhelms me too much and my mind thinks "too much" and I loose interest or get agravated with the process.... so.... I stick with what I truly love doing (working with color and texture). So if you have some vid tutorials by you or someone else that really gets in depth with all that I would be much obliged!

I love your contributions to the ZBrush community!! Your tutorials are nicely done and I like the quality of them. You have a nice strong voice with a bit humor to your teaching, keeps one going along learning away!! :D

All the best

Woffie!

[Nate Owens]

Yo... Mush...
Any chance you will ever do something besides Veoh?

Have you checked out QuickTime H64 (?) format... pretty tiny file sizes and a QT download doesn't own your computer and snag every vid that passes in the night to store on your hard drive without asking.

[cannedmushrooms]

lol nate you make it sound like the boogie man;)
Veoh is so ubber easy for me.
they fixed alot of the older issues they had in the past. but to keep movies from being uploaded just goto run type msconfig / goto the startup tab and turn off veoh.

Woffie yes I go by both names. Not a real huge poser fan but if your going with the wanna be a texture artist angle Then thats cool. Its a good starter point to other roads in 3d.

[cannedmushrooms]

I invite you all to a new channel that might come in handy for texture artists that are just starting out in 3D
It starts with the traditional methods (which are REALLY important to know) then goes into Zbrush. Too many new peeps have never been the old school ways resulting in a generation gap of 3D artists.
Exsample how many peeps know how to make a diffuse map without zbrush;)
(sound of crickets fill the room)

Tools you will need along the ride
Maya, Photoshop, Blender, Zbrush, Crazy bump just to name a few.

Heres my Bat Signal alerting the Media


And heres a link to the first video that will get you access to the channel (http://www.veoh.com/videos/v1735115HHBNXAqJ?c=MTLinMaya)


v1735115HHBNXAqJ

[RAMWolff]

Cool. Thanks for this new series. Looking forward to using what parts I can use of it.

I wish you used Silo.

Blender.... :o

[cannedmushrooms]

Heres the Zbrush part of the Channel
Keep in mind this is seperate from the other lessons I made, and actually has to be easy enough for a new person that never used Zbrush to understand.
Hopefully I can bring in topics that finally cover the 2.5 d tools that are never talked about;)
The displacement mapping tutorial and the alien console turned out really good;)



Crash Course and normal maps
v17398607cSMRHr5

Displacements Maps Zbrush to Maya via Doc Grabs
v1740094kSWJqMMh

Build a Alien Console with all the fixings that literally jumps off the polygon;)
v1740352ZX5zBgbR

[JesseGraffam]

Thanks Jason. I'm just tagging the thread to find it later.

[cannedmushrooms]

Heres my Bat Signal alerting the Media
Bat-Signal2.jpg


Love the holidays and the whole two weeks off I get;)
So heres some more videso to add to my materials texture and lighting channel on veoh.

In this episode Learn how to use maya and zbrush together to produce a tileable alpha. Maya is used in place of Zbrush rather than trying to stack objects in the "Zdepth" world. Then the alpha is taken and processed onto a poly surface and sculpted with not only the "standard brushes" but also the 2.5 brushes (which you hear hardly anything about)
The whole thing is brought not only into maya and rendered at the end, but a game engine also to help tie two communitys together. Which I will be releasing another video that drives the unreal people here;)
In the epic forums.
Call it an experiment;)

game moders meets floating old man head, demon world. yay

v2004356xe8dYhax


v2004355zrDmxMcw


v20043574zEgHR7f

[DarksunG]

Canned, I just wanted to say your vids are just awesome.:D I feel bad not paying for them! :lol: I just got Zbrush and these are invaluble!! Just awesome! :tu: :tu: :tu:

[cannedmushrooms]

Filling a hole 101!

v241630359MBG75J

[cannedmushrooms]

This is lesson 2 redone.
I redid it with a faster workflow, and better audio equipment. It should be totally noob friendly when it comes to masking off the teeth.

v2521061fAEtzpCH

[SNARK]

Jason!

Just went through your Texture series on Veoh. Thanks for the effort.

Couple questions :

- Are ‘Displacement Maps’ , ‘Bump Maps’ and ‘Height Maps’ the same thing?

- If my goal is to produce character models for use as either illustrations or animations (including SSS renders) do all my models need both Normal and Displacement maps? Is a Normal map always the first map to be produced? Is a Displacement map always the second map to be produced?

Thanks!

~S.~

[cannedmushrooms]

The maps are different in how they work but they sorta do all the same in some ways. The different is actual Displacement of geometry to tricking of light.



Displacement- Actual displacement of geometry (something you want to pop off the characters head) (horn) (nose) Also called height maps.

Normal and bump are the same But

Bump maps Tricks light in one axis (Z) using black and white

Normal Maps tricks light in all axis
You would use these as you surface addons that dont need displacements. (scares) (skins pores) (wrinkles)

You don't need all of them all of the time.
SSS I would use bump instead of normal because normal maps are very noisy.
Its one of those things that your going to have to learn the application to the the method. (sink or swim methods) of learning.

Guys face (maybe normal map)
Girls face (NEVER normal map) use bump

Alien head with horn(displacement + normal map) horns need lighting tricks on all axis.

Alien head with skin pores (displacement with bump) Bump is very clean this way

Just don't try to make a nose on a character using only a normal map because it will never look right.

hope that helps SNARK
let me know if there is anymore Q's

[SNARK]

Thanks, Jason.

I have understood more about maps from your instruction than from all the books and DVD’s I’ve studied. Thank you for your willingness to share. This is difficult for me. My life (3 decades in Hollywood) has consisted of sculpting clay figures and painting them with sable hair brushes and acrylics. Using a key-board and built-in algorithms is a stretch. So, I thank you for your patience. I am ‘Old School’ looking to the ‘New School’. I love the tools but have yet to completely grasp them. Your videos reveal much.

If I wish to construct an illustration that features a family group of Anthropomorphic Cartoon Tortoises, what full-body maps might I require? Shell maps? The faces have considerable relief in the form of scales, bumps and reptilian contour. Their fore-arms have considerable topology from the spiked nature of their natural digging apparatus. I imagine I will need a Normal Map, a Displacement Map, an Occlusion Map, a Specular Map and a special SSS Map for their claws and beaks as well as eyes. What is your opinion? Though I agree that experimentation is unavoidable I would like some general direction that might narrow my choices. Thoughts?

Thanks!

~S.~

[Nate Owens]

Mush... You are definitely da - man!!

Very enlightening, precise and concise explanation of all of those maps, bumps, etc. Never saw them so well defined in one collection.

Copied and pasted into my 3d tips and things to know file.

Hey - thanks

Also, by the way, I got friendly with Veoh once I figured out how to turn off that thing that sucks up every vid it sees and plops them on your drive.
I've even got my own demos posted there now (not about Z-Brush, but Painter and drawing and such... //www.veoh.com/channels/natedoodles) Someday I will do some on ZBrush, but not tutorials. :lol:

[XxCLUBZxX]

he jason some of your links on this dont work well on my computor anyway

[cannedmushrooms]

Snark if you were doing those type of illustrations. I would have to say for Illustration work a barely use any maps. Why? Because by the time I made the map i could actually paint the Illustration. The biggest thing in this new industry is to learn to produce stuff at a faster pace with the same amount of skill. You can substitute your lack or experience with maps with more about color theory, lighting and post work in photoshop. This way the maps and rendering phase can be streamlined a bit. I also hardly ever render in maya or max and try to only use Zbrush and photoshop for my Illustrations. Sure I know how to make all the maps and I show you how and what options maps have for you. But let’s take my SSS lesson for example. Would I ever use SSS in a render personally to produce an Illustration? No cause I know with a little post work in photoshop I can do the same thing and I actually get to be an artist. Once you enter map world your skills of creativity slowly become that of a cyber nerd doing a thousand render passes to get the same result.



Another thing Focus as an Illustrator on Poly Painting. You do not need UVS as an Illustrator. Instead you will need to focus on Depth Grabs from the alpha pallet and how to use them to make your polypainting pop as an illustration in photoshop.



You seen that relief painting stuff I was doing in a painting thread in the main forum.
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?p=422868#post422868
Shoot In that case I made the illustration with no 3d model at all;)
I actually feel more proud of that stuff than any on my floating heads that will rot on my harddrive.

I just like knowing everything about this stuff. Sometimes its more like a science than an art thing with me. (how it ticks) But when it comes down to artwork. I want to forget it all and just be creative and not worry about the science stuff. I'm also torn cause I also like doing cool nerdy things like this http://gearsforums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?p=25232145#post25232145 so in order to pull that off I need to know mapping.


Hope that helps. Not sure how much traditional art paint skills you have but it isnt that hard to learn.


Nate welcome to the darkside. The guy that started veoh is a genius and is a very down to earth guy. He did a interview on veoh. He reminds me is like 10 yrs. Thats why I sort of like what veoh has done. Think about how we all communicate now. Its insane in a way. I'll check out your site.
I agree the veoh vacuum player is a pain though.

Um club.
What links and which site. The veoh links? here?

[XxCLUBZxX]

the ones on houseoftutorials ive been trying them for a while now none of them work

[SNARK]

Thanks, Jason.

I always appreciate your insights. Yet, even though I am creating illustrations, I want to be able to use the models (and props) in animations. Doesn't that require maps? I'm just trying to cover (and understand) all the bases. I am so accustomed (in my analog, 'old style' approach) to making quick clay models, painting them and arranging them under lights in multiple compositions for the purpose of deciding on the most appropriate framing. Doesn't that mean I must use maps now, in '3D Land'?

My background is not '2D'. I have always worked in 3D clay and 3D paint.

I wish to understand the workflow of maps that will allow both illustration and animation.

I know I don't need maps just for illustrations but I want to use my sculptures beyond the illustrations.

Thanks!

~S.~

[cannedmushrooms]

Lets add this to the rules

Whenever I need to animate / see all sides of the object within another 3d package other than Zbrush (maps)

Whenever I want a 2d Illustation where I only see only one side of the object And its within Zbrush (no maps)

Whenever I want a 2d Illustation where I only see only one side of the object And its outside Zbrush (maps)


of course then it goes into the types of maps per scene but thats a whole new ball game with lots of "if this", "and if that" statements.;)

[dustbin1_uk]

Wow! i've been using Zbrush for a few months now and I am thrilled to have found this thread!

These are very well made tutorials and well worth spending time watching! Well done sir! your a life saver for this.

I'll certainly be pointing my friends to this thread.

EDIT:

did this get top row yet? If not, it should do and go to the blogs section of the pixologic website.
http://www.pixologic.com/blogs/ryan/

[Wozrush]

Brilliant... thanks for these tutorials! :) Thought I'd check out the `build an axe` one and came to a problem when you... selected a polyplain / zsphere / Rigging start adding dots etc. I don't know what's going on here and was wondering could you direct me to the tutorial that explains what this process is? You say the previous one, but is it part 1, 2 etc?

Thanks!

[cannedmushrooms]

Hold shift click the middle dot (usually its red)
then Tip the plane a little to add the first dots. Its a little quirky that way.
Thanks for the Kind word guys. There is a huge change coming to the face of tutorials coming up soon.
Thats all I can say right now but you peeps will love it when it comes to web land.

[dustbin1_uk]

That's exciting to hear. Is there going to be anymore Blender stuff in there? I only ask as I cannot afford Maya. ;)

[chew]

THX for the very helpful videos, it must be a lot of work.

I watched your video "lesson 19 - merging models together" many times and used the technique to create my character.
one question: Whats the different between the "clone" and the "make polymesh 3d" button ?


And i read another method. http://www.pixolator.com/zbc/showpost.php?p=397564&postcount=50 Maybe you can do another video with that technique. I doesn't tested this technique yet but it sounds more easier for combining some models.

greetz chew

[behemoth]

Hey, I've been trying to get these tutorials to work. I downloaded veoh tv, but it's not working well. I tried to go to the website, as I am VERY interested in the zsphere tutorial, as I can't get anything resembling decent topography when I use the spheres. However, on the website, on your channel, all I can see is the same 5 minutes I can see on this thread.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but I'm so frustrated! These look to be simply the best tutorials I've found, and I am so amped about working with them.


I mean, I'm so in the dark after zb2, every time I make a shape out of zspheres, the back is completely missing! I know your tuts will help, I just can't see them!!

Anyways, thanks for the hard work. These are amazing, at least the 5 minutes I can see.

[cannedmushrooms]

did you do this?

instructions.jpg

[behemoth]

Nice!!

Wow. Thanks. These videos are awesome, I really was having trouble using zspheres in zb3.

Only one issue: I updated to 3.1, and I'm not sure the tweak brush is around anymore. When you first converted to polymesh from spheres, you used the tweak brush to move vertices around to match your ref images.

What would you use in 3.1?

Again, thanks for these videos and your help getting them into my library, you have some very lucky students!

[Cad64]

When you first converted to polymesh from spheres, you used the tweak brush to move vertices around to match your ref images.

What would you use in 3.1?It's called the Move brush now.

[infinder]

cannedmushrooms (http://member.php?u=26596), thank you for all the videos. Version 2 of lesson 2 is by far more professional than version1. Veoh TV beta has some problems as you can't retain your libraries if you reinstall the aplication and you can't select a photo to represent the video. I can't wait for your new videos and i check the forum twice a day. I'm using as my main 3D apl. Blender and i would like to see more blender-zbrush tutorials. I'm new to zbrush and I've already learned alot from you(thank you again). The problem with zbrush is that its not obvious for a newbie where to start and the filosophie of the program. I bought Meats Meier (Introduction to ZBrush 3)videos and they are great. But so are yours! In addition they are of very good quality and free! :eek: Waching you working with the 3.1 interface doesn't confuse me even though the main rools are the same.
Keep it up!!! :)

Stamatis

[dustbin1_uk]

If you downloaded the videos then they should be in my documents\videos\Veoh\

you can then import them into Veoh if you re-install.

[cannedmushrooms]

Ya got hired by a company to produce MANY MANY MANY hours of new videos on Zbrush. I can't give any details as of yet because I just got the entire series done, and not sure how the conract goes on anouncing early.
The series goes into chapters and topics about almost every tool and its use. (very organized)
Along with exsample workflows. When I get the ok I'll release more info.

And its uber cheap compaired to all.

Ya blender would make the next great target app.
I would have to take a look at its modeling tools a little further.
The UVW unwrap is just toooooooooooo sly.
The only thing I hate about Zspheres right now is the fly away bug. (touch any Zsphere next to a complex root Zsphere, and it will cast it off to the -------100000 z of the canvas) the you have to hit F on the keyboard and then move one tiny Zsphere just a little. Then Hit F again.
Repeat that like 12 times and Zspheres get a thumbs down in Zbrush 3.1

[infinder]

Ya got hired by a company to produce MANY MANY MANY hours of new videos on Zbrush. I can't give any details as of yet because I just got the entire series done, and not sure how the conract goes on anouncing early.
The series goes into chapters and topics about almost every tool and its use. (very organized)
Along with exsample workflows. When I get the ok I'll release more info.Congrats! Your voice is ok, try to be a litle bit faster and prepare time consuming parts of the tutorials. Big videos are scary for the audiense. Use simple(not superdooper) but nice models not scary models. Even though are for learning reasons they are important. Very good teachers don't pay attention to this but it is important.
Any news about a bugfix release from pixologic?


If you downloaded the videos then they should be in my documents\videos\Veoh\

you can then import them into Veoh if you re-install.
yes but without thumpnails. Also you can't save libraries and restore them later.

Stamatis

[dustbin1_uk]

Congrats on the vids! Can't wait to see them!

If your serious about Blender then get in touch with the Blender foundation. They'd be VERY interested I'm sure.
http://www.blender.org/ but you no doubt have that address.:D

At the very least get in contact with blender nation and let them know. If you do them.
http://www.blendernation.com/

Anyhow, keep us posted dude.

[SNARK]

Hey, Jason.

A few posts back you spoke of creating SSS fx in photoshop using depth grabs from ZBrush. Have you done a tutorial on this?

Thanks!

~S.~

[cannedmushrooms]

Faking SSS in photoshop can be very easy but it depends your skill as a painter.
You can just add a pink pinlight layer by the ears or set up this render pass exsample.


I included a zipped photoshop document with all the layer settings here
http://www.houseoftutorials.net/lessonfiles/sss_exsample.zip

sss_exsample_here2.jpg

So I did this in like 2 Mins so Its the Right Settings But Depending on how much time you take rendering out the layers ans how much effort you put into the skin. it will turn out better. If you follow my SSS video its about the Same colors but with Less contrast.

In my case the only layer I rendered was the glow (which you have too or it wont glow)

sss_exsample_here.jpg

[-Gulch]

So you totally turned to Veoh...... Shame, maybe if their update would actually update something instead of keeping me in an update loop, I'd watch them. Maybe you can run them on the school server? Since you teach?

[SUEPAHFLY]

HI! :)

How did you realize the imageplane xball tool used in the 4th video?:o

[cannedmushrooms]

hmm I just realized that the Zbrush ball Sucks so I made it in MAYA


If you mean resized, I used the transpose tool in the side view to make sure I did not break symmetry.


Got a couple new videos for you, but they are for maya and modeling for Zbrush.
I guess the techniques might be usefull in other 3d packets though.



Then I have a new texture lesson in the microwave oven right now almost done.
__________________________________________________ ________________

Making a good Sculptable Mesh for beginners in maya
v4583649YzMk3F9B

__________________________________________________ _________

Hard Edge Modeling with good flow (from design to Finished mesh)
The Making of a Mech (note Mech base Mesh not finished sculpt)
ZBrush-mech.jpg
v4563136c5JB987x
__________________________________________________ _________

Up Res your textures from Maya to Zbrush
v4641519Cxq7Jta8 (http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/misc.php?do=bbcode#veoh)

[behemoth]

A couple questions for you. First off, your name sounds very familiar, do you do any work on 3dbuzz.com?

Now to the real questions:

Do you have any lessons that deal with the retopology tool? I'm trying to only learn one app at a time, and I would love to be able to effectively retopologize in zbrush, instead of starting with a base mesh in 3ds max (since all your tutorials are on maya).

Also, in the "making a face" tutorial, you start with a low-poly head model you say can be downloaded with the files for lesson 2 (sculpting a skull). However, the only thing I can find as far as that is a ball and some image planes.

Do you have the base mesh for the face tutorial anywhere? I will go through the skull tutorial, but I was hoping to start with your face tut.

Thanks again, you have no idea how effective and helpful your tutorials are!
~Eric

[cannedmushrooms]

Lesson 18 covers the topo tools and then I think 19 covers the joining of two meshes with the topo tools. I do have this insane topo lesson I never uploaded. But "insane" really does some it up. Maybe I will reupload it for the sake of keeping it in the system. After all it might help you.

Topo is forte. but its very boring to watch as far as a tut.

With the repeated "shift and Click" repeated 1000000000 times

[behemoth]

Well, I wouldn't really mind it. Oh, and if it is as boring as you think it is, you could probably record it sped up and just do, I don't know, commentary or music or something. I'm just scared of messing up my meshes.

Oh, and where would I get that low poly base mesh for the face tutorial?

Thanks again,
~Eric

[cannedmushrooms]

well I reviewed the older vids and ya I wouldn't make my worst enemy watch them;)

Lesson 18 is far better and covers the exact same stuff.
plus its Zbrush 3.0 in the older vids.

The head was from exercise 17;)
Where you make it.
Just rough out a small head and practice on it

enjoy,

[SUEPAHFLY]

how do you create the sphere shape used in the skull and face tutorial?
it isn't a normal 3dsphere...it seems to be modified but I'm not able to reproduce the same mesh.
please, Can you help me ? :)

[cannedmushrooms]

Put this in your
C:\Program Files\Pixologic\ZBrush3\ZStartup\Macros\Misc
http://www.houseoftutorials.net/alphas/Zbrush_GoodballMacro.TXT


And Restart Zbrush

Run the Good ball Macro under Misc

Walla Good ball

Sorry I would mention how step by step it would take forever

Its a unified Skin trick Based off a uniformed Square

[behemoth]

Anyone who is gaining knowledge through the skull or face tutorials should really, REALLY watch the "human system by memorization" maya tutorials.

Even if you don't use maya (I don't), you will learn alot.

There Jason, plugged it for ya. :D


But seriously, check them out, they're great if you want to play around with correct human forms but don't have good reference images.

~Eric

[SUEPAHFLY]

Put this in your
C:\Program Files\Pixologic\ZBrush3\ZStartup\Macros\Misc
http://www.houseoftutorials.net/alphas/Zbrush_GoodballMacro.TXT


And Restart Zbrush

Run the Good ball Macro under Misc

Walla Good ball

Sorry I would mention how step by step it would take forever

Its a unified Skin trick Based off a uniformed Square
this one works fine! :)
thank you

[SNARK]

Hollow Pipe.jpg Hey, Jason!

This is a hollow pipe made from the gear primitive using Mathman's settings. It is now a polymesh 3D. How can I cut windows into this? Can I use an alpha or a tool to perform a boolean?

Thanks!

~S.~

[willbrown1]

You could hide the areas for openings by using cont shift release dragging and then deleting hidden polys.

You could mask. Hide the masked polys. Then delete hidden polys again.

[marcus_civis]

Another way is to use the Cylinder3D tool. Initialize the Inner Radius to 100 so that you just have a single 'skin'. Then:
1. Convert to a Polymesh.
2. Cut windows by hiding polys and then doing a 'Delete Hidden'.
3. Store a Morph Target.
4. Set Tool: Deformation: Size to modify just X & Y, put the slider to 10.
5. Press Tool: Morph Target: Create Diff Mesh.
6. Select the MorphDiff_ mesh in the tool palette.

tower.jpg

[SNARK]

Thanks, Will.

Where is the 'Delete Hidden Polys' command?

~S.~

[marcus_civis]

For a polymesh, Tool: Geometry: DelHidden

[SNARK]

Thanks, Marcus!

~S.~

[malachi666]

Hey Cannedmushrooms,


This question pertains to your Maya tutorials, but, I was just wondering where the rest of your Maya vids on Veoh are? What I mean is the Humans from memory series is missing parts, as well I noticed that there are several mssing from the Maya series as a whole?

Malachi

[cannedmushrooms]

That video series is located here (memorize human)
http://www.veoh.com/channels/mayaworkhouse

Part 1 is MIA so I will reupload it ;) the rest seem fine. Leave a msg is you have a problem with any of those vids but make sure you tell me what part of the section is missing. Veoh sorta gets confused sometimes if I upload many vids at a time. Truncating the vid or canceling it sometimes.

And the rest of the Maya vids are here
http://www.veoh.com/channels/houseofmaya


Also for the INSANE list of every video
http://www.veoh.com/channels/houseoftutorials

I just added a couple more to the Maya section also ;)

It's a noob lesson on curves and there is a lighting one also.

These are working out great for giving homework to a student;) so just know that sooner or later when I get to my Zbrush Class there will probally be a upgrade on the Zbrush lessons.
After I get done with the Material - texture and lighting workflow series.

Usually I only upgrade if I get feedback from the homework based on questions they might have had on the vid.
Making the lesson "air tight" ;)

My series I produced for the company I mentioned in an earlier post should also be out soon also. (they are doing the editing on it !) (that rocks btw cause i don't do editing;) Hence the 3 min renders and pauses sometimes in the vids. heh

Welp guess thats all I have as far as a news update.
Enjoy !

Ps thanks marcus for the backup;)

[cannedmushrooms]

Bat-Signal2.jpg

Ok getting sorta sick of Maya +Zbrush and I think I have been requested this series a few times now so in the best intrest of those poor peeps and students out there I bring you my new series

Blender.

I only started the series today so ya its only 3 videos into the topic.
Enjoy

Heres the intro and the channel

v6248054JFweD79z
http://www.veoh.com/channels/houseofblender

[dustbin1_uk]

HAHA! Now your talking! A few vids on workflow between ZBrush and Blender would be VERY welcome!

Well done sir!!!

[peabrain]

Hi Canned,

Thanks I found these videos very helpful as a complete newbie to ZBrush.Only thing I would ask,as a complete idiot to using ZBrush,is on the skull for instance,could you show how to firstly set up the skull.i.e.import the image into ZBrush,set it up as an image,then how to mesh it up.Getting images into the programme,and meshing is the part I really do need some help on.I am finding my way round very slowly,but need some help in the direction of setting images up in Zbrush,and meshing and how to actually get started on modelling from an image.

Many thanks.

[cannedmushrooms]

LOL love the nickname pea ;)

Anywho you will find that info all the way down in lesson 15.

Let me know if that works for you k.

You can use that same lesson file, but I show you how to add new pictures to the image plane.


v1042151jdyRWkyZ

[peabrain]

Thank you Canned for the help and info.Glad you like the name BTW ;)


I am totally new to ALL this,so appreciate your patience and assistance.

One day........I will hopefully get my head around ZBrush and produce some works as good as you guys can.:rolleyes: :rolleyes: Maybe...One Day:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

[linkin_park]

Thanx a Million Canned for Great Tutorials ... It helps me alot :tu:

[OrgoneGhost]

hey its been long overdue, but i thought it was about time i give you a BIG thank you for creating and sharing these wonderful videos with all of us. everytime i think i know a lot about zbrush i find something new just by watching your videos. same thing goes for maya. i learn so many little things i never knew.

keep on keepin on brother!
:D

[linkin_park]

Well this is my Skull ... I go through your Great Tutorial :

2006176052805852522_rs.jpg

[mdale13]

the skull looks good. the teeth should be a little more defined however. nice though!

[cannedmushrooms]

Good job on the skull and it looks by your posts "4" that your new so welcome to the forum.
The teeth do need more detail but it looks like the upper jaw area and the orbital look good. Maybe just a tad crisper. You can use the pinch and lazy brush on the edges to crisp thing up a bit. (Its a quick procedure) I would guess by looking at the teeth you accidently blurred the mask by cntrl clicking on the masked area. Probally the most annoying feature in Zbrush.
Why make the cntr and the draw button do two counter productive things is beyond me.

Blur should be a button only.

But welcome aboard and keep posting!

[dustbin1_uk]

Hey Mushroom dude,

You need to empty your pm box a bit, I have something I want to ask you!

Dusty!

[U_L.]

linkin_park I like your version of the skull.
What catches my eye is there appears to be no texture distortion around the eye sockets.
Which material is used on your model?

[linkin_park]

cannedmushrooms - Thanx for ur Nice Comment dude , Yeah this really Sux my blood in Zbrush Specially when i Use Wacom Tablet ... It Blures Sometimes and I may don't Mention about that ... btw i hope it fixes some day ...

U_L. well I just give it great Arran's Materials :
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=056692

I'm now Making Spine of Skeleton with Zspheres ... ;)

[cannedmushrooms]

The All NEW

All Powerful

Blender UV tutorial.



Untitled-1.jpg



v633955982TBEEH2

Enjoy



Also a video on how to use Veoh Player without using Veoh player.
For those that like to use windows media player to play the videos so that the video stays on top of all applications.
if the veoh folder does not show up go to tools/folderoptions/ and make sure you show hidden files and folders. (tricky veoh people think they so smart) ;)

Untitled-2.jpg
v6293715wCYTJJXE

[dustbin1_uk]

I was wondering what to do at luchtime..... now I know! Awsome Mushroom Dude! Thanks! :tu:

[Neticule]

Thanks Jason, your video tutorials are wonderful!

[dustbin1_uk]

I've been in contact with the guys at blender nation about your blender tutorials.

A recomendation is to add the blender tuts to your House of Tutorials website as Blender Nation will want to report on it.

Just thought you could do with a heads up.

[cannedmushrooms]

Bat-Signal2.jpg
Little tip I picked up while textureing an object.

v6432801pGqdjzgJ

[SNARK]

Hey, Jason!

Great tute. Did you do a tute on the violin construction? I’m particularly interested in how you ‘strung’ the instrument as I am building a guitar. As long as we’re on the subject, how would you animate fingers strumming the instrument? You mention a ‘Directional Brush’ but the icon visible in your tute is the ‘Standard Brush’. Are these the same? Also, I sometimes have trouble with the audio on your videos as being too low. I turn up the computer volume and the tute volume all the way but still need head-phones sometimes to hear you at all. Not a complaint, just an observation.

Thanks!

~S.~

[cannedmushrooms]

The Strings were built in maya using Curves if you take a small cube and place it at the end on a curves. Grab facethat is near the curve and goto the Extrude options box you can set your divisions to extrude along a curve. I set it to like 10 and let it extrude right down the curve;)

The Directional Brush lives in projection master so I was probally in the middle of picking up or droping the object.

Directional brush only works in 2.5D standard brush in 3D.

I just Got a new audio mixer. wasnt aware of any audio issues. I usually test drive the audio before I render.
But I'll see what it sounds like at work monday;)

Hope that helps


10 mins later

Wow that is weird it is SUPER low
thanks snark
Going to re-render cause the original sounds good.

[SNARK]

Hey, no prob, Jason. I consider you 'da man' and always study your tutes with close attention. You know the material. I don't. Thanks for all the sharing.

~S.~

[cannedmushrooms]

Hey snark play that last video and see if the audio sounds a little better;)

Also i think I figured out a better codec to use on the videos rather than wmv. Looks like mpeg-4 gets a better render when you upload it via veoh.

[Wozrush]

I was watching your tutorial on using an image plane to build a figure with zspheres and noted to myself that when you append your mesh you cloned it so it wouldn't come in to big.

So today I tried to append a figure model I am working on to an image plane... I appended it = too big / cloned and appended = too big? So big in fact I couldn't easily scale the figure down or the plane up.

So how can I append models to an image plane and get them to come in at a better size?

[cannedmushrooms]

Well that image plane has been unified which brings the tool to Zbrush friendly scale.

Problem is anytime you do anything like Zspheres or Topology Zbrush Treats its like the super ultra huge memory gulping monster and goes outside the preview "unify" range.

To counter this you could load the model, or go to the model after it is made, and
Tool / Deformation Pallet / Unify it.

This will Scale it back.

Then if you still need it more scaled Try using the Scale in the deformation pallet with XYZ turned on.

But make sure you move it a tiny bit with the TRANSPOSE tool. (why you ask)
because if you dont it will maybe crash zbrush do to bugs in the deformation pallet.

[Wozrush]

Thanks, unify worked! :tu:

[cannedmushrooms]

New shroom Signal
cannedmushrooms4.jpg

The 5 min Challenge
Ok veoh allows 5 mins. can I show some intresting stuff in just 5 mins?

lol

We shall see

Making a hand
v6448339aC3hPQrb

Catching a Zsphere (tricky bastards)
v6448336tEB6cnzS

Topology in a nutshell
v6448337ZKSyCS7k

Good Geometry
v6448338eqm7HcX5

[Jeffrey D]

Could you make a Tutorial for making a detailed realistic human head on Zbrush?

I would really appreciate it . If possible it would be great.

[cannedmushrooms]

There is a reason for not finding too many tutorials on that subject jeff.
1. they are boring to make ( aka hard )
2. boring to watch
3. They usually end up with somebody that has been sculpting all their life making you look like a potato head in Zbrush.

Leaving you to wonder why you can't do the same thing. they do.

Do they know something you dont?

The tools (which anyone can learn).

Their secret is practice!

You won't learn how to make a detailed character from a 6 hour video, of me moving every vert on the human face.

And you won't learn it from a expert that does it in 2 hours with timelapse.

You do it with small steps.

Take a ball and sculpt noses for weeks until you get really confident with noses.

Do the same with eyes
and lastly lips.

go through a skull lesson and see if it starts to click.

Formal training in anatomy helps but practice at smaller studys will allow too work your way to a faster understanding.

I usually really hate time lapse videos to the point of no end. In fact its really why I sorta started doing this thing with the videos.

But there really is one artist that can pull it off and you wont feel like a potato head.
Zack Petroc (http://gnomonology.com/inst/17)
http://gnomonology.com/tutorial/63

Try that video series, there are 2 videos, and they are both great.
you may not get it at first but watch his brushes and how hes applying them to a basic form.

I wouldnt dare try to top his technique.

hope that helps Jeff.


Remember "time lapse EVIL"

[/url]
[u] (http://gnomonology.com/tutorial/63)



http://gnomonology.com/tutorial/63




You only get good as something with an insane amount of practice.
Watching somebody own you at Zbrush won't teach you how to make an ultra real human.

I have a roughing in the human head. And how to memorize the head. Also a skull lesson. The rest comes into practice, pactice, pactice after you learn the and get to the point where the tools feel super natural.

[rubent100]

dude you are a genious, i hope you can update this with more!!! saved my life. how do i save threads?

[Jeffrey D]

Thank you very much for your kind reply cannedmushrooms.

[cannedmushrooms]

Really wish I could have editable rights over older posts.

This way this thread would not get so dis-organized and I can add all theses to the front page.


Shroom Signal
cannedmushrooms_webres.jpg

These 5 min lessons are fun.
Quick to do - Quick to render - Quick to upload;)

So heres 5 more

Good cylinder
v6462375FNk3WmWq

Uvtile and Geometry
v64623749CAQyaAc

Texture Fun
v6462373hzFW8FPJ

Materials on Objects and Subtools
v6462372W9tRssyc

Fixing Broken Symmetry
v6462371dycQbKBa

[dougt]

Thanks Jason!!! Always enjoy your tutorials! :tu: :tu:
More Please! :D

[cannedmushrooms]

thanks dougt;)
cannedmushrooms_webres.jpg

Well I had a video on displacements but it's REALLY LONG!!!
So I made this shorter film that shows the breakdown in MAYA and MAX.

MAX?

yes MAX

Not saying I'm any expert in MAx. But this video sorta shows the relation between maya and max, as far as how mental ray works.

Also shows the debug process inside you map.

v6507080KY8nTThA

[rubent100]

I wonder if you will ever do tutorials on compositing, such as in combustion or shake =D. If you do, please let it be combustion.

[SNARK]

Hi, Jason.

Another great tutorial, as usual. Displacement makes more sense now than ever. There was an article in HDRI by Steve Warner where he discussed ‘displacement’, ‘normal’ and ‘bump’ and suggested the Displacement Map could be applied at say, Sub-D 5 to capture all the important ‘shape’ geometry, the Normal Map would then be applied at Sub-D 7 to capture detail and the Bump Map applied at 8 to capture the high-frequency stuff. If you are really going to use these maps for greater control, is this the way? Apply them at different Sub-D levels? I want to pose and photograph models on sets in Maya through Mental Ray.

Steve also said if you use the ‘Adaptive’ setting in the Tool palette that ‘DpSubPix’ in MD3 should be set to ‘0’.

Oh, by the way, the audio is much better now. Whatever you did fixed it right up. No earphones needed.

Thanks!

~S.~

[cannedmushrooms]

well with the approximation node on the mesh it divides it up based on the whites in the map.

So the system is deciding at what level the mesh needs to be based off your max and min divide settings and those whites / greys and blacks.

How you could ever "choose" at what level your maps take effect must be some magical voodoo stuff. because I have never seen an option or a button that was labeled "insert map now") ;)

Now as I said Voodoo. ( not saying it doesnt exist) but you should post the article so I can check it out. Looking for something to read this morning anyway;)

ow wait is HDRI a mag?

5 mins later after caffeiene has hit brain cells


O snark are you talking about using your Zbrush models at different levels to generate the maps?

If so then yes that is a great way to do things. And that is exactly the way you should be thinking when generating the maps. That way the change matches the overall shape of the mesh that you make the map for

[SNARK]

Hi, Jason.

I’m looking at the article now. It’s a magazine and the website doesn’t post full articles without a subscription. Anyway, Steve says:

"Rather than trying to squeeze every ounce of detail from the Displacement Map, keep your polygon count relatively low (around a couple hundred thousand) and simply use the Displacement Map to alter the object’s basic form. Then use a Normal Map to fill in the details."

Wouldn't that somehow involve working with the levels?

~S.~

[cannedmushrooms]

Mostly I think what hes trying to say is this

a normal map is made for surface details

and a displacement is made for like beneath surface details.


Example (muscle=displacement) (skin pores and cracks= normal maps)


I dont think its a using the map at a certain level issue. More like use that map for what its made for.

Like using a normal map to define a models muscle tone is totally out of the question. Unless the model already had the muscle tone defined by the base mesh and you are just complementing that muscle tone.

Or turning a stick man into the incredible hulk using a displacement map might not be a wise idea also.;)

Better to use a man the shape of the hulk and displace it.


Same goes with Zbrush. your stickman level 1 does not look like the hulk so dont use it in you disp map generation. Use the level that sorta looks like the hulk.
When you displace your lower level in maya or max your displacement map will have fewer artifacts in the map because of this workflow.
You can always adjust the strenght higher and lower pretty easy in maya.

[SNARK]

Thanks, Jason!

[SNARK]

Hi, Jason.

I have two pieces of geometry I want to re-topo as a single piece. I know you did a tute on that but I can't find it. Could you tell me where that tute is? As I recall, it was a tute about how to attach a head to a body.

Thanks!

~S.~

[cannedmushrooms]

lesson 19 Snark on the front page;)

[LeoAMD]

thank you so much. theys are the most helpful tutorials i have seen so far. you really do cover all the points that i have been looking for and i didnt have to pay. cant wait to get started.:tu: :tu: :tu:

[cannedmushrooms]

Glad they help you out Leo
Money comes in different ways if you market yourself right.
You don't always have to sell something to make money;)
I guess thats how the internet generation just is.

Next on the menu more weird things they never told you about in 5 mins;)

cannedmushrooms_webres.jpg

Box modeling with Topo Tools
v657132134NnrRsZ

Hair and Vines
v65713232ySfgRXz

Morphs and Layers
v6571322bHfMMEPe

[rubent100]

"Money comes in different ways if you market yourself right.
You don't always have to sell something to make money."

Ive always tried telling these kids the same thing. Good job on them vids.

[cannedmushrooms]

The Texture Baking Archives
Now on video
by
cannedmushrooms_webres.jpg
Material Baking 1
(See post Num #98 for a better UV layout rather than using AUV tiles on this method)
v68105895abjZXXg

Material Baking 2
v6810588MJTh2fNw

Material to Texture
v6810587hHQyz6K9

[LIQUIDSNEEK]

Hi guys ,the last two videos are not working and the other in chinese or korean
:\.\\\\\hey after i made the this post they started to work...weird, oh i see
they like random vids every time

[cannedmushrooms]

huh ya Veoh has lost it freeken mind
weird last two vids will be posted later I guess until i figure out veohs deal.

If somebody didnt flood veoh with every crappy japan anime it would probally be a more classy place.


10 mins later after reading some stuff

WOW
I think the guys at veoh really did it this time
There is alot of complaints about this and it also looks like alot of my other vids are weird too.

We'll see what happens I'll check back after work today when I get more word on this

[dustbin1_uk]

Damn that's pissed me off! I was in the middle of another vid when Veoh started messing up! What the hell!

Canned, is Bluehost gonna get that twitchy if you add low res versions to your site?

[cannedmushrooms]

YAY fixed!

[dustbin1_uk]

Phew! Thank goodness for that!

EDIT: Ah! no! Some of them are some arn't. The Blender UV tutorial one still has a stupid animie instead. :mad:

I guess they'll get it right later.

[cannedmushrooms]

heres a fallback until later
I syndicated too you tube through veoh.

even though they ruin the quality of the video
http://www.youtube.com/cannedmushrooms (http://www.youtube.com/cannedmushrooms)

all vids under 10 mins should be there

[dustbin1_uk]

Jason, your catch a ZSphere video (GOD DO I HATE THAT BUG!).

A method I found is to hit A to preview, hit A again to go back and then hit scale.

So A, A, Scale.

A bit easier than having to try and move a ZSphere way off in space.

:D

[rubent100]

Jason thanks for these vids! I noticed your base head had eye textures! Dude how did you get those?

[cannedmushrooms]

demo head.?
It was the texture repeating itself onto the subtools. when I baked the texture. ;)

[dustbin1_uk]

Hi Jason,

Your vids are so blooming useful! I must have had about 5 head slapping moments while saying "I wish I had known that last week!!" :D

In Material Baking 1 you say that the information is from Sebacor, sabacore or someone. Do you have a link to this information?

Cheers Dude, keep up the good work.

[spaceboy412]

i think he meant sebcesoir
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=36229

[dustbin1_uk]

Holy cow! I actually read this before when I first got into 3D. It was too advanced for me then, but is good for me now.
Thanks for the link.

Canned, what I would be interested in seeing is a work flow vid getting a high res model and getting it rendered in Blender using Displacement maps. along the same lines as this. Yes blender does manage these too honestly. I may have sussed this all out by the time you get the vid done, but I think it would be helpful to other people learning ZB and Blender like me.

[rubent100]

Question regarding topology, when i topologize for instance a shirt like on your video, but i want my lines to go outside of the characters body for example the collar were its not near the neck. I do this and then i hit A and i get a crazy mesh. It works fine without turning projection on but i want the body to be projected on the shirt but no tthe collar. I want the collar to be just as i modeled it. Any suggestions?

[cannedmushrooms]

dustbin1- Maybe some day ;)
Blenders good in small doses

rubent100- go to the move tool and move the topology lines off the mesh.
moving the geometry will only reset itself after you hit A

[cannedmushrooms]

cannedmushrooms_webres.jpg
While playing with the almighty Zapplink
I can across this workflow for placing textures on models
Procedural texture 1
v6909598pyMEC7RR
Procedural texture 2
v6909599w3BbBgxK
Procedural Bump
v6909600qQaZ4ad5

[Christian Michelin]

Hi Jason,

I'm puzzled by your tut showing Sebcesoir's baking method
How is it that you can use AUV tiles and not me :qu:
I always get the tiling in the texture!
For this method I'm forced to use clean Uvs and it's
very frustrating to see you using AUV and not having any problems...

I tried it on the demohead with the same displacement settings
as you and it's not like the Alpha Depth slider is very complicated either..

Any hint about what I'm doing wrong?

[cannedmushrooms]

heh
on the record I really hate AUV tiles. I would never use them on a professional model as an end mapping system.
That being said they are very good at transfering the burned texture back to the mesh.

Heres the secret burn it back to the mesh first, never output the first texture that is baked using the crop and fill.

By burning a 2048 map back to a 1 million poly object it will blur the map taking out all the AUV lines.

Why? because for a 2048 map to stay at 2048 res,
the polys would have to equal 4million or so in Poly paint world (could be more)

Then when you get done with all the burning it back to the model I would sudjest making some UVW mapping for the head. for maya or max

Video 2 is a product of that blur and thats why the AUV did not do anything weird. But I bet you anything that the normal map would have looked like crap using those same AUV tiles unless I burned it to the model.

Which I am going to try now;)

[Christian Michelin]

Didn't work at all!
The shading is inverted on each tiles from the one beside it.It's very weird.
It seems something is happening at the crop n' fill step because when I load
the displacement map as a texture there is no seams at all.
I even use AUV for normal maps in max all the time without any problems.
I think I'll give up on this....:cry:
Thanx anyway:)

[cannedmushrooms]

on texture baking 2 you don't have to worry about AUVs at all because there is no crop and fill, its staying in poly paint mode to burn the material into the texture.

But your right the crop and fill is doing some odd stuff with AUV tiles.

UVW wont do that.

Did not have time in the vid to go through a UVW map for the head;) (see doing UVS in blender video with the demo soldier post #98)

I'm just writing this info out incase another peep comes across this issue also. Christian

Anyway here better illustrates AUV vs UVW and how much more crisp things look.

Both models were made using texture baking 1 video just with different UVS (there is no bump map on these models!)

Some of the metal mat caps will look weird in the spectral shading areas. using this method.
To get around that use texture baking 2 video
Nobump.jpg

[Jaycephus]

Jason, I only just started going through your vids...

I just noticed in Vid 3 you used my ShinyOldSkull matcap. cool. I almost didn't realize it because you call it 'JIM-shinyOldSkull'. It's actually 'JLM' which are my initials. I was sitting here thinking 'that looks like a material I made once... didn't I call it shinyOldSkull?' I thought it was a bit funny.

Just a note about the light that I supplied with that matcap. It's too bright as is. It was set that way because the skull I used it on had the reference images Pixologic supplied applied to it as a polypaint texture. Therefore it was darkened by these textures. The light worked really well in that case. For an untextured skull, it would probably need to be toned down. See: http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=46403&page=1&pp=15


:qu: (http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/images/smilies/question.gif)
I've seen that some users have used Zapplink for advanced masking. Do you have a video on that?

Thanks,

[cannedmushrooms]

thats a great topic jay!


I dont have one
but if you crank your polys up and use pure black in projection master you can then pick up the model and use mask by intensity in the texture pallet.

Anything painted black is then masked;)

Ya that is a very old vid that needs to be updated pretty bad.
It was when I first got 3.1
Matcaps + lights = bad

Great material though I really use it allot on my stuff. I like the way it cavity shades

[cannedmushrooms]

cannedmushrooms_webres.jpg



Well since Maya 2008 came out there has been alot of debate on displacements and the rendering there of.
So these videos will bring you up to speed on the workflow.
They are not as detailed, and cover what was changed in the flow only as far as displacements.
Also Xnormal is used to take a 32 bit displacement map and produce a couple maps (I freeken love this program).

Anywho enjoy the update
Zbrush to Maya 2008 Displacements and Normal Maps 1
v6966069mJBnAPFd

Zbrush to Maya 2008 Displacements and Normal Maps 2
v6966067XzHb5Pkm

Zbrush to Maya 2008 Displacements and Normal Maps 3
v6966068R7S8RzTy

Zbrush to Maya 2008 Displacements and Normal Maps 4
v6966070y3z9a2Zd

[SNARK]

Thanks for the new vids, Jason!

Did you say in Vid 2 that Occlusion Maps, Diffuse Maps and Cavity Maps are just different names for the same map?



~S.~

[cannedmushrooms]

similar that’s all

they just ramp detail by killing light in cracks



Cavity maps can get a little deeper into the cracks. But I like the OCC a little better.
I did notice that the OCC from a 16 bit disp is more cavity like, Where the one coming off the 32 bitdisplacement is almost 2 white.

Usually OCC is a final composite from a render pass to strenghten detail in post production.

Anything to keep my maps clean is all I care about.
I'm sorta sick of having some weird thing show up do to some Zmapper quirk.

And now better yet I can start using Multi UVS again.
Because Displacement exporter 3 doesent fold in on itself anytime you use multi UVS.

[cannedmushrooms]

a dustin somebody PMed me if you read this I accidently deleted it. It was concerning the UT3 engine. So Pm me back .

[cannedmushrooms]

cannedmushrooms_webres.jpg (http://javascript%3cb%3e%3c/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%2790830%27,%27cannedmushrooms_we bres.jpg%27,1,0%29)
With all this DW3 stuff being released I feel some stuff on resolution should be covered.

I have been working on a character with fur lately and wanted the fur to stay a good resolution without a trillion polys.

So I figured hey if I was having fun dealing with keeping good resolution, I bet there is somebody strugling with that issue also.

So heres my solutions to keeping resolution under wraps.

For the hairbrush visit
http://www.houseoftutorials.net/Zfleamarket
and look under Alphas

v7028088r5WKabYM

v7028089sqyPBexy

v70280878wnAbAWR

[spaceboy412]

Jason i've been experimenting with the same issue for a portrait i'm doing, but i'm trying to use only zbrush. here are some tests, when i finish the piece i'll explain them better.

Jason you should install this plugin, it makes sizing textures super easy.
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=49728

ONe last thing, in your pixol to pixel video you choose AUV tiles, first, i vagely recall aurick saying that its best to have your texture chosen first before you hit AUV's because then the UV's are more suited to that texture size.

[spaceboy412]

okay i'm just going to post again because you bring up a topic i've been curios about, In your last video the polypainting looks worse than the texture, i don't completely understand why this is, is it because the texture has better resolution, just over 4mil, but the model had under 4mil, so wouldnt it look the same if you were able to get a model that had the same number of polys as pixels in the texture?

[TimothyB]

okay i'm just going to post again because you bring up a topic i've been curios about, In your last video the polypainting looks worse than the texture, i don't completely understand why this is, is it because the texture has better resolution, just over 4mil, but the model had under 4mil, so wouldnt it look the same if you were able to get a model that had the same number of polys as pixels in the texture?Even if the model had the same amount of polygons as the texture has pixels, 4mil and 4mil, the model's polygons are not all of equal size, not evenly distributed. I think I noticed the hair had larger polygons than the forehead.

That's one thing to keep track of when you model and plan to polypaint. If you make an area with more polygons on part of a head and you keep dividing, you might find your model still to low despite the total number of polygons due to wasted polygons in those denser, tightly packed areas. So you may have to divide a few more times compensate for othe areas, but that might be impossible to to do.

This was a problem when I wanted to polypaint an entire figure with fur. The head was decent poly count/even poly size, but I left the body pretty low, with huge polygons in comparison. Thus, when I divided the entire mesh to paint, and got the head with enough polys, the body was still too low to have the same detail. I couldn't divide anymore since the head was already so dense, I'd run out of memory on a 2 gig system.

My solution was to split the figure into subtools and divide each to be sort of even. The head, body, arms, legs, hands, feet, all split to subtools using polygroups. (I made sure the figure had it's uvs before doing this) Then going to each subtool, I turned creasing on and divided them all until they were all about the same polygon size. So I probably left the head and hands/feet alone, and divided the arms, leggs and body to match. Then I used make-1-mesh and it was one tool again. Still split up, but I could now divide it all at once evenly, and while pushing my memory to the limit, the detail going from the face to the body was even. And the UVs were still working when I did color to texture. And painting across the split parts worked fine. If you use the smooth brush on the left, to blur colors, there could be some issues at were the mesh is split. Using projection master blur brush is still fine.

I didn't think about creating an alpha with as many fibers as here to use with the drag-rect brush. I did something similar, but then used spray and variation to get the color and depth all at once while painting how the fur curved and flowed (which was hard to do). I wasn't going for anything ultra realistic, more suddle:
brisby_wip_030a.jpg
brisby_wip_031a.jpg

brisby_wip_032a.jpg



Sometimes I felt going to a texture sometimes loses detail, which might have been caused by real unwrapped uvs that don't use every pixel of a texture area compared to tiles.

[Blaine91555]

okay i'm just going to post again because you bring up a topic i've been curios about, In your last video the polypainting looks worse than the texture, i don't completely understand why this is, is it because the texture has better resolution, just over 4mil, but the model had under 4mil, so wouldnt it look the same if you were able to get a model that had the same number of polys as pixels in the texture?
I believe the opposite is true. If the texture has a larger pixel count than the model has polys, the pixels would be compressed into individual pixels to match the polys and you would loose resolution. An exact or near match should be the goal and the more polys the better it will look.

[dustbin1_uk]

And get your topology as organised as possible to start with.
Same as you should have more poly's where you want more sculpting detail, you also want to ensure you have enough polys in the areas where you are going to paint detailed work.

[cannedmushrooms]

wow woke up to a great discusion;)
Those are all great points.
Making a super uniform mesh with topology is always the best method.

I figured these 3 vids would help peeps with slower machines that could not divide to 10 million polys.
You also have you consider UV space being uniformed and relaxed enough to take the best resolution.
The bunny Fur is great space


heres another issue that happens with poor resolution I found this morning;)
http://209.132.96.165/zbc/showthread.php?p=448552#post448552

[cannedmushrooms]

cannedmushrooms_webres.jpg

When you need a break from modeling, one usually falls back on making materials for Zbrush.

Now the Matcap tool is fun and all but heres a little workflow for anyone that wants to use mental ray.

Material Fun 1 (Maya Setup)
v7069508NNnzc2A6

Material Fun 2 (Hypershade Setup)
v7069506W8zTWkmM

Material Fun 3 (Photoshop)
v7069507jStAEsXe

Material Fun 4 (Zbrush Transfer)
v7069509tmMqDKRW

[RAMWolff]

Hiya,

Where can I find Marcus newly updated plugin? I looked around and can't seem to locate it. Probably having a senior moment!! :o

[cannedmushrooms]

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=36662&highlight=pixol

[cannedmushrooms]

Organization is the key to all.

I find veoh a little lacking on the whole organization thing so I'm starting to use veoh as a backend for videos.

My frontend is being developed into a learning machine that can be easyily navigated by students at my work.

Been pluging away at this for a few weeks now. So I thought I would share.

All sections are open to guests to browse around but not to signup for the class. Meaning you can still watch all the videos and click on most of the links without signing up as a user. (so use the login as guest buttons)
I had to make a video to better explain what the site so without further a-do heres houseoftutorials.net

v8802727ddf9Bsnw

[dustbin1_uk]

well done buddy! Good to see your still working hard on this.

[spaceboy412]

Jason, i wanted to share something that might be already known but i discovered by accident.
When using Transpose, masking through Topological masking, you normally cannot add a second mask on top through topo masking, however if found out that you actually can, only if part of your mesh is hidden, don't know why.
To add the second mask you need to hold CTRL+ALT, normally that would whiten a mask as you know but it adds an extra. i made a short vid showing this in action. it really helps for fingers and toes(although i didnt show the why of that here).
in the vid i first show how you can't do the additional masks without hiding.

EDIT:i cannot seem to embed the video html link correctly. anyway i'm sure you can try out the masking yourself.

http://vid4.photobucket.com/albums/y101/spaceboy412/ZBrushMovie.flv

(http://s4.photobucket.com/albums/y101/spaceboy412/?action=view&current=ZBrushMovie.flv)

[cannedmushrooms]

heh Did not know that but always wondered why sometimes the masking and moving things would work great and then other times it would suck. Its because I was doing that method in finer areas. compared to the over all broad.
I also have seen where tranpose masking with the combo of hardening mask work great also.
Thanks space you always take a science aproach towards things I notice.

Which is great in the land of 3d;)

[Loomineel]

Hello Jason,
Firstly, thanks for the great vids :D
However, I guess lesson 4 and 5 are not working now. So I wonder if there is any possibility that you might upload them again?
<3

[cannedmushrooms]

They download and play ok.
hmm.

Well heres a pick of them downloaded just to sorta show ya.
heh

anywho did you use veoh tv to download them?
they play alot better in Windows Media player. Theres instructions a few posts back on how to do this.




download.jpg

[Loomineel]

*cheers*
Glad for the quick reply.

Just to notice you, I think there's a problem with the links at houseoftutorials.com.
Lesson 4 | http://www.veoh.com/videos/v914519whJxEFzN (http://www.veoh.com/videos/v914519whJxEFzN)
Lesson 5 | http://www.veoh.com/videos/v914520Sd5eW59N (http://www.veoh.com/videos/v914520Sd5eW59N)

Veoh TV says "unavailable" for the both links.
So I guess I should try the search engine then :p

[cannedmushrooms]

or go to the first post in this thread and click play, then the "Play in veoh tv button) from there you can download also

[cannedmushrooms]

cannedmushrooms_webres.jpg
Havent had a whole lot of time for videos with the end of the school year coming to a halt. But I have decided to place all the videos on post #1 on this thread on DVD and media download for people who want the high res versions. 720X480

I get asked this a lot but I did not want to burn DVDS and ship DVDs for a living.

So lulu is doing that for me.
Isn't technology wonderful.

enjoy

Media Version
http://www.lulu.com/content/2596920

DVD version
Coming soon (still uploading it)

[dustbin1_uk]

Really! That's great news!

Now to find some cash......!

[malachi666]

Jason,


This may seem weird, but if I subscribe to VTC for your courses, will I be able to download the lessons, am I only able to view them on their website?

[cannedmushrooms]

As a member your only allowed to view them via their player.
That plays both flash or MOV versions of the training videos.
With the Zbrush Course you are also able to buy the DVD which includes all the videos without the security so you can play them via media player classic.
That way they can be played on top of all windows and apps.

Yes I was a little weirded out with this fact also. But they do play in real time and are easy to fast forward, rewind and pause. The only thing I miss is the fact that they can't be downloaded and stored for archieve purposes.

But hey these are the ways of the world.
I really have no control over the situation. But I do stand by the series which I had fun making;)

hope that helps;)

[malachi666]

Hey Jason,

Thank you for responding. I have most of your earlier videos from before and still find a ton of useful information in them. I hope you continue publishing them and the ones on Maya as they are all awsome, and for someone who is a noob (which includes me) they serve to teach you in a no nonsense kind of way.

thanks again Sensei!

Malachi

[malachi666]

Jason,


I was wondering about the download you are now selling for the high res vids from this thread. Which vids from this thread does it include?

Malachi

[cannedmushrooms]

Thanks Malachi
I finally got most of it done uploading.
My new store is located here

http://stores.lulu.com/houseoftutorials

I have 2 series so far for sale

The lessons on post #1 of this thread which takes up two dvds ( I have one dvd uploaded now)
and the Zbrush Tips and tricks which are all over this thread.
But in the store I have all the lessons listed in the disk descriptions. or you can click on the "View back cover button" inside the description

[dustbin1_uk]

FINALLY Blender Nation have linked to your vids:

http://www.blendernation.com/2008/05/28/9-cool-video-tutorials/

I get the feeling someone else told them about this too, but I thought I'd let you know.

[Kellios]

cannedmushrooms,

I want to thank you so much for your tutorials. They have been the best resource I've found learning zBrush (picked it up recently, have only mostly worked through Maya beforehand). I'm still going through them all but all the knowledge I've picked up has been incredible.

Thanks so much for giving us so much. It's really appreciated!

[SinisterUrge]

Here here, the video tutorials are excellent. I've watched dozens of them myself

[Yobler.com]

If you are interested on posting your video lessons on various subjects I have a small website where you can upload video lessons and earn money for yourself. This program allows you to insert third-party ads within video clips shown on our website. For this program to work a user only needs an account with the major Affiliate Networks ( Click Bank, Commission Junction) and he is ready to earn money for himself. I can provide you with the URL if you wish to send me a private message.

[Wozrush]

Jason, have you ever covered `saving a mask` in any of your vids? and just in case it wasn't mentioned, do the saved masks attach themselves to the file/tool like paths do in Photoshop? ...proberbly not?

[cannedmushrooms]

This video has everything you need my friend;)
I save masks all the time in it.


v2521061fAEtzpCH

[Wozrush]

Thanks :)

[patricksharpe]

I have been trying to get a grasp of creating and rendering dis maps from Zbrush to Maya and I found your tuts very inspirational, but unfortunately Iv hit a snag. Rather than spending hours looking for the proper information I was wondering if you might be able to help me a bit faster. The Xnormal program you mentioned for creating normal maps / occlusion maps seems to crash on my PC all the time. Iv checked to make sure that I have all the plugins I need, which I do, and yet I cant seem to get through acctually making these maps due to the program crashing all the time. I have Win XP service PK 3 on a dual core 4600 amd with 4 gigs of XMS corsair memory using a 7900 gs gcard. The program crashes due to insufficiant memory but I have 33 processes running and over 3 gigs of ram available. I just cant see how its reporting the issue correctly. Anyway is there another method of creating these maps without the use of this program xNromal? My system has always been stable and no other program has issues but xnormal...so given another method Im sure I would be much more successful. My only goal is to get all the detail Iv worked with in Z to migrate over to Maya where I can take advantage of mental rays rendering power. Any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[cannedmushrooms]

I would reinstall Direct X on your PC
That program uses it the most and every time microsoft places a service pack out there it always seems to jack Direct X up a little. IMHO

Do that first and Report back;)

[dustbin1_uk]

I used XNormal for a time, but found that I kept getting weird artifacts on the maps.

One of my old man character heads had a couple of diamond shaped artifacts appearing on his top lip.

I found no explanation for it, so gave up on XNormal.

Has anyone else encountered that and got a solution?

[sorrowhills]

I was wondering if you could upload the tutorial for human skull modeling at youtube or some similar video sharing site, i can't see any video from veoh. :cry:

[cannedmushrooms]

won't let me cause the video is too large.
This was made at a time where I didnt cut off the time on my videos.

Veoh has switched to a flash player make sure you have the latest flash / Java / dont live in a country where 90% of the people watch and upload anime and you should be ok.
Its also on DVD 1 in my store ;)

[patricksharpe]

You might be right about the Direct X. I was going to re-install but when I checked everything since I was up to date I disregarded the reinstalling thinking it wasn't going to make much difference, but installing service PK 3 was the newest system wide install that Iv done recently so Ill give it a try and let you know. Thanks for looking out.

[sorrowhills]

Then could you upload it on a site like rapidshare or zshare? please?

[kasperle]

The Veoh company has become idiotic in its policy - do not support it!
Share it on rapidshare and the whole world can see your vids.
Don't be a US centric guy!

[patricksharpe]

Canned Shrooms,

Hey good news. I decided to make a Maya render slave today,secondary PC, and in the process I went a head and installed X-normal on this machine being that everything was freshly installed with very minimal net surfing to completely isolate whatever issues there might have been with X-normal running on my main PC. X-normal on this PC runs great and has yet to crash. Its got xp service pk 3 as well but I installed direct x 9c after installing xp service pk 3. I haven't reinstalled direct x 9c on my main PC but at least I have a base test subject that I know is successful and using that as a benchmark I'll be able to figure out, between the 2, whats causing the conflict. Secondly if all else fails I can just render the maps from this machine and share the maps through the network. Thanks for the Direct x re-install tip Canned Shrooms.

[SNARK]

Hi, Jason.

I have gone to your site and watched all the Maya animation videos. Incredible effort, man. I’ve never been too interested in animation, I’m a sculptor, an illustrator, but now I’m thinking about it. I’ve done several exercises of animated, disembodied heads lip-synching with expression but now I want to put those animations on a body, walking down a sidewalk, a crazy person talking to themselves. How do I approach this? None of the ‘Animation 1 CIS 173' classes touched on this: the merging of a blend-shaped head with a key-framed body. Have you made such a tutorial? Can you point me to one? I have viewed your tutorial ‘08 Deformers’ and it was very useful.

Thanks!

~S.~

[cannedmushrooms]

If the head is a seperate mesh
Go to bind pose
grab the root bone and head and detach the skin
Then align your bend shaped head to the body
grab the root bone and the head
Bind smooth bind

You will need to adjust the head weights at this point

I don't have a tutorial for that. It would end up in an animation II class most likely.

But try that out it should work

[SNARK]

Hi, Jason.

That is good advice and I will move in that direction but I sure would worship a tutorial that specifically dealt with attaching a blend-shaped head to a key-framed body.

Thanks!

~S.~

[ashras99]

Those having any problem in streaming these tutorials in first post then those can watch and download these tutorials here. Have a look. Thanks to Jason.

http://www.cgarena.com/freestuff/tutorials/zbrush/sculpting_series/index.html

[sorrowhills]

Cannedmushrooms, could you upload the lesson 11, lesson 14, and lesson 18 to any sharing site please? I can't see any Veoh video :cry:


Greetings :tu:

[hollowed455]

these lessons are great! Only problem I'm hvaing is I like to download the videos directly from Veoh and i'm having a problem. I've only been able to find up to level 4. can't find 5 on there. I found 6 & 7 though. anyone know of someplace that might have it? thanks

[hollowed455]

anyone know what's up with this thing? I try to download the lesson files and it keeps giving me a error message. problem with the hosting site? anyone else having this problem?

[SinisterUrge]

http://www.veoh.com/channels/houseofZbrush Go here and download veoh software and you are in business. Yes, it was a hosting issue, but not to worry.

[hollowed455]

thanks!!!

another thing though where can I download the lesson materials he's providing?

[hollowed455]

asking because it's giving me an error on that as well. maybe it'll be back up before long. I'm on lesson 5 so still got some time

[SinisterUrge]

You could always sent Jason Welsh a message or email asking for whatever files you need.

[hollowed455]

you know I wasn't even thinking of that

[hollowed455]

well I tried to send a message but he has to clear space in his inbox first. maybe the hosting site will work again soon and I'll just download them all at once which is what I should have done to begin with

[hollowed455]

anyone happen to have these lesson files? the links seem to be dead. I got the videos off of Veoh downloaded just don't have the files cannedmushrooms has included

[cannedmushrooms]

I've been moving my servers around a little
heres all the lesson files let me know if there is anything missing
http://www.houseoftutorials.net/lessonfiles/

[hollowed455]

sweet! thanks dude...your tutorials have been very helpful for a beginner like myself!

[hollowed455]

hey maybe they are worded differently but not seeing any of the files after lesson 9. Just goes to like Maya human breakdown and such. sorry don't mean to bug or anything like that

[cannedmushrooms]

after 9 there was only 11 that needed files
what the chapter and page numbers?

"the first four numbers followed by the title"

Or the link to the video where I mention the files?
This way I can make sure you get the right ones;)

It's no bother

[hollowed455]

the chapter and page numbers?

sorry it's early in the morning before I go to work my brain is still a little slow at the moment. Most likely in a couple of hours I'm going to go "derrrr it's ...."

[hollowed455]

Lesson 10 (http://www.veoh.com/videos/v1409317sWDYqqRM?rank=0&jsonParams=%7B%22numResults%22%3A20%2C%22rlmin%22% 3A0%2C%22query%22%3A%22cannedmushrooms+lesson+10+z brush%22%2C%22rlmax%22%3Anull%2C%22veohOnly%22%3At rue%2C%22order%22%3A%22default%22%2C%22range%22%3A %22a%22%2C%22sId%22%3A%223747126438875389952%22%7D&searchId=3747126438875389952&rank=1)

that's the first one that has caught my attention about not sure which file it is. I may even be mistaken and your talking about using the guy that was made in lesson 5. I have done all the lessons up to 6 so that may be where I'm thinking wrongly. you probably remember in lesson 5 we took the guy to blender to add UVs to him and ended him there and pick him up in lesson 8 I think from reading descriptions. I know the title to the guy used in 10 is "guy combined."

[cannedmushrooms]

Heh
You will notice after you get through a few videos I stop giving lesson files for that series. At the time it was really hard to manage. So let me know if you see anything missing as you go through the series.
Post the video where I tell you I'm giving you something just like you did the last post.

This will help me out alot to organize my archieve videos
http://www.houseoftutorials.net/lessonfiles/Lesson10_ZbrushC.zip

[hollowed455]

cool. Yah from this point on I'll just take the lessons as they come and see if anything is missing. If I can't fnd something I'll move on to the next new lesson till you have a chance to fil me in on things. Another question though. A friend of mine let me install his copy of Maya do you also have in depth tutorials on using that? I'm sure if I just do a search on Veoh I can find them. Thanks for the reply! Keep up the awesome work!

[cannedmushrooms]

Yes they are on veoh.
Problem with veoh is it is hard to organize!!!
so go to houseoftutorials.net
go to CIS171 Modeling I
and login as a guest

Start with topic 1

This should get you started with maya.

Good choice on picking the programs to learn! Maya rocks Btw you will love it!

[Drucifer]

VEOH, or whatever it's called...
I'm trying to play the videos, but always
pauses after a couple seconds, and NO SOUND...

WTF...?
~Drucifer...

[ashras99]

Drucifer, have you seen this

http://www.cgarena.com/freestuff/tutorials/zbrush/sculpting_series/index.html

[NewB WanaBe]

VEOH, or whatever it's called...
I'm trying to play the videos, but always
pauses after a couple seconds, and NO SOUND...

WTF...?
~Drucifer...I have the same problem with Veoh, i can start the 5 min preview, and then it pauses and stops, the watch on Veoh tab, just makes the preview stop, i cant watch the vids at all. Yet i can use Veoh just fine on other sites and watch movies ect....just doesnt work here....any one have a idea how to fix this? It use to work fine for me, till i updated service pac 3, had to reformat, lost all my vids and trying to get them back :(((

Im such a NEWB ...i need these vids to help learn....BTW Jason.....good work with these....u rock!!!

[Samarah]

Hi...Great big huge newbie here..I cant watch the videos either and I am in great need and desire to learn this fantastic program! If these videos are no longer available...do you have any suggestions to where I can find some great learning resources? I thank you so much in advance!:)

[cannedmushrooms]

over the years people have syndicated me through many sites

for example go to google and type houseoftutorials

heres a few that pop up


http://www.truveo.com/tag/houseoftutorials
http://www.perfspot.com/video2/search.asp?q=tag:%22houseoftutorials%22
http://v.mcomet.com/tag/705813/

and thats on the first page of the search;)

Now they might be veoh clones so I am also downloading all of the veoh lower res stuff and placing it on badongo.com
Since veoh is being a snob.

The high res of the videos are on DVD in my store

Here is the link to badango
http://www.houseoftutorials.net/zbrush/
the links to the videos will show up on the red flash area in the center of the page.

Watch season 2 until I get them uploaded ;)

[Samarah]

Hi! Thank you sooo very much! I have been so lost with this program..hopefully now I will be found! /me bows!
I have been using the tutorials posted on the ZBrush website..and they are somewhat helpful..but they do not cover but a few things.
Thanks again!

[dustbin1_uk]

Hey Jason,

Are you storing the lesson files anywhere?

Need the files for:
Lesson 4 (Mid level)
Making a simple Biped out of Zspheres an teh settings that will work correctly with poseable sym.

Cheers dude.

[dustbin1_uk]

Never mind! Got them ta!

EDIT!
NOPE WRONG FILE!

EDIT EDIT:
Sorry it was the right file, I looked at the wrong thing inside it. Sigh! :rolleyes:

[cannedmushrooms]

www.houseoftutorials.net/lessonfiles (http://www.houseoftutorials.net/lessonfiles)

Those files are uploading might be a couple days until they are all in place and download-able

[dustbin1_uk]

EDIT: NEVER MIND!

[cannedmushrooms]

Due to popular request
Remember lesson files are located

HERE!!!!!!! (http://www.houseoftutorials.net/lessonfiles)

Lesson 1 recap
http://www.badongo.com/vid/838507

Lesson 2 (the Newer skull video)
http://www.badongo.com/vid/838435
Lesson file for skull (http://www.houseoftutorials.net/lessonfiles/lesson2_ZbrushC.zip)

Lesson 3
http://www.badongo.com/vid/838484

lesson 4
http://www.badongo.com/vid/838641

Lesson 5
http://www.badongo.com/vid/838227

Lesson 6
http://www.badongo.com/vid/838783

Lesson 7
http://www.badongo.com/vid/838742

Lesson 8
http://www.badongo.com/vid/838690

Lesson9
http://www.badongo.com/vid/838785

Lesson 10
http://www.badongo.com/vid/838304

lesson 11
http://www.badongo.com/vid/838489
http://www.badongo.com/vid/838459
http://www.badongo.com/vid/802145
http://www.badongo.com/vid/838455

lesson 12
http://www.badongo.com/vid/838349
http://www.badongo.com/vid/838322

Lesson 13
http://www.badongo.com/vid/838703

Lesson 14
http://www.badongo.com/vid/838787

lesson 15
http://www.badongo.com/vid/839084


lesson 16
http://www.badongo.com/vid/839080


lesson 17
http://www.badongo.com/vid/838215

lesson 18
http://www.badongo.com/vid/838396

lesson 19
http://www.badongo.com/vid/838217

lesson 20
http://www.badongo.com/vid/838254

lesson 21
http://www.badongo.com/vid/838325

lesson 22
http://www.badongo.com/vid/838272

lesson 23
http://www.badongo.com/vid/838309

Season 2 in order
Introduction
http://www.badongo.com/vid/789934

Navigation
http://www.badongo.com/vid/789929

Sculpting intro
http://www.badongo.com/vid/789690

What the heck is a squikle?
http://www.badongo.com/vid/789714

Andrew Loomis
http://www.badongo.com/vid/789721

Sculpting Basics 1
http://www.badongo.com/vid/790013

Sculpting Basics 2
http://www.badongo.com/vid/790009

Sculpting Basics 3
http://www.badongo.com/vid/789763

Eyes
http://www.badongo.com/vid/789759

Poly Groups
http://www.badongo.com/vid/789757

Zspheres in Sculpting
http://www.badongo.com/vid/789778

Intro to Zspheres
http://www.badongo.com/vid/789764

Structure of Zspheres 1
http://www.badongo.com/vid/789775

Structure of Zspheres 2
http://www.badongo.com/vid/789779

Structure of Zspheres 3
http://www.badongo.com/vid/789793

Alphas
http://www.badongo.com/vid/789954

Primitives
http://www.badongo.com/vid/789937

Clipping Plane problems
http://www.badongo.com/vid/789950

Captureing Alphas
http://www.badongo.com/vid/789968

Designing a brush
http://www.badongo.com/vid/789970

Making a brush ICON
http://www.badongo.com/vid/789980

Using the plane macro
http://www.badongo.com/vid/789988

Smart Resym
http://www.badongo.com/vid/789976

Tileable sections
http://www.badongo.com/vid/789993

Alpha Grab tile
http://www.badongo.com/vid/789991
5 Min Help Series


Polypaint vs Texture
http://www.badongo.com/vid/839279

Pixol to pixel
http://www.badongo.com/vid/839268

Material Baking 1
http://www.badongo.com/vid/839351

Material baking 2
http://www.badongo.com/vid/839348

Material fun 1
http://www.badongo.com/vid/839382

Material fun 2
http://www.badongo.com/vid/839364

Material fun 3
http://www.badongo.com/vid/839363

Material fun 4
http://www.badongo.com/vid/839371

Material to texture
http://www.badongo.com/vid/839329

Displacement 1
http://www.badongo.com/vid/839319

Displacement 2
http://www.badongo.com/vid/839314

Displacement 3
http://www.badongo.com/vid/839363

Displacement 4
http://www.badongo.com/vid/839371

[dustbin1_uk]

LOL sorry my fault, I didn't realise you had directory listing on your site. I got the file already now.

I hope your not banging your head against the desk right now.:D

Thanks for re-linking though. :tu:

[cannedmushrooms]

LOL no dustbin

its funny

ITS a Very common question thats all.

thats why i labeled the HERE so big

heh

[Josh Tiefer]

CannedMushrooms,

I tried just sending u a message to address this question, but it seems u're mailbox is full; so, I hope it is not too out of context for this thread;

I recently made a post inquiring about how to get mat-capped materials out of zbrush (baked to texture) and someone forwarded me your video tutorials, which as far as I know offer the only way to get that stuff out of zbrush, which I much appreciate...I posted a reply thinking that I was already talking to the creater of the vid...my mistake, it wasn't you I posed the follow up question to, it was just a helpful forum member...so, below is my posted question that just inquires about how to get artifact free results on a full character...any info you could provide regarding this would be great...

workflow for entire character... wow...okay...thanks a ton for these totorials! This seems to be the only way to approach this issue til its more integrated in further releases of Zbrush...so I'm guessing that u're workflow (following u're second video's method) would require capturing in sections...so u might zapplink capture for the head,...torso, arm, ect...is this correct? Otherwise I would suppose u wouldn't get the accuracy needed...also...I'm getting massive artifacts so far...is this just a polycount issue, or is there something else I should keep in mind?

thanks again for posting vids on this,

-Josh

[cannedmushrooms]

The whole body would be tuff in one shot.

break the model up in Poly groups and hide the pieces that would cause harsh shadowing on other parts as needed. (see polygroup video)

Do the smaller pieces taking your time and bake them out. (cook material to model)

Keep hiding and showing the parts until all pieces have been baked


Repeat the process for all the parts.

Once done make a new texture



Col>Tex

You will probally need to blend some seems using the clone tool when done.

This is theory mind you, but as long as you have good UVs it should be possible.
My college classes just started so my video recording has been more focused towards makeup modules in the unreal engine.
Just give it a shot if you have questions post them here.
My mailbox fills up very fast;)

And now an example of why I do video tutorials
Tip stay away from Custom 1 and custom 2 projections or they cause weird stuff to show up on the bake.

example.jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%27103383%27,%27example.jpg%27,1, 0%29)
Small seem shows up because of custom 1 on 2 rotations in Zapplink setup
Turn render to flatten to check the seem

[Samarah]

/me says timidly..I hate to bother you...but I downloaded all the ZBrush lesson file and I cannot find the "Skull" tool that is for lesson 2. I clicked on the big HERE link and was looking in those files and I cannot find it..please point in right direction and thank you so very much for the awesome tuts! :o

[cannedmushrooms]

http://www.houseoftutorials.net/lessonfiles/lesson2_ZbrushC.zip

It was formly know as lesson 2 awhile back
I updated the links above also.

np;)

[Samarah]

Thank you so very much!!

[Josh Tiefer]

Canned Mushrooms,

hey, I haven't gotten a chance to give this a full go yet,..but I really appreciate the post with the visual explanation...which I think makes a world of a difference...as soon as complete the process of baking a material for an entire character, I'll post my results,

-Josh

[cannedmushrooms]

see this post josh

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showpost.php?p=478820&postcount=28

for the videos version

[Elvaron]

Hey, first of all let me say thank you for making these incredibly great videos.

I do prefer above videos to the ones in the original post. But Lesson 3 doesnt seem to start downloading somehow (the second one worked fine). Are the other lessons upgraded to 3.1 as Lesson 2 is? Because then I would love a reup (stroking out the rapidshare request, since I read on your season 2 thread that it's out of the question). Coming to think of it, is the season 2 like the same content but re-done or is it different stuff?

You're basically outputting so many videos, it's kind of hard to know "what should I watch next to make sense with what I already know?"...

[cannedmushrooms]

2nd season is got a flow to it and the videos are shorter with more of a classroom approach.

1st season was like "screw it I'm making a bunch of free tutorials" weeeeeeeeeeeeee


Of course a syllabus to follow would be nice huh?


O wait

http://www.houseoftutorials.net/

Go to the Zbrush 3.1 link
hit the login as guest

and walla

Browse by topic!

I don't use rapid share but season one and 2 has links on this forum to every video via badango (way better than rapid share)

hope that helps;)

[dustbin1_uk]

That's great Jason!
Will check it all out this afternoon! :D

[Elvaron]

Hey, I got a new question, maybe kinda off-topic though.
Just watching Lesson 15 (at least thats what the header says) showing how to set up image planes, and you seamlessly interrupt the video and go on by creating another set of planes mentioning you did those quickly with a software called Posure or Posture or something.

Now it may be beyond my horizon yet but still: What's that software? Didn't find any info on it, and the term is quite overused... A link would be more than sufficient :)

[hollowed455]

hello in lesson 2 (?) you included a image plan with a skull embedded in it. I was just curious as to how you made it. Or did I miss something in one of the lessons?

[cannedmushrooms]

The software was (poser)
Use it to make a side and front view of an average female.

The setup of the "squirkle" (round sphere like device in the center) was not covered.

Changing the image on the planes on the other hand was in lesson 15.



Now if you watch
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showpost.php?p=485103&postcount=36

The basic Geometry video you will probably get how it was placed in the center ;)

[tom-3dt]

Hi Jason, It's Tom from www.3dtotal.com here. Im having real trouble emailing you or even sending you a pm through these boards, you are a hard man to reach! Could you drop me an email at studiohead(a)3dtotal.com when you get a minute, I would like to have a quick chat with you about your tutorials. Sorry for hijacking your thread!

cheers

Tom

[cannedmushrooms]

Ya you have found my tree house;)

I sent you a msg via my direct contact email

np about the forum thats what its here for;)

[jamespthornton]

Any clue why I can't watch any of the vids from houseoftutorials.net? Before I press play, it shows the first frame of the movie, but then says "We were unable to load your video at this time. Please try again later" when I go to play it. I have logged in as a guest. Let me know if you have any input, I dig your vids a lot. Very informative and helpful in hanging this damn learning curve. Thanx

:tu:

[cannedmushrooms]

hmm so I tried both the vid links here at pixologic and the links back at house of tutorials both seem to be working ok.

Now some nerdy questions

1. have you ever been able to play them before
2. what browser are you using
3. Mac or PC?

Things you should do

1. Update your flash and your java

2. retry the video after you install the latest of both.

3. if you have already installed them both go to any random u-tube video and play it and see what happens

4. do the same at veoh (pick a random movie and play it)


if 1 works ta-da you needed a new update

if 3 and 4 fail your connection is either to poor to play them or you have one of those overly paranoid firewall things

if all fails also trythis

http://vimeo.com/houseoftutorials

[mistafreeze]

hey Jason, thanks for the tuts.

I too had a problem "downloading" a few of the vids, i sent ya a pm on the veoh site (about the ones).

I got the same problem James had on some videos too, but eventually got them to work (using the veoh player), but the 2 I pm'ed you about will not download to completion (it says its a 51 meg file, but only downloads 30).

Any chance you will be making a video for those who are using the new mac version, and note the difference between what to do when you use something?

i.e. zmapper is no more.

thanks and keep it up!

[cannedmushrooms]

weird

If you happen to grab the title names I'll upload them to vimeo rather than veoh.

Yes eventually I'll make a recap video on the subject. Some of the things I'm shooting at in the dark however. I made a review video with a couple misjudged things just to show the new stuff. I think I should play with it a little further. Doesnt help that ALL OF THE BUTTONS SAY THE SAME FREEKEN THING WHEN YOU HOLD CNTRL OVER THEM!!!

Zmapper can be replaced by normal map generator under the tool pallet, or making a disp map and crop filling the document with the normal mapping material ;)

you mean that stuff?

lol