Graphire Pen - Final Image & New Question?? - 9/17

[Jaycephus]

I thought I would model something easy and the first thing to come to hand was...

http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1031479191msp.jpg

...my Graphire Pen!

I still need to do the other parts, but most of my time was spent figuring out lighting to get 'The Look'.

[Codexus]

Nice. :D :D :D

My Graphire pen fell on the floor only one time and now it's half broken. The plastic has a crack and I can't put too much pressure on it or it dismantles itself :(

[Gerlon]

lol I find it easier to model monsters then inanimate objects :D I'm slowly working my way up the difficulty chain. I know! I'll model a ping-pong ball! lol anyway nice work looks like its gonna be pretty realistic when your done with it :tu: :tu: :tu:

[Jaycephus]

A Graphire pen's Heaven: virgin tablets as far as the eye can see.

http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1031552547rqe.jpg

This is my 'final', unless someone gives me some feedback. The background is problematic in a couple of ways, but it looked too good to throw away, so I'm giving everyone a peek. I think I need something soft and indefinite, like an unfocused background.

[DLee]

That looks exactly like what I have, Jay. I'd hate to even try and do something real ~G~ Very good.

[banez]

i like it the ways it is :tu:
Gooooooooooooooooooo Dallas.
thats were im from :D

[Mik]

Really nice, you've hit the materials spot on.
:tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :)

[[ Vincent ]]

Hi Jay :tu:

:qu: Tell me how do you make the 3D text, please.
:tu: Nice work!

Thanks :tu:

[Jaycephus]

Thanks for the thumbs-up everyone.

Too bad about Dallas (Cowboys), EZ. (I found out this morning that they lost to an expansion team in the first game of the season yesterday. A Bad Sign.) I assume that is what you are referring to. I played highschool football, but I don't really like pro sports that much. I don't like guys that make from a quarter-million, up to millions a year, playing a game, and then striking for more money, when it is already too expensive to go and watch them. I 'can' really get into a game, but I choose not to. So I've been able to eliminate football and baseball from my life. More time for Z. :)

Vincent, first you need a pen and tablet to be able to 'sign' your name accurately. You can probably do a decent version with a mouse after lots of tries and lots of undos.

Use one of the brushes and create your signiature on a blank layer. Different brushes will have a different end result. You want to lay down some depth in order to end up with depth in the final signiature.

I also chose the same material that I used on the pen tip, which was a modified Jelly Bean, but with the same blue color used on the switch and eraser.

After adding all of the text or art to your signiature, choose the MRGB Grabber tool, click, and drag a rectangle around your signiature. This grabs an alpha and texture.

Go to the Alpha menu, adjust Mesh Resolution and Mesh Depth Resolution to suit your needs, and select Make 3D. This creates a 3D tool of your signiature that you can save and place into any document. If you are using a demo, I think you will have to do a new one each time, but its a pretty quick process. Position it above an object, or in front of a baked layer to get the shadow effect in a Best Render.

[JOHNVQ3]

:) very nice work and good tips on the signatures :tu: :tu: :tu:

[banez]

yeah i don't watch football that much but when i watch the cowbows win its like yeah we was 100% percent into the game and we smoked em.
then if they lose its like they have a excuss,,, well troy hurt his hand in pre season pratice,they never can take it as hay we got are ass's beat by a better team.
most of there players and even couch has ran in with the Law a time or to
they sure know how to repsent the state of texas.
lol they should be called the CowBoy Convic

[Jaycephus]

Thanks, guys.

:qu: Anyone have tips on getting finer detail with creases, ridges, etc. I am referring to the ridges on the pen body. It is the major area of dissapointment for me on this model, besides the whole thing being a little too short, though in proportion.

My technique was to create an alpha on the pen, take it into PS to get it sharp, and tweak the positions and grayscale of three areas of detail (the tip, the switch depression, and the encircling groove). Once the alpha was just right, I imported, and Deformation:Sized the alpha areas down about '14' in the x,y.

This action creates a crater- or ditch-like impression, as the selected polygons shrink inward. Hmm, as I think about what happens, I am getting ideas for trying some different things to make the depressions more defined.

...back to my Z-shop... :)

[Stonecutter]

J, you can actually alter the 'Stroke Profile', I believe you use the graph in the 'Transform -> Modifiers' to make a sharp edged stroke profile, and there was a description of the technique quite a while ago...It might be in the quicklinks and I'll try to find it for you...There is probably an easier way to do it though, and one of the wiseguys around here will probably have it for you before I can find the one I'm thinking of...

Great image anyway!

:cool: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :cool:

[Wayne Hoyt]

I really like this, Jay. Quite realistic. Love the alpha skinned signature, too. Nice job. :tu: :)

[Jaycephus]

:tu: thanks, Wayne.

:qu: Stonecutter, are you talking about when I draw the alpha on? It seemed easier to take it to PS so that each area could be adjusted with a different grayscale to get a variation in depth when down-sizing the alpha area. It was also easy in PS to adjust the gray areas in the alpha up or down to get them spaced at the correct proportions. BTW, how do you erase alpha drawing with your pen? Zsub? Thanks,

[juandel]

thats a very cool pen and tablet, Jay! :tu: :tu: :tu: and it looks like adjusting the alphas via photoshop helped a lot. in the given case it probably wouldnt have been appropriate, but to "sharpen" an alpha you could try to reduce the value for blur (i think its at 2 by default) in the alpha-modifiers before reapplying it to your model. and/or to fiddle with the blend-settings in the tool-selection menu. just an idea.

- juandel

[Jaycephus]

UPDATE 2:

http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1031646707opv.jpg

It's amazing what one more try will do. I thought #2 was good, but next to #3, it looks weak.

My only problem with ZBrush is that it seems like more hassle than other programs to select a specific polygon or range of polygons for this type of very precise mechanical modeling. Keep in mind my mesh is maxed out. I may change this opinion when I get a little more experienced, but it would be nice to be able to select specific vertexes or polygons. To do the groove properly, I needed four different alphas. Come to find out, a row of selected polygons did not scale or resize as expected. Only one row of vertexes were affected by the mask. I needed to precisely position four rows of vertexes (three rows of polygons), therefore, I had to use four different masks. Selecting one precise row of single-pixel polygons on a cylinder is difficult, but I think it will be easier for me than creating these masks in PS and importing them as you go along, after I get some more experience.

But it is a little wierd to select polygons by painting an alpha, and not actually selecting the polygons themselves.

[Jaycephus]

Hi Juandel,

Yes, I had blur at 0 already, and the alpha was sharp as a tack, having been done in PS after painting a few polys on the model and exporting the resulting alpha. The problem is that a row of single pixels in an alpha will only affect a row of vertexes, not a full poly and its two rows of vertexes. So on the first pen, only one row of vertexes is scaled down, resulting in a v-shaped groove in faceted-mode. This groove gets smoothed out even more when rendered.

I said previously that I need four masks. Actually 3 will do it. Paint a band 2 polys wide.

http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1031676497pku.jpg

This selects two rows of vertices, as pointed out above.

Size down in x,y -10, shrinking one band of polys (two rows of vertices).

http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1031676631vbc.jpg

Now the vertices in the rows above and below the new flat-bottomed groove need to be moved or scaled in toward the groove so that the walls of the groove are straight up and down instead of angled out at a 45 degree angle.

On my pen model, to select a given row of vertices, I needed to paint on that row, which makes sense, since the red dot snaps to the vertices and not the polygons. The polys directly 'below' the selected vertices would be colored gray by the alpha. Any deformation then affects only the one row of vertices. The pic below shows the selection required for the next deformation. The arrow points to the row of vertices that should be affected by the deformation.

http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1031676798ffh.jpg

Offset or size in the 'z' direction.

http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1031676921aow.jpg

One problem is that while painting the alpha by hand on the model, I might accidently slide my stroke down or up to the next row of vertices. This may or may not show up on the painted alpha, but it does have a small affect on those vertices that I inadvertently touched. The pic above shows the effect of barely touching the wrong vertices. Notice in the previous pic that the selection alpha did not indicate that this might happen.

[Frenchy Pilou]

Hello Jay
I have seen your absolute bottom message signature.
Are you fan of Douglas Hofstadter and his book "Godel,Escher, Bach" ? :)
Pilou

[Jaycephus]

Frenchy, I might be if I find it and read it. I like Escher a lot, and I have a couple of books of his art. Art? Yes. Philosophy? Depends.

[Frenchy Pilou]

Hi Jay
One of the 6000 reviews of GEB http://my.genie.co.uk/dkabambe/popsci2.html

And here :) you find all that you want to know :) http://www.faqs.org/faqs/books/hofstadter-GEB-FAQ/
Have a good reading near the chemney :cool:
Pilou

[juandel]

that is a huge progress and a terrifico illustrated walkthrough, Jay! :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu:

i have very little experience in refining handpainted alphas to avoid such unwanted side effects... do you think that - provided one is working at an object like this - it might help to use hi rate radial symmetry to kind of click the original alpha onto the object, thus avoiding any unilateral effect?

and if that doesnt help: wouldnt those tiny shades of white/grey where you want a pure mask to be seen, if you convert the inverted and de-blurred alpha into a texture and fill a separate layer with it? if so, you could colorpick (ctrl/cmd+c) the maskcolor to paint over those irregularities, just like in photoshops alphachannel, before reconverting it into an alpha to reapply it to the object. i wonder - but dont know :D

Pilou: i havent read that one, always postponing the lecture until sufficiently long vacations - which sadly remained virtual :D maybe your links will be the right encouragement to start with it right away. merci!

- juandel

edit as search function is up again :D for a possible different approach for making edges like the fantastico one you did, you might want to check out a thread including a zooper 1.23bscript by Zoid (http://www.pixolator.com/zbc-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=005089) - it might be the one SC was thinking about :)

[Kruzr]

Good Afternoon Jaycephus . . . :)

I was reading your post, ( nice image, by the way ), & I saw your question about making "sharp creases - ridges - etc.", as in the separation between the top & the bottom of a pen. Actually there are a couple of different ways to do this, but I'll focus on one at this point. If you examine the image that I've posted, you'll see that there is clearly an apparent separation, or sharp crease or ridge, between the top & the bottom of the pen. But in reality, there is no separation at all. The whole pen body, including the top - bottom - the black top cap - the gold bottom insert - & the 2 gold stripes, are only one object = A Modified 3D Sphere. I added the ball-point tip & the pocket clip after completing the pen body. ;)

I don't know if this is what you were referring to when you asked your question, but if is, & if I can help you, I don't mind posting a Zscript, showing the process in making such a crease or ridge. It is really very easy, mainly consisting of Masking areas - Sizing of the Un-Masked areas - & Repositioning of the Un-Masked areas, will form all the different areas of the pen, & still leave you with only one object. :rolleyes:

If this is the type of information you were looking for, please let me know, & I'll whip-up a Zscript for'ya? :D Have a good one . . . :cool: Mark.

http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1031709131ksu.jpg

[Jaycephus]

Thanks Juandel,

Yes, radial is easier in this situation. No need to rotate the cylinder 3 or 4 times. You will still be able to paint anywhere, but there is less possibility of inadvertently painting vertices you don't want.

The mech-tech tutorial is cool, and that technique will be very useful for making certain things. But for precise mechanical modeling with polygons, where I need to split a poly, extrude one of them, bevel it, creating more polys, and so on, I have to use something else for now. However, the advantage of ZBrush is a great deal of power and speed combined together, along with many tremendous features that don't exist in anything else that I know of.

[Gerlon]

I certantly wouldn't mind a zscript on that myself :D

[Jaycephus]

Hi Kruzr,

Thanks. Very nice pen. As far as modeling with masking, that is exactly how I did my creases and impressions. The pen body on the left in my last post was done with one tweaked alpha and a Deformation:Size of -14. The pen body on the right used one or more alphas for each detail. On the tip I precisly masked the area and offset it the 'z' direction 1 or 2, creating a very small ridge. On the groove I used the process outlined in the four modeling pictures I posted, using three different alphas, Size, and Offset. On the switch depression, not shown in the previous post, I used an Offset toward the axis of the pen body, which gives a much better defined depression than Sizing it down as in the previous attempts.

If you have some techniques that are better or different, I want to see them, of course. :) :tu:

[ed_the_atom]

Perfect and great explanation. :tu: :tu:

[Jaycephus]

UPDATE: higher resolution on switch slot!

http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1031838287mjj.jpg

Now that the resolution is higher I need to make it skinnier, and then I can put the pieces together.

[Kruzr]

Hi Jaycephus . . . :)

Sorry about the long time in response, been very busy. After reading your previous post explaining your procedure, I see you have already used what I was going to suggest. I don't own a Graphire pen, so I didn't know exactly what type of a crease or sharp edge you were looking for, but you seem to have achieved what you wanted. The only other thing I might suggest, but you may have used this already, is to un-check the "Tool / Modifiers / SV or SH", depending on which orientation your object was when you began your modeling. Un-checking either one of these will give you a truly SHARP edge. ;)

Your final image looks great & you have a good one . . . :cool: Mark.

http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1031848341pwc.jpg

[kryztof]

excellent work with zbrush :)))
THis my contribution :)
http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1031848946lzp.jpg

[Jaycephus]

Thanks, Kruzr. Yes I did turn off SV on the last one, and it gave me sharp edges where I wanted them.

Very nice, Kryztof. Your model gave me an idea to try on mine.

[DLee]

Learned a few things in this thread, Thanks everyone ~s~

[Slosh]

I haven't been reading this thread because I mistakenly thought it was about a tablet and pen, neither of which I own. Just shows to go you, read everything! I like the pen images alot. My contribution/tip for masking a perfect row of poly's would be to use the square alpha and apply the mask with Edit/Move, instead of painting it on with Edit/Draw. You can drag-rectangle the mask, with the pen rotated in a perfect vertical position, from the bottom up, then again from the top down, leaving a gap where the crease needs to be.

[Stonecutter]

Nice masking tip Brian! :tu: :tu: :tu:

[Jaycephus]

My final Graphire Pen model with a new background:

http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1032148946ail.jpg

Thanks everyone for the tips! :tu:

[juandel]

bravissimo!!!! and thanks for the thread - mucho informative!

- juandel

[Jaycephus]

Thanks Juandel, and everybody else for your comments and help.

:qu: I wanted to make a polymesh object from the parts. Is there a way to precisely manuever parts into position, or is it 'mouse-only'? Thanks!

[Bruce Gregory]

Man, O man! That sure does look like the thing that is giving me carple tunnel. Mine is a lot shinier at the points of finger contact, however.

Bruce Gregory

[Frenchy Pilou]

Hello Jaycephus
In the 1.23b Polymesh can move with X,Y,Z positions in the Menu Transformers \Info
Take the numbers wished and press the "space Key" for validation !
I suppose that the same in 1.5
Hope this help
Pilou
Ps You can use the graphic Pen too :)

[Jaycephus]

Bruce G. :
If you're getting Carpal Tunnel with your pen, it is no wonder why it is becoming shiny! You must use it constantly.
(Wacom lists reduction of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome as one of the benefits of pen and tablets. I do admit that I feel no strain in my wrist from using my pen, compared to using a mouse. Of course, any repetitive motion can cause CTS, but drawing with a pen is far easier on my wrist than the mouse.)

Frenchy :
I am not sure I understand. How would I select a component of a multimarker object in order to modify its position with the sliders? Thanks!

[DM]

Amazingly realistic image and a lot of useful info in the thread. :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu:
Dave

[Frenchy Pilou]

Hi Jaycephus
It's seems that you right and we don't move the indidualy part of a multimarker without mouse. The window Info show only the mouse's position and we can't introduce numbers position :(
But ask to Aurick for confirmation :)
Pilou

[Kruzr]

Good Morning Jaycephus . . . :)

Very realistic image my friend!!! :D You are right in your assumption about moving separate parts of a "MultiMarker" object, by using numeric values. The problem is . . . there is no way to select any one single part, or "object", with-in the group "MultiMarker" object, to enter a numerical value for. :( Your only alternative is by manually moving each part separately using your mouse, which is only an approximate move. Once converted to a "PolyMesh" object, there is no moving ANY parts, being that it is now "ONE" complete object. Keep these fine images coming, & you have a good one . . . :cool: Mark.

[Jaycephus]

Thanks! Kruzr,

I suspected this. This is unfortunate. I can do an illustration with the Pen, but I can't really create a single 'Pen' polymesh tool, because it is too difficult to maneuver all of the parts into the exact position required. The switch is the most difficult part, because it needs to be rotated in two different axes, as well as moved in three. The two bumps on the switch then need to be moved into position after the switch is placed. It is possible to get the switch to look good for any one or two viewpoints, but not for all. The tip and eraser are easy as long you keep them on the axis of the pen and don't rotate them.

[Jaycephus]

As a final tip on this thread I want to say that I was making it too hard on myself when trying to assemble the parts. It is possible to place the parts in exact Orthogonal views, i.e. top view, right view, etc., and constrain them exactly by using the shift key as you rotate them. So I can place all of the parts in a 'front' view, marking each one, and then create the multi-marker object.

At this point, it is likely to be correct only from the front view. looking at the side or top, the parts will be off. But the multi-marker object can be placed and constrained to precise views as well. Place it, go to edit mode, and rotate it to the side, using the shift key to get the exact view. Now individual objects can be moved in only two axes with respect to the other objects. The multi-marker object can then be rotated again to a precise front or top view to check or tweak part positions.

[Frenchy Pilou]

Hi Jay
May be you can use the "Four view help" by Aurick in the Zscript Utilities.
Pilou

[Jaycephus]

Yes :tu: