Latest WIP

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

Here's my latest WIP. So far this is my most advanced texture. It's taken me two straight days, whereas previously I had done textures in 10 minutes. The texture was first done quickly in texturemaster. Then I opened the unwrapped texture in ZBrush, and applied details etc. Its still early on in the piece, and will eventually be quite elaborate; well... hopefully.

I found my inspiration for the peice on a great site called http://www.spookyplanet.com/

I suggest you check it out if your having troubles finding ideas :)

Mine doesn't look exact, but that wasn't what I was aiming for =)

http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1019498013uwf.jpg


http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1019498045vvn.jpg

[wenna]

omg!! This is absoutely fantastic!! Great job!!

[Mentat7]

Hey Cal. Nice texture. I thought you said you didn't have Poser? This is the Orc morph provided by Daz3D for the Daz Michael character. I had fun with it too. Here is my pic...all the texturing done with ZBrush- primarily TextureMaster...


http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1019498818kgb.jpg

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

I dont have poser; I had someone send me a head. He told me he had this cool head, without a texture so I took it. Damn its a good program to pracitce your textures on. When I get better at textures, and they don't take me two days (lol) to create. I'll started putting in the time to make z-models to texture.

Mentat, you have poser don't you? do you think you could send me a few heads to practice on? They need to be in .obj format though. Thanks :D

If you can, could you please email me at calibandarklock@hotmail.com :)

Thanks pal

P.S; damn yours looks good.

[Mentat7]

Unfortunately Cal distributing the Poser heads, bodies, or any other body part for that matter in any format is a violation of the EULA (end users license agreement) one consents to when purchasing the characters. Therefore I do not participate in such an action. Your friend was in the wrong for doing so. It would be the same if someone stole one of your pictures and started giving it away as free artwork and such. This in itself is not necessarily a bad thing especially if you want exposure and don't charge for your artwork (as long as your name is clearly associated with the piece) but what if down the line someone got hold of it and started selling it? Then you would be out of luck. And the longer it remained in distribution in the public domain the more difficult it would be for you the individual to counter the infringement. Of course a company has to be willing to enforce the EULA and how much they decide to do so is entirely up to them. I don't think your friend has to worry about stormtrooper knocking down his door...but then again you never know. :D

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

****; sorry I honestly didn't realise. My Apologies.

So you actually *pay* seperately for these models? He said you get them with poser?

And he's not a friend really. I recently met him at renderosity :D


I apologise once again.


On another note. Hows my texture? Where could I improve on? Critisism is what makes us strong remember.

[Mentat7]

Yes you pay for each of the models. In the case of the orc you actually need the Michael model to make the orc work- it is a morph applied to Michael. Go to www.daz3d.com (http://www.daz3d.com) and check out their store. You might like what you see.

As far as your texture goes it looks great if somewhat flat. Try using the BasicMaterial and add noise of about .015 to .025 and then add a bump value of around 1.5 to 2....make the noise radius setting around 1 or 2. Set specularity down to around 5 to 8. Once you have applied your texture in TextureMaster export it into Photoshop. Create a new layer on top of it and paint on this new layer. First create some random noise- add noise and blur. Then set layer opacity to 50% (or some other number as long as you can see through it). On this new layer use the dodge and burn tools to creat bumps and crevices around areas of the eyes, nose, mouth, etc. Make the values somewhat high so you get good contrast. Once you have finished set opacity back to 100% and save this new layer. You will now load this new texture into an alpha and use it to drive the bump with the INFLATE command. Once you are done inflating, load the original texture back in and Ta-Da! You have a nifty texture AND bump.

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

Hey great tip! Thank you :)

[drjjwow]

guys wonderful images and textures jobs..awesome in every way ... also i would like to point out that you can find a lot of morph targets at 3d commune.com... just incase your interested...

[Kathy]

ZBrush can handle DXF files too.

Here's a link to all kinds of bodyparts.
http://www.3dcafe.com/asp/anatomy.asp

Here's the mainmenu of free models.
http://www.3dcafe.com/asp/meshes.asp

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

Thanks :) I also checked out Daz3d.com

I decided to purchase Poser. Quite frankly I don't give a toss what people say about using poser models in ZBrush, as long as you modify it and actually do *somthing* apart from drop a guy in Z and say 'voila'

Of course I'll still model my own Z Models, but this just speeds up the process. I call it fair game if you ask me.

At 219.00 it's not a bad price.

I also ordered the 3D texture workshop book from Bill Flemming (I think) that's who its by.

However I do have one question. Do I need to get the Poser 4 Pro Poser pack? What the heck is it?

Oh and finally, mentat; I took your advice... here is the new and improved texture. Lemme know what you think..


http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1019506396uel.jpg

[Mentat7]

Very nice Cal. Only thing I would suggest now is perhaps increase the depth of shading from highlites to shadows to give the facial features more depth. The Bill Fleming book is very cool. You don't have to have Poser ProPack but it would be cool to have. It has several features that I wish had made it into the regular version such as Professional Lighting Lab. It also has more easy to use features for creating new poser figures from scratch.

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

I played around with some lighting, and did what you said, this is what I ended up with.

http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1019509344fim.jpg

[[EA]Krippler]

thats way better. great texturing.

[Gerlon]

Man great texturing job. There is definately nothing wrong with importing from poser, especially when you do such a good job with the texture.

[syco26]

Hey mentat if that is the case with the poser figures can you not give your poser peaople away to mates as the renderosity free page does so often?Are you not alowed to share your morphs and what not?How do people sell their poser figures and textures etc and not get in trouble - all actualy start as a poser or a daz figure don't they?
Just a question.

[Mentat7]

Most of the "figures" you see for sale at Renderosity are actually morphs of an original poser figure. That is to say someone took a Daz Michael figure for example and created new morphs for the head and body and is then selling the morphs on the net. You MUST have in your possesion the Daz Michael figure for the morphs to work...the figure is not included with the morph package. The orc on this thread for example is a morph package. You can use it as long as you have the Michael poser figure from DAZ. If you do not have that figure the morphs will not work. This is allowed for in the EULA I believe. You can not distribute the figures but you can create new morphs, poses, textures etc and distribute those. No one can use them of course unless they have the figures they were intended for. Look closely at the requirements for those packages. They will tell you what figures are required for the package to work.

[Kathy]

Excellent explanation Mentat. :tu:

[RC]

Cal do you ever sleep?

(ps) great job :tu:

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

RC; not really. I'm a chronic insomniac. I average about 4 hours per week, that is if I'm lucky.

[Belleski]

Caliban,
That creature just gets scarrier with every new version. As far as importing poser models to work on, my view is that it is fine depending on the results.(Don't have the program myself...Z is enough for me right now.) There is so much out there and one needs to think of these things as tools and raw materials. It is the vision of the artist and the artists ability to convey their creative ideas that is most important.
(I find your vision twisted by the way), but I enjoy your work emensely.
P.S. Thanks to Mentat7 for the texturing advice. ;)

[Mik]

Excellent texturing Cal!
I have never used poser myself. I think my impressions of it were lowered by the amount of crap over at the galleries at renderosity (how hard can it be to pose a naked female model?)
Mabye I just got the wrong impression....

[sTiNg]

Ahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!....Man Thatz Scary!!! :eek: :mad:

[Ron Harris]

lookin pretty kewl there dude!

[Ron Harris]

lookin pretty kewl there dude! I would only suggest to work on the eye material...kinda flat and dry...with that latest version some wet eyes would make the image pop even more....keep up the good work

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

Thanks for all your great comments guys :)

And Ron; your dead right. I knew there was somthing lacking. It's all in the eyes. Thanks a million; I'll get to it shortly.

[gRek]

yeah Cal! nice texture work man! this look fantastic! =)

[filament9]

Hi Cal. Absolutely wonderful progressions here. Seeing each enhancement just kept adding more life to the original image. Well done!
Mentat7: good advice all around! Something there, helpful to all of us. Thanks!