How to reuse of models and scenes

[KoudMeel]

The main reason for me to buy ZBrush is to create comics. Comic images don’t have to be technically perfect; expression of the scene is where it really comes to. With this respect ZBrush offers the exact tools and it is no surprise that so many images of this forum could be used as front cover of a comic book. However, when creating comics, reuse of models (tools) and scenes speeds up the process significantly and in my opinion ZBrush is still immature in supporting reusability. So I like to know other user’s opinions on this topic and better get tips and ideas to improve reusability.

Thus far I have explored several potential workflows that could facilitate reusability.
1. The Zspheres and adaptive skinning approach; Pixolator has proven that it works and it looks great, however, the present ZBrush version does not support 3d-displacement and actually I have no idea on how complicated the process is. E.g. to what extent should the displacement map and the adaptive skinned Zsphere model match? How critical is the displacement towards moving Zspheres around? How to deal with 3D additions of the model, like; eyes, hair, teeth, cloths etc. What to do with the textures of the additions?
2. The compositional approach. Many of you seem to be very successful creating parts and to use these parts to compose bodies and even wholes faces. A disadvantage is that one needs little tricks to cover up the “seals” between the parts. Also creating the texture for the model is more complicated; ZBrush does not support multi-textures and texturemaster does not support multimarker tools.
3. Deformation of highly detailed models. Very difficult to control and when I tried, still a lot of additional work to have it look correct.
4. The 3rd party approach. Exporting a finished model to another application like Lightwave or Poser and use bones. To me, it also seems a ZBrush dishonourable method; we should be able to deal with it ourselves, using ZBrush!

Thanks

[zerebrom]

... funny thing: seems we both asked for nearly the same thing almost at the same time . Hoping for answers!!

[marciani]

Hi and welcome aboard..
Looks some of my tutorial about comics, at the end of the message.
Probably you can obtein some info.
Bye
Leo

[KoudMeel]

Based on the number of reactions, I either touched a very difficult topic or comics are not the primary interest of most of you.

zerebrom: I have used both Lightwave and Poser for a while to achieve the posable figures, but it is a lot of additional work and I also would like to do it all in ZBrush.

marciani: I studied all your examples in detail and when I wrote "could be used as front cover of a comic book" I had your work in mind. However, your approach is not really intended to reuse the comic figures.

So actually I want the functionality of Poser and do it with ZBrush. I wonder whether it can be easily achieved through Zspheres, adaptive skinning and 3D displacement. If so, please share some tips so I can prepare my tools on the next release of ZBrush.

Thanks

[aurick]

I'm afraid that we're not going to be able to answer your displacement questions until the new version is released. That version will offer many enhancements -- including displacement map creation/rendering. Once the new version has been released, we will be happy to answer any questions you have about those features, and will be looking forward to seeing what you do with them!