Joseph Drust - Digital Sculpture Thread

[Piggyson]

Hey all,

One of the projects I worked on finally shipped; I got around to rendering out some other WIP images and figured I'd start a thread. The images below are mostly rendered in ZBrush with a little Photoshop comp. I tend to try and work inside of ZBrush as much as possible rather then shooting objects back and forth from 3dsmax.

The first images are models I created for Vicious Cycle's Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon. Needless to say I had a lot of fun working on this project. The sculpts were created with ZBrush 3.5 (R3 wasn't released yet.) My creation process used a lot of HPolish and the Standard Brush with a Lazy Modifier. First images are rendered in old Hypershot (now known as Keyshot/Bunkspeed Shot.) Rest of the images are all generated inside Zbrush some using a modified matcap created by Ty Shelton.

*(Some of these models may contain shared assets (to create unification in the world) created by Ty Shelton, Hoover Abejero, and Abraham Valdez.) Original concepts for these models were generated by Susan Luo, Matt Kohr, and Derek Smith.) Texture work for the final ingame models (not shown) was created by Dave Graham.








This image shows how Zsketch was used primarily as a tool to start the generation of the model from 2D to 3D. This process also allowed the model to be viewed quickly (exporting out the rough sketch.) This sketch could then be viewed inside the game engine getting approval for size and scale before the final model was even started.









Finally here are some random WIP images. Some of these have been floating around Pixologic's site, I just never have gotten around to creating unified renders for them. All images are rendered in ZBrush (with varying matcaps/custom matcaps.) (Some of the non-custom matcaps are: Frederik Storm's fs_workmat, Michael Angelo Hernandez's mah_blue-gray_clay, and Lucky's Lucky_1.)












The majority of these images couldn't have been completed without the artistic inspiration I receive from these forums (and the wonderful sculpting program known as ZBrush!) Keep sculpting! and Happy ZBrushing!

-Joseph

[Webhead]

Fantastic looking stuff!

[zber2]

WOW! Awesome stuff.

[AriesGal1629]

Amazing!!!!

[MassFX]

Great work! Really like your style.

[nijildavid]

Truly awesome to such detailed work. Is there anything that we beginner should note when we pick concepts like the "snow girl ".

The amount of assets that you have for each model is remarkable. Will always love to learn from you.

[Piggyson]

Thanks for all the kind words!

@stefanobernardi, @Dragon, @VictorCS, @Dman3d: Here is a quick link to a youtube timelapse video I uploaded showing the hardsurface stuff (it's nothing too exciting, Pixolator and Mike Jensen do a far better job at it then I.)



ZBrush Hpolish/StandardLazy Timelapse

The process is nothing magical and just takes a long time I use Claytubes/Claybuildup to build up the shapes then switch to Hpolish and just continue to Hpolish/Smooth. The process again isn't speedy and I end up using Hpolish Subtractive with a small brush size then Hpolish Additive with a Large Brush size. The other thing I end up doing is Polishing with the Hpolish brush. This involves using a circular motion and varying pressure on my Wacom tablet rather then a stroke.

For smoothing I also use the 'hold shift release shift' smooth. This evens the topology out and polishes it some more. I find that I can pretty much generate any hard surface shape with Hpolish it just takes a bit of work.

For the lines I have created a custom Standardlazy brush (I attached it to this post.) I set at a draw size of '3' and just stroke it across the model. (This is very similar to the technique that Ralph Stumpf does, draw then if the line doesn't work for the piece, undo and draw again.)



Finally I do a little trick using a beveled alpha and the standard brush. This creates a strange polish distorting the model some and removing any minor dents. I have two alphas that I use for this (both attached) one that has a sharp fall off (anglebevel_02) and one that has a smooth falloff (anglebevel_01.) (This is applied in the Timelapse video at the end but it is hard to see, I will attempt to create a live video of this process and upload it.)

@nickz, @Lucky_1, @AjdinBarucija: Glad you enjoy her (She is still in a small WIP state, I need to redo her pants (the wrinkles are iffy.))

As for the question about polycount some of the models are up to ~80 million (I have a few friends that bug me about my polycounts they consider too many polys unnecessary Most of the polycount comes from a lot of kitbashing I do inside of ZBrush. The excess polygons are often occluded b/c they are intersecting (I have been attempting to reach a subtool limit, but so far no luck

I have a large collection of greeble pieces that I have been building over time, I append these and move/rotate/scale until I get a shape/idea I want to convey. After I have something I like I just append a zsphere and retopo/ project the entire thing.) Images of the carrier and a plane WIP example:




*One more final thing, I forgot to mention an additional matcap I used in my origional post. Ralph Stumpf's RS_GreyClayLight was also used.

[bakedbeing]

I quit.

[bartdeco]

I begin.

Thanks for sharing.

bart

[danko75]

The process is nothing magical and just takes a long time I use Claytubes/Claybuildup to build up the shapes then switch to Hpolish and just continue to Hpolish/Smooth. The process again isn't speedy and I end up using Hpolish Subtractive with a small brush size then Hpolish Additive with a Large Brush size. The other thing I end up doing is Polishing with the Hpolish brush. This involves using a circular motion and varying pressure on my Wacom tablet rather then a stroke.

strange, it seemed to me like you were using HPolish....what a surprise to discover that you use the Hpolish

Joking apart, wonderful works man, some of the best sculpts i've seen around in the last times!

[Pedro Toledo]

Gorgeous modelling.

[darxx]

...The process is nothing magical and just takes a long time ...

lol. I see black magics in this post. congratulations on the lovely top row thread and keep it up, your work is beyond impressive.

But when you say long time.......... How long do you think? I'm very curious about what you would consider to be a long time for a sculpt?

[mykyl]

I love these but have zero clue how you would even begin to retopo some of these models. I would spend a year just trying to cool my brain down thinking about how to retopo let alone starting to do it.

Mike

[tarik2d]

Really nice What brushes did you use for the clothing on the sniper? it looks really NICE

[sferris1]

Well this is simply the best work I've seen in ZB Central!
It takes more than a technician to put together such balanced work.
True artist!
Thanks for the looks.
Steve