ZBrushCentral

Gathering

Hi all…

This is a personal project that began with a need to try out dynamesh, which is of course extremely cool! Began with a sphere, made the character, and then decided to give him a place to exist.

The character and cliff/terrain are Zbrush, Plants are paintFX, trees from Onyx, fur is Shave, textured with Photoshop/Bodypaint and rendered with Mental Ray using mia_material_x and Fast_Skin SSS shaders.

Final output resolution is 6000x3750 for print. Image is 95% 3D with a couple smoke elements added in Photoshop by shooting some incense smoke on black, as well as some dry ice… which was a lot of fun.

The character is rigged, so I hope to turn this into an animated piece eventually… Anyhow, it was a lot of fun to make! I hope people dig it. :slight_smile:

-Alex

Attachments

Gathering_final_6k_D_flat_1500.jpg

Very nice lighting.
Well done.

D.

Looks great Alex, I like the mood.

Cheers

Ralf

Wow that is such a mindblowing and truely inspiring artwork Mr.Alvarez!:+1:small_orange_diamond:)
Totally love your Concepts and Design, these are so unique!:slight_smile:
Great composite aswell, love the mood in the render and the pose and the passion to detail,
candles on the ground, skulls everywhere, great cliff terrain sculpting aswell! Would love seeing this creature and the overall setting in an animation!:+1:
Really looking this work as a true inspiration and motivation!:slight_smile:
Thank you for everything,
Best regards and happy sculpting,

  • Kenny :slight_smile:

Here are some images from the progress made in Zbrush, starting with a Sphere and then ultimately splitting the character into a couple subtools and retopo for rigging.
Dynamesh is, to me, one of the best things ever added to Zbrush! Thanks Pixologic for continuing to make Zbrush the most fun and creative part of my pipeline!

01_demonDude_Zbrush__0008_Layer03.jpg01_demonDude_Zbrush__0007_Layer04.jpg01_demonDude_Zbrush__0006_Layer05.jpg01_demonDude_Zbrush__0005_Layer06.jpg01_demonDude_Zbrush__0004_Layer07.jpg01_demonDude_Zbrush__0003_Layer08.jpg01_demonDude_Zbrush__0002_Layer09.jpg01_demonDude_Zbrush__0001_Layer10.jpg01_demonDude_Zbrush__0000_Layer11.jpg

-Alex

Here are some Zbrush images of the terrain/cliff. The terrain started as a plane which was sculpted with the standard brush, and then detailed using a library of DEM files. The cliff was then created as a warped region of the terrain which I retopo’d and reworked with the DEM alphas as well as a bunch of stone/rock alphas. DEM is short for Digital Elevation Model, which are greyscale height maps which are available for free from the USGS. Really great for this kind of stuff! The high-frequency details that are in the final render come from color/spec/bump maps that were created in Photoshop.

-Alex

Wow it is getting even better, really thanks for showing your workflow and how you have achieved that amazing work:)
Really appreciate it and never heard about USGS. Very interesting will check those heightmaps out =)
Happy sculpting:+1:

Amazing work as always Alex!

Thanks for your work flow and all the collateral stuff! Looks like TOP ROW to me. :lol: Cheers, David :smiley:

Great scene Alex. Love it. And thanks for the making of images also. I always love seeing how others progress through their projects.

Ezra

Beautiful :+1:
Excellent work.

KC: The USGS library I have was actually purchased years ago from DVgarage and was called Terrain Toolkit. However, I’m not sure if it is still available anymore… But if you look online, you should be able to find tutorials that explain the process of downloading files from the USGS and converting them to grayscale. Way back when, before I had the Terrain Toolkit library where they basically went through and converted a bunch of the US, I remember having to download a file conversion app (DEMviewer I think), which then allowed me to convert. But honestly, they really are the way to go when you’re quickly sketching out terrains/landscapes… The background terrain only took about an hour to sculpt thanks to those DEM files. :slight_smile:

-Alex

hey Alex really great work

Hey Alex! Great work, awesome detail ! Thanks for sharing !

Cxyda

Hey Ioannis! Nice to hear from you… Thanks man. Hope all is well on the east coast!

-Alex

Alex, this is really inspiring! Thanks for providing details as to how you created the terrain, as a beginner it’s very interesting to see how the professionals do these things, I’ve always wondered how terrain would be sculpted for example. Maybe I’ll mess around with heightmaps from Terragen one day to see how that goes. Anyway thanks for sharing, it’s a wonderful scene.

Woah thats awesome! I really like how you showed your progress, I didn’t even know you could create such dynamic and realistic environments within Zbrush, Next project has been ignited in my mind!

Senka: Thanks… yep, height maps from any terrain software will work. This nice thing about the DEMs from the USGS is that they are actually real locations!

Semmeh: Indeed… there are actually a lot of environment artists who use Zbrush for non-character related work, it’s just that ZBC tends to get a lot more character based work posted. Granted, now that fibermesh allows for plants/trees/etc, we’re probably going to start seeing a lot more environment work. Hope so! :slight_smile:

-Alex

Alex, you’re crazy man. It’s fantastic. You showed to us on The Union. I’ve downloaded ZBRUSH here to study by myself to do something, or try to do. So, it’s difficult 'cause I don’t know ZBRUSH interface buttons, functions and everything. I know how to draw so I can sculpt something. I hope study at AXIS but I think that my portfolio wont be accepted because I have a comic book art style. So, if you have time, take a look http://douglasfranchindg.blogspot.com/.
The works: Cavaleiro das Trevas ( Dark Knight ), Dead or Alive, Homo-pinnipedia and Anthropossauros were choosen by SAGA and I won The Union tickets for free.

When you talked about your life history I remember about me. It’s the same thing, a kid that likes to be alone at bedroom drawing creatures, superheroes and another nerd stuff. The Union was amazing. Thanks!

dg artist: Thanks! Glad you enjoyed the event. Indeed, I think that the majority of artists are hermits… !

So speaking of the Union, I decided to record a lecture based on the presentation that I gave in Brazil earlier this month.
Duration is about 2.5hrs and it is free, available through the Gnomon Workshop.
Hope it is useful! :slight_smile:

click here to view

-Alex

great tutorial! Just wondering if you care to share those dem height map files, currently dem files now at USGS are scans of geographical data consisting of the entire landscape instead of small height maps more concentrated on detail.