ZBrush 3 Beta Images/A couple Zbrush 3 samples - Joe Lee

[slashpot]

WOW! You were writing as I was, and I just found out that you did the wings stretched, then folded them!!!This is exactly what I've been working on doing, (with a hornbill instead of a parrot) but I had grave doubts as to how well the wings would fold. If yours is any guide they'll work fine! This is anatomically brilliant, I wouldnt have dreamed it would come out this well! I dearly hope you'll show this guy with a wing outstretched, perhaps preening?

Oh, and nice work spotting the correct way to do the feet, most would have done the standard 3 toes pointing forward - good eye! Your work is really inspiring, I wasn't going to do any sculpting today...Now I am!

(PS: for a Hyacinth, the tail should extend to between the fungus and the absolutely brilliant Bromeliad)

[jelee]

Slashpot, you are amazing my fowl mouthed friend. You really know your birds.
I'm glad you found the mini walkthrough helpful. I'll have to try to find it when I get back to my computer and post it since you brought it up. Unfortunately, I won't be near my computer or ZB3 for a while.
The Parrot branch was a zsphere creation that I thought I would pose with the zspheres but ended up making an Adaptive mesh and used masking and the transpose actionline to twist the branch to what it is. The detail on the bark was done using layers. Large detail on one layer and fine detail on another. You are the only one to notice the bromeliad. Thanks.
The mesh insert brush let me layer the flower buds and place the fungus on the branch.
I seem to remember using the blob brush with a spray stroke setting and an alpha with the the crooked lines going top to bottom, for the look of the bark. This was before the brush manager came out so I couldn't save the setting but you might want to try experimenting with those brush attributes.
You are right about the parrot being a Hyacinth Macaw. The tail was referenced from a macaw in motion trying to balance itself as opposed to a perched one like I used. That was a mismatch on my part given the context wasn't the same. I agree with you in noting how the accuracy of the tail is more of a unified nature than of the splayed feathers like depicted.
I will have to correct this next chance I get. Thanks again for your helpful eye. Your enthusiasm for the subject matter is infectious.
Hopefully, I'll get it honed in the near future.
Regards,

joe

[Bas Mazur]

..Well, I'm not that great Joe, but I have my moments.

[ke]

It's absolutly perfect!

Well done.

[gunt]

Absolutly wonderful work. And thank you very much for all the tutorials. What a great help!


















!

[javalabala]

looks great!!!

[vedanta]

Hi Jelee,
I'm finally getting around to your fabulous tutorial,,better late than never, but can't seem to get past this one point. I have no problem retopologizing the beak and appending the new beak skin but when I do the next three steps, all I get is that the original mesh of the bird tool gets deleted and I 'm left with the beak and two eyes.,, no head to retopologize... can you tell me what I doing wrong? Thanks
Select the bird tool with the subtool eyes and Append the new skin you just made and rename accordingly.


Next we’ll create new topology for the head of the bird. When it came to the opening in the mesh up by the bird beak, I needed to delete the rigging selection to gain access for closing the gap.

To do this:

1. Unpress Tool:Topology:Edit Topology.
2. Press Tool:Rigging Delete.
3. Press Tool:Topology:Edit Topology and you can now reach geometry that was previously occluded by the rigging mesh.

This is where my trouble lies.

Closing this off gives me extra geometry to work with for making modifications between the beak and forehead if needed. By no means is the new topology the best solution for the form, but it is certainly better than before. Make an adaptive skin and Append it to bird tool.

[jelee]

Hi Vedanta,
I apologize to you and anyone who must have may have been thrown by the wording (or lack of) in this part of the tutorial.
Coming back to this with fresh eyes, I would have added that you want to have all the head retopologized to your satisfaction before applying the three steps that you mentioned.

The small picture in the tutorial makes it somewhat tricky to see as well but it is basically a fully retopologized head that used the same steps as with the beak.


Once having gotten to the end of step 3, your mesh should look something like this:


Once you close off the mesh, you can press the 'a' hotkey and preview the adaptive mesh.

If all looks well, then you can go to Tool:Adaptive skin: Make Adaptive Skin.
By capping this off, Vedanta, it will smooth nicer than if it were an open edge that can creep up from behind the beak when both are placed together.

Does this address any confusion? Let me know if you need further clarification. Thanks for calling this out.

Sincerely,
joe

[Abyssis]

....great to explore this thread, m8y

great...


-cheerZ-

[vedanta]

Thanks Jelee, I get it
and how do you combine the subtools into one subtool as you have appeared to have done with your final example?

[dustbin1_uk]

Very nice work! this is some very detailed modeling! Well done!

[jelee]

I didn't mean to overlook Bas, Ke, Gunt and Javalabala above.
I appreciate your posts. Thanks.

Abyssis and Dustbin1_uk, thank you for stopping by, glad you like the thread.

Hey Vedanta. You may want to keep the subtools separate or at least the head subtools. The subtools can get to a much higher polycount with little stress on computer resources, than if you combined them. If you want to consolidate the eyes though, you can try using the InsertMesh feature that is mentioned here.


Like I said before, you really want to beware using this technique for the heavier meshes unless you know your computer can handle it. (Mine couldn't. )
Just so you know, my final example was still one tool with several subtools just like the tutorial shows.

Hope this helps Vedanta.

Here is the walkthrough I made for Slashpot a while ago and I mentioned I would post it. Sorry it took me so long but maybe it can still help someone out there.


joe

[vedanta]

Thanks Joe for your advice about keeping the subtools separate and also your last few images....very helpful....
....I was wondering how you might get around the fact that the unselected subtool is a darker tone than the selected subtool,,but I realized you just have to > texture> colorize
any two or more subtools to get them looking like they are on the same subtool level.... cause your final pic of the bird of prey appears to have all the feather subtools on one subtool level...is that how you did it?..

[DarkSun]

Wow, really love that parrot. The tree is wonderful, now out of curiosity was that flower made out of a zsphere as well? Because it is awesome as well.

[jelee]

Vedanta, you are welcome and you are correct in your figuring out the colorizing of the subtools. The process you covered is a much simpler solution to making all subtools the same color but was not (at least to my knowledge) available at the time this beta image was made.
The only difference in the case of the tutorial, was after the subtool was set to Tool>Texture> Colorize, I then set the Main color to white and pressed Color> FillObject. Of course, first make sure Draw> RGB is pressed.
If you want to tint subtools shades of grey or different colors, this method works well.

Hey DarkSun, Thank you. The Bromeliad flower was actually created by painting a mask on a polyplane.

The mask was then Extracted from under Tool>Subtool with Thick set to 0. I then masked half of it and basically folded it using the Transpose actionline. The tool can then be cloned and the InsertMesh will help create iterative petals in the same subtool as the link in my last post will explain. To adjust or tweak the petals for the overlapping look, use the Transpose masking for isolating individual petals.
-j