mradamw's gallery

[mradamw]

hello!

let me start off by saying that im pretty nervous about posting my first character on zbrushcentral, but i recon considering the calibre of artists around me, it would be good to get some feedback/input or whatever you care to say

Ive been using zbrush 3.1 for a little under a week now, and im FINALLY starting to get a basic understanding of this awesome program.

Now, this character (being my first) is loaded with errors and suchlike, things i hope to comb out as i get to know the program better. next step for this rather scary chap is colour (been experimenting with some things, and just nothing is working out right for me, so looking into tutorials at the moment)

there is no specific idea or theme behind this guy, it just sort of formed itself

hope you like it, and as i said, any comments are welcome.

---Adam

[LeoAMD]

great stuff.

[AA-ron]

Love the head design. Did you create a basemesh in another app?

[mradamw]

thanks LeoAMD


AA-ron : nope, all done in zbrush. the head was made from a polysphere, pulled into a rough shape with the nudge tool and the torso with zspheres. the poly counts are all over the place for each part unfortunately, so its basically impossible to create one mesh from it. i think it was up to about 19 subtools or something...still gotta figure out ways to economise the way i work :P

[j lizzle]

Ahh, don't be so nervous. Your doing great for just starting. It seems as though you have some previous art skills. Zbrush isn't that tough of a program. So, if you can draw it or sculpt it somewhere else, you'll be able to do it in Z. Keep up the great work!

[AA-ron]

Indeed. Are you planning on doing a final render with post work? Id love to see it completed
Are all of the hoses/wires zspheres?

[biserk]

Looking great. All Zbrush hey, I thought for sure you would have modelled your ztools in another app - nice work.

re: "impossible to create one mesh from it."

You could settle for a reasonable total polycount, delete all lower levels, make1mesh (or use transpose master to combine all the subtools into one), create a zsphere, select your newly combined mesh as the rigging target and re-topo into one clean mesh.

[Johannes]

Hi!,

I have to agree with everyone else, this is a great piece (first or otherwise). I know what you mean about high polycounts and subtools, I'm struggling with a similar issue on my latest piece. About the only thing I can say is that disabling uvs (if permissable) is a good way to get some headway against the polycounts, and switching to Win 64 (which is admittedly not for everyone...) definitely helps a lot, but it still doesn't seem to give a really good solution beyond a certain limit and it doesn't make the whole single mesh issue much better except in that you could combine several hi res subtools at a time, retopo them together (hopefully with a lower total polycount).
I'm also totally blown away that you did it all with Zspheres, I was also thinking the base meshes were done elsewhere. Great job!
Look forward to seeing what you do next!,

Johannes

[mradamw]

j lizzle and johannes - thanks guys

aa-ron - yeah all the tubes were made with zspheres, then just taken up to like level 3 or 4 to get the nice smoothed effect. as far as doing a final render and stuff goes, yeah definitely going to do it. just gotta paint him and then ill get to the renders etc, but for now just working on something new cos i had been staring at his ugly mug for a week so need a change :P

biserk - thanks for that idea with the meshes! i will definitely give it a try. is transpose master a plugin? because i tried to use the subtool master and it made my zbrush bomb out, so i deleted it hey (i think they still have some kinks to iron out of an already sterling program), for example, my ALT key doesnt work in zbrush, which is somewhat of a stress and no one seems to know what the problem is haha...oh well...

cheers for the comments guys

---Adam

[biserk]

Yeah - it's a plugin.

Maybe you have a function lock key on your keyboard. Mine does and if I don't turn it off none of my f keys work. I would try another keyboard to find out if it is an issue with your current keyboard. You can't live without the ALT key in Zbrush I reakon.

[mradamw]

yeah i know! alt is so important! and i cant use it! ARGH!
well i figure my keyboard is fine, cos the alt works everywhere else, and also if i try on my tablet (wacom intuos 3 a4) it doesnt work either. the cursor in zbrush changes when i hold alt, but thats all...its a mystery i tell you.

[aurick]

TransPose Master is definitely the way to go. You can find it at http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/sho...d.php?t=054270. Basically, it's designed to merge your mesh in a way that it can be used with TransPose, then transfer that pose back to your original model with all the subtools. I think you'll like it.

I imagine you've already been spending time at the ZClassroom and the Wiki. But just in case you can find the ZClassroom at www.pixologic.com/zclassroom and the Wiki (online documentation) at www.pixologic.com/docs. You'll find a lot of helpful information for polypainting and so forth.

I would also imagine that ZAppLink will help you with the polypainting. It's at http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/sho...d.php?t=052099

[mradamw]

thanks aurick

[dmckim]

Was actually looking at this earlier today and really loved it. No need to be hesitant to post, very nice for first work in zb. Really love the tubing mixed in there. Looks like some sort of scuba/sniper.

[mradamw]

hello all
im in trouble!!! im trying to paint my chap up now.
so heres a step process of what i did.
a) load torso (sculpted from zshperes in zbrush)
b) pick base colour and texture and fillobj
c) begin polypainting happily
d) texture > 1024x1024 > NEW
e) hit Col>Txr and then it all goes pear.

this is a screenshot of the torso before steps d-e


and this horrid mess is what happens after step e


ive been following tutorials by jason welsh (and looking at all the painting ones i could find) and it seems a big part of making a texture that you can export to photoshop (for example, to make his vest grubby and stained etc) has something to do with UV's (??????????) and Maya is mentioned alot. now i dont have any other 3d apps apart from zbrush.

PLEASE could someone help me out here...i really want to start painting here!