ZBrushCentral

ZBrush to Second Life Slapt.me penguin

I originally created this tutorial as an Open Project on the slapt.me forum and also on my Pleasure Islands web site, but thought it would be useful for those here wanting to use ZB to create sculpties for Second Life.

When I first started using ZBrush to create sculpties in SL I was so frustrated at the lack of useful ZB to SL information.
So, my I hope is that by posting this here, many like me will now find this may help them create and develop their ZB skills for use in creating sculpties.
Feel free to comment at any time.

The slapt.me site needed a penguin mascot to use in-world to promote the site!?
So we banded together to create one between us!

Part 1. Basics

I had this idea for an Open Project where members of slapt.me could contribute, learn and share their knowledge and skills on whatever they have used and need to use for a Second Life project.

The goal of this project will be to produce a sculptured, textured, scripted, interactive animated slapt.me penguin that eventually will be donated to slapt.me to give away in their packs and promotions.

Although I have an idea what the finished penguin will be like and what it will do the project will remain open to ideas and suggestions from everyone.

As the project develops so will our ideas hopefully, hence the outcome could be quite different from the original concept.
Input in the way of constructive ideas, scripting, animation skills, sculpting skills and even wiki skills will be needed as I feel this will eventually make a useful tutorial for all those interested in creating in Second Life.

So, let’s get started. We can go into more detail as we go along.

I’ve chosen the ‘King Penguin’ as the base model as it was obviously used for the slapt.me logo. :wink:

Here you can see the original three models chosen for the slapt.me logo… (tongue in cheek)

[attach=161839]slapt.me-peng-orig.jpg[/attach]

They’re beautiful creatures and would make a cool and cute pet for slapt.me users. lol

As with any project we’ll start with the basics and gradually build and build with until we have our final creation.
My next step is to find some reference for the actual profile of the penguin (See next post).

My Pleasure Islands web site.
The slapt.me forum.
Second Life.

Attachments

slapt.me-peng-orig.jpg

Part 2: Creating the mesh for the penguin.

The sculpted penguin will consist of eight sculpted prims. Ten, if we have moving eyes.

Consisting of:
Body
Wings x2 left and right
Feet x2 left and right
Beak x2 top and bottom
Head

I’ve chosen the following profiles to use for creating the first part of the mesh which will be the body.

[attach=161845]slaptPengFnt.jpg[/attach] [attach=161846]slaptPengLeft.jpg[/attach]

Fortunately it’s a fairly simple shape and should be easy to create using ZBrush which really does lend itself to natural and organic shapes.

Next step is to create the mesh for the body.

Attachments

slaptPengFnt.jpg

slaptPengLeft.jpg

Part 2b: Creating the body of the penguin.

Having taken the front and side images of the penguin into ZBrush for reference I created a low resolution mesh of the shape (fig 1.).

Using the SweepProfile3D tool at a resolution of 32 x 33 which is the standard sculpty resolution for Second Life I then changed the S Profile to get the general shape seen on the far left of the photo. (S Profile can be found in the Initialize palette.)

Having got the basic shape I converted the SweepProfile into a PolyMesh3D.

Now we can start sculpting using the Move tool set to different sized brushes to get the basic low resolution mesh as seen in the blue front and side profiles to the right of (fig 1.).

slaptPengBod1-4.jpg
(fig 2.)

Next step will be to test the mesh will load up into SL?
Tip. Always test your mesh will load up as it’s easy to destroy the poles and corrupt the mesh.

I use the Beta grid for this as it’s free to load up images. When you know it works you can save it as a final and load it into the normal grid.

I’ll not bother showing it in SL as they always look a mess until they have the textures on them.

My next step will be to create the Head.
The head will rotate and hopefully nod or move up and down in some way.
I’m still trying to work out how I can achieve this but as usual I’ll just get on with it and see what happens?

Attachments

slaptPengBod5-8.jpg

Part 2c: Creating the head.

I had some spare time today so decided to work a little on the penguin head.
It took me a while to find suitable photo’s to use for the profile.

Below are the images I used with the main profile shots in the middle centre. (fig 1.)
The other smaller ones were for reference.

slaptPenguinshpeHD.jpg
(fig 2.)

Before putting too much detail in I’ll do the feet next to give the penguin proportion.
I always find it easier if I can see the whole object that I’m working on before I go into detail.

Attachments

slaptPengBod9-13.jpg

Greatwork, thx for tut, looking forward to how u textured / rendered this!

This was a duplicate post. I can’t find a way of deleting it? :frowning:

Thank you for sharing the tutorial…looking forward for more :smiley:

Cleanslate: Thanks for the tutorial, looking great. Glad this is getting some attention, wished it had a while ago. Thanks for going through the effort. :+1:small_orange_diamond:+1:

Thanks for the positive feedback! :slight_smile:
I’ve been trying all day to add more pages but it’s not loading up the posts.
I’ve tried three times now! :frowning:
I’ve only managed to get one more section up in the last 24 hours but I’ll keep trying. :slight_smile:

Part 2d: Creating the feet.

So, having studied numerous images of penguin feet I’ve come to a conclusion…

… they’re extremely ugly and a little bit frightening!

Have a look at the reference images below…

slaptPengFoot.jpg
i[/i]

As this particular part of the penguin will be duplicated and mirrored to make the right foot; it was necessary to put all the detail in now as you can see in i[/i]
I told you they were ugly! lol

If you’re wondering why I put so much detail in when most will be lost in-world it’s because I’m hopeful that we’ll soon have the ability to import meshes into SL.
So then I can just upgrade all my work to the mesh versions knowing I have all the detail and all the textures ready to fit in place.
Also I often use the detailed sculpt to make a bump and highlight map that I can use to enhance the finished texture.

The next step will be to attach this Left foot to the body of the penguin then duplicate and mirror it to make a Right foot.

Attachments

slaptPengfootF1b.jpg

slaptPengfootF2b.jpg

Part 2f: Creating the texture for the feet.

Slight change of plan:

I was going to attach the foot to the penguin body then duplicate and mirror it, but decided I’d paint the texture rather than try and use the actual photo textures.
Also It occurred to me that once I’ve got this left foot textured I can just duplicate it and mirror both the mesh and the texture together.

Below is the pre painted mesh showing a few of the key angles I’ve chosen to help me paint all sides quickly.

slptFootR1.9-fig1-PreB.jpg

Next step is to attach the foot to the body then duplicate and mirror it for the right foot.

Attachments

slptFootR1.9-fig2-PreB.jpg

slptFootR1.9-fig1-PostB.jpg

slptFootR1.9-fig2-PostB.jpg

Part 2f part 4: Adding the feet to body of the penguin.

Having finished the Left foot it was a pretty simple task to duplicate it and mirror it using Subtool Master plug-in.

Then it was just a case of positioning the feet at the base of the body.
I often find it useful to use the Turntable feature (found under Movies) to examin a model.
Sitting back and seeing the penguin rotate I could see its proportions needed a slight tweak and his neck area needs quite a bit of work to get the join with the body right.

//youtu.be/<object width=“425” height=“344”><param name=“movie” value=“http://www.youtube.com/v/Es4vGx3Ip7k&hl=en&fs=1&”></param><param name=“allowFullScreen” value=“true”></param><param name=“allowscriptaccess” value=“always”></param><embed src=“http://www.youtube.com/v/Es4vGx3Ip7k&hl=en&fs=1&” type=“application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=“always” allowfullscreen=“true” width=“425” height=“344”></embed></object>

I’d like to get the wings done and add those so again I can see his proportions better and do a final check against my reference photo’s.

At least for now our penguin can stand on his own two feet while I get on with the wings.

Part 2g: Creating the wings for the penguin.

Here’s my selection of reference images for the wings.

slaptPenguinWing-A.jpg

Then as with the feet the left wing was duplicated and mirrored using SubtoolMaster.

Here’s quick turntable animation of the penguin complete with wings, feet, head and body.
I’d smoothed the neck join a little more and given the head a little more shape by this time.

//youtu.be/<object width=“425” height=“344”><param name=“movie” value=“http://www.youtube.com/v/T95tHd3WhAA&hl=en&fs=1&”></param><param name=“allowFullScreen” value=“true”></param><param name=“allowscriptaccess” value=“always”></param><embed src=“http://www.youtube.com/v/T95tHd3WhAA&hl=en&fs=1&” type=“application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=“always” allowfullscreen=“true” width=“425” height=“344”></embed></object>

I coloured the wings and head grey just to highlight all the parts so far so I could see the proportions.

So, the only part we need now is the bottom of the beak. Phew!

Attachments

Texture-seam-fig1.jpg

slptWingR1.9-fig1-Pre.jpg

slptWingR1.9-fig1-Pre2.jpg

If you download the Greenlife Emerald Viewer, it has a built in temporary upload feature right on the upload window, and is free. The uploaded image will last until you log out. this way you can save a bit of time by not having to log in and out between the beta grid and the main Agni grid.

Part 2h: Creating the beak for the penguin.

The final part of creating the meshes for the sculpts is to create the bottom part of the beak.
I used a variety of images already used in the previous parts of the project as reference.
I also used a side shot of the head as a reference texture on the actual mesh for the head as a guide (see fig.1.).

We need him to be able to talk or squawk so it’s important that the beak can move.
As I mentioned in an earlier post it’s only the bottom part of the beak that moves so I collapsed the top part inwards and up then added the bottom part using my favourite SweepProfile3D tool as before to create the mesh.

Below in you can see how it’s joined into the head of the penguin.
(fig 1. left.) shows the entire beak and how it’s embedded into the head so that when it opens and closes there’s a smooth join.
(fig 1. middle.) shows it as it appears on the outside of the head.
(fig 1. right.) shows the same but without the mesh.

Texture-beak-fig1.jpg

Once the beak was finished it was then a simple task to mask the base part inside the head, blurr it then use the rotate tool to animate the bottom of the beak.
Although initially it will be animated with a simple rotation script, eventually I’d like to animate it using the UV files to get a smooth finish.
Taylor has created some fabulous sound files for his squawking too which you can here in the animation below.

//youtu.be/<object width=“425” height=“344”><param name=“movie” value=“http://www.youtube.com/v/b446-vT4nZQ&hl=en&fs=1&”></param><param name=“allowFullScreen” value=“true”></param><param name=“allowscriptaccess” value=“always”></param><embed src=“http://www.youtube.com/v/b446-vT4nZQ&hl=en&fs=1&” type=“application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=“always” allowfullscreen=“true” width=“425” height=“344”></embed></object>

So! All the meshes for the base model are now complete! Phew!

Now we can begin texturing the meshes and really bring him to life.

Part 3: Creating the textures.

I used many of the reference photographs in this tutorial to texture the penguin.
I haven’t done a step by step procedure as I wasn’t sure how much interest there might be for it.
I basically use Zaplink when using photo textures.

Here’s a quick turntable video of each part of the penguin textured until complete.

//youtu.be/<object width=“425” height=“344”><param name=“movie” value=“http://www.youtube.com/v/2iakq_hzwbI&hl=en&fs=1&”></param><param name=“allowFullScreen” value=“true”></param><param name=“allowscriptaccess” value=“always”></param><embed src=“http://www.youtube.com/v/2iakq_hzwbI&hl=en&fs=1&” type=“application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=“always” allowfullscreen=“true” width=“425” height=“344”></embed></object>

I’ll try and put something together for the process of texturing if there’s enough interest.

The next step from this point is converting the final meshes to sculpt UV. maps and uploading them and the textures into Second Life to do a final fitting.

Part 3b: Final tweaks & in-world testing.

Having uploaded the UV files to Second Life and tested the sculptured prims in position it became clear that I’d need to do some tweaks on the textures to compensate for the poor mesh construction in-world.

Slappy also needed some final work on his textures which you can see below on the actual ZBrush mesh.

The most difficult part would be the join between the body and the head and the join between the wings and body at the shoulders.

Below is the actual textured mesh in ZBrush.
(fig 1. left.) shows the new eyes in place having got the final texture for the head done.
also, as Grandma had managed to get his beak to open and close with his squawking I finished the inside of his beak.
(fig 1. middle.) shows detailing on the actual body and under the wings etc.
(fig 1. right.) shows the join at the neck. In the end I chose to create an alpha fade from the body to the head as the sculpties just wouldn’t line up well enough to hide the join.

[attach=165522]CharacterStriptxt1.jpg[/attach]

Once all the tweaks were done the textures were then loaded up and applied to the sculpties in-world to complete the Mk.1. version of Slappy.

He does everything we planned for the Mk 1.
He flaps his wings and squawks when touched.
He also gives out a note card and freebies at the same time.
You can load him with your own note cards and freebies to give away too so he could be your very own Slappy Vendor!

For those who would like to see the finished version in-world you can see him at the location below or get your very own free available free from slapt.me!
Here:http://www.slapt.me/market/index.php?act=market&id_item=7089

As mentioned before. I have a specific workflow for converting ZBrush meshes into UV’s for use in Second Life. I’ve omitted this here but if there’s enough interest I’d be glad to tag it on the end.

I managed to take some in-world shots of him together with his two buddies on my island sim which I’ll put up in the next post.

Attachments

CharacterStriptxt1.jpg

Part 3c: Final texturing and in-world photo shoot.

Here are the final shots I did of Slappy and his two friends at Pleasure Islands.
I built them an iceberg in the corner of the sim and they’re still there.

First of all here’s a reminder of the original photograph that set everything off!
My goal with Slappy was to have an in-world penguin that we could use to simulate the real life penguins in the photo below.

slapt.me-peng-orig.jpg

I’m really happy with the way he’s turned out.
The limitations of Second Life on sculptures can sometimes be devastating when seen finished in-world.
Fortunately due to the simple lines and shape of the penguin the finished result is really quite pleasing and pretty close to the actual ZBrush mesh.

Thanks to Grandma and Taylor at slapt.me for their contributions to the scripting and sounds.

Attachments

Slappy3-front.jpg

Slappy3-quarter.jpg

Slappy3-under.jpg

Slappy3-back.jpg

This is really great cleanslate. thanks for the detailed workflow. As a newbie ZBrusher I have two questions. First, how did you attach the head to the body so it was all one piece? Second, I noticed your wing had a hole in it. Did you fill it in and if so how did you do it?

Once again great work and presentation! :slight_smile:

Thanks Paint Guy. I’m glad you’re finding it useful. :slight_smile:

In answer to your question:

To attach the head to the body I simply saved the head as a Tool then Appended it to the body as a Sub Tool and positioned it using the Move and Rotate Tools.

Then used the Draw Move Brush at a very small size to match up the mesh of the head as close as possible to the mesh of the body to get a smooth join.

See below. (This is the actual resolution of 32 x 33 that we have to play with in SL.)

pengneckjoin.jpg

As we only have a sculpted prim of 32 x 33 polygons to work with in Second Life you can’t get much detail in so it’s best to divide a sculpture up to get the sculpt and texture detail.

As far as the hole in the wing.
I’m absolutely frightened to death of touching the poles in a mesh as it can often destroy the entire sculpt in SL.
As the hole would be hidden from view inside the shoulder join and as it worked ok in SL I left it in rather than risk destroying the mesh by accident.

I’m still searching for a method of fixing this pole problem as it happens very often.