ZBrushCentral

dapharmers models and experiments

so im working on sketching up some plans for an insane little snowtube run at a friends house that we’re planning on making this winter, and as part of the planning i decided to try to make a model of the friends back yard to work with… i used this as an excuse to learn some tricks towards mastering the zsphere topology tools to basically create the entire landmass out of a single starting cube.

here’s the end result :

6042530390_a8e309941c_b.jpg

aside from the trees and 1/2 of the plants everything was completely done using a cube and zsphere topology. The end result let me make great use of texture files to lay out the basic areas… the whole process took about 3 hours… the next step will be to add an overlay of snow to make the tube run and resulting snow-bowl at the bottom … twill be an adventure :smiley:

full size image here : http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6144/6042530390_d8ffdeaf8f_o.jpg

any c&c would be welcome

wait, how you did this ? Im confused ;D Dont look liek somthing made in zrbush :smiley:

i’ll post the low poly structures later… the basic landmass and stairs was made from a few hundred polys. i actually went about the topo proces like i was working in autocad. starting with a really simple 6 faced cube, i just set up a grid using the zsphere retopo to insert points at halfpoint marks… and then just slowly carve out the landmass into 3d space… after it was at a point where everything was laid out nice and smooth and even, i broke up the tools to detail closer… make each section laid out proper for use of textures… and then just plugged in trees into areas of his yard that were dense with them…

i’ve been trying to learn topogun of recent but i still like zsphere retopo when it comes to breaking things into precise halves and sections… its pretty amazing what you can get when you start with a single cube and soem patience… topogun is good for quick laying out of new lines, and filling things in super fast, but i still like being able to move the points along the surface in zbrush that is a pain to do in topogun… just need to keep things under 15k points per subtool if ur gonna use it but u can get alot out of that…

So you sculpted the whole thing, and the used retopo to make new topology ? And thenb sculpted it again ? Or am im still getting it worng ?:smiley:

the whole thing was retopo :wink: … i used topology to create the initial mesh here :

[attach=267057]polys.jpg[/attach]

then i used topology to refine the mesh and create new features. here :

[attach=267058]polys1.jpg[/attach]

and finally refined it further to get path’s structures and prepare for further detail work and use of texture files here :

[attach=267059]polys2.jpg[/attach]

Attachments

polys.jpg

polys1.jpg

polys2.jpg

ok, i have no idea how you did this, the more you explain the more confused i am ;D
Good job, i didnt know you could do so much box modeling in zbrush.

i’ll come up with a way to show an example of how to do it… it’s a simple method but its also a little complex because your jumping back and forth between working in a zsphere… making an adaptive skin with no subdivs… using transpose to stretch pieces… using retopo to divide those stretched areas… etc etc etc… you make the whole thing into a big grid and once you get the hang of how the zsphere retopo works as far as how it automatically divides edges when adding new points to them… you can lay out points and lines exactly how you need them… like you were working in a cad program. give me a bit to make a little example using a cube and it should make better sense… im horrible at explaining things :wink:

yeha a small tutorial would work ;D I can never do any hard edgy modeling in zbrush ;f I usually tend to project things i do in modo onto zbrush modles and pretend nothing happened ;D

@slocik he’s not sculpting or retopo’ing anything. He’s using Zbrush’s topology tool to create everything, the same way you would use the topology tool to make a cape, or shirt or collar or something. Am I interpreting it right dapharmer?

Anyway, it looks really nice man! One question though, why do this in Zbrush when you can do the same thing using standard poly modeling in max or maya or whatever else?

ok so here goes :

[attach=267063]BOXTUTE1.jpg[/attach]

a: starting with the tool attached to this post open the tool… clone it… append a zsphere… scale down the zsphere and move it completely out of the view of the box… select topology (pick the clone of the purebox) … edit topology… solo the zsphere

b: using draw mode create a grid pattern bissecting every edge, and pretty much recreate the effect of a non-smooth subdivide (doing it on your own gives you a feel for how you need to plan out splitting edges. lay out the general structure you plan to create

c: refine the structure by bissecting lines further, constantly checking adaptive skin to make sure you keep the structure solid. wherever possible change triangles to polys by bissecting additional edges as necessary

d: keep refining until you have your structure laid out with extremely good layout for applying textures evenly across the structure.

if you can think of it in terms of a cad like program… you need to just create your own grid as you go… theres trial and error involved as you need to hide bits and pieces to be able to get where you need and bissect lines… and you also need to keep in mind that if u want to add a point at a 1/4 way into a line, first add one at the middle… when you click a point quarter way up, the new midpoint of the resulting edge is not gonna be an equal distance unless u establish a mid point first… if that makes no sense to you play around with bissecting lines in the attached box and you’ll understand what i mean quick enough.

Attachments

BOXTUTE1.jpg

yeha it works, but it seems a bit time consuming, there should be some way to dive it faster. Addding every vert by hand would drive me insane on a bigger model ;D
Tanks for explaining.

Originally posted by aurick:

Here’s a bonus tip: If you don’t want a specific image to create a thumbnail in the bottom row, change the ATT and /ATT to ATN and /ATN. ZBC will skip over any images with that tag, looking for the first image in a post that has the ATT tag instead. You can control which image will create a thumbnail simply by changing any images before your desired one. You can ignore the images that come after, since ZBC will only create a thumbnail for the first image with an ATT tag.


Pretty awesome that you can box model like that in ZB, but I would much rather do stuff like this in Max, Maya, Modo, etc…

helpful to know though when you dont have maya and / or modo, etc… for the most part it was done just to practive with some retopo methods and such but yeah, i wouldnt suggest using it for anything stupendously big… one area zbrush is helpful in though with big models is that you can hide parts of the structure just like you would a normal mesh, and by keeping it all in one program, you can quickly shoot the topology into a new polymesh , split things off into subtools as needed, and go deeper into the retopo on the smaller pieces to get more detail out of it without having to juggle the full model’s worth of points.

just cause playing with that one box design was fun… had to take it further… :slight_smile:

[attach=267090]funkybox1.jpg[/attach]

Attachments

funkybox1.jpg

cool stuff!! maybe this thread by me give some ideas ? http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?t=106218

thanks gary… i’ve seen similar workflows presented in the past… back before 3.5 there was a lot more talk of box modeling within zbrush which is where i initially learned how to go about it using transpose alone. I know for sure i’ve seen someone make suggestions to make hands in the same fashion. I will definitely keep it in mind when playing around with topology down the line…

My next lil project i plan on trying is to make the floating eyeball guardian thing from big trouble in little china. my plan is to start with another super rudimentary object i’ve been holding onto since zbrush was still in version 2… back when zbrush gave you a pop up box when loading with some ready to edit polymesh’s, the sphere and cube options this gave you produced extremely nicely laid out primitives. the sphere especially, instead of laying it out like a globe, as you would get when creating from a sphere3d, laid it out with perfectly even groups of polys. You could then reconstruct subdivs on it until you get the primitive to resemble a puffed up cube. End result is a topology structure that resembles a baseball

[attach=267160]ballex.jpg[/attach]

from there i’m going to borrow from your methos a bit. i’ll overlay an image of the eyeball guardian on top of the sphere and use retopology to draw in the areas of interest that will get the most detail, then use transpose on those sections to model out the structure… then go into detailing… hopefully will work the way i have in mind.

on a side note… i tried to combine zsphere topology and zsphere meshinsert… i figured that topology in zbrush acts exactly like regular zspheres, but shrinks them to a single point… the idea worked up to a point. If you leave the zsphere on edit topology and then use marcus’s meshinsert plugin, it will begin replacing every single topology point you have… but then when it gets to the end zbrush freezes hard. Doesnt even crash, just freezes up and refuses to budge until you kill it. I will figure out some way of doing it though because being able to convert topology to zspheres and/or particle effects would be insane…

Attachments

ballex.jpg

decided to jump right into working on the guardian as i was having so much fun playing with the topology tools.

this is a complete work in progress and i plan on added a much deeper level of detail to the skin in both sculpting and coloring, but wanted to share what i’ve got so far for c&c… thanks in advance :

the original topology pass. Started with the aforementioned simple layout sphere, and used zsphere topology tools to rough out the layour of features :

[attach=267320]guardian-topology.jpg[/attach]

next i used transpose master and the handy lasso select to grab bit and pieces of the topology for displacement to define the initial contours:

[attach=267321]guardian-1stdetail.jpg[/attach]

test render of 1st detail pass :

[attach=267322]guardian-1stdetails.jpg[/attach]

after being satisfied with the initial layout i went up a subdiv level and started flesh out the eyesockets, and facial features, and started applying skin folds along the topology lines. :

[attach=267323]guardian-2nddetail.jpg[/attach]

this point i’m about 3 hours total into the model and i had to stop before consigning myself to having zbrush dreams all night again, but decided first to test out some texturing and alphas to see how well the initial topology is holding out… i’m pretty happy for now… the scupt itself sans any eyes is happily sitting at 24k points. :

today if i have the chance i plan on bringing it out at least 2 more division levels and adding in finer skin folds and wrinkles, as well as hopefully beginning to paint it… i think this time around since the layout of the topology was spot on from the beginning and needs little to no further retopo, the plan is to try working with painting, dumping to texture, painting different detail pass, dumping to texture, and combining the textures in layers in photoshop to create a nice deeper sense of sickly sweaty fatty flesh… either way worth the experimenting just to try to learn some more…

again any c&c is not only welcome but desired and appreciated.

thanks…
-d

Attachments

guardian-topology.jpg

guardian-1stdetail.jpg

guardian-1stdetails.jpg

guardian-2nddetail.jpg

Though I have not figured out completely,really nice try :+1:

so i found the time… and i can wholeheartedly say there is nothing futher i can do on this model… it’s done… i’m super happy with it… yay :smiley: … first thing i can really say i executed from begining to end in zbrush with 100% happyness in the result. no retopo work done whatsoever either, just straight from the initial topology i created off the sphere… woohoo :smiley:

final render pass :

Guardian-Final-Sm.jpg

full size : http://www.flickr.com/photos/daphs-shots/6050051921/sizes/l/in/photostream/

character sheet :

[attach=267381]charactersheet-guardian-sm.jpg[/attach]

full size : http://www.flickr.com/photos/daphs-shots/6050051683/sizes/l/in/photostream/

i stuck with my guns and tried to make multiple coloring passes to combine in photoshop and output back to a texture file, but i actually decided in the end that my original color pass worked best and just added a little bit of underlaying veins and cellular detail… had i a better eye for coloring and perhaps a bit better knowledge of the rendering process with zbrush i coulda amped it up a little bit more, but again… im happy with it :slight_smile:

c & c most definitely welcome.

-d

Attachments

charactersheet-guardian-sm.jpg