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Help achieving Veins and Tissue

ZBrush Usage Questions
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#1

TooSoftVeins
TooSoftVeins2465×1825 331 KB

hey guys,

Can anyone recommend how to get detailed Veins and Soft Tissue like the reference image ?
purchased a Veins and Burns Brush from Gumroad but it’s way tooo soft as you can see on one of the Cylinders in the image. The Cylinder next to it i i was sculpting things with regular brushes but still not getting the results i am after. Any help would be sooo appreciated.

#2

Hello @jontz71

There are a number of options for this.

  1. Textural. Textures can be wrapped around UV’d meshes, and from this point you can use the color information in the texture to establish masking or polypaint, which can then be used to inflate the veins as desired, or it can be applied directly as displacement.
  • This is especially useful for smaller veins you dont want to detail by hand. You can derive such a texture by simply polypainting the veins on a mesh at high rez, then creating UVs and a texture.
  1. Alpha. With a quality alpha and sufficient resolution you can stamp the alpha in as displacement detail with either Spotlight, Projection Master, or directly via brush with an alpha loaded into the alpha channel, and a drag rect/drag dot, or even a spray stroke.
  • The new feature that allows you to sculpt directly on a flattened, UV’d mesh with the Morph UV function may be useful here.
  1. Sculpt directly into mesh. Lazy Mouse 2.0 features allow you to sculpt long, unbroken strokes directly into a mesh, and with the storing of a morph target, allow certain brushes to be used at a fixed depth.
  1. Sculpted as a separate mesh. The Curve Tube Snap brush will allow you to draw thin tubes along the surface of the mesh, which can then be sculpted and tapered as separate objects. This may be useful for making major veins that require more detail or prominence, while relying on alphas or textural solutions for the finest veins.
  • A useful trick here is to use the Topology brush to draw out your intended veins as curves on the surface all at once, using the editing capability of that tool. Then, with those curves still active, switch to the Curve Multi Tube brush and click on them, which will draw out the tubes at the current settings all at once.

I would choose a hybrid approach. Looking at your reference image, you have sort of a veiny “film” that is a solid mass in many places. I would probably start with a Mesh Extract to create the film as a separate subtool that I could sculpt and dissolve a bit in Sculptris Pro mode, use tube strokes to define the major vein detail, fuse everything together, and use textures or alphas to mix in finer detail–not necessarily in that order.

#3

Huge thank you for your insights. All great points to try and experiment with. The biggest intimidation is still those super fine veins and bumpy tissues. Am wondering where to even find a texture for such a thing to spotlight with ? or even how to sculpt such fine detail. As is, I’ve had to bump up the geo to 3million polys on just one of they cylinders to get smooth large veins with the alpha brush i purchased. I’ve duplicated the cylinder 3 times. One level for veins, second for tissues, third as base. Not sure if that’s going to be stable for zbrush when applied to 6 or 8 cylinders ?

Could not mover forward on stuff like this without folks like you. Thank you

#4

Paint your own with brush alphas in Zbrush or in an image editor.

Your output needs will change your approach–working for print has an entirely different set of concerns than working for digital render, and animation has a different set of needs from static composite. Efficient mesh topology is important. Eventually you will want to remove overlapping or redundant geometry, and create a more efficient unibody mesh that delivers more polygons at the base level to high detail areas, and fewer to low detail areas, so this effect is multiplied when subdivided.

Eventually you may need to use HD Geometry.

Remember, textural solutions like bump and normal maps don’t require extreme polycounts. So maybe sculpt for displacement the major forms that will change the silhouette of the mesh under scrutiny, and use a traditional textural solution for fine surface detail.

#5

sooo grateful for your insight. still feeling overwhelmed and lost on how to best achieve the Tissue and veins on this cylinder area. need guidance on how to best approach this area ? what techniques ?

Where I’ve been stuck for weeks is the Cylinder Tissue and Veins. Can’t seem to figure out how much detail is too much or too little to go from Zbrush to Substance to do the Hi Frequency Details ? Also think my zbrush method of sculpting is this area is looking a bit messy ?

wish i could get a step by step tutorial on how to approach this somewhere ?

side note. all this is just for learning as a passion dream concept project.

some latest tests:

#6

Am readying your awesome suggestion over and over. My challenged brain get a bit overwhelmed from all the steps involved but i keep coming back thanks to kind advice from great folks like you sir. Thank you.