ZBrushCentral

Big Man Walking - Animated Character with Displacement Maps

ZBrush Artworks
#1

  • Hi! Moved to new place - Everything bit messed while trying to catch up with work stuff - haven’t had too much time touch Zbrush :frowning:
    -Anyway, here is a test i made with zbrush and 3dsmax - i’m not happy with it, but here it is anyway! :slight_smile:

  • Model is built in zbrush, displacement map was generated, rest is 3dsmax

  • No twist bones in 3dsmax, that is why shoulders get ruined a bit when upper arms turn inwards

  • Animation is done with mocap, bit tweaked for this animation - No finger animation either :frowning:

Here is the animation (DivX):

Walking Test

A frame from animation for those who don’t have video… :slight_smile:

Here is a image of the model - sorry, he is a bit funny looking dude! :

[img]http://www.cgmill.com/ss/temp/images/20040421_big_man1.jpg[/img]

Here is a link to image of the older model version, before smoothing…

Old Version

Modeling took two long evenings from a tube character mesh… animation setup for test took one day

CnC Welcome!

#2

Cool animation :cool:
Man on the moon :slight_smile:
Pilou

#3

wowzer i sure wish i could do animations like that, very nice,… Besides it might be easier for us to do animation later on using pixol’s animation master, If it ever gets here, hehe.

#4

Looks pretty darn good as is. How about posting an image of the mesh without any displacement?

#5

Thanks for comments!

jk:

  • I don’t have wire images, but i did a render for you just now… :slight_smile:
    -I think this is what you wanted to see? It is the unsubdivided cage mesh before subdivision and displacement modifiers…benefits for animation setup/vertex weighting are quite obvious :slight_smile:

#6

Please don’t take offence to this Sami because it applies more to the community but I’ve been seeing a big (and bad) trend in peoples workflows and ideas about how they go about working on models now that z2 is out.

It seems that everyone feels like they can get away with murder now because “I’ll fix that in zbrush with displacements”. When in reality you still need really good topology and a well designed model for things to work out properly. So yes, that means you still need to create models with great loops and edge flow so it will animate correctly. Remember that the base cage is what actually deforms.

Cool test btw.

#7

visualboo:

Yes, i’m completely aware of these issues! - no offense taken :slight_smile:

  • As i have very limited time to tests things related to Z Brush and 3d (as i don’t do 3d for living now…), i just did this model out of tube like mesh, and it came out with the look it has :slight_smile: then i wanted to test it for animation - i knew it didn’t have proper mesh topology

  • I would have change the area of shoulders… deltoid/biceps lines should be defined, and pectoral muscle edge too - also the area of upper leg joint… :slight_smile:
    (of course face is another thing…)

  • This is what i normally do, but taking these shortcuts made it possible to test this in one weekend :slight_smile:

  • The workflow issue you mentioned is a real problem actually, if you want to work with displacement mapped zbrush models - there is no way to calculate displacement map for another mesh with different topology (model which isn’t a subddivided version of cage mesh…)

  • I would have to make the displacement map in another program…which can compare hires mesh to completely different mesh

  • Currently it takes lot of planning, if you want do proper animatable hires characters with 3dsmax and zbrush only… first i have to prepare the base mesh for animation, be sure it deforms ok, after that, test that it won’t have any problem areas, and after that paint the displacement maps :slight_smile: - that’s why i took the shortcut :wink:

“Remember that the base cage is what actually deforms”

  • You don’t have to remind me of this! ;))
  • 3dsmax does it for me every time i use it! :slight_smile:
  • I wish 3dsmax had MAya/XSI style deformers - I can only use weighting, and that starts to be a promlem with today’s mesh resolutions (very obvious even in games… bad looking joints every where) - Animating anything but Subd cage is out of question :frowning:
#8

Great model as usual, Sami :slight_smile: Any chance it was inspired by mayaguru’s muscle man? Great animation test! You’re a great inspiration for other max users like myself. Keep’em coming!!

#9

Thanks for the test Sami.

This is where the development needs to be with the displacement map/animation workflow. Much of the shoulder issues could be resolved with a little vertex weight tweaking and a morph angle deformer.

Another issue that comes to mind is the level of detail that gets transferred to the animated mesh. I’ve done some tests and the zBrush model has more detail than the animated mesh. 3D Max can’t handle a sub d level more than 5.

#10

Nice demo Sami!

Maybe you can answer a question about displacement and 3dsmax. It seems to me that having to use the MeshSmooth modifier with 3 or 4 iterations to get the displacements to show completely defeats the purpose of using a displacement map to begin with.

By the time the model has a few iterations of meshsmooth, the poly count is off the charts any way, and I start asking myself, is the displacement map usage actually worth the trouble?

Anyone have any illuminating thoughts on this?

#11

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> - 3dsmax does it for me every time i use it!

  • I wish 3dsmax had MAya/XSI style deformers - I can only use weighting, and that starts to be a promlem with today’s mesh resolutions (very obvious even in games… bad looking joints every where) - Animating anything but Subd cage is out of question <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
    hehe tell me about it.
#12

KingSalami:
There is no benefit in render time, but try skinning and animating a mesh with 2 million vertices and you’ll understand why this is so revolutionary.

dr. jjwow:
If Pix ever did release a seperate animation product, I have to imagine he would choose a name not already in use by a competing product. :wink: