ZBrushCentral

Concepting to Detail Hard Surface Sci Fi Workflow?

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hi, does anyone know of a tutorial or site that is specifically geared towards COMPLETELY making a sci fi hard surface model in zbrush start to finish and talks about the workflow mainly? Like right now i want to start simple, and model sci fi guns and do them completely from scratch, and also make like robots later on, I’ve been thinking of how i would go about making a good workflow for a gun; 1: Make a plane or use shadowbox to extract its basic shape, Clip it to clean it up 2: Mask the areas i want to be separate parts, Poly group them and make more clip curve adjustments 3: Drop the models views on the canvas then open up shadowbox again and make each part. But I get stuck there and don’t know what to do next yet. Or say i wanted to make a sci fi spaceship or something or a robot I need a good workflow for that.

Also… does anyone know a good reference site for Sci fi futuristic details?

But I actually want to stay away from reference as much as possible because the whole point is to develop a concepting workflow how to quickly block out hard surface shapes and make them into highly detailed models. Also is there a way to keep polygroups after you do dynamesh?

Thanks.

#2

There is button to the right of dynamesh ‘groups’ that preserves separate geometry, but not poly groups which are welded I think, but just try that button before hitting dynamesh.

#3

I have been working on a hard surface training video by Mike Jensen. he has 2 of them, I have not seen the 2nd one yet, but the first one is a good place to start. He takes you through the steps of creating a “Firebat” power armor from Starcraft. You start out with the base meshes like sphere. walks you through shadow box, how to make custom alphas, using Dynamesh and all the hard surface brushes and clip brushes. The video comes with project files and alphas. He also shows you his custom UI and how it is setup.

I recommend it if you are comfortable with e basics of Zbrush. Not for beginers who haven’t spent time on the intro videos by Pix. its a good next step though. :cool:

#4

Thanks ill check those out, Does anyone know where the Motorcycle vid tut is by pixolator, the official thread link is dead.

Are you talking about the beginner vids on the main zbrush site, the official ones?

I’m kind of a beginner but i know my way around the UI and stuff, just have not memorized what everything does, but i know the main things.

Also, I’ve decided it would be easier to do a gun silhouette in photoshop then import that into shadow box, but is there some kind of threshold i can set in shadow box where white space is a separate mesh piece? Like if i make the gun silhouette in PS then break it into pieces a little above each peice with white space?

Thanks.

#5

If you have been through the Official videos, those are the ones I am referring too. If you feel comfortable with the UI then I’m sure you will have little to no issue with Mike’s Videos. Good luck! As for the motor bike tutorial, I am unaware of it… But you can try the Pixologic You Tube page, this is where they retire their old videos. many of them are still valid.

#6

Thanks, I was talking about this one http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?95181-Making-Time-For-Art-2-Now-with-tutorial-movie-PART-2

its completely hard surface and a lot of shadow box afaik but the links are dead now

#7

I don’t believe there was a tutorial video for that. Pix was just showing off their new toys for that build. part 1 was a Very cool gear works animation of a wrist watch. Both of these videos can be found on their You Tube page. I think.

Happy Sculpting! :cool:

#8

Oh ok, I thought it was at least a speed sculpt thats what old forums through google search said. Thanks.

I don’t see a playlist section for older Pixologic tutorials on youtube, am i on the right one?

http://www.youtube.com/user/ZBRUSHatPIXOLOGIC/videos?view=1

#9

ya, their you Tube page is not very well organized. But I am happy at least all the vdieos are there. I have to dig through stuff often to find what I’m looking for.

but I was hunting through that page and I did find this…

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?95181-Making-Time-For-Art-2-Now-with-tutorial-movie-PART-2/page10&pp=15

look at Post # 148

Pixolator, the OP has another video that is a speed sculpt, plus notes on what he did, in the post. I just dl’d the video and saved out the webpage for future data mining.

I think this is what you are looking for. :cool:

#10

Oh snap! Found part 1 !!

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?95181-Making-Time-For-Art-2-Now-with-tutorial-movie-PART-2/page5&pp=15

post # 73 !!

#11

Thanks, alot, Is he just extracting from a high polygon plane? if so how many polies do you think the reference plane is? I’ve tried extracting from a 2 m poly plane and its not as crisp as each one of his parts.

#12

hmmm your delving into an area I am very noobish at. But if I understand what you are saying, I think the reference image is placed on a plane, not sure if High poly effects the image. if he is extracting straight from the plane, I would say yes, most likely high poly, masked and traced srtaight from the image, then, I think he said he “Mesh Extracted” . Makes sense to me. In my own noobish way, I would have done the same thing. also you could try shadowbox, image masking, saving those masks, drag rectangle to shadowbox to extract them there, via Shadowbox. Then I would further refine the mesh’s with clipping tools and hard planar tools.

#13

Personally I find it best to Subdivide to level 4. This gives the best resolution for most modeling, IMHO