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Dave Langley - Digital Scultping Thread

Dragon; thanks once again; 3d manuals on iPads is a cool idea. Imagine the accuracy one could achieve given a correct set of blueprints.

Crazy Horse; thanks, I used shadow box for only two or three parts. Most of it was done by extracting a shape from a plane using masking with E Smt, S Smt and Thick all set to 0, then storing a morph target for the extracted piece, clearing the mask that comes along for the ride, and using the move transpose to pull it out some, then creating a difference mesh. It’s really the same concept as shadowbox but on a flat plane and you can get a much higher resolution.

You can also use this technique on other primatives. For the Barrel Jacket I used a cylinder primative and radial symmetry set to 3 to create the masks for the holes. However when you mask radially around a cylinder the mask is drawn directly through the model to the opposite side resulting in not 3 but 6 masked circles; which is not what I needed. So I used radial symmetry (also set to 3 to hide parts of the cylinder) then draw out the masks. Then I inverted the masks and extracted the barrel jacket.

From there I trim, polish and smooth as needed. I will often ReMesh the result to reduce the poly count then Project All. Then polish it very slightly, subdivide and Project All again. I may repeat that several times until the mesh is pretty dense and the polish yields a nice edge. I then step down subdividions to reduce the poly count but still maintain a good looking mesh and delete the higher subdivisions.

When I use Shadowbox I generally have the resolution set to 512; I make the masks slightly larger, or in the case of a cut out, smaller than the final piece needs to be. Then I use the clipping, polish, smooth and trim brushes to refine the shape. Sometimes you will want to create a complex piece by “laminating” several parts together and I use primatives wherever possible too to create a more complex part then remesh all into one piece.

I also like to scale my shadowbox or plane down to just what I need for a piece relative to the overall model, which can give you better detail.

Hey!

Thank you so much for the information! very good tips and tricks that will come in handy! thank you again for taking your time and explaining your workflow in such detail.:slight_smile:

Peace

Well, I thought it was time to add bit of color and a material to this baby. So here is the first interation of that. Let me know what you all think.

50_Cal_Mat-RGB_092211.jpg

It’s really looking great D. So clean. And yes, thanks for those great tips.

As I keep stating, this piece is just amazing. Liking the colours.

Oh, found this video on Youtube, single shot and auto firing of this amazing weapon:

And just ran across this ‘METAL STORM’:

And talking about cool weapons, check out this Star Wars/Star Trek type weapon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2_2cCmzovc&feature=related You gotta see what it does at the end, just amazing.

Your next projects?:smiley:

Thanks Exra52;

Once again thanks Dragon, and thanks for the links. Pretty impressive weapons technology, perhaps the days of the venerable old M2 are numbered.

Here are some other projects I have done in ZBrush.

Colt_1873_Army.jpg

Deer_WalkPose_Image2.jpg

Attachments

Deer_WalkPose_Image2.jpg

Nice Job man! I like the Whitetail.

You really have ZBrush down. Nice job on the painting/texturing of the ‘deer’.

Thanks RageNrock and Dragon;

I guess I’m on a weapons kick lately; here is a WIP of a 6Lb Cannon I’ve started. Again all ZBrush using Z4R2. I will post updates as I go along.

WIP_6lb_Cannon_092911.jpg

I’ve been spending time working with some of the new Z4R2 functionality to work on this cannon piece. Here is an update on my progress thus far. Using Dynamesh, Insert brushes and several other techniques I was able to build this rough model and keep the total poly count under 1.5 million.

I’m looking forward to a fix for issues discovered in Windows XPSP3 but with the flexibility of ZBrush there are plenty of alternate ways to achieve what I need.

As always C&C are welcome.

6LbCannon_001.jpg

6LbCannon_001_Xpose.jpg

6LbCannon_001_views.jpg

clean results as before, chains have a nice weight and tension to them:+1:

Hey DLangley, been some time that I have come by your post. Again, everything is so clean. I am sure Pixolator has been keeping an eye on this post (your really putting all the hard surface sculpting to the test with R2). Great work. Can’t wait to see more.

serious hard edge you’ve got, care to share your process?:sunglasses:

Waw! Superb…
All Zb?

Very clean and beatifull model.:+1:small_orange_diamond:+1:small_orange_diamond:+1:

You obviously put a lot of care and effort into the stuff you do and it really shows. This is really shaping up nicely.

Fantastic work. I can’t wait to see final renders of these pieces! :smiley:

Thanks guys for the kind words.

I’m just getting back up and running after nearly 4 days without power from the Halloween snowstorm Mother Nature sent our way last Saturday. I have to thank our friends in Canada who sent crews from New Brunswick to help us get our power going again.

I hope to have some updates posted soon.

Pollo2011; my process starts with getting plenty of reference and if possible blueprints or 3 view drawings. The cannon was the first project since the Z4R2 release so I spent time exploring DynaMesh. For this project I set the resolution to 512 with the Project and Group button on when inserting meshes. This will allow me to isolate the individual parts for further refinement and keep good detail when remeshing. I have mentioned other methods earlier in this thread too. ZBrush has such an extensive set of tools and virtually unlimited ways to accomplish something that I use any and all techniques. If you have a specific question of how I achieve something I’d be happy to describe the process.

Thanks for the explanation:)!

Hey weapons guy-:D, you still around?

Hey, thanks for asking.

I’ve been off the radar a bit looking for some paying work (unsuccessfully so far) and putting up firewood for the winter. That and the holiday season has taken a good share of my time.

So I haven’t had much time to work on ZBrush projects lately but plan to get back at it right after the New Year. I should be posting updates and new projects soon.

I hope you and all fellow ZBrushers have a happy and successful New Year.