ZBrushCentral

Heavy Mech

ZBrush Artworks
#101

@thehand: Thanks man! Your name reminds me of A Song of Ice and Fire

@Sindo: thanks!

@piz: Thank you!

@Range_Finder: Thank you! Yep total sense XD

@industripop: Thanks man! I’m glad you like it!

@Nemes1S: Haha I’m not sure if he will be animated. I’d have to retopo for that. Since i knew the final result would be a static image I didn’t have to do that. Plus I don’t know how to animate XD.

@killfrog58: Thanks man!

@gpepper: Haha thanks! XD I hope you enjoy =)

@KelvinL: Haha thanks man. It just takes practice you’ll get good fast. =)

@tokaru: do it!! =)

@Teomaco: Thank you!

@Pteropus vampyrus: Thanks!

@Chamelion09: Thank you!

@busebberger: Thanks man I’m glad you like it =). Sorry about the concepting stage I didn’t mean to be misleading with the image =(. For the DVD we decided that focusing on the hard surface techniques was the most important. We could have included more on the torso but it was very messy business! But The method i used is still illustrated in the legs and arms and feet. XD

@Arthaven: Yes you’re correct. Concepting it may be helpful to see how people work or maybe their thought process, but it’s pretty capricious at this point for me. It’s literally trail and error. You’re right it would have needed to be a timelapse, because of all the iterations i did on it T_T.

@Killah Priest: hey dude. I set that accidentally and didn’t know I’d done so. It’s the “solo” mode on the right side. So if you set a hotkey for that you’ll be good =).

@polygonpusher: Thanks man! Ah yeah I did play sc1 quite a bit but I was very bad at it i was D- on ICCUP. But apparently D- on ICcup translates to Diamond in sc2, so a lot of diamonds are still really bad XD (including me). But it’s a fun game!!

@sahil_raptor: Thanks man! I just tried to look for the link for you as well but I couldn’t find it. Perhaps they are not selling the materials anymore? You may want to email Ryan =(

@highlander_72: You are correct it is basic ZSketch meshes all subtooled together. Thanks man I really hope you enjoy the dvd =)

@-FoOD-: Thanks man! I’m looking forward to your new stuff you’re always an inspiration to me!

@kallesh3d: Thanks man!

@benmillion: Thanks man I’m glad you like DVD. It’s nice to hear that my teaching actually teaches XD.

You are absolutely correct about sidestepping technical workflows and keeping the workflow creative in Zbrush.

The base meshes being so high poly is a bit unfortunate, but I could not find a way to keep the edges without the high poly versions. I hope to find a way soon!

The base mesh is a combo of ZSpheres and ZSketch. First I make the zspheres to about the porportions I want the model. Then I paint a VERY basic zspheres2 part for the upper arms. Then I convert that area (the upper arm) to a mesh and mirror it. Then I do the same for the shoulders, the torso etc. Basically I separate out everything that would be it’s own joint. I hope that helps!

@dylanpanther: Thanks man! Ah yes that default hotkey is N.

@KillahPreist: beat me to it! <3

@keld30: Thanks man! i Hope you enjoy it!

@jmenna: Thanks!

@Viktor Germogenov: Thank you! haha yes human anatomy is very important to master =)

@bisenberger: Thanks for the links! Those are very valuable resources.

@tomaszlanski: Haha thanks man! Ah I do have another tutorial but it covers similar techniques. It’s called Zen of Zbrush you can look it up.

@Zazzetti: Thanks man!

@Surly Bird: Thank you very much! It makes me happy to hear that people like my style of teaching. =)

@Mr. Storm: Thanks man! Haha I do need to do a sexy female robot. I find that it’s very important in the industry to be able to make aesthetically pleasing characters and the female form is a large part of that =).

@siamak_cgm: Thanks man! I’m glad you like it!

#102

just great ,tho i have one question how did you managed to get the fingers out of the heavy mesh you have at the start wip pics , is it unified skins?

Thanks for the wip , and the tut

#103

First of all, amazing work. Congratulations.

The model itself was COMPLETELY made in Zbrush. I think Zbrush now has tons of features that put it’s hard surface abilities above other packages.

This is a very interesting comment. I am doing very well with organic modeling so far and I want to get into hard-surface modeling for weapons and vehicles.

I know how to model in 3ds Max but I don’t have a lot of experience. My end is to make game geometry for the UDK engine. My question is, is the hard-surface modeling in ZBrush 4 so good that I can just stick to that and just use Max for creating game topology with the freeform tools and rigging/anim? Or should I still be an experienced modeler in Max capable of producing high quality models?

Having seen the bike and now this mech character, I think I can safely use only ZBrush for all my modeling purposes and then just use Max for a quick retopo, or even ZBrush if it’s not too complicated. I guess maybe simple stuff like chairs and the like would be quicker with Max. What is everyone’s input on this?

I have a subscription to Digital Tutors and they also recently came out with a hard-surface modeling course with ZB4. I have to decide within the next few days whether to study the Max modeling tutorials, or just continue to use ZB4.

Any and all input would be appreciated.

#104

I just saw you answered my question thanks so much for taking the time to answer.

#105

@Joseph Ferano: I don’t you can chose one or another, a mix of both will get you great results, but knowing how to create hard surface is def a time saver.
I also have a DT subscription and I watched the hard surface modeling videos but they definitely skip a lot of cool stuff that are explained in the first 5 chapters of this dvd.
I think Justin from DT does some cool stuff but somtimes I wonder about his techniques and his real experience this is why I think getting dvds from people that actually work in the industry is worth it and this one is a pure gem.

#106

Is there a place on the DVD or website where you can download that costume interface? I will make my own when I have time. Also do those handy mini menus store indefinetly with the store config in preferences?

Your voice is great nice inflection, so you don’t get tired listening to you. I can understand everything you say clearly. Look forward to more tutorials you may sell. I’m still going through it though, still have a few hours left.

#107

Yeah, I watched the creating game characters one and I was a little surprised at some of the methods he used for creating a character. Even as an beginner/intermediate artist, I saw that some of his workflow decisions weren’t optimal for speed/efficiency. I get the feeling that their training is like that overall. I also saw their Intro to 3ds Max and the animation section was pretty bad. The instructor isn’t gifted with good speaking skills and the topics were worse. How do you teach custom attributes before you teach keyframe animation? Just doesn’t seem like a sound learning path.

I am thinking of canceling my subscription and picking up the one year streaming option for all the eat3d videos. The intro to 3ds Max looks a lot more thorough and I plan on studying UDK anyway so it should work out.

#108

I decided to purchase the Eat3D 1 year streaming subscription. Probably the only viable pricing point for me at the moment. However, I have a question that is somewhat related to this.

If I wanted to take this mech character and make a game model, how would I go about doing it with the different sub-tools? I would naturally first export out into GoZ and use the graphite tools to lay down the topology on top of all of the sub-tools. My question is, how would I go about bringing it back into ZBrush and replacing all of the old topology with the new topology and projecting the high-res detail.

The Project All button would work I guess, just not sure how it would work with multiple subtools. I also have tried it on other models I have done and have not liked the results, usually results in a lot of artifacting.

If Eat3D does a video tutorial on how to convert the Mech Character into a game model using the new GoZ features and all that, adopting a more ZBrush dominant workflow, I would definitely enjoy that. They do have that one with the demon looking character, but from what I understand, they use a game-topology ready base mesh, something I’m not doing since I’m starting out with ZSpheres.

Any help would be appreciated.

#109

Why don’t you just bake the maps, retopo and rig it ?

#110

Well, umm, I thought I had to first use UV Master with the retoped geometry. Can you send me a youtube video of what you’re talking about or at least explain it in a bit more detail. I’m kinda lost now.

Let me clarify so it’s easier to see what I’m doing wrong. My understanding was that I had to take the ZSphere topology once I have everything done and replace or edit it with GoZ. Once that is done, then I import back into ZBrush and use ProjectAll so my new topology has the high detail. Then I can use UV Master to create the texture and normal map to then export to Max so I can then use ActorX to export to UDK.

If I’m doing something wrong in my workflow, please let me know. I don’t know how to UV or anything like that with Max so if I want to use UV Master.

#111

Joseph, since you have the one year streaming you should check out the high poly and low poly production videos. I think these will answer what you need and more. Not all scenarios are equal though so keep that in mind.

#112

It’s a great DVD with a lot of information (i’m now on chapter 02) that comes clearly and professional.
My english is not the best, but i can follow your steps. Please use a less (hope thats correct) of shortcuts or communicate it, please.:sunglasses:

The chapter 01_01 up to 01_05 are very helpful for me.
Hope that comes a lot more tutorials.

Keep up the good work and teaching :smiley:

#113

I haven’t purchased it yet, I only decided to. Sorry for not clarifying that up earlier :slight_smile:

But yeah, Im currently doing a female character and the zbrush portion is coming out swimmingly but I’m just a bit worried that with her clothing I might mess up the ProjectAll feature. I’ll keep searching youtube/ZBC for more info. Thanks.

#114

how could i resist? I had to buy the DVD after seeing these images.

Heres hoping I can make something that good in 5 years!

#115

Great Job

#116

bought this recently, great stuff… however

link explains all

http://weblogs.asp.net/jeff/archive/2010/06/29/quot-i-m-gonna-go-ahead-and-quot.aspx

you do it all the way through, it’s infuriating and unnecessary

#117

I was listening to one of the videos while browsing through the forum and he said it exactly as I read this post :lol:

Didn’t really even notice it until you said something. doesn’t bother me

I was wondering how you compare this extracting method to your remesh method in your hard surface book?

#118

Hi,MikeJensen, I have watched your zb hardsurface sculpting video. That’s very useful. You did hard work!!

If you make it to a model can be animated, how you topo it or something else?

Thanks:D <SCRIPT type=text/javascript> vbmenu_register(“postmenu_788591”, true); </SCRIPT>

#119

If you’re still interested mike was kind enough to share his Custom UI and hotkeys. Here’s the link.

http://www.filedropper.com/mike-jensen-zbrush-ui

#120

Hey man, im in the middle of your tutorial and whenever i do a mesh extraction on a mesh extraction it extracts both sides and i end up with these weird double pain meshes or worse yet a mesh that wraps around inside of itself. i think its because the mask is going through to the other side but i dont see a way to avoid this.

if you have any suggestions id love to hear them.