ZBrushCentral

Kathlyn WIP (Now With Clothes)

ZBrush Artworks
#1

I’m working on a new model. Following the techniques that Zack Petroc outlines in his DVD from Gnomon, I began modeling this character this weekend. It’s about 8 hours of sculpting, I didn’t want to take it as far as Zack did, because I don’t want to waste too much time with unnecessary details, i.e veins, etc… I’ll do that after I redo the topology.

Anyway, I began with a very basic 3D model, which I did in Silo. Then I sculpted this with 4 sub-division levels in Zbrush, bringing the polycount to 55,000 polys, which is very light when compared to how I use to model. Now I will redo the topology, using Silo’s topology brush, then use Maya to conform the new topology to this sculpt. Once that is done, I’ll soften the muscles, if it’s not already soft, and add the superficial detail.

The head and hands will be redone in Silo, mainly because I find it easier to control the mesh in that app. So the head and hands on the current model are just stand in geometry.

Initial Zbrush Mesh. Slight Nudity.

You can see various other screenshots, plus wireframe renders on my site, here:

Kathlyn WIP

To see what I did at different sub-d levels, I did a .gif animation to show what changed at each stage.

http://homepage.mac.com/chadtheartist/.Pictures/kathlyn/wire.gif

And if you want to see a turntable of this, I made a small Divx video which you can download here:

Right click and save to disk

Anyway, I’m pretty happy with the results. I did a test to see if the xyShrinkwrap.mel would work in Maya for Mac, and it works fine. I wish I would have known about that a long time ago. It’s really a neat script, and basically will allow you to sculpt in Zbrush, rebuild the topology, and not loose any of your sculpt. Neat stuff.

Chad

#2

Looks great Chad!

Looks like I am gonna have to ask for a whole lot of dvd’s for my bday!:smiley:

#3

Yeah, I’m definitely impressed by the way Zack works. I’ve been working completely wrong with Z2, and just watching him work has really opened up a lot of possibilities with everything I can model in Z2, not just anatomy. It’s worth every penny I spent on it.

I’m going to get Meats DVD’s too, I just have to wait for my checkbook to catch up with my wants… LOL!

And thanks for the compliments. Hopefully I will be able to retain most of the detail once I redo the topology. Fingers crossed!

#4

Very nice model. I also got the dvd but the scripts are missing.I wanted to use the script he used for redrawing the model in maya. I guess ill have to use silo topology brush too…

Did u use a human skeleton for the base mesh like he did? i have been trying to find a free skeleton somewhere so i can use his method of modeling the base mesh but so far i have no luck :frowning: any suggestions???

nice model…u really got that down…

cheers…

#5

Thanks for the compliments, I appreciate them. I’m really having a blast with this stuff! Zbrush is definitely an amazing digital program. With the new zsphere stuff coming out, I can really see it becoming a necessary tool for modeling, instead of a luxury.

As far as the mel script is concerned, I think the only one he showed on the DVD is xyShrinkwrap.mel. You can find it on highend3d.com. It works on PC and Mac versions of Maya. As far as his hotkeys and shortcuts are setup, you probably have to do that on your own. It’s not that hard, just open up the help docs and find out how to edit your marking menus and hotkeys. Personally though I’m just using the topology brush in Silo, since that is the program I do most of my base mesh modeling in anyway.

I didn’t use a skeleton for this, mainly because I don’t have an anatomically correct skeleton available to me. I can see how it would benefit doing the model this way, so maybe one day I’ll build a skeleton too. I used photo reference from 3D.sk. There are some good front, side, and 3/4 views of different people. Personally I’m going to get the reference books that Zack listed in his lecture notes. You can never have enough reference, in my opinion.

#6

As far as the mel script is concerned, I think the only one he showed on the DVD is xyShrinkwrap.mel. You can find it on highend3d.com. It works on PC and Mac versions of Maya. As far as his hotkeys and shortcuts are setup, you probably have to do that on your own. It’s not that hard, just open up the help docs and find out how to edit your marking menus and hotkeys.

Well actually if you watch the dvd closely it was not a hotkey that he was using. Right after he draws the blue lines in zbrush for topology flow on the model and brings at back to maya. You will see he turns “maya live on” and he starts drawing the lines that generates automatic polygons on every 4 vertex that he lays down. That is what i was talking about that he never told us or gave us. I would be really interested in that script. Silo topology brush also can be used for this process, but it would of been nice if zack included that for us. Also it would of been good if he had included either the skeleton or the low base mesh for us to practice on and follow along. Do u know any free skeleton mesh around for download? I would of loved to see a zscript included here with your model to watch how u did it…

Great model indeed and i think this zbrush stuff is going to be standard in every company. I have been using maya for the longest time 4.5 years and i never really model anything in there anymore, i model in Silo because of the grat modeling tools that it has and zbrush is the one for detailing. But i am still a newbi for zbrush so i am still learning. I hope i will get to your level one of these days. :wink:

If u do something else post a zscript version too will ya?

thanks ahead…

#7

For the maya live part of the DVD, I believe he was using the create polygon tool. He basically drew out a strip of vertices, and made sure that they were in the same spot that was on the 3D model with the textured wireframe. I guess after that all he did was use the “reduce” function in the poly menu, and then the quadrangulate function in the poly menu. I’m sure you can assign that to a hotkey of your own choosing, or make it a mel script that you can use over and over. But if you have Silo all you need is the topology brush, and it will save you a ton of time.

And thanks again for the compliments. I’m not currently in the 3D industry, but I do appreciate you wanting to see how I did this. I didn’t save a script though, but I will try and do it in the future. I can definitely tell you I am not nearly as good as Zack, so you really aren’t missing much on my end, LOL.

#8

“I can definitely tell you I am not nearly as good as Zack, so you really aren’t missing much on my end, LOL”.[/QUOTE]

Hey bud…well yeah you might not be as good as him but your anatomy is really nicely done, and i am not as good as you in zbrush either. So it would of been helpful for me in general to see how u did it and what you used. Some of the zscripts here a very fast and you cant really see the tools they used because its too fast for me to see the tools and settings. But in any case now that you have mentioned that you might do a script i give u a :+1: for it.

Hope to see it soon…

cheers…
And about the maya stuff? i have no idea how to set it up…if u could tell me id be glad to set it up for the hot keys u were talking about or a mel script for maya…

cheers…ya toplology brush is nice in silo…so i might try that too…

#9

Figure is well defined.

#10

Crank up the playback settings, friend. You’ve got all sorts of 'em hiding in the ZScript pallete. Depending how obnoxious you want to go with it, ZBrush can automatically highlight and explain every button the user clicked on…

#11

you can also put the cursor in top left of screen to pause and I think it’s the space bar but not positive that will let you advance one at a time…so that’s about as slow as you can get:D :wink:

#12

Using the topology brush in Silo, plus Maya, and Zbrush, I was able to recreate this mesh almost exactly as the original mesh. It softened some of the detail, which I expected and planned for. I also added the head model, just to see how this would work. Pretty neat if you ask me.

Anyway, the new topology, with the detail from the bad topology model:

#13

i haven’t seen the dvd, but the polyCreateFacetCtx (which is the context that accesses poly append and create) has an option for limiting the max number of vertices that can create a poly face. using this in conjunction with make live is fairly fast. although i enjoy modelling with silo, i have yet to get the hang of the topology brush. hopefully the new zbrush tools will offer a cleaner solution.

cheers, sunit
#14

Hi Chad,

Looks like ya did a great job of choosing your lines.

If possible can we see the head and shoulders? I am
curious to see how ya put em together.

she looks good and am looking forward to seeing how you progress with her.

#15

When I do the final model, I’ll post up wires so you can see. This was just a quick test to see if it would work or not. This weekend I’ll finish the hands, feet and ears and stick them on the base model, then I’ll redo the conversion.

So hopefully by monday I’ll have it completed, so I can start on the clothes.

Thanks for looking.

#16

I haven’t really decided how I want to do the underlying body yet, so I decided to go ahead and start roughing out the clothes. This is basically what the clothes will look like.

The shirt is going to be covered by a jacket, so it won’t look like it does now on the final model. This is just to get the chest area of the shirt to look right. Everything else will be hidden.

I still need to do the boots too.

Thanks for looking.

#17

Wow, that’s a nice progression since the last time I’ve seen it!

The ear should be about 2 inches behind her eye sockets. the top of the ear should line up to about eyelid level, while the bottom lines up at top lip/nostril level. This varies though, so it can be off any amount of centimeters.

#18

Very cool, like where ya have taken her so far. I kinda agree on the ears…a bit too far back.

where’s her harley?:smiley:

:confused: I am not liking you too much right now…ya made me check out silo which I have been putting off because I don’t have enuf hours in the day as it is. Not a bad program for the buck. Haven’t had too much luck yet with the topology brush but reckon it has more to do with settings than anything else.

Keep on posting updates…I like suprises.

#19

Yeah, the ears aren’t attached yet, there just place holders for now. I’m still not sure how I’m going to add them yet.

Thanks for the compliments. Sorry aminuts. I think with the new additions for the zsphere’s in Zbrush you won’t need the topology brush. So if you can wait, you may not even need Silo.

#20

I feel like a dummy now. I should have known that those ears were temporary, considering the quality of the model.