ZBrushCentral

Learning the tool.

ZBrush Artworks
#41

Layer REC is subtool dependent, you must transpose each subtool individually, or merge subtools.
(i havnt played with ‘contacts’ at all, maybe there is something there)

hair is a different good, i’d say…still needs work. Posing fibermesh for hair is a tricky art that i havnt mastered yet but there are many fibermesh settings under the brush palette which are the key to grooming… there is a mask option which if you turn off allows you to move the root (whole) of the hairs…there is a setting which causes the hair to stay away from the surface behind (head) as you groom, which can be annoying. Be sure to polygroup your hair, then mask by poly groups and you can groom individual sections. A master tip is appending a shpere(s), using move brush to create a “road” that you will groom the hairs along (think paths/guides) then when groomed delete sphere(s). For eyebrows i remove the mask setting and use the move brush on short fibers…usually i do 2 to 3 really short fibermesh subtools. (you could always just sculpt some dynamesh eyebrows!)

#42

Hey,

I agree with Jeh in about the fibermesh. It takes a lot of a practice. And great tip about appending shapes as guides! Will definitely use that in the future:+1:
As Jeh in hinted at, for doing eyebrows make sure you turn down the “front collision tolerance” so you can get the hairs to lie flat against the mesh.

As for poses on layers, you can use the timeline to store a keyframe for the t-pose (all layers off) and the pose (all layers on) and switch between the two. Sam Kennedy showed this in his “Rapid Illustration Techniques” webinar on Visualarium (not sure if it’s still available, but here’s the link: http://www.visualarium.com/sam-kennedy/)

#43

Yes, i agree that hairs need a rework. Anyway i take a pause on this model (i’ll work on it again) and started sketching the mecha internal structure. I tried to mimic the posture of Evangelion humanoid mecha. After the internal structure has been defined, i’ll work on the external armature.

mecha.jpg

#44

I’m trying to elaborate the initial sketch. I changed my mind about closed hands and decided to add fingers. So i modeled them with zspheres and tried to adapt them to the original hand.

But now i’m facing a “merge” problem. If i want the fingers to merge correctly with the original mesh and preserve all the subdivision levels, how can i proceed? I fear i entered a closed road…

Should i face the issue in a completely different way?

mecha2.jpg

#45

might wanna try dynamesh with new hands and qremesher as the topo needs some work ??

#46

Thanks Gary for the hint!

Wow. I never tought it might work…
Well the recipe was: select only the hand and split, dynamesh it (without groups to get a decent mesh), qRemesh it, lots of projections to rebuild all subdiv levels.

One thing is sure: better starting with all fingers already there! Anyway i cannot manage to get a 100% symmetry. Is there a way to overcome this issue?

Thank you!

mecha3.jpg

#47

:+1: if you lose symmetry theres always mirror and weld x

#48

Yep! But mirror and weld behaves strangely with multiple subdivs…

It requests to freeze al levels. I did it then mirror/welded. After that i still got no 100% symmetry. Anyway i unfreezed all levels and got a funky projection on high detailed levels that made the model unusable. Then i decided to stick to a non perfectly 100% symmetric mesh.

I noticed that there are many tools that cannot work correctly with multiple subdivs, and that freeze/unfreeze not always produce an acceptable final projection. All hints lead to avoid using multiple subdivs but i wonder how so many people can live happily with them :confused:

Anyway, i’m going on trying to understand all (pitfalls ?). I’m not sure how much i’d like to go further with this base mesh, given that it will be entirely covered by the armour!

mecha4.jpg

#49

deformation > smart resym works with sub d levels - also sorry forgot that your using sub levels also when model is finished mirror and weld the final ! make sure the best side you want is on the left(facing you ) using mirror x

#50

Ah ok, so the workflow is to go on with possible asymmetry then collapse all levels when im’ satisfied.

It’s a bit “lossy” work, like being able to work with raw image files then keep stored a jpeg as final result.
I suppose that keeping multiple milestone save files it’s a must to avoid losing every working level.

Thank you! Umberto

#51

If you are finding freezing sub divisions doesn’t work for you, remember you can always duplicate and project – for example, duplicate the subtool, go to the highest subd level, delete lower levels, then mirror and weld; then drop the original subtool to the lowest level, delete higher and mirror and weld; then subdivide and ProjectAll. Projecting is never perfect, but you get a lot more control this way than with freeze subd.

#52

Strangely, mirror and weld doesn’t rebuild a 100% symmetry. I don’t know if it’s due to points laying on the symmetry plane.
After doing m&w the mesh appears “cutted” on the symmerty plane, don’t know why…

Anyway… started blocking the armour… well what a lack of fantasy!

mecha5.jpg

#53

nice work. it seems like a cluche to work with so menny subtools on a concept model. i would recomend working with a small bit of subtools and gettign the silloyte down first then working on the multiple parts. but other then that you are goin on a good start!. hope to see more from you :slight_smile:

#54

Thank you Adam for your comment! About the number of subtools, well, i’m trying to find the right balance but it’s difficult to understand how many subtools are really needed. While modeling the armature i’m tempted to use a subtool for each piece so i can ensure the correct separation between them. Is it the way to go?

mecha6.jpg

#55

Bah, its not needed (the sepuration)… basicly you just need a good sillioyte of the model. i can see your working on differnt peices like arm armor middle chest armor. but if you ask me i think your rushing too much to fill your charecter with armor. (Not a really good start) alot of artists can sculpt a wonderful robot tank just with a ball of clay. so in the end it doesnt mater how menny subtools you use. infact the more you have the slower your work gets. keep it simple. and i can see you are already pinching your model (aka crease’ing your model) pinching is another way of saying perminant in a concept model i mean that by its hard to reconcept around pinched topology.
when a person would draws a robot or mech or anything on a peice of paper the lines a man would draw would have to be very light lines. not dark (Reson for this?) beucase there is alot of reconcepting on paper and drawing Dark lines spells perminant and hard to erase
Take your head of the robot for example. lets say you didnt like the shape of it, wouldnt it be quite hard to change and reconcept with all thos subtools? it would.
i would recomend starting with thes 4 brushes
(Clay)
(Smooth)
(Pinch)
(clay buildup)
and its best you dont render with differnt matcaps untle a base has been devloped ( a concept ) its kinda waste of time
But aslong as you keep working on it im sure it will be great as the time goes by. im saying all i did above for you to understand flaws not to be blunt. i look forward to seeing more updates of this project. to critizise and to comment. happy sculpting and decent work so-far

#56

Hello Adam,

I really appreciate your critique! I understand that i’m focusing too fast on the final shape, i should keep things a bit more “lazy” until i get a more consistent whole picture. Must admit that this is a difficult approach for me given my technical nature :slight_smile:

And yes: pinched meshes are harder to rework. But they help me (i suppose) to see if the shape is going as i’d like.
Anyway i already reworked the head: i re-dynameshed it then polished and so on. I lose a lot of details indeed!

Hope being able to “feel the z-mood” and start using it under the right perspective!

Thank you again! Umberto

#57

you should have a look at thes books

atlas anatomy for artists.
netters anatomy.
Scott spencers human antomy (Zbrush).
im sure thes books would help with the development of learning human shapes and it would help when working on Robots aswell.
and lastly. look up as much refferance as Humanly posable when modeling robots :smiley:
cheers

#58

Ahah! Ok I’ll look at the books you are suggesting me.

I merged everything and re-dynameshed it. What a pain! Lost all my crisp edges but now is faster to work on.

mecha7.jpg

#59

it looks better in my opinion , and i like the Chest armor, you should cut into with with a narrow brush and start making it have more peices (More complexity)
nice work sofar :smiley:

#60

Ok, started refining here and there. Reworked the head to make it a bit aggressive. Before adding the details i plan to ZRemesh it to cleanup a bit all the mess…

mecha8.jpg