Hi. How would I best go about making a basic lego brick (2x2 or 2x4) in zbrush. I’m new to zbrush so I was really hoping to find a video tutorial covering something like this, but I haven’t found anything yet. I would think I would want to start by re-dimensioning a Cube3d and then apply some Cylinder3ds to the top. Not quite sure how to best go about carving out the underneath of the brick though. I want the end result to be a single object suitable for using in other graphics/animation packages. Any help getting me moving in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.
I’m new at this myself, but if you get to the point where you have a block, you can make your own alpha for the design of the bottom of the brick. Then once you’ve imported it into zbrush you can use the standard brush, change it to dragrect (I think thats what its called), and then choose your custom alpha, then drag the brush on the bottom of the block. You’ll have to do it a few times, but be sure to turn the z intensity all the way up so you have to do it the least amount of times (unless the tool is small enough that you can get it in one try). My memory is slipping me on how the specifics of importing the alpha (professor showed us in class, I just dont remember), and I cant think of a good way to actually create the block (maya?). Hopes this helps at least a little.
Thanks for the response Leafy. Alphas do seam like they could be useful for crafting my lego pieces. I found a video tutorial on strokes and alphas that his helping me a bit.
I tried making a new alpha for the top cylindrical connectors on the top of the lego brick, using the Cylinder3d, and then symmetrically drawing this new alpha onto a brick shape I made with a Cube3d. This works almost perfectly, except for some reason the alpha cylinder gets drawn with a tapered/rounded top. I can eliminate the rounded top by decreasing the Focal Shift setting to -100, but the cylinder is still slightly tapered. Instead of getting smooth looking cylindrical connectors I am getting something that looks a bit like an upside-down Reeses peanut butter cup. I will continue to play with it. I have attached a sample image.
I have seen examples of building lego bricks using other tools (like 3dsmax) but zbrush is what I am wanting to play with right now.
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what brush were you using to make the cylinders? standard brush with the style switched from free form to drag rect?
When I am drawing on the cylinder alphas I am using the regular brush with the Stoke style switched to dragDot (not dragRect).
You could potentially get much better results if you use the right topology, but ultimately its not worth the effort - you will get the best results using 3ds max or similar for this type of modelling.
Thanks Blight. I think you are right. ZBrush is great for some things, but not lego type objects perhaps. I can see that 3ds max is a better choice for this type of modeling …