ZBrushCentral

Monthly Challenge..MARCH.."Mother Nature"...Weekly Challenge VALLEY OF MISTS"

ZBrush Artworks
#1

After a long discussion in the Monday Night chat session it was agreed that we would try another format with regards to our weekly challenges. To this end we shall now have a monthly challenge that will encompass a broad subject. During the month we will have weekly challenges that will be related to the theme of the monthly challenge. We encourage you to post your techniques, tools, materials, light settings, scripts, and any other pertinent resources that would help other viewers understand the magic you used in the creation of your image.

This month’s challenge is :b4: MOTHER NATURE :b4: You may interpret the theme as you wish…create an environment, a character, a symbolism…etc. The first weekly challenge shall be :b2:FISH :b2: Again it may be interpreted as you wish. The weekly challenge is meant as a primer to the Monthly Challenge and can be incorporated into the final Monthly Challenge if you so wish.

The upcoming weekly challenges shall be:
:b4: Furry Bretheren (Starts FEB 24)
:b4: Cold as Stone (Starts MAR 3 )
:b4: Valley of Mists (Starts MAR 10)
:b4: Flames of Fury (Starts MAR 17)
:b4: Enchanted Nights(Starts MAR 24)
:b4: MOTHER NATURE CHALLENGE ENDS MARCH 31

Since we are starting the March Monthly Challenge now there shall be 2 extra weeks in this challenge. This is all new territory to explore and as such you will undoubtedly have questions. Please post any questions you may have.

EDIT: You will post your Monthly Challenge Pic at the end of the month (in this case March 31st). The Weekly and Monthly Challenge pics will be posted in this thread together…so we can keep the images, mats, lights, tools, and other resources for the challenge together in one place. :slight_smile:

Draw On!! :slight_smile:


Click to view the gallery

#2

Oh my, this sounds like a real challenge. I only have a few questions… When do we post the Monthly Challenge pic? At the end of the weekly challenges? Or anytime? And will the monthly Challenge pic go into the same thread as the weekly ones? Just wondering how it is going to be organized I guess.

Thanks
Donna

#3

What can I say Ron?..a stroke of pure genius…

Or is that an aerial photograph of some Krill?

#4

Hi Northstarr
You don’t want a signature like this ? :slight_smile:

My Renderosity Gallery : Makwakwe

Pilou
Ps : I have seen your new signature :+1:
:sunglasses:

#5

My first Fish entry. The fish and leech were textured using TextureMaster. I will post the tools and a walkthrough shortly.

      [img]http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1045586671hre.jpg[/img]

And now for the tutorial and goodies…

The Fish: A very basic zsphere model. The final texture was applied with TextureMaster.

     [img]http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1045842310wbb.jpg[/img]         

     :large_orange_diamond: Here is the ZSphere for the fish:

Fish Zif.zip

   :large_orange_diamond: Here is the final Fish model and texture:

Final fish model

Fish Texture

An alternative fish…a catfish…just needs some tweaking, eyes, mouth, a bottom fin and some gills.

     :large_orange_diamond: And the catfish zsphere....

Catfish Zif.zip

THE PLANTS
A very simple method was used to create the plants. I have included a zscipt showing how it was done. There is a great deal of flexibility with this…you can deform it many different ways and create totally new plants…

     [img]http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1045842743vpm.jpg[/img]         

     :large_orange_diamond: The script  [Simple Plant.zip](http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_file-1045842795tjv.zip)

And finally the Rocks

     [img]http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1045843169jqb.jpg[/img]

The rocks were created by use of an imported texture. You can find any number of rock or pebble textures on the net that will work just fine for this. Here are the steps:

  1. Load the texture
  2. Make an alpha from the texture and deselect the texture
  3. Create a Plane 3d with HDivide and VDivide both set to 128
  4. Go to TOOLS>MODIFIERS>SELECTION>ALP to select the alpha you created.
  5. INFLATE 25
  6. SMOOTH 100 x 2
  7. INFLATE 25
  8. SMOOTH 100
  9. Clear the selection
  10. Rotate the tool in the preview window so you are looking at it’s edge
  11. Apply a gravity setting, rotate the tool in the window, use SBend, repeat until it is deformed in a manner to your liking.
  12. Select the original imported rock texture so the tool is textured with it
  13. Apply a material and you are done!

I used a custom material for this so the texture would stand out more clearly. Here is the material and the light settings used to get the rocks to look the way they do in the picture.

     :large_orange_diamond: [Fish Rock Material.zip](http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_file-1045843241lfj.zip)
    :large_orange_diamond: [Fish Lights.zip](http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_file-1045843270osg.zip)
#6

they are spirits of a river that vanished …

#7

Great interpretation Sarum! :+1:

#8

whoooah, guys! :+1: :+1: :+1:

[img]http://www.cyber-webs.com/zbrush/juandel/fish2transpf.jpg[/img]

[GalleryEntry]

silly fish created from sphere-tool. in case anyone is interested, i might upload it or the script (unchecked yet) i recorded while modelling it, but doubt its worth it :smiley: the idea to “texture” it that way came up, when i divided its nose area and the “spill” mask showed up. made me divide the other fins, too. all i had to do was fill the unmasked area with one color, invert and fill the rest with another color. i think its funny the way the texture changes with scaling/rotating the fish, though its directly painted on it. the fins were made transparent by applying a material with transpareny set to 91 with the simple brush. the fish-layer (not: slayer) was placed to the last layericon and rendered separately with flatten layers off.

4 layers: flatcolorplane for background, two coral-layers at different depths, fishlayer. the corals were made with zsphere. i didnt know that alt-clicking on connecting spheres in r-mode adds zspheres quickly, which is great for creating irregular shapes. after i had done a rather abstract shape in no time at all, i made an adaptive skin at default settings and build up the mountain with paintstroke and increased steps very quickly.

the default sun was taken to top, the other default light remained as is. zmode shadow with rays at 300, rest default, methinks. render-adjustments. the exported file was reimported and a little postwork with blur, highlighter and paintbrush done. nada special, but the challenge looks like a lot of fun!

  • juandel
#9

OMG Lonnie! two things I am wishing to find out…the rock bed and the plants. Totally amazing man!
WOW! :eek:

#10

Hi Juandel
All of your fishes are pregnant ? :slight_smile:
They have a little pot bellied !

Hi Mentat
If a cat look at the screen, he will put the paw ! :cool:
Pilou

#11

Hey guys, nice fish! I am having some trouble getting texture master to do what I want with my model, but I can see that some of you have managed so I will keep working on it.

And you are right Frenchy, I fixed the link. Thanks!

#12

This is a quickie, which may be removed at a later date! [Gallery Entry]

#13

Hi all,
I did this some time ago…

Wonderful images Zfriends.

cameyo

#14

Everybody’s fish are so colourful, swimming around in pretty little lakes, so nice to look at. :slight_smile:

:small_blue_diamond: :small_blue_diamond: :white_small_square: :white_small_square: :small_blue_diamond: :small_blue_diamond:

Well here is my contribution to fish. They are not so easy to do at all! My fish were made using zshperes using adaptive skinning, smothed and divided once. Then textured using texturemaster. I have no idea what kind of fish they are, my own invention I think. The turtle was an experiment that worked (sort of I’m not happy with the texturing) He was made in two parts, the inner turtle body with zspheres and the outer shell with a sphere, then put together using markers and composite mesh.
There are 3 layers, the top one being a single lense tool and transparency at 77. The glowing pearl, was just a sphere using jelly bean material with a high specularity and it sits exactly where the lense has a bright spot so it looks like it is glowing.
The coral was done with the splatter brush using alpha #4.4 and a snake brush was used to pull up the vegitation. I made it double size and after render used the AA half on the zoom pallet. I desperately need more RAM, and disk space. This took ages to do and render — soooo slowww!

[Gallery Entry]

Thanks for taking a look :slight_smile:

#15


[Gallery Entry]
Pilou

#16

Oh Frenchy! Les poison sont malade! I need to make sure I don’t go fishing in whatever lake these poor fish came from…
:slight_smile:

#17

Hi Northstarr
Les poissons sont malades ! Yes !
You right, we have actualy a big pollution at the West Coast in France :frowning:
That explain my black background , damned oil :frowning:
Pilou

#18

Nothing new here, mostly cheating. The fish and the background and bubbles are alpha’s.


Gallery Entry

#19

Just had to take a peek at this thread before the gallery - and very glad I did.

Mentat - that is superb. Really looking forward to the secrets in your how-to revelations.

And Donna - that’s a very nice underwater and lighting effect you’ve achieved there. I sympathise about the RAM and disk space; I’m rapidly reaching a point where there’s nothing else I’m willing to ditch off my hard drive, so I fear a new PC is in the offing.

#20

here is my contribution. it is - supposed to be - a harlekin toothlip fish.

the fish is just a modeled sphere, textured with texturemaster. the background is painted and then i used heavily fog, with a texture and alpha.

[Gallery Entry]

ehem. btw what does this gallery enty mean ? where is that gallerey ? i put it because i have seen it with the other posts.