ZBrushCentral

Mutant-WIP

As a traditional sculptor I have to admit this is the most intuitive modeling program on the market aside from freeform! I’ve been fooling around with modeling/texturing in zbrush and I really enjoy the experimentations so far. Theres only one freakin’ problem…Utilizing a good pipeline for animation.
Since the dispmaps usually cannot accurately displace geometry detail for an entire creature(sliced off body parts :i.e.head arms legs, etc)…I have resorted to using multidispmaps…
However,using the multi-dsiplacement feature has proven to be extremely frustrating…The process is very time consuming …Plus dealing with buffer zone borders between maps …Arrgh, not fun:-(!!!..My hats off to the boys at Weta!!.., Maybe one of them will see this post and share some trade secrets.
Does anyone know if there are any comprehensive tutorials about the zbrush animation pipeline(aside from gnomon’s)?
-Booyakasha:D
MUTANT_small.jpg

“Nothingness must overpower omnipotence in order to create”/…I guess thats why there are so many starving artists:-)"

Attachments

MUTANT_small2.jpg

your model looks kinda nice. it’d be interesting to see the imported mesh before you started sculpting to see how fare you took it.

also, you’re the second person on the forums that i’ve seen mention freeform. zbrush is the first software of its kind that I know of. i’ve tried to do a little web searching just to see what this freeform software is all about, but I didn’t have any luck. Do you think you could pass me a link just so that I can take a look at it?

i dont anything about pipeline and possibly what pipeline is … :slight_smile: but the creature you made, the concept of it is freaking awesome! do you have a high res. image of this, i’d love to strear at it for a while.

thank you

I highly recommend this threadif you have not already seen it. It is probably one of the best tutorials on anything I have ever read let alone on a workflow that includes zbrush.

Mr. Young explains his workflow, what he found to be lacking and what he found good in using zbrush with multi-displacements etc that even if you are not into animation it is a must read.

I hope it helps you out some.

east side is the best…

http://www.sensable.com/products/3ddesign/freeform/index.asp

I’m fairly sure this is the ‘Freeform modeller’ mentioned,

nice model btw,:+1:

Thanks Volk23…I’m glad you dig the creature…I should be adding more high res images/ some other projects to the wip threads in my off hours from the butcher shop…Gotta cut the meat(the life of a starving artist):-)…
Hey Aminuts. I read Tony Jungs thread and found most of it helpful but I still think that the part regarding the border bufferzone is a bit tedious and confusing…I havent been able to successfully implement it…Furthermore reconstructing subd surfaces only works on models w/uniform geometry…Hopefully there is a tutorial out there on multidispmaps produced by some of the guys from WETA…If not I’ll keep experimenting. Keep producing kick ass ****e zbrushers.
-“Techmology rocks. Booyakasha!”:smiley:
-Dahveed

hi again,

do a search on Skycastle…otherwise known as Dave Cardwell…unless my overworked brain is confusing folks at the moment hahaha. ughhhh.

Anyway a search on Skycastle will turn up quite a bit of info…not only his wonderful workarounds but also his frustrations and so should give you a clearer idea of where you can go…since he walked that road before ya.

ps…if you really are a butcher…the boxed meat of today is nothing…well sad but nothing compared to the carving of carcasses…I am probably dating myself here but I’ll risk it hahaha…boxed or carcasses? just curious…as it will date you as well hahahaa.

shoot it’s been awhile since I read it…but yeah borders for multidisplacements are a pain but he does explain the method well and if I remember correctly he sites a skycastle thread about that. So yeah a search will yield maybe another clue. It seems confusing on first read, so experiment with what you think you read ( i say that because we are all into instant results and must try) and then reread those parts…slowly, step by step…it will makes sense then…it did for me at least…am impatience personified!!

Very cool character! Yes buffer zones are a pain in the arse! I hope this will be one of the first things addressed in the up comiing revs. of ZBush.

Evereyone should be making a push for this, it is the only way to make movie level detail on your models in a resonable amount of time.

skycastle:

"Ive used Zbrush for displacement detail on 3 films. For mid ground characters you could maybe get away with:

2 2k maps for the head
2 2k maps for the torso front and back
2 2k maps for the left and right arms
2 2k maps for the hands.
2 2k maps for the legs left and right
2 2k maps for the left and right feet.

12 2k ( 2048x2048 ) maps at least.
You will also use this space for you color maps as well.

Again this would be for a character that could hold up say three quarters of his body in frame. If you are going closer you will need more texture space. For a hero model that number can go as high as 150-200 maps 1k-2k. For background characters you could use 1 texture map :slight_smile:

This is why Zbrush needs to support painting across multiple maps. The average amount of 2k maps for characters you would use will be at leats 25 or so. Zbrush should support the needs of Film, TV, Games and home hobby users."

This is what we need. This was posted on 11-06-04

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=21877&highlight=skycastle

  • NickZ.