ZBrushCentral

Need help with sculpting stylized hair for production

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hey guys! Can you help me please???
Im modeling/sculpting a character for animation, and right now im having a hard time on how can i sculpt/model the fur area on his arms and head then get the right topology of it for rigging after.

This will be an anime style of a character(Like NARUTO), so it doesnt really have to be realistic, and i cant use alpha planes. I must need to create a polygonal hair for it. My problem is modelling/sculpting it.

This is what i have so far. Its just a test I did of how will i able to sculpt it, and it took me hours just to sculpt it. lol. The fur on his arms is very thick and not pretty much look like the character from the anime.

PS!! Cant use normal maps, Baking etc. I must need to model it manually!

PS: The second image is the updated sculpt I did, but i havent sculpt the fur part of it.
Thanks in Advance!!!

Attachments

brado2.jpg

SS_09.jpg

SS_12.jpg

#2

Hi, sure wish I could give you personal tips, but I can’t. I can’t sculpt hair very well yet.

But there are videos…on YouTube, for instance…describing how artists make hair with the curve strap brush.

And the new ZModeler functions might allow you to Qmesh low poly hair.

Got no clue for the fur.

But good luck! :slight_smile:

#3

Hey

I think you’re going in the right direction. If it were me, I would just insert cylinders, dynamesh em, give them the proper shape, Zremesh it, and then create some clumps with these cylinders and duplicate them everywhere I need to have fur/hair. I think your problem with the way you did it is that it’s too thick. And I feel you’re trying to get all your hair done by sculpting all of them on one mesh. I don’t think that would do it, or that would require a LOT of time and effort. With separate meshes for every strand/clump of hair, I feel it would be easier !

I’ve seen a timelapse yesterday of Nicolas Garilhe, who did one of the best 3D adaptation of an anime character I’ve seen. He shares his process about the way he’s done hair, and even if he’s using planes with alpha, he starts with geometry, so I think you could try to adapt his method to your character ! Here is his artstation page, you can see the videos if you scroll down on it : https://artstation.com/artwork/comiccon-challenge-2014-eren-jaeger

Just my two cents, hope that helps !

Cheers !

Lad

#4

Hey Lad, Thanks for the reply,

But he uses Alpha planes (transparency) to make the hairs. I need the strands to be attach to each other, and be rendered with polygons.

I am modelling it In Modo but i dont know where to start.

This is a sample hair they sent to me. Its really hard to model it like this for the werewolf.

SS_13.jpg

#5

Yes he uses Alpha on planes, I know. What I meant is that you can get inspired by his process. He starts in Zbrush and adds polygonal hair strands. You can start by doing this. Then you can use the same method he uses to duplicate and place his alpha planes with regular cylinders, I think that would do the trick pretty well :slight_smile:

#6

I did some Quick tests in Modo, I think the best way to do this is model manually, might take time though, but i think its the perfect way to do it.

My problem is where ill start modelling, Cause i need to have a perfect overlapping of hair strands to each other.

#7

this hair could easily be done by

1.taking a polyshere

2.delete 80 percent of the polysphere face starting fron top fourth or fifth row of poly face going down till the last face

3.you should get a saucer like sphere (saucer kept inverted )

  1. now you just need to extrude the faces from outside to inside one by one

  2. that way you will easily get the overlapping feeling of strands

6.just taper the ends with scale tool or soft selection or taper while extruding

for further strands loop polystrands and extract

hope this helps

#8

i usually do this, it works for me. duplicate the head part where i want it to be hair and then select all faces of the head and extrude couple of times when it matches the size of the hair and then apply dynamic.
video tutorial
https://vimeo.com/87906595