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Poseable Satyr (Walkthrough) From ZSphere to Poser5 -Update#4- More MorphTargets

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#1

Hola,
Here is a project that I began awhile back when I was Beta testing Z2. I had to put it on the shelf for awhile but now I’m going to finish it up.
This model started from ZSpheres with Adaptive Skins. Fully realized in Z2. Once fully sculpted I then painted a quick texture and brought the mesh into Poser5. This model uses Displacement maps for the added details. The base mesh imported into Poser5 is 33,408 polygons but the displacement map was created with a mesh consisting of 2,138,114 polygons…




… Here is the model in Poser5. Note: I only did this to see how it looks in Poser5.(I added eyes for testing purposes as well.) I will go back into Z2 and rework the texture map and regroup the mesh parts so that each group represents a bone. Once all that is taken care of then I can begin making this model into a fully poseable Poser Figure. I’ll explain it all in further detail with as I go.
Take care,
Michael

More to come…

#2

and noooowwww, he is going to move!.. always amazing!..

#3

Marcel,
Yes, Hahahahah! Finally I’m going to dust him off and get him fully poseable.
Thanks for the positive feedback my friend!
Adios,
michael

#4

Well really interesting! why not make a scene with this fella :smiley:

#5

Funny mythologic creature :cool:
And cool step by step!
You start from nothing or you have a sketch ?
Pilou

#6

Cool…glad to know the displacements work pretty well in P5. I been trying to get some time to play with that but haven’t made it.

Looking forward to both further progress on this guy and any future tutes on your methods with p5!

#7

Aztec…soljA,
Thanks, When I’m done with him I will be selling him to the Poser community. Once he is fully poseable he can be used in any scene or animation.

Aminuts,
Thanks, I will be posting all my updates to this thread. I will do my best to pique your interest! BTW, I made a tutorial for the release of Z2… it is on how to make displacement maps for Poser5… it is in the Z2 Practical Guide.

Pilou,
Thanks man, Sometimes I do work from sketches but in this case I did it from scratch.

Best Regards,
I will post an update to this thread sometime this evening.
Michael

#8

This is perfection in modeling. Impressive, Michael. 50.

#9

Mike, Ya got not only exquisite modeling and damn fine painting, you have excellent character design here. I warmed up to this character instantly. Beautiful work, and good luck in the rigging, I KNOW what a pain it can be… :slight_smile:

Dickie

#10

Hey this is great! I like Satyr’s, and in fact, that’s one the first models I did in Zbrush back when I bought 1.55b. I like your version better, because it’s got great style!

Thanks for sharing!

#11

Muchos Gracias 50’sKid! ;~)


Here is an update. I finished regrouping the mesh in Z2. It is a fairly time consuming process and I think ZBrush makes it much easier(I used to do it in UVmapper). You can see above the old groupings (Example A.), and the new groupings (Example B.). Each group now represents an area that will have a bone. Notice that I also grouped the areas where the materials will differ (The Mouth,Teeth, fingernails etc…). My next step will be to bone and rig the model in Poser5. Once that is done he will be poseable. Once he is fully poseable I will create a bunch of facial Morph Targets to give him some personality. I think I’ll try some different texture maps as well.
Best Regards,
Michael

#12

Wow. Now that is a nice model. I hope to reach that level of proficiency some day. I have zbrush 1.55b (mac) and I’ve been putting off learning the old interface because I thought 2.0 would come, making me learn the different GUI and tools. Anyway I think I’m motivated to settle for 1.55b after seeing this and a couple other models.

Hey, do you have lightwave or maya or something to render with translucent skin? that would make it looke even better.

#13

heyy…PusGhetty excelente…
una pregunta¿como se reagrupan las partes en ZBrush…? :+1:

#14

Your work looks great. For us semi-novices (who also own Poser) could you make a tutorial on how you “Bone” your creature? It would be helpful. Also, how did you regroup the mesh? Is that a Z2 option? (I’m still waiting for the Mac version of Z2 So I haven’t dug too deep into the capabilities of the 1.55 version.)

#15

you can regroup parts you want to regroup by using ctrl-shift-drag to select and then in tools-polygroups click on group visible.

#16

Hello Michael
Your Satyr is looking very good. Well done.

JIM

#17

Well,
I hope you all had a great weekend!

Dickie,
I really appreciate the comments! Yes, rigging is so much fun, hahaha! BTW, I saw your Orc… Fantastic work!

Wchamlet,
Thank you very much!

Phillip888,
Thanks man! As far as using 1.55b, I say go for it… Though it isn’t as easy to use as 2.0, it is still a great Idea to learn the fundamentals of ZSpheres w/Adaptive Skins. Perhaps one day I’ll have the money to buy one of those Big apps… until then I have to make due with what I’ve got.

jotajota,
Muchos Gracias Amigo,
As aminuts says, Regrouping in Z2 is pretty easy just use Shift+Ctrl to make only certain parts of the mesh visible then goto the Tool/Polygroups subpalette and click the Group Visible button.
NOTE: This option is only available for Adaptive skins and Polymesh 3d objects, it will not work on the Adaptive skin Preview mode.
For further info on how to take full advantage of the Shift+Ctrl function simply click on the Help button on the top right corner of the Z2 interface then goto the second page of tutorials and click on the one that says Partial Mesh Visibility.

LD,
Thanks, I will try to walk you through the process of boning and rigging w/Poser5 in this thread. As far as regrouping goes… take a look above at the reply to jotajota. I believe I covered all bases there.

aminuts,
Thanks for helping!

Jim,
As always, I appreciate your comments bud!

Best Regards,
Michael

#18

Hello all,
Here are the next few steps:
Now that the figure is regrouped I imported him into Poser5 and began the “rigging” of him. First thing we do is go into the Setup room. (image below) Open the library and look for an existing figure who has a similar bone structure to your imported figure. In this case I used the Casual Boy figure. Double click on the Casual Boy(or whatever figure you chose) figure and Poser will bring just the bones of the figure into the Setup room. Now wget rid of any unnecessary bones and add any new bones you might need. For this Satyr I got rid of the eye bones and the leg bones. I then added these new leg bones: thigh, shin, shin2, ankle and hoof. Position the bones to closely match the groups of your figure. For ex. the abdomen bone for the abdomen group, the chest bone for the chest group… and so on and so on! Anyone remember the old “dem bones” song?! I usually just do the right side bones and then I use symmetry to swap the right joint parameters(bones) to the left side. This will save you valuable time!

Now that the bones are in the right places it is time to attach the mesh groups to each bone. To do this I use the grouping tool. (image below) Click on the arrow in the group editor dialog box. You will notice that the list of groups are all numerically named… like 35498, 7079, etc… Z2 created all of these group names randomly. We need to change the group names to match the bone names. In the group tool dialog box press the “Auto Group” button once. Now you will notice that at the bottom of the group list there are now the names of the bones. When the “Auto Group” button is pushed Poser5 tries to attach polygons to each bone. Poser5 doesn’t do a very good job though so we will use our groups for this purpose.
Click on the first numeric group to see what area it represents. For example: the first numeric group might be the left thigh. So, choose the lThigh group, click the “Remove All” button to get rid of the Poser chosen polys and then click on the “Add Group” button and find the numeric group that is the left thigh and click “OK”.
Now the lThigh has the proper polys grouped to it. Follow this process with each of the groups.
Don’t forget about the groups we made specifically for material areas. When you run into one of these groups, simply click the “Assign Material” button, then type in the name of the material to be assigned to. Once the material is assigned then you can just add these groups to the main group that each one belongs to.
NOTE: I usually delete the numeric group after each one is no longer needed. This will make the whole process much easier and less confusing.
Once all of your groups are correctly named ou can then leave the Setup room. Wala, your figure is now poseable… but you are not done yet… the fun has only begun. Now you need to open the Joint Editor and begin adjusting the Joint parameters for each joint: The joints usually have at least five parameters each. They are: Center, Twist, Bend, Side-Side, Scale.
You may have several more parameters depending on the body part.
NOTE: make sure to use Sphereical Falloff Zones to get precise articulation when defining the JP’s(Joint Parameters).

If you have any questions please feel free to ask.

Introducing:
Sami the Satyr!

As you can see he is now fully poseable… and very articulate. He is not done though… I am still going to make several Morph Targets for his facial expressions, phonemes and I am also going to do some different head Morph Targets. (This will allow him to be several different satyrs)
He needs props and perhaps a different texture map as well.
Anyways,
I hope this helps some of you Poser/ZBrush users out!
Character creation is very tedious and is not for everyone, but I find it very rewarding!
Best Regards,
Michael

P.s. The eyes are just props parented to the head! I find it easier to do the eyes this way sometimes.

#19

So thats how you do that. :smiley:
Exallent work Michael :+1: :+1:

Jim

#20

Yup, that is how!
Thanks bro!
Michael