ZBrushCentral

Three Heads... Zbrush, my new friend.

ZBrush Artworks
#1

Hi all…

So I’m on the bandwagon finally… after hanging out over the last couple months with Meats, how could I not… Zbrush is amazing. These are my first three things made in Zbrush, after watching Meats’ DVD lectures (that will be out in December btw)… All made 100% in Zbrush from Zspheres and rendered in Maya… no textures or anything, and definitely a little lumpy, but they all took less than 4 hours a piece! So much for modeling in Maya… I’m finally excited about modeling again. :slight_smile:

first head:

second head:

third head:

now its time to experiment with bump mapping…

-Alex Alvarez
Founder/Director, Gnomonfirst_head_render_b.jpgvampire_render.jpghead3_render.jpg

#2

Very fine work !
4 hours each is excellent ! Very cool designs btw

Can’t wait to see more :+1:

#3

Nice work! Welcome to ZBC!

#4

Bravo. Good start. Welcome.:slight_smile:

#5

Nice work! :+1:
Looking forward to Meats’ DVD lectures in December.
:slight_smile:

#6

You should render these heads in Zbrush, it wil surprise you…that is
if you are as interested in this program as in selling DVD’s :smiley:

jantim

#7

those look awesome! looking forward to seeing more of your work.

dado

#8

Wow!

You are whipping these out quickly - it’s amazing how fast you got comfortable with Zbrush, it’s cool to see. It goes to show how actual sculpting skills can transfer over to the digital sculpting world.

I like the middle one best, gives me the creeps.

I’m also glad that you are doing all your modeling within Zbrush. Shows what can be done…

#9

Thanks everyone for the feedback… :slight_smile:

The coolest thing for me is that these were made without first doing any sketches… my traditional process is to design something, make orthographic drawings, scan them, create Imageplanes in Maya and begin… unless I’m making something traditionally (drawing, sculpture). So to be able to so intuitively block in forms and sculpt with a tablet is just so liberating I can barely contain my excitement… telling everyone about Zbrush now. Neville Page and Carlos Huante are about to begin learning it… can’t wait to see what they do with it! At this point, however, my main gripes for using it in a production sense are that artists -are- often given orthos to work from, and Zbrush should support that… also, it should have better tools for low-res box modeling so that people don’t feel they need to start in Maya, Silo, Wings, etc… plus the topology brush from Silo would be a nice addition… Can’t wait to see the next release. But after reading posts from people like Skycastle (Cardwell) and Zack Petroc who definitely block out their forms in another package, I feel like I should probably not use Zspheres, since I already know Maya so well. But I think I need to experiment more with the Zsphere approach. Regardless, Zbrush is amazing and nothing touches it when it comes to mid and high-freq detailing, so hooray for Pixologic. And I don’t know why people gripe so much about the interface… I actually dig it.

Anyway, thanks again for the replies! I very much appreciate the positive feedback… now I’m off to continue building my brush library… been having fun creating my own alphas for use with stencils and the decobrush.

-Alex

#10

Awesome heads Alex! Cool to see you here!! Its good to hear your words about ZBrush. It is such an exciting package! I have been doing Cam’s blendshapes in zbrush and did all of them in one day. that is 17 shapes! spent the next day tweaking fall off with the morph brush. Can’t wait to see more of what you do with it and that library your building!

best,
r

#11

I was resistant to zspheres at first too but after seeing what all you can do and how quickly you can crank them out I was just shocked… Jaw hit the floor…all that.

:slight_smile: Anyway…

#12

Actually, ZBrush DOES support using a reference image behind your model.

Import the image as a texture and with the Flat Color material selected press Texture>Crop and Fill. Now select the object you’ll be modeling and any other material (so that you get 3D shading), set Draw>Rgb Intensity to something like 70 (it’s a matter of preference), and draw the model on the canvas.

At this point, you’ll want to activate the gyro in Move mode and move the model closer to you so it no longer rests in the image plane, fine tune your Rgb Intensity to get the transparency just how you like it, and then enter Edit mode to start sculpting.

Because the model will be semitransparent, you can see right through it while you sculpt. If your reference image has multiple views on the same image, you can easily move your model in front of the image of choice for whatever angle you wish to work from at the moment.

Have fun!

#13

aurick: thanks for the info… the reference image workflow you describe has been shown to me, but its not the way it should work… ortho drawings should be able to lock to the movement of an object so that you don’t have to always reposition your model… just look at any other 3D app. You should be able to quickly jump from top/front/side views and have the corresponding ortho always stay aligned. Hopefully the next release of Zbrush will integrate this feature, as it is a simple, yet fundamental, thing from a production perspective.

-Alex

#14

Very cool heads and great start, welcome to Zbc!
:small_blue_diamond:

#15

Hi Alex,
Who is meats?
Great first attempts , welldone on some of the nice forms and anatomy work:)
Lumpiness is ok, we can see how clean your mind is:laughing: :+1:

happy zbrushing

Kircho

#16

…that “meats” is a sort of Star of the CG world :wink:
As same for Alex Alvarez star of the Gnomon :smiley:
Welcome to this new world Alex :slight_smile:
Pilou

#17

Thanks Matvara, Kircho and Pilou… :slight_smile:

Here’s another head I just made this evening… about 3 hours. How cool is Zbrush… being able to basically ‘sketch’ in 3D. I’ve always seen drawing and clay as the mediums for designing, but finally I think 3D is getting there. So with this guy, as the others, I exported a low-res poly to Maya and a displacement, rendered wih the Maya renderer in about 20 seconds with 3 shadow casting lights…

head #4:

-Alexcollar_scream.jpg

#18

I like it. Good job.:+1: :+1: :+1:

Share my application.

Easiest, Fastest powerfule Raster To Vector Software…

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?p=177651&posted=1#post177651

#19

HI again Alex,
Few remadies for lumpiness:) and more convincing form.
Most people get really excited about being able to " sketch in 3D" as you so rightly put it and jump straight to high poly modelling in zb, a good example of this is Ambient Wisper’s zbrush movie.Often the result is a type of one dimensional contorted mix of features that resemble but only resemble their intended forms. I don’t recommend it aspacially for modelling faces. I think its very important , to work on your lowpoly cage before moving up to higher resolutions. Abit of good old fasioned point tweaking , maybe one or two extrudes for the neck aspecailly. Also I recommend you use the crease edges function, aspcially for the eyes and mouth. It should really be a rough process and takes a very small amount of time , but it pays off in the later stages of your modelling. You’ll also find that adding details in a more controllable fasion becomes easier and that your modelling time is decreased.
You have the luxury to work on the lowpoly cage after you’ve been working at a high level , but that is really only for tweaks. Not for roughing the important forms and features of your model.
Plus Like human knowledge I think ,aspcially when conceptualising a character, building in layers where you progressivley build on ideas and forms is much more efficent and the final results are more desirable.

Really apart from this all that is left is a good knolwdge of human anatomy and feature diversity , I envy you for having that part of the equation Alex :wink:

Welldone on your last model , seems your improving repidly.

Kircho

Ps - thanks for your help on a nurbs modelling question 4 years ago:)…if you remember I’m the highschool kid that sent you a question on your work e-mail:)lol ( still embarrased about that)

#20

Hi Kircho:) ,

I have to agree with you on your modeling approach… I do love the sketching approach… head models 30 min to an hour, but the mesh can suffer and trap you with that approach, particularly if the free hand smooth tool is used to often. The crease tool is a handy and necessary option.