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zBrush/XSI blend shape animation

ZBrush Artworks
#1

Hey folks,

I did this little blend shape animation the other night and thought I’d share. It ain’t perfect, but is what I call a “Digital Sketch”, to jsut try out some stuff and generally have fun. Four blend shapes were created in zBrush, then exported as OBJs and imported into SoftImage XSI. Shape Animation was set up in XSI and a basic incidence shader too, with a voluma shader with cigarette smoke in it. The smoke is barely visible, but if you look closely, you’ll see smoke racing around at a super fast pace inside of this guy (that reddish tone). No lights were set up, this is jsut the default lighting. The entire thing, including all modeling, shape animation setup and shader setup, was done in two hours. There is no displacement or anything, that is all geometry produced in zBrush. The geometry is pretty heavy, at around 258,000 polys. XSI could handle it, though was a little upset. Maya 6.5, though, was much better able to import these guys when I tried that later on. Seems Maya 6.5 has some improvemenets to it’s ability to deal with heavy data like that. Meanwhile, this was done in XSI and zBrush. OF course, lots could be changed, but it was a fun little thing.

http://maudit.net/cg/movies/sketchBook/zXtest_v02.mov

Comments welcome.

Matt Hollingsworth
technical director
fx color lighting
stan winston digital
fantastic four

#2

Oh yeah, in case people don’t wanna downlaod the 3 meg movie, here are a couple of stills. One’s the last frame of the renders, one’s the wireframe inside XSI.

Also, I should point out that this model was done using techniques taught to me by Meats Meier in his class at Gnomon, which I attended in his very first term as a teacher last fall. So, to Meats, a big shout out and a big thanks.

cheers,

-Matt

zTest_R_v01.50.jpg

#3

here’s the wireframe

zTest_PB_v01.50.jpg

#4

I like it. Not sure what it is but I like it. Nice shaders. Like a weird deepsea creature i guess. How do you find the interaction between xsi and zbrush in general?

#5

H -
Frickin awesome stuff!! I really liek this idea. You could even use the pose-to-pose abilities with Zspheres to sculpt a cool form and then repose it with zspheres. Very cool stuff!!!:+1: :+1: :+1:

r

#6

SWEET…

Where was this when Steve Johnson was killin himself on Abyss?
Oh yeah no Zbrush yet : /
: P

Seriously tho nice fluid transitons between the shapes. Its fun to look at : )

#7

Hey guys,

Thanks for the kind words. It’s not actually supposed to be anything. I spend all day at work having to match things for specific looks for specific shots. So, when I get home and do my own stuff, I often just wander aimlessly and try out tools, muck around and just generally have fun without the pressure to turn a shot around, based on comments that I may or may not agree with. The freedom is good. Anyway, if there’s no real NEED to match something, then I can just try out things that I’ve wanted to try out without concern about it not looking like some preconceived notion I may have. I’m not a modeler and don’t really have any interest in modeling a photo real head, though I love the stuff I see on this board and elsewhere where some truly great sculptors are doing just that. I’ll leave that to the masters. Me? I just like mucking around and am generally working more with animation and FX, so may as well see what this great tool can come up with if I free up my mind and let it wander. It’s also why I think of them as sketches, as that’s what you do in a sketch book.

Anyway, it was fun.

Working on combining some of this zBrush stuff with Syflex cloth in XSI now.

As for the zBrush to XSI transition, it works okay. My primary problem at work has been that I don’t have my camera, animation and all, in zBrush to do my work. Camera moves make it difficult to match to a plate. So, I have to do the bulk of the work in zBrush, then in XSI, with my plate in the BG, line the stuff up a bit better. It could be a better workflow, but it works well with not all that heavy of an amount of effort. XSI, or rather, Mental Ray does not like displacing the surface if I use too many or too much of any of the global deformations from zBrush, though. If there’s a high triangle count and I have used a lot of shear, twist, or any of those kinds of things, and try to use a procedurally animated displacement map, Mental Ray will crash as it starts seeing bad triangles. But, this is with really extreme examples. If I stick to using the usual tools; smooth, inflate, pinch etc, then it will work just fine, even with 7/7 setings on Fine displacement. Just be prepared to wait for those renders if your triangle count is high. The renders for this guy were around 2 minutes per frame at 2048x1556, so that ain’t bad. Now, if I displaced this guy, it might crash or take more like 20 minutes per frame, not sure yet.

Sorry for any typos.

cheers,

-M