Zsphere/Modeling Humanoid 1st attempt any help appreciated!

[AngelJ]

Woah… that definitely doesn’t look good Insanity. Pictures really do help to get a better idea on stuff that is discussed thanks much. So far it looks ok I suppose. I stored the MT and then moved the arms up and hands, being new to this stuff I just moved the arm portion then the hands I wanted moved. Not sure if there is a easier way of repositioning things yet. Then i inflated things a and moved the face polygons and the some in the legs a tad. Creased some of the Facial planes and the knee cap areas… not sure if this is going to hurt me later or not but figured its just practice since I got a lot of models saved. Still got a lot more to do but here is what it looks like at the moment at a subdivions of 4.

Will be looking for your Tut. on that matter, be nice to see how you avoid that sistuation. Also saw your begining of the Vicky Archer creation. Looks like a nice start will be watching to see the completed version.

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[Jason_Belec]

Not sure what Insanity is doing, youch!

As for you AngelJ, add another zsphere for the chest. Currently your butt and neck are connected. Go grab one of those ‘templants’ I posted on the zsphere thread. They can become anything - almost. You can modify to suit, but the basics will be present and provide you with a guide to follow.

I would also suggest not playing around with the curvature/membrane, etc., unless you are going to make several models each with the different options set, so you can compare.

[Zanden]

I didnt do much Jason, just moved a couple polygons on his/her model I didnt do anything else, honest, you download and try it. My tutorial is here, need to put it in my sig yet. I made a new section labled Zspheres tips and tricks in the all tutorials section and gave myself a sub section, that way if others have any tips or tricks they can just add their own.

You could try changing the butt to 1 1 1 in the xyz to give him a err umm flonders for a polite term crotch too. I was playing around with another copy of him and it allows him to have hips too. When it comes to models you cannot have too many body part forming spheres. When using min skin to child/parent you need to use on average double of what you normally use, 2 for the upper arm, 2 for the forearm, 2 for the knee/elbow (one as a cap) you get the idea. Vicky has over 180 spheres, see the snaps for a shrunk view of her Shes almost done, just needs painting

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[Jason_Belec]

OK, I think I see what is happening. Try not to use all those settings, in fact try downloading one of my samples and looking at those settings. And yes you can have too many zspheres, we all went through that stage as well.

Also, stay away from too much xyz stuff until your sure that’s what you need, Zbrush is still about sculpting. I’ve gone over this in the zsphere thread as well, and it really becomes an issue when you want to share something that has to jump between Mac/PC platforms. It can be done, we have proven it repeatedly, but some things have to be watched for.

If it’s just for yourself, rock on, but the xyz stuff isn’t always helpful as you will discover.

[AngelJ]

Hi Folks,

Hope you all are doing well. I’ve downloaded some of those samples Jason going to be reviewing the settings and such try to make sense of whats going on zsphere wise. Will study them and adjust things to see what happens, however don’t think i’ll use them as a base zsphere model at this time. Because I truly want to be able to create my own models from the ground up and I won’t gain the know how if I don’t go through this try and error process to learn how. At the moment been moving some polygons as I move up and down between subdivisions and as I said been inflating areas of mesh to provide some basic musculature foundation. I guess I should be making most of the bulk detail at the subdivisions 4-5 and making the fine detail at 6-7 I suppose. I’m not having success at detailing the model as finely as I want. However I think its more of just getting used to the tools and settings in regards to sculpting as it is with the zsphere modeling. Don’t have a wacom tablet yet unfortunately which may be part of my problems. Been watching the Zclassroom videos and such pretty neat stuff.

[Zanden]

you dont need a tablet to sculpt nice, look at this
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thats all with zsperes and insert connection mesh, and dont forget my Vicky, thats all with zpheres as her basic shape. I couldnt even afford the pen to a tablet since I got injured on the job and have been laid up for the past few weeks. A mouse may not be the best thing to be an artist with but it sure beats the num-pad arrows.

Go back to the one that you have before you sub divided and make the “bulk details” with zspheres. Although there is a limit to the zspheres youre not going to find it on a basic humanoid, unless you go crazy and put in so many you cant click without catching one.

With MC/MP on you can easily get the human shape by adding more spheres and sizing them right, its basically, place one, switch to poly, look at the changed mesh and return to make another adjustment. Once you get the shape down, then storeMT and move the polys around to get the basic shape, especially the face and slowly move up the scale, eventually you will find it easier to simply draw the polys and warp the mesh slightly, which is good for chins, eyebrows, folds in clothes, skin details, and things like that. This site is where I learned the basics from, his 100 series. And look where it got me by taking what he taught to the next level. Thanks cannedmushrooms. (I think thats his name is here.)

Anyhow, once I get done with that evergreen I’ll see what i can do with your monster (which you still havent named btw) and you will see your own work develop with my style.

Well, its late for me and I guess I should get to bed, Maybe after i get the tree and the unnamed monster done I will write another tutorial about mc/mp and the human shape.

[womball]

I haven’t used a tablet yet for my anatomy study… Although it might help later on.

[Jason_Belec]

Tablets rule. Sorry, but in production you will never find more freedom and the might Cintiq transforms your time into amazing productivity. I know, not on most people’s budgets, however neither is most software.

Just for reference, I haven’t used a mouse in well over 5 years. Don’'t even have one. Way too unnatural.

Just scale your zspheres after storing the morph target to increase bulk, however, sculpting is your best option. You can move those polys around as well as inflate, sculpt, it’s fun, work big, detail later on levels 5 and up. Test poses as you go so you can learn how things are affected.

Make your own, I encourage it. I provide samples to help you understand. Also so you can see what others do with them, that is the test for usefulness.

If you check the zsphere thread, where I posted Cy-Surfer you can see a current example.

You want the necessary zspheres, no more. In fact the rule I use, is what is needed to pose, 1 to hold, 1 to pivot on, 1 that is being controlled all in the parent to child structure.

[AngelJ]

Hey Guys,

I gotta say its so nice to come here and get the feedback/help from nice and experienced people like you guys. Sorry I’ve not responded sooner but life is just busy. I have been working on my humanoid creature when I can. Its of course lil slow going currently at this stage of my learning. Though, I feel like some things are coming together as I work. Its just going to take time and continuation of working before I can become faster with a high level of proficiency.

Insanity and Womball definitely show that you still can get a lot out of using just a mouse. The anatomy study Womball did was very impressive for using a mouse, great work.
I do feel though that I might get more done and more precision using a tablet at some point, Jason’s informative and kind confirmation with his vast experience using one is just the kind of thing that makes me wanna definitely get a tablet and save up for one. Not sure if I’m going to save for the best one I can get which may take a while considering other finanical obligations I have or just get a small one for now.
What do you think about that Jason?

Without further ado here is where I am at currently on this guy.

Still have a lot to do, hand and feet will be getting more volume. Do more structuring with the head/face. Then I guess i’ll start doing more final detailing and adding alphas.
Going to be taking me a while i’m sure with time constrictions and as I said where I am at for my learning curve.

Again really appreciate all the generous and truly helpful information all you guys have contributed!! Can’t say this enough

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[Jason_Belec]

A small tablet will help you greatly. I prefer bigger, but it’s all about adapting. Hopefuly you’ll gte some scratch together and grab a Cintiq and you will explode with creativity!

It isn’t about need. It’s about versatility. A tablet opens up so many options you just can’t get with a mouse and it will provide speed and creative flow.

I don’t expect you to do airbrush paintings with a pencil set, it’s possible, but will take an eternity, so why not use the more productive tool?

[wenna]

Thanks you guys… As you’ve helping AngelJ, you’ve also been helping me to get back in swing of things! Thanks Insanity for the links to free lessons!

AngelJ, seems you’re learning very quickly! Keep up the good work!

wenna

[AngelJ]

Hi Jason,

Ahh gotcha thats exactly what I was thinking and figured a introus 3 tablet would be better than nothing. That Cintiq though sure has my mouth watering. Nothing beats having the right equipment. Its why I got Zbrush after all as one of my first 3D modeling/sculpting programs when I decided that I wanted to learn.

ARGHHHH sorry had to let out a little steam. Worked on the feet and they were coming along sooo nicely then bam as I started to work on the toes when I had just them selected popped back to look at the whole model and sadly I had some type of deformation that didn’t seem it wanted to smooth out. I tried to inflat the area to see if then after I could smooth it but it just got uglier and uglier. I have to be positive about it and hope that it will just give me another chance to improve and learn by doing it again.

I do have two questions on couple of issues I have had recently. Lately I’ve had to initialize Zbrush quite a bit recently due to trying to load my ztl’s and getting a Zbrush executable error that shuts the program down. After I initialize Zbrush it seems to work fine. Is this normal or maybe some type of setting I could be using to help overcome this issue. Secondly, as I’ve been working on the sculpting part sometimes I have quite a few numbers of undo edits as I work along but other times especially after saving the tool then continueing to work it appears I only can go back 1 undo. Its as if it becomes buggy. I’ve been clearing the layer and reloading the tool after save but doesnt seem to help. Usually just exit the program reload program and initialize Zbrush again which seems to do the trick. Is this common to anyone else other than me?

Well back to the drawing board on the feet, hopefully will turn out as good or better!! Wenna, thanks for the polite compliment I’m definitely trying!! Your so right by the way how the knowledge these threads bring really do affect the many.

[Jason_Belec]

Post images will ya, sheesh, ramblings of a madman!

Make sure nothing is hidden when you save your ztl, if you are getting errors you should go back to a pevious version without, or you could lose alot of work in the end.

I know it’s harsh, but redoing over and over is a good learning approach. For many of my employees and students over the years, it was always hard to reproduce work time and again, but after awhile they found they could od it rather fast and efficiently and that transferred to other work as well.

The other questions you need to provide are system specs. This is not normal behaviour for any application, so you need to provide information and in fact this should be posted in the Questions and TroubleShooting Forum and I assume you have already searched that…

[AngelJ]

Hey Jason,

I got a pretty basic system currently. AMD Athlon 64 2.2 Ghz 2000 MHz System bus, 1024 DDR SDRAM Dual Channel, nVidia 6100 with Windows Media Center OS. However, seems to be working ok now for the most part… haven’t had the undo edit problem I was having. Though, I haven’t had time to do much on the model I started lately but did try to move his limbs some to see what would happen to the mesh. Once in a while it seems the preview displacments don’t load.

Maybe I’m moving the limbs in a manner that isn’t correct. Got any ideas I’d love to hear them. Hopefully with get the chance to work on the model in the next couple of days to move him along. I’ve been working on him while in preview mode under adaptive but havent used the make adaptive skin button yet. Think I will do that though soon so I can use the edge loop and other functions. However that means I won’t be able to pose him anymore after I do that correct?

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[Jason_Belec]

Hello AngelJ, I think you are missing a few zspheres in the torso. Or you have some strange settings under Adaptive.

You are getting issues because you don’t have the right zspheres in the correct place to allow you to do what you are attempting. It also seems you may be trying to transition zspheres in more than 1 axis.

Please, take your time and go back through the zsphere thread. You should see similar problems and questions and answers to help you improve your workflow. A super fast and non reading/testing way does not exist yet I’m afraid. You can of course grab a sample zsphere character I’ve posted up and use it as the base until you understand the basics clearly.

Once you have done enough correct approaches, it’s second nature. It’s fast and amazingly addictive.

[AngelJ]

Hi Jason,

Ok so I don’t have the correct amount and placement of zspheres for posing the mesh accurately hrmm. Believe it or not I’ve read the entire zsphere thread and have been going back and continueing to read junks at a time. It does seem to help as I pick up lil things everytime I re-read it. I got your pixelman ztl, zgirl, and ferret master one. I didn’t see a ztl for the cy-surfer guy just some jpg. Been looking at your ztl’s which is helping to see how you do things and gives me food for thought. Definitely quite a few more zspheres through out the model. Which is I take it from your thread ideal for being able to pose within zbrush. Going to continue to re-read and making more models. Want to get this process down so it works decently.

Jason I imagine making sure you can pose within zbrush will determine if your model will stand up to being animated in another program? Keep up the great job your doing helping this forum be a real asset to those like myself.

[AngelJ]

Hi Folks,

Due to a issue with my models hand I went ahead and started over. Still not finished and is a WIP but figured i’d share what I got so far. I really love this program so far, yet so much to learn and so little time. As always everyone that has contributed to this thread directly or to this forum and Zclassroom has my gratitude!!! Awesome forum with so many talented individuals, the wealth of knowledge and info shared is astounding.

I did store the morph target so I might attempt to move the limbs around at some point. Want to finish the sculpting and then learn how to texture, paint, and maybe even rig it.

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[Jason_Belec]

Never get too much sculpting without testing some poses! At least not until you get a little further on in understanding the process. It’ll save you a lot of heartache. Of course, fun is good, repetition is educational, and support always encourages, so go for it.

[AngelJ]

Hey Jason,

Always good to hear from you on here! Some of your basic comments do wonders such as testing poses before major sculpting. I just get overzealous in wanting to learn this program that I just jump right on in the deep water at times, I prolly don’t make the best decisions during those moments :lol: .

Learning to pose appears to be somewhat of a art form in itself and of course makeing a zsphere model that is pose friendly definitely helps. As you say though its defintely educational, fun and I appreciate any and ALL encouragement. I am gonna need it hehe. Heres a pose from a couple of different angles its not much of one but its a start. If anything else maybe I can turn him into a mutant football player or a wrestler he has the cauliflower ears already!!

[AngelJ]

Hello everyone,

Well finished adding the mouth area, few veins and nails. Tempted to add some alpha detailing here and there but don’t want it to become to busy either. May just move on to learning how to texture this guy and start on another sculpting. Advice is always welcomed.

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