Classical Anatomy for Artists: Anatomy App

Looking forward to the release of this Anatomy app:

Learning ZBrush Overview

Every now and then I receive an email asking where to start with ZBrush. Below is a copy of a recent email I sent in response to such a question. It is a basic outline of where to start your path of learning and some of the best resources to point your attention towards...

Hi _____________

Thanks for the email and the kind words.

I'm pretty much a hobbyist myself with digital sculpting. I have been a character sculptor for about 15 years so a lot of what I have learned using traditional medium has transferred over to the digital tool set.

There are two sides to digital modelling: Character sculpting & Hard Surface modelling. Think of as Organic forms (humans, animals and creatures Vs Industrial shapes (weapons, robots, vehicles or aircraft). There is a lot of crossover between, and it's best to learn both, but be aware of the different approaches needed for each. 

If it's characters you wish to make, as I do, then my first advice would be to learn anatomy. An understanding of the human form will inform your sculpt more than anything else. It is the foundation of all great sculptors.

Night classes in Life Drawing are great for developing understanding and I would recommend this book first: amazon.co.uk/Atlas-Human-Anatomy-Artist

Learning Zbrush can be daunting, it was for me anyway, it's language, layout and workflow were completely alien. I have however found many good resources which teach ZBrush and can recommend them below.

To gain insight into the various aspects of ZBrush watch all the videos on Pixologic's classroom page:

 pixologic.com/zclassroom 

A great set of free tutorials from Jason Welsh are available on youtube watch and/or work through them as you need: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=AF8FE85B2A969BD3

For pure eye candy, keep an eye on the top row threads and gallery here: zbrushcentral.com/

An amazing set of Pro level tutorials are available here: thegnomonworkshop.com however they are expensive. The best digital artists in the world are creating the material for Gnomon and they are mind blowingingly good - search google and youtube for Gnomon and you'll find snippets. Sign up for the newsletter and keep an eye on what they do.

Another option to learn more once you have a grip of the basics and are ready for advanced material is to do an online course. There are two sites which I can recommend as delivering material which advance your understanding faster than any other.

First C.G.Society offer a good range of online courses taught by professionals in the field. I took a Character Design for Production course with them and it was where I learned to get to grips with ZBrush. 

Secondly zbrushworkshops offer workshops and classes. Again sign up for the newsletter, and check out the free stuff they have on youtube.

There is more than enough there to set you on the right path to conquering ZBrush and digital sculpting. It can be daunting and sometimes frustrating while learning this stuff and if you ever get stuck it is a sign that you are learning! remember Google is your friend to finding answers and If you ever need any more advice from myself just drop me an email.

Good luck and all the best

Wayne

UV map and Teeth

To familiarise myself with the basics of UV mapping, I made a quick un-wrap of my

skull, before moving on to create the teeth.

UV maps are the surface area of a model displayed as a flat plane. This pelt or un-wrapped skin is used to hold textures and colours for models used in games, animations or renders. the image to the right shows a basic 'pelt' of a human figure. The aim is to cut the seams in places where we wont see them, and not across areas where they may be noticeable such as the face.

Using reference sourced from google I made an image plane within ZBrush and using a simple cube subdivided once, repeated for each tooth, laid out and adjusted in size and orientation for one side of the mouth. I cloned and mirrored these for the other side, then cloned and the mirrored the full set to use on the lower jaw.

I divided the cubes again and modelled them into their basic shape, then appended them to the Skull model, and made a few further adjustments to set them right. Now that all parts are complete and in place, I can unwrap the whole for UV's and move on to refining the forms, detailing and finishing the sculpt.

The video playlist above covers the use of the Pixologic's UV Master plug-in. Follow the video to you tube for further chapters.

A test at unwraping the cranium showing the flattened UV map (pelt) and the cranium base where the seams meet. I'm not sure why there is a pink square present?

Teeth template, subdivided cubes set into place, and appended tooth set to skull.

Both sets of teeth, appended to model, subdivided and ready for detail pass.

Back to ZBrush

Before I ever had a website, back before I went Self Employed, I ran a blog over on Blogspot called DigitalWAX. The purpose of which was to document my transition from a traditional sculptor to mastering a digital toolset. I fell in love with ZBrush, was determined to switch career path and I began to embrace the concepts of a digital work flow. As life does, when we make plans, the option to go freelance sprung up and I haven't had time to stop since. Zbrush had to take a back seat to all the new priorities that my career twist presented. Untill now.

Back to ZBrush

ZBrush 4 was released late August, and with it came a whole new set of functions and smoothed out work flows. The beta-tester's images blew my mind and I updated my software and sat back down at the pc with a reborn passion for the digital sculpting techniques.

First thing I found was my general inability to use the program as I remembered. The interface had once again became an alien thing to me. Simple working methods had faded with time  since I last used the program. I was once again a floundering novice. Time to start afresh.

So once again, I begin a transitional journey, and once again I plan to document the experience.

Lets begin...

During my first foray into the ZBrush territory I attended an online sculpting class and as part of the work flow we first set up image planes. This is what I needed to relearn. 

My first duty was gather some resources around me to get my knowledge back up and running. First stop is always going to be ZBrush's home at Pixologic.com and the galleries and forums of ZBrushcentral. Also, I picked up ZBrush Essentials Magazine but I found it skipped the essentials in favour of repeating the same project over, but with different artists. There is some nice work in there and a a lot of helpful advice but it was not what I needed.

Then I hit YouTube, to view the new ZB4 videos from ZBRUSHatPIXOLOGIC which got me exited again, but a search for 'image planes' led me to a great find: Canned Mushrooms ZB4 DVD series playlist. This is exactly what I needed to kick things off again, so I pressed play and had the first chapters play out while I was working, with intentions of re-watching whilst using Zbrush later.

his chapter on the skull sparked my attention and I immediately booted up ZBrush and followed along. Here's some images of my tinkerings...

Stage 01: SHAPE - Setting up the Image planes, to use with 'shadowbox', generates basic skull shape.

STAGE 02: FORM - Form re-done with separate Jaw. Forms cleaned up and less dense mesh generated (ReMesh All)

Stage 03: REFINE - Forms refined to fit Image Planes. Teeth to be separately added at later stage.

Stage 04: RETOPOLOGY - lines drawn onto skull to show flow of form. New Mesh constructed to follow form better.

Stage 05: POLYMESH - Mandible and Cranium Re-Meshed with neat topology. These can be used to generate UV Maps from.

Stage 06: SUB DIVIDE - The finished Polymesh, divided once, ready for sculpting details upon.

The six steps above required two days to complete. This could be sped-up, but as I was refreshing myself to the process, much net trawling and deliberation was necessary.

Next I'll make a set of teeth and generate UV Maps, before moving into sculpting and detailing. I'll document these in the next post. Also I'll detail the procedure of setting up the 'Image Planes' in a dedicated post, a process that is hard to find a sufficient tutorial on, and tricky to figure out as a novice.

I'll be back in a few days.

What Next...

The course ended a couple of weeks back and since I have stepped away to get some perspective on the past months.

I started this digital journey in September and have fallen for the process. The control over the character is the greatest asset of ZBrush. Utilising Layers many alternate versions of the character can be contained within a single tool.

ZBrush still has many features which remain either unused or barely explored. ZBrush combines the disciplines of drawing, painting, modelling and sculpting... and it does all well. Very well.

For now I will continue with the Minotroll, making his arm in Maya. The next step is to begin to build a libary or 'graveyard' of characters and tools. When you have many assets it is easy to steal parts from each... hands from this guy, legs from here, this old head... Frankenstein modeling, or kit bashing it is known as - it basically helps get the base mesh of your character together quicker.

So I plan to:

1) build a base mesh.

2) Adapt this to get a male and female form.

3) From these two meshes adapt each further to make three specific but still basic body shapes. Which will represent the athletic, thin and obese forms. From these I could develop any amount of humanoid characters. These will give a good base of assets to begin with for further projects.

The three ideal forms are based upon the somatotypes (endomorphic, mesomorphic, and ectomorphic) a simplistic classification of body types, developed in the 1940s by American psychologist William Sheldon.

Below is an example of somatotypes from the book: Figure Drawing without a Model, Ron Tiner. David&Charles (27 Feb 1992)

Available from: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Figure-Drawing-Without-Model-Tiner/dp/0715397850/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204412976&sr=8-3

Posing the Character

Here are some images from first attempt at posing the beast within ZBrush using TransPose Master.

For the Transpose Plugin and a great demo of it in action, head over to Ryan's Blog: Sculpt Paint Create.... http://www.pixologic.com/blogs/ryan/category/transpose/

Happy Slappin'

A quick experiment at 'happy slappin', and a character strip/turnaround.

Sculpting Digital Characters - Week 06 Second colour pass

Here is the colour version (with teeth!) slightly more progressed...

The eyes are simple jellybean textured sphere's, sans iris/pupil.

Sculpting Digital Characters - Week 06

I've been slow with this recently.
I kinda hit a wall with week five. The making of UV maps and building the Minotroll's mech arm is proving to be a whole new ball game. In a nutshell I need to learn Maya. I so far have used 3ds max (I say 'used' but I mean opened, got frustrated and closed again) as an external 3D application.
All the advice I have been given and research I have done points to using Maya as THE 3D app. It is the industry standard for production and if Maya cannot do it... it is unlikely that any other app can.
So my next track of learning will be to grasp the fundamentals of Maya, and eventually get those elusive UV maps nailed down.
As far as my course goes I have sidestepped the UV process and began to colour the beast within ZBrush. Here's where I'm at so far...

and some quick teeth I knocked up (not very detailed but... they should do the job)

Sculpting Digital Characters - Week 05: Texturing (HD detail)

Almost finished, detailing almost complete. Still teeth to add and his mech arm - which I still have a lot of learning within 3ds max to complete.

Colours next, and perhaps another attempt to make UV maps for this beastie.