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.

Sculpting Digital Characters - Week 05 Refining the Form

Thought I would get this up to show - refining the form before adding textures. Still some modelling to do on face, fingers and lower legs, then to texture the skin and add some warts, scars etc.

Horns and eyes have been added which help the model feel more complete, teeth still to add.

Sculpting Digital Characters - Week 04: RETOP (detail)

Here you can see the new mesh, five spans per joint for smooth deformation later on when posing the character. You can also see that the Minotroll has no eyes, teeth horns etc. Which all will be added as sub-tools soon.

The detail level yet to apply is making me feel excited; Deep wrinkles, fine creases, scars and skin pores will be added to the model in the HD sculpt. Now that I'm past the re-creation of the mesh there should be a lot of fun doing this next passover. :)

Sculpting Digital Characters - Week 04: RETOPOLOGY HELL!

So I spent two weeks drawing squares on this guy, my first atempt at retopology, and I must say it took me to the edge!

After 10 days solid working at day retop at night - bashing away at trying to get all those lines to match up across the figure, I entered a twilight zone of my own. Every time I closed my eyes I could see topology mesh covering what I had just been staring at. I'd shut my eyes and the room walls and furniture would be there, all mapped up perfectly like architectural frame models, the Kitchen sink and taps... covered in lines, peoples faces....... pristine topology! Like being in the Matrix... but without the super powers - just the crushing reality of all thoses squares staring me down...aaaaaahhhhh!, It was exhausting work and my mind was just taunting me.

Here's what I ended up with:

first up the retop'ed model (with the original model just visible underneath).

The second figure is the adaptive skin from the recreated topology (the Level 1 skin, which will be used to make UV maps later)

...And third we have the new mesh with the details of form the original sculpt projected onto it this is at density Level 3. This is the model I will take forward and add the real detail too using ZBrush HD geometry tools.

The second image, below, shows a turnaround of the new topology on the model at a lower density of 2

Sculpting Digital Characters - Week 04: Retopology

Week Four: Refining your sculpture... retopology
Hands and feet explored, why we should sculpt these first
Wrinkles, subcutaneous... what's that and why should we pay attention to it
Compression and how it affects what we do
Gravity why it's important
Stencils... Converting an alpha into a stencil
Retopology. How do we create a base mesh that will work for animation and production?
What is good topology?
Projecting details
Assignment: Refine character Sculpt base you've created and retopologize