Production Modeling: Getting Along with ZBrush

Retopologizing in ZBrush

This month was undoubtedly challenging, but held many rewards. Going into this class I was very hesitant to use ZBrush, mostly because of my past experiences with it. After this month, I'm more confident in my sculpting abilities than I have ever been. That being said, I'd like to take this time to discuss one of the tools I learned about, which is ZBrush's retopology tool. My experiences with retopo were Maya based, and my first experiences with that were frustrating to say the least. It was refreshing to get the hang of A ZBrush tool right away, compared to its Maya counterpart.

My favorite thing about this tool was the ability to retopologize symmetrically along different axis. Whether it was Z, X, or Y, it could get the job done. Another thing I liked about this tool was that it was very straight forward to use. Append a ZSphere to a high poly mesh, hit edit topology, and start clicking. After using this tool I could hardly remember what retopologizing in Maya was like. I think the simplicity of this tool helped me conquer my fear of ZBrush's more complex tools, and allowed me to open up to the possibilities. I used to hate ZBrush, but now I have a respect for it.

Above is an example of the axe I modeled and retopologized. Rather than do my retopping and map baking in Maya, this class has changed my workflow in that I will make an accurate low poly blockout in Maya for hard edge purposes, import to ZBrush, sculpt the details, retopologize, create a displacement, and export and render in Maya. I think as an artist it's extremely important to have a plan for your model, and now I have a solidified workflow that I'm both comfortable with and now experienced in. This class has changed the way I will complete my models, and now that I'm much more comfortable in ZBrush I'll be able to revamp old pieces. Out of everything I've made so far, I am most proud of this.

Visual Development

This class was immensely helpful in understanding the process of texturing and material building. Throughout this month we used MILA materials with the mental ray renderer to achieve real world textures, and then this combined with batch renders of different passes helped me understand how a proper foundation in the basics of a software can be the difference between a sub par render and a professional one.

The most useful techniques I learned this month are probably the use of the MILA material and advanced knowledge of the hypershade. Before this class, I was mostly using MIA materials for my textures, with minimal, if any, hypershade node editing. After this class, I'm confident in my abilities to use the hypershade (and with minimal to no crashing too).

Warm Light Layer 

Key Light Layer 

Master Layer (Key, Warm, IBL)

Over the course of this class I made my own little experimental scene to test out materials, different bumps, and mess with settings overall to see what I could do.

Test Scene

This is my tester scene. I'll be making changes to it, such as adding different materials, bumps, and props, but its a nice little start to an exploration in texturing.

Character Design and Creation

CDC was a very challenging and trying course. The first week of class I was in the process of moving, so I didn't do as well I would have liked, but the knowledge I gained from this class was invaluable. I found myself becoming more and more comfortable with ZBrush as the class progressed, and I now enjoy using the software for sculpting and detailing meshes I've made in Maya. The goal this class was to create characters, as the name suggests, and I ended up with two characters.

Original mesh made in Maya

Mesh detailed in ZBrush

Second character, second pass with reference

Second character, detailed in ZBrush

This class pushed my limits as far as modeling goes, and doing so increased my artistic skill set and tolerance for strong coffee. The Zspheres and modeling in Maya worked best for me, whereas I need some more practice with dynamesh when modeling large tools (I used dynamesh as a base for the hair on the models, which I found easy to use in that situation). My major issues were mostly the crashing of programs and losing some save data, and Maya's interface bugging out, of course. My experiences with Maya in the past prepared me for dealing with the bugging, but Zbrush's curveballs required some research and YouTube videos. Those are things I use a lot as a student: Google and YouTube. The end results of my models turned out pretty well in my opinion, especially since this was my first time modeling completely in ZBrush. However, I need to work on my skills with dynamesh, sculpting nuances like eyelids and eyes in general, facial features, hands and fingers, and boots or feet. I think I still need to develop my artistic eyes in drawing and sculpting what I see a little more as well. I think though, that for my first time, I did well.

Project and Portfolio III

This class was very stressful this month, mostly because of the full swing of the holiday season and it starting the week of Black Friday. I was very excited to use a different rig and create my own animation this month, although it has a few things that need to be tweaked. I'm happy with the smoothness of translation, and completing this project has given me a greater understanding of the walk cycle. Here is the Link

I think that this class was valuable for helping me in discerning render time, learning the fine points of the walk cycle animation, subtle animation, and adjusting to new rigs and additionally new problems as they arise. It was challenging to say the least and I had many 5 A.M. nights this month. On to the next!

Project and Portfolio I

I was very excited for this class. Of course, the entire time I was thinking I was going to do a single prop. But guess what? If you got an A in 3DF, ART1, and MCR you had to pick an advanced model to block out, i.e. a whole scene. Yep, I got to do a whole scene. At first I will admit I was a little taken aback, but with no challenge comes no reward. After the month, with our projects due on Friday instead of Sunday, I realize a regular prop would have been too easy for me- and how exciting is that? Just a few months ago I was spending 4-6 hours on single props that only take me minutes to do now. It's so satisfying to see that kind of progression. My edge flow has improved, my mapping skills have improved, and my overall modeling skills have greatly improved. Hard work does pay off.

 I learned how to put a model on a turn table. I couldn't keep the brick walls and glass up, but here is the scene in finality for turn in. This scene is a compilation of about 20+ hours of work, just because I had some duplicating issues with bricks. I'm so happy with it, and a regular prop would have been too easy for me.

So many UV's! I had no idea what I was getting myself into when it came to UV's. The plants were probably the worst part, because they came with their own but I had to remap them and position them just right. There was a lot of single mapping and duplicating involved in this, and I also learned how to bake normal maps in ZBrush, which it turns out is far easier and more efficient than baking in Maya. Looking at this brings me deep anxiety (the memories) but also pride in my accomplishment.

Some plant detail. I painted them in and then converted them to geometry. I'm pretty happy with how they look.

This month held many stresses for me- too many polygons, random Maya shut downs, triangle and UV issues, the graphics card in the mac not being compatible with rendering certain things. Delightful. My hope is to find time to throw some ambient occlusion on this and mess with the lighting. I'm very happy with my final product

            

Model Creation

This month we blocked out large and small assets, and used the "3" method to smooth out edges. That is to say, rather than beveling, like 3D Fundamentals, we placed our own holding edges around our props to improve edge quality. This was more difficult to achieve at points because, with complex shapes, if you have extra faces or vertices the insert edge loop tool doesn't work all the way. This makes things difficult at times, but can help you identify illegal geometry. The hardest part about this month though was that for some reason my append to polygon tool wasn't working, and this made it extremely difficult or impossible to make a lot of the props. Upon doing some research, I only found two threads discussing that problem, and neither had answers. After we blocked out four assets though, we put them in a final scene. 

This is table two of my large prop designs. It has 24 different screws on it, and the metal supports on the bottom go through a hole in the wooden support like they would on the actual table. This week helped me learn the importance of modeling realistically and with pieces, like how something is made. Each prop took me at least 3-5 hours to make, some over two days because of my retail ob. But I'm happy with all of them.

This is the final scene for this week. It has the two tables, the chair, and a shelf. Next week we'll be making smaller props to place as a still life on our larger props, and we'll also be UV mapping them for textures. I'm really excited to get started this week, and hopefully my geometry is okay to map.

This is the final still life for this week. The pen and inkwell, horseshoe, and knife. The knife was really fun to make but challenging to UV because of the swirled handle, and even then my maya file didn't save right and I ended up turning it in with messed up UV's on accident. The horseshoe was the easiest to make, and I'm actually pretty proud of it.

The horseshoe and it's UV's. This maybe took me an hour and a half to make and an hour to UV. It's one of my cleaner assets, and Maya shut down on me while I was making this, just as I was finishing up with the modeling. The force quit took me back to when I was putting the very first holes in the horseshoe, and for that I was kind of furious. If you don't learn patience by modeling, I don't know how you ever will.

This delightful little shield was easy to model, but the baking for normals added way more time onto it's production than I would have liked. for modeling and UV's, this only took me an hour or so, but the sculpting in ZBrush, plus making the alpha of the lion, probably tacked on a few more hours. I found a lot of my time is used by trial and error rather than actual modeling. I decided that for this week, I'd do an easy prop, an intermediate one, and then one that seemed difficult in some aspect to me.

The snake candle was my "difficult" prop. Mostly because of the snakes and getting them to correctly wrap around their base. for the snakes though, I used the create CV curve tool on the front orthographic view, lined up the curve to the reference, and then tweaked it in perspective to wrap around the candlestick which I had already modeled. Then, I duplicated it and scaled negatively to appropriately match the other side. This prop, plus baking, took me four to five hours because of tweaking.

This is Edward's sword. Who is Edward? I don't know, but his name is engraved on the blade. Modeling was about an hour, Zbrush maybe another. I loved modeling this sword, mostly because instead of placing some boring little swirly shield alpha on the ball at the end of the hilt, I sculpted a little unicorn in the shield instead. Probably my favorite part about this week's props.

 The little vase was fun. Joe helped me out with learning how to create smoother topology and edge flow with this, and especially with the guitar. This vase took me about an hour as well, and a half an hour for ZBrush. The handles on the sides were good practice for cutting my own UV's, and the body was good practice for obtaining the illusion of texture with ZBrush. I'm pretty happy with this one.

A picture of the most interesting view of my final scene. I chose this view for the chandelier, picture frame, and overall view of the props. You can't see some of them, but that's okay. This week was the first week that I had all of my weekly props done before Sunday since I started this class. Like I said, shout out to Joe. Anyhow, besides forgetting to rename one piece of my guitar, and forgetting to center the pivot on one group, I'm really happy with it. I spent my entire Sunday placing assets and arranging this scene.

            So I got an A+ on my final scene. Which, I am completely elated about. Of course, upon looking at my next class, this means I'll have to do some advanced modeling. But, I'll take this victory of surviving model creation. I will say that if you have a habit of procrastinating this class will break you and force you to work. This class has taught me not only that, but also that networking is important, as well as peer feedback, smooth edge flow and clean topology. The other nice thing about this is I'm seeing the progression of my first modeling class to now and it's some great motivation to keep going. Professor Bagsby was always saying that we'd get to where he was some day and I feel like I'm on the right track. This is an amazing experience.

3D Fundamentals

I never imagined how quickly I would pick up modeling, especially since I never even dabbled in the software before (besides Blender). I know I still have a lot to learn as far as Maya goes, because I have barely even scratched the surface of everything that it's capable of. But this month was still eye opening, and fun to say the least.

This was our first blockout exercise. The mailbox was probably the hardest out of all of these because of the rounded top, and I just couldn't get it to fit right. I spent about two hours putting this together, although it felt like much less. My finished product was mind-blowing to me, because I had no idea how simple the concept was.

The final scene for the five objects I had to block out for the second project in week one. The razor is probably my least favorite, and the ladybug, jar, and tin can are my favorites. Each took a variating amount of time, but around three to four hours each for blocking, and a few hours each for planning and research. I learned to manipulate faces and expand or contract them while blocking the tin can, which was extremely helpful and made my objects more similar to the silhouette.

 It may sound silly, but this spray can is my week two pride and joy. It took me around four hours to complete, and was from the Level 2 downloads section (pretty proud of myself for that) I don't think I ever thought about what a spray can actually looked like until I started this asset, and as soon as I reached the top I cursed it for having so many intrusions and extrusions, and little edges. Even so, I love how it turned out, and this model definitely taught me some patience and attention to detail.

This little bottle stopper is entirely one piece and  made of extrusions. This, I will admit, did not even take me an hour to make, but in my defense it was three in the morning and I needed another model for the assignment (family obligations the next day, I wouldn't have time to make one). However, I liked how it turned out so much I used it as one of my assets. It really helped me understand how edge loops really encourage the curvature of the form in a model, and it also showed me how far I've come from never even touching maya to making curves and actual models with straight edge shapes.

 This was our practice assignment. At first, the highlighted gun was outrageously deformed, with hidden illegal geometry. The assignment was to clean it up to look like the gun farthest to the left, and the middle gun is the minimum completion requirement. This actually took a little over two hours because I kept messing up the cleanup. Instead of having the "select faces" box checked, I had the default selected, so Maya kept triangulating my geometry. I must have cleaned it up three or four times before I was fed up and turned it in. Moral of the story: when something goes wrong, double check your settings.

This beautiful little gum-ball machine was my favorite at first, until after I turned the scene in and realized I forgot to sculpt the little shelf in the bottom left picture! Considering it was one of my graded assets, I'd settle for a B+. But still, about four and a half hours, headaches from "N-gons" and going through my "Inspiration" playlist on Spotify twice, it was done. This one helped hone my skills in curving and slanting edges while attaining clean topology. Looking back, it's definitely not perfect, but besides the shelf I'm happy with it.

 The hard part about The scene was composing it. I found myself overthinking it, and when I was happy with the positions, I wasn't happy with the render. Even so, it was fun to put it all together, and it was really awesome to see my models in a finalized space. In total, the final scene took me almost three hours to finally be happy with it.

This is the marvelous ambient occlusion map for my spray can. The UV's took me about five hours to finally set up, and I will admit some of the time was adjusting the model itself. But while completing this part of week four, I had so much trouble with my textures baking incorrectly, and occlusion maps being saved over other occlusion maps. It wasn't until about two whole days passed and too much troubleshooting that I realized I never gave the AO maps different names. I felt both stupid and relieved. Note: always rename files.

The final render! I'm so happy with it. Like I said before, around three hours of work, and just in time, as it's due tonight. It really takes the ambient occlusion to the next level, and it softens and professionalizes my objects. I've learned so much this week, and I even started to model Spyro the Dragon for practice. I think this makes all of my struggles totally worth it.

          I'm going to be sad to be out of this class, but also kind of relieved because I literally could not have had a class like this at a worse time. Working retail during the holidays is nuts, on top of ten to twenty hours a week of assignments? But I did it. This class is perpetually invaluable to my upcoming portfolio class, and the readings that were assigned got me thinking about it, and how I think I'm going to do something unordinary instead of an average prop. I know how to put a professional spin on my models, so perhaps now I can play around with the hypershade and make some awesome models because, as Professor Bagsby says, textures can make a model stand out, and they're fun too. I have the upcoming weeks off for christmas break, but I feel like I'll be spending it making something awesome.