Refining the pose in zbrush - part 5 of the Centaur tutorial series This is part 5 of a series of 12 videos on the creation of a Centaur from the lovely concept by Pauline Vob, built in Zbrush. Learn – 

Creating a back plate 

Using the save view tool 

Resculpting form after posing 

Referencing anatomy with flow 

Creating brushes

This is a posing in zbrush tutorial, part 4 of a series of 12 videos on the creation of a Centaur from the lovely concept by Pauline Vob, built in Zbrush. 

Learn – 

Using the transpose tool with masking

Following form

Posing with form in mind

This is a Sculpting in Zbrush tutorial, part 3 of a series of 12 videos on the creation of a Centaur from the lovely concept by Pauline Vob, built in Zbrush.

 Learn – 

How to sculpt with flow 

How to sculpt with form 

Use reference while sculpting 

Use lighting to sculpt

 Landmarks 

Subtleties of anatomical form

This is a Zspheres tutorial, part 2 of a series of 12 videos on the creation of a Centaur from the lovely concept by Pauline Vob, built in Zbrush.

Learn – 

How to use zspheres 

How to use reference when modelling 

How to build a Zsphere armature

This is a Pure ref tutorial, part 1 of a series of 12 videos on the creation of a Centaur from the lovely concept by Pauline Vob  

Learn – How to use reference 

Artistic landmarks 

What to reference 

Get Pure ref at - https://www.pureref.com/ 

3d.sk reference - https://www.3d.sk/ 

3d Total ecorches - https://store.3dtotal.com/collections/anatomy-figures?srsltid=AfmBOoqgIrSem5ftv_EdznDZRt6Lkkfu5O-SfLea6ZA2F3CheYZp6pGy

This is a Zbrush to Marmoset 3d sculpting tutorial preview a 12 video YouTube series on the creation of a Centaur from the lovely concept by Pauline Vob 

Learn – 

The use of reference 

The tool Pure ref 

Blocking out the body with zspheres 

Sculpting using clay brushes 

Transpose master 

Create a custom fur alpha brush 

How to create a stylised head 

Create a custom stylised hair brush 

Create stylised flowers 

Importing to marmoset and rendering as a high detail model

For my new game, it has a mouse.  So im taking a small pole on which color is preferred!  Could you comment with your favourite? :)  thank you 

This is the last Roman Blog.  Sadly I have been meaning to do this for a month, but I came down with Covid, and other things took priority. 

Anyway here we are!  To begin, in the last blog we were left with a t posed model fully textured.

The next step is to prep it for presentation. 

Usually unless I need to rig it, for my own portfolio, in Zbrush I will use transpose master, masking, and layers to pose the model.  In this case, before hand, I took a video of myself in the various poses.  Just to see the best places for where the feet, legs and arms would position naturally.  Grabbed stills from the videos, and used them as reference while I slowly posed the model.

I showed this in more detail in my Jinx video tutorial recently, but when posing I usually move a few elements, take it out of transpose, then repeat the process for the next part to move.  This is since if you move far too much sometimes the transpose wont transpose due to errors. 

With layers to control the movements in transpose, if an element, such as a belt, gets mashed up in the pose, you can turn off a layer or too, till its correct again, and even use a morph and repose. 

The final step was to transfer the smoothing info in maya from the t pose to the new posed model since the smoothing is lost in zbrush.  Its a bit time consuming, but prevents any odd smoothing after the bake.  

After this, I sent the final models into marmoset toolbag in this case, to check the pose at all angles, and test some lighting setups.  I then produced some assets to lend weight to the scene.  When I had the idea of posing with sitting on a log and holding a torch, I blocked out cylinders to show these elements, but at this stage I modelled them up also and textured them.  Since I wasn’t concerned about if the assets had adequate topo, the main focus was the character, I also zremeshed and occasionally decimated to get the low poly meshes I needed for the camp fire and torch.

The only really difficult element, was something I hadn’t tried before.  The fire.  In the end I textured planes first, checking reference, and then placed them, testing it in marmoset.  The flames still weren’t appearing as realistic as I wanted, but what really pushed the fire was twisting and bending the fire elements, so that at all angles there was something pleasing to see, dropping it out of the flat plane look. 

The camp fire itself used a emissive I created from the ao, so in cracks and deep shadowy areas of the camp fire the embers would burn, and this jelled well with the fire itself.  Making the scene work well together.

Final lighting for all poses, the camp fire, the torch and the standing, I created in separate scenes, using a slight ambience lighting from the sky light, a key, rim etc.  and a light or two dotted around the fire itself to give that glow.

Again sorry for the wait for this last part, I became pretty ill (even though it was mild covid) so when out of bed, I just plodded on with modelling, since any real thought, and even composing a blog, was just too much for my wee brain at the time. 

you can see the final scenes here - 

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/18WkVL

All the best everyone and stay safe, I hope this blog was useful!

Thank you

Hi all,

                This is the second to last Blog for the AAA Roman character.   Todays post will be about hair and fur.  Mainly fur, since there are so many tutorials on hair out there that im sure can explain better than I.

                I use Xgen in maya, with one plane, that I grow the strands from, when happy with a clump, I make it geo, and move it to the side before reworking the fur clump again, and following the same process.  I aim for one very thick clump of hair, then thinner hair that is slightly see through, and then thin strands to very thin odd hairs. 

                After this I renamed the various clumps as fur_1_high, fur_2_high and build planes, that encapsulate the shape of the fur.  These I keep as simply one poly for now per plane, that I add to one mat, and uv to one uv set. 

                I then duplicate and smooth these planes, and add a bend, which I bake out in xnormal as a bent normal map, that can be used in marmoset in the anisotropic direction map slots.  Occasionally people paint these maps, but this method produces similar results and is much faster.

                After baking (naming the planes fur_1_low, fur_2_low etc) i add a few edge loops to the planes, allowing me to ever so slightly bend the original planes, and twist them, to give it slightly more variety than a flat plane.  It basically affects how the light will hit each plane, when slightly bent, this gives a much more dynamic look.  

After exporting these planes, I use the alpha map and import the planes as the fbx, and the low poly geo of the Roman, to Zbrush, add the alpha of the hair as a texture, adjusting the transparency to suit, then create the most dense one as a IMM brush, and then Nanomesh.  If the initial geo, the pants and arms, already have the texture applied, it is easy in Zbrush to visualise, and adjust the planes in the nano mesh settings to add a decent variety. 

                This basically gives you a base of planes of one plane, which you can import back into Maya, and populate by hand the rest of the planes to add more variety. 

                It’s a quick method, but effective.  Reducing the time of populating by 3 quarters. 

                Finally, and testing in marmoset, the pants and arms are smoothed using a transfer attributes in maya, by selecting the bottom geo, and then the planes (combined into one)  this allows the smoothness to follow the direction of the smoothing of the initial geo, and produces better results. 

                Again, I wont go into hair, since there are better tutorials out there.  The Ploom for the helmet was created again with hair planes and xgen, but populated by hand and tested in marmoset throughout. 

                Apart from that, another cute trick I like to use when creating characters using marmoset, is fake Peach fuzz.  I create this by either using xgen or zbrush fur, and sculpting small hair strands around all visible skin, such as face and arms, and in line with how the small hair would flow.  I paint the hair white, and skin black, and then  bake this in marmoset using again the low poly and this as a high.  

Giving me a alpha map of hair around the body.  This I add to substance when texturing, sometimes slightly in the skin layer, but mainly in my fuzz layer, that I can plug into marmoset later, as a slight edge highlight.  In affect a similar way, but game ready peach fuzz.

I keep it subtle, but if the light hits it right, some of those edge hairs will be picked up, giving it that added realism.  

                Ok the final Blog I will post in a few days, with how I set up the lighting, pose and prepped the final assets to create the imagery below.  This stage is not really needed when creating the model for a company, a tpose well lit and rendered will do (dependent on studio), but for portfolio I feel it’s a necessary to make the piece much more interesting and dynamic. 

                Anyway good luck with your own models and see you in a few days! 

                Adam

Hi,

                I finished the texturing for the Roman today, so wanted to share the model so far, and the texture sheets etc.  I still need to do all the hair, and fur elements.  Buts its coming along.

                Before delving into the imagery, for a nice guide to the texturing process, I would usually begin with ids set up, and simply add base textures of one layer with a block colour, and rough/metal value and test it in my chosen renderer (in this case marmoset and texturing in substance).  After that, if happy, build upon it with finer textures, ao maps, edge and cavity etc.  Until you have a area of texture well defined that you are happy with.  I feel this is a area a good 10 minute video will be valuable for and useful for others, so will create one at a later date.

                Anyway here is the model with finished textures.   Its still WIP I need to do the hair.  And after that the final poses for portfolio.