Sculpting Wood

Oniram

hey all,

ive been overlooking PhilipK's tutorial on sculpting wood.

http://philipk.net/tutorials/materials/woodrough/woodrough.html

and generally im having a hard time grasping how the grain is achieved through projection master. whenever i go to draw the wood cracks, projection master makes rough looking squares from the alpha all over the place. especially when using ZSub. just wondering if there was a specific technique i needed to be doing or a setting im missing with a brush. if anyone has tried this with success, or generally if u know the "right" way to do this.. id appreciate the help.

Oniram

k. so here is my mesh. subdivided in zbrush to have 500k points (just as philipk has). and when i go to start drawing in projection master, it comes out looking faceted anyway.


ALSO A SIDE-NOTE!!!!
im not sculpting zoomed in at that size.. i am zoomed all the way out so i can see the whole mesh. i just did a small part for the screenshot

iconoplast

Up above the slider for the brush size is a slider that says "Focal Shift" -- change that from 0 to somewhere around 75 and see if that works better for you.

Oniram

yeah did that. thought it might work because i realized i missed that from the tutorial, but apparently it gives the same result. im wondering, is there any way to adjust the freehand stroke to draw more alphas per stroke.. if that makes any sense..like, if i drag slowly, it will draw an alpha every (approximating) 30-50 pixels. im wondering if i can increase that amount.


EDIT: just answered my own question. i was able to change the spacing in the freehand stroke during projection. it helps a bit i guess, but i think i still need to just find a way to refine my sculpting for this.


here is what ive got with the focal shift, same thing.

cryrid

What alpha are you using for those strokes?

Oniram

alpha06. its supposed to be just a circle that softens at the edges, but it squares off in projection master. seems that every alpha in projection master does that.

Tavor

Can we get a pic of the entire screen? Are you using mallet fast or the brush described in the tutorial?

cryrid

Tavor wrote: »

Can we get a pic of the entire screen? Are you using mallet fast or the brush described in the tutorial?

Let me modify that request. Enter projection master, lay down a few strokes using alpha06, open/ dock the alpha palette, and take a screenshot of that while the tool is still dropped to the canvas. My current theory is that for some reason, your values have changed once entering projection master.

Oniram

this pass i had a bit of better luck with this, due to some stroke settings, however i am getting a layering effect, im wondering if it is the mallet fast brush causing this.


@Tavor: to do the edges, as described in the 4th picture of the tutorial.. i dont use mallet fast. i generally use clay or trim-adaptive for softening edges.. just a personal method and it generally yields the same results. in the next step i see that he is using the slash brush, with freehand, and alpha06. i noticed a huge difference in alphas with slash, as opposed to most any other brush.. such as mallet fast.

@cryrid: here u go.




thanks again for all of you who are taking the time to help me on this.

cryrid

The alpha looks better now (though the spacing/mouse average sliders shouldn't have anything to do with the squared problem you were having earlier).

The Mallet Brush wont be doing anything in Projection Master as it is a 3d brush, at the moment you're using the 'single layer brush' tool instead (as seen on the right). Are you using a tablet by any chance? Pressure sensativity can cause it to layer like that (whereas a mouse will keep even different strokes consistently level, unless the z intensity is changed between strokes)

Oniram

aha! yeah the tablet is causing that. well generally, it seems like the issue is solved. thanks a lot for the help.