Hard surface sculpting using as much zbrush as possible
polycounter lvl 6
Like the title says im gonna try and model as much as possible using only zbrush.
So far these meshes are just dynameshed cubes and spheres.
Gonna retop them and create nice clean topology for hipoly loveliness
Concept by Oskar Pavlovskis
Beauty Render
So far these meshes are just dynameshed cubes and spheres.
Gonna retop them and create nice clean topology for hipoly loveliness
Concept by Oskar Pavlovskis
Beauty Render
Replies
Still just using zbrush
Note: Left kneepad is only placeholder until i fix the other one
The boots at the ankle look a bit stiff and cylindrical. There's a bigger cascading overlap in concept that I think is key to get for the silhouette.
The knee area of this guy also looks kinda skinny.
Bang up job on the helmet design and the collar piece. Like it.
Are you adding tread onto the shoes too?
I think you're missing a strap that connects to the rigid back piece. It travels across over some rhomboid muscles and over the rear delts to the shoulder armor. It looks as if it tethers the back piece securely to the shoulder pieces giving it a greater sense of connectivity.
maybe add more depth to the inlay for the light on the back pack and other features on it. It looks to be at one level of depth at the moment. The concept looks as though it's more stratified (not sure its the best word to use) it would make it much more interesting, like the chest piece. the chest has like 6 different height levels to it, where as the back has one or two.
the progress is looking good. Happy to see it coming together.
hope I've pointed out some good sheeiittt. If you want clarification, let me know too.
If you need anims, also let me know.
-Warren
Another update, still a couple more things that need to be fixed.
The feet seem a little too short to me.. maybe try and stretch it out just a little bit. It might also be distortion from the perspective, so i'm not sure.
I don't have any capture software but if you guys don't mind looking at pics and reading a bit I'll make a written tutorial.
Essynim - I rendered out the body suit for you. Maybe this shows the lines better without all the armor on top. I see what your saying but the concept of the body looks relatively flat and tightly pressed together.
I gave it a shot at separating the armor a bit but it looked very bulgy and balloon like... I agree that although it looks nice in the concept something is missing in 3d. I will try and tackle this soon and add do something about this. Thanks for the positive critique.
Changed the beast plate chest armor , bodysuit bicep/tricep area(armor now sits in the suit instead of on top), kneepads, boots.
Overall i think it looks much better and closer to the concept.
@Benton - i love working in zbrush but I still think the best, cleanest and most optomized hard surface work comes from a modelling package like max. It might be because I'm more used to using Max for hard surface but I'm still having a great time getting to know these new tools in zbrush.
@PyrZern - I'm trying to follow the concept image I have at the first post. I've already made some significant changes to the body suit but I agree that the lines may look better vertical rather than horiztonal.
The gluteus maximus has a distinct diagonal appearance. The original concept follows this, but on yours they're horizontal. They also flow down into the sides of the thigh in the original concept.
Butt update
Maybe the eventual diffuse map might help.
Edit: Also i didn't realize that the image was so small until after the upload.
@JadeEyePanda - I wasn't too happy with the boots over the last couple days and i have made them a little smaller. Although you didn't suggest to make them smaller it was a good eye as they were a tad too big.
But in the end: Great work!
I was wondering if i could get some peoples opinions on this. Do you think following a concept exactly (or very closely) is better, or is it better to show that you can change something to make it look better than in the concept?
And i totally agree that you shouldn'tfolov concept to the smallest detail try diferent things
Should i make this all one mesh and bake it all together (obviously the head would be separate)
Should i break it up into chunks and retop those individually ie. torso/back armor, boots, helmet, crotch armor/belt... keep these main pieces separate would seem the best as some of the armor is floating off the body suit and might create artifacts when baking....
Anyone with experience or knowledge with this can ya please let me know what approach i should take?
everything that is clearly floating seperate, everything else as one skin. it will not be skinned as rigids anyways so you don't need every piece of armor to be seperate
I looked around at some current games and how they retop'd their characters and i was surprised at how many unique pieces of geometry were being used instead of combining them into fewer meshes. With that in mind I still want to show I can do this with just a few pieces of geo instead of 20 different pieces.
Progress so far.
this is what happens to me when i use the max retop tools
Still need to retop the head inside the helmet
Can't seem to fix this bad bake crap.
this is the wireframe... do i need to add more poly for this to bake properly? I'm not sure because if you look near the bottom of the knee pad where there's that little arch there's this happening all over that place as well.
I broke my UV seams to match the smoothing groups and the edges look like shit. But if i have only 2 smoothing groups (1 for the back of the kneepad and one for the front area) i get realy nice edges but the flat pieces are a little eff'd up.
Not really sure where to go from here. Kinda frustrated and hope maybe someone can give me a pointer.
lowpoly bake. Couple places need to be fixed but overall it took pretty well