My Zbrush Sculpting Adventure/learning thread.

Hayden Zammit

Going to start learning how to make human characters, starting with heaps of zbrush heads. Eventually I want to be able to make full characters.

I know Zbrush a little, but I've mostly used it for hard surface stuff.

I plan on just posting it all here in this thread. Not sure if that's allowed or not, so if any mods are reading, let me know.

Anyway, here's my first attempt. Started with a box and made this head. Reading a bit on dynamesh and trying to understand it, but its a bit over my head at the moment.

Anyway, here's my first attempt. I was trying to sculpt a male, but somehow ended up with something much more female looking.

There's these weird points that I can't smooth out. They are right where the bolder lines meet. Anyone know what the heck this is?

Obscura

Meeting of the ends of edgeloops. I think starting with sphere would be better, but a basemesh would be more better.

Hayden Zammit

Meeting of the ends of edgeloops. I think starting with sphere would be better, but a basemesh would be more better.

Damn. I was hoping there was a way to fix that other than starting again.

Ruz

as Obscura said it might be better to start from a basemesh or at least add a little more detail to the one you have there. why do you have to start again? that's what retopo is for

Obscura

Maybe there is, but i dont know how, sry But i think its because of the topology. Thats because i said, using good topologized basemesh would be the best and easiest way to get good geo/shading

Hayden Zammit

as Obscura said it might be better to start from a basemesh or at least add a little more detail to the one you have there. why do you have to start again? that's what retopo is for

Alright, I'll look into retopology in zbrush. I've done it with Topogun before. Hoping its similar.

SeanO'Connor

Those ends are known as poles--where more or less than 4 edges meet at a single vertex. These are problematic because they cannot be smoothed using the normal algorithm. Fortunately, ZBrush has a nice hidden smoothing feature that can help somewhat:

While holding shift you shall smooth normally, but if you let go of shift without lifting the pen you will activate the alternative algorithm. I think this is called topological smooth, but I may be wrong.

Dynamesh is volume based. To help wrap your head around it, imagine it like 3D pixels. Every time you re-dynamesh, many of these are used to analyze the space your model occupies, and it creates a perfect mesh for sculpting as a result. This as opposed to relying on subdivision, freeing you from topology, but at the cost of fine detail. Space and volume as opposed to edgeflow.

Definitely, for starting with faces, know the skull. Muscles, especially those around the mouth, are very important. Fat on the face can completely change a character too--usually more fat = softer = more feminine. I can see some basic skull shapes in your head, but the proportions need some work. The muzzle needs to sit back further into the face, and the brow and nose could come out further.

Sculpting a face from scratch and developing the eye to properly judge its proportions may very well be the hardest thing one can do as a 3D artist.

Popol

You don't have to start again ^^

solution 1 : maybe you have already tried this but to get a better smoothing brush press maj, start smoothing and while still smoothing release the maj key. It usually gets rid of annoying pinches.

solution 2 : copy your sculpt. Run dynamesh on one of the copy at low res. Divide the dynamesh you just got and project it on the other copy. That way you get a dynamesh with several levels of subdivision so it's super easy to sculpt!

solution 3 : make a retopo of this sculpt with a nice topology (check the wiki if you don't know what a good face topology is : http://wiki.polycount.com/FaceTopology?highlight=%28\bCategoryTopology\b%29 ). And just project it on you sculpt.

Solution 2 is by far the best one in my opinion because it's fast and easy.

Hope that helps!

Hayden Zammit

While holding shift you shall smooth normally, but if you let go of shift without lifting the pen you will activate the alternative algorithm. I think this is called topological smooth, but I may be wrong.

Thanks. That sorted out those poles.

Dynamesh is volume based. To help wrap your head around it, imagine it like 3D pixels. Every time you re-dynamesh, many of these are used to analyze the space your model occupies, and it creates a perfect mesh for sculpting as a result. This as opposed to relying on subdivision, freeing you from topology, but at the cost of fine detail. Space and volume as opposed to edgeflow.

The way I'm practicing at the moment is: I'll start with just a cube, then subdivide and start blocking in the forms, and just keep adding detail the as I subdivide. I like being able to go back down like five levels and change the basic structure at will.

With Dynamesh. can you still do that?

Sculpting a face from scratch and developing the eye to properly judge its proportions may very well be the hardest thing one can do as a 3D artist. I certainly have a lot of trouble with it.

yeah, just found that out. It is hard.

Popol - Thanks. Going to try method 2. I already got it fixed, but I want to see how it works.

Anyway, here's the head currently. I need to work on my understanding of the skull. I think I might sculpt one next.

Hayden Zammit

Started following a Digital Tutors tutorial on how to make a heroine. Kinda just watching what he does and applying the techniques to a character of my own. Still super early. Really liking that clay buildup brush.

Hayden Zammit

Gone back and looked into the various ways of making a base mesh.

I know I'll have to retopo when I eventually want to make the low res game versions, but should I be able to sculpt out the entire high poly from this base mesh?