Creature modeling pipeline!?

Adrian Pieroni

You've gotta help me, fair folk of this realm!

I need to create a creature from scratch for an assignment.
I use Maya and Zbrush
My initial plan was to both start and complete the high-res in Zbrush via ZSpheres + ZSketch + Unified Mesh until finishing sculpting, and then retopo it to a low-res from scratch with 3D Coat or Maya's new tools. ZSpheres and ZSketch seem difficult to control however when creating the initial major forms for the sculpt from scratch.

My uncertainty in approaching this lays in the fact that I have seen many people approaching things like this with a low poly base mesh in Maya/Max to establish the rough proportions and silhouette first, and then bring it into Zbrush. Is this the "proper" way to approach creature modeling?

I am also unclear on whether or not sub tools will be necessary for this project, and how to approach them if they are. The creature I am creating will be very similar to this:

Would this be one single mesh/sculpt? When is it necessary for something to be a sculpt subtool and/or seperate mesh for the low poly for something like this?

Your input is greatly appreciated, lets get this thread on a roll so it helps others too.

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Sardu

Are you more comfortable in Maya, Zbrush or both? You can block out the major forms of the creature in Maya to your reference image and then import that into Zbrush for the final detailing. Bake your normals and then add them back onto the low poly.

You'll probably want to do the eyes and teeth as separate objects.

NAIMA

One block , multiple sub level , subtools for eyes, tongue, teeths, claws ,spikes and eventually if really needed dermal plaques , all rest can be done in one subtool, eventually use subpolygroups for the different legs , tails, body and head .

Adrian Pieroni

NAIMA wrote: »

One block , multiple sub level , subtools for eyes, tongue, teeths, claws ,spikes and eventually if really needed dermal plaques , all rest can be done in one subtool, eventually use subpolygroups for the different legs , tails, body and head .

Now subpolygroups for different parts of the body, that's what's new to me, I have only seen them used but never set up. It's basically when major parts of the body are separated into different colors that can be isolated for baking purposes? How and /why/ do I use these sub poly groups if I will already be using subtools?

Psyk0

/\drian wrote: »

I am also unclear on whether or not sub tools will be necessary for this project, and how to approach them if they are.

As a general rule, i split models by looking at how they would be constructed in real life. Eyes, teeth, claws, hair, horns,...could all be subtools because they are different "materials", they do not need to connect to the main mesh and some body parts need motion (eyes, tongue, hair etc).

Some portions might need more density to detail correctly, keeping 1 mesh would quickly bring my (old ass) computer to a crawl.

Adrian Pieroni

I'm about to start, and i'm going to take a stab at the Dynamesh method, starting in Zbrush, introducing necessary sub-tools as I need, and a complete re-topo from scratch after. I like the idea of doing this because it's free-form like working with clay, and I don't need to worry about base-meshes and topology until it's finished.

NAIMA

The subpolygroups I used for detailing more freely the model , I can so isolate the legs or head and work on that only , plus some eventual further working tips available on subtools, you can also split the model after andgain more poligon density on the parts if needed.

Adrian Pieroni

I've spent a few hours with Dynamesh roughing out the proportions and overall form. Two questions, how are the proportions looking so far? are the front/back legs feeling too far apart? Also, i've created a sub-tool for blocking out the shoulder plate armor, but i'm not convinced the sub-tool is necessary since couldn't I just make it protrude directly from the shoulder muscles where it will still function appropriately when weight-painted for rigging?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6tjx8mdopbp87c4/beast1.JPG
https://www.dropbox.com/s/aj5jqf42n7nwezu/beast2.JPG
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zg0r61mwa40uu9c/beast3.JPG

NAIMA

The back legs look a bit too tiny compared to the foward ones , the fowards one look a bit too human compared to the picture .
As for the subtool for the plaques why worry if you are going to rig the low poly retopologized one anyway ?

Adrian Pieroni

Are you saying that the low poly model doesn't need to have corresponding separate geometry aka "floaters" and that I can just bake my final high-res sub-tools and all onto one single mesh?

WarrenM

Yep. The low poly mesh can be a single mesh if you want it to be.

arcitecht

I would take full advantage of the new zRemesher features in making your hipoly. Dynamesh and zremesher really are great working in concert with one another. Since you have it blocked out in dynamesh already, you can just use zremesher to make it lower poly and have nice uniform face density while retaining your major shapes. You will lose details of course, but being able to go to that lower poly base and move big forms around will help a lot.

And actually, you could also just duplicate the subtool before zremeshing, that way you can reproject the details back on to the zremeshed base after adding a few subdivision levels.

Adrian Pieroni

arcitecht wrote: »

And actually, you could also just duplicate the subtool before zremeshing, that way you can reproject the details back on to the zremeshed base after adding a few subdivision levels.

How do I go about reprojecting the details?

Adrian Pieroni

^ Nevermind I used this excellent walkthrough! http://henningsanden.com/2013/03/06/reprojecting-details-in-zbrush/

Adrian Pieroni

Alright this is how it's coming so far, i've got all the subtools ironed out and can finally just relax and sculpt whimsically.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/h07n9v12jhy4ia6/beast_WIP.JPG