Whats a good workflow for those who can't sculpt?

Dklang

I mainly do hard surfaces in maya. The tools i can use are maya, mudbox (new to sculpting), photoshop with texturing and normals plugins. I just dont know if i should pick up zbrush quickly for sculpting high poly or should i mainly depend on "sculpting" in photoshop? Its pretty confusing. This is mainly for games but im looking to have detailed environments.

SuperFranky

I don't think you can do much of detailed environments without good sculpting skills.

SanderDL

Substance designer?

Dklang

just mainly those and the quixel plugins. is sculpting in zbrush or texturing in photoshop easier for a beginner? i could try learning sculptris since its free, but would it be worth it?

WarrenM

You can't sculpt anything in Photoshop beyond basic surface details. If you want to have sculpted details that affect the silhouette of your mesh, you're going to have to learn to sculpt.

DireWolf

If you already have Mudbox you can play with that and see how far you can get. It can produce pretty good sculpts.

Dklang

WarrenM wrote: »

If you want to have sculpted details that affect the silhouette of your mesh, you're going to have to learn to sculpt.

I don't know, its for games but want it to look like those AAA games. Is there a good tutorial for all this btw?

Joost

Zbrush is very intuitive and easy to pick up so just try it out.

http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/EnvironmentSculpting
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/TexturingTutorials
https://www.3dmotive.com
http://eat3d.com/

WarrenM

Dklang

You said you have Mudbox so ... why not just use that? ZBrush is better, IMO, but Mudbox is certainly capable enough to handle the job.

Count Vertsalot

Just start out by sculpting rocks. It's really hard to mess that up. Do that to experiment with various sculpting brushes to see what they do.

Dklang

the issue is can i learn that in a couple of weeks time? there is Mudbox, I still cant grasp my way around it, wondering if zbrush or sculptris are any better? my no. 1 choice right now is photoshop because i at least got experience with it. And what would be the fastest workflow? like what are the steps most people take when they start with maya?

lets take one of the arts in the banner for example, does something like this need zbrush, for that mech: https://cdn.artstation.rocks/p/assets/images/images/000/321/673/large/ray-le-2.jpg?1416994990

BagelHero

Hold up. Why are you so rushed?

You will need to learn how to sculpt eventually. For any organic detailing (big dents, rocks, foliage, wood more often than not), it's more than just "handy", it's almost required and speeds up the process ten fold. Things like Substance Designer can really bypass or help this step along, but I recommend not touching it until you know the basics of modelling and sculpting first.

Zbrush is really good, but if you can't find Mudbox intuitive I can't help but feel Zbrush will lose you right now. It's really notorious for its... different UI choices. Combined with the whole no demo thing, I think for now you could just stick with Mudbox until you understand the process.

Photoshop isn't a sculpting program, you can only texture in it. Editing normals in it can only do so much.

But yeah, back to my point, why do you feel the need to be so fast right now?

DireWolf

Learning to sculpt and learning to use software are 2 different thing. I'm sure you can find your way around Mudbox in a couple hours of practice. Zbrush maybe a day or 2. But to master the art of sculpting... that will be a long journey.

Tiles

You could always hire an artist that knows how to sculpt ^^

One of the easiest sculpting apps i have used so far is Sculptris. It's free to get at the Pixologic page. It's a bit basic nowadays. But exactly this gives you a really low entry barrer to sculpting.

http://pixologic.com/sculptris/

Dklang

im mainly doing futuristic environments, not foliage at the moment. Devices like guns and what not are important. trying to figure out whether to do normals in photoshop or sculpt it in mudbox i guess. I plan to learn in the future but need to know what to do at the moment. I guess the question on my mind is do i need to sculpt when i could just texture? Im not a concept artist, just modeling assets. Is substance designer like ddo?

I see there is a good list of tutorials here, would anyone also recommend i check digital tutors or lynda?

Dklang

lets say i do sculpting in mudbox because its good for beginners, what general steps to take?

model in maya basic shape -> add carvings in mudbox? or

model in maya high poly as possible -> add details you cant do with polygons in mudbox?

or

model in maya high poly -> do normals in photoshop and materials -> add details in mudbox?


the enviroment im doing is pretty much metal and machines, but i like to high poly my models as much as i can, its easier than "drawing" details.