Having trouble with a rock workflow

meshfx

Hey all,  I am trying my hand at a rock workflow and really and coming up with a dud result pretty much all the time.. my rocks always look really soft.  The gist that I follow is...   using something like what I attached, I subdivide it a few times then use trimdynamic to take off all the sharp edges.  I 'try' and then use claybuildup or claytubes to add all sorts of lumps and bumps to the surface and then trimdynamic again to form new angles from that.  I end up just flattening the surface to next to nothing and you can always see the edge of where the clay brushes were used.  The image attached is pretty much the sort of result I always end up with..  just over the whole thing.  I am not sure if I am using too few or too many polys for this sort of thing or I need to be messing with the alpha on the brushes.. I just use what ZB comes with as the brush settings.  I have watched so many vids but there are so many techniques I think I lose myself trying to come up with a workflow.  The sort of rocks I am trying to achieve is what can be seen here;

https://cdn0.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/002/380/020/large/michael-vicente-03.jpg?1461037026

I would love to hear from anyone with even just a dot point suggestion on what I can change.  The attachment is what I start with, the image is the mess I get into..  can anyone steer me right?  

Greatly appreciate it.

musashidan

You can approach this like you approach sculpting anything else, by starting with the primary/large/silhouette forms. Before you start chipping away corners and adding cracks try to establish the silhouette. Zmodeler/crease/dynamic subdiv is a good way to quickly experiment nondestructively at this stage. If you study the example you're aiming for you can  break  it down this way into its primary forms.

Are you using reference?

Lamont

Even if it's just a rock, use reference like Musashidan says. Below is how I usually work on rocks (or anything that is natural)

Red is my base shape, once I am happy with that, I move on to green, then when green is kinda how I want, I move on to blue, the more finer details of the rock that give it the "hard" look. Make use of the Fast Mallet/trims. Look at the type of rock you are making, fill up a bunch of ref for it and if it helps, draw your large, medium and fine detail on the image so you get your mind in the flow of things.

meshfx

so if the red is the outline of the obj that I attached..  so that is my base shape, what would you use as the green area to get the various shapes, extrusions, edges etc?  Also, would you be using dynamesh or just subdviding to get more polys in play?

musashidan

Don't get too hung up on the brushes. Experiment. Usually people use any of the clay/trim brushes (look in lightbox for other useful ones) Hpolish, Flatten, mallet, gouge, orb cracks, dam stamdard, slash 3. Try them all. Both sub/add (add/sub combo with trI'm dynamic gives nice results) And of course any of the move brushes(make use of AccuCurve for sharper movements) are also vital to establishing silhouette. Pinch brush to sharpen corners.

@lamont advice is great. This is the way you should be breaking down refs.

meshfx

thanks for the info.  I am still just not getting the shapes like the link I added to the original ticket, just can't seem to pull the faces like that, the edges etc.  I will keep bumbling through.  @musashidan I subscribed to your youtube channel also, may pull out some tips from there.