Reallusion Character Design - 3levan
polycounter lvl 5
I'm completely new to 3D so I thought I'd give this a try as it seems like fun!
My character is based on old references and concept I collected but I'll be making some clothing changes and adding gear to improve it.
Unfortunately not having a clue what I was doing with CC I only have one export left on the trial. I couldn't quite get the body shape I wanted (skinnier legs and flat chest) so I brought it into Zbrush as I've been mucking around in that recently.
I really liked CC for getting a quick base with UV's (because I have no idea how to unwrap..yet!) and how easy it was to make new body morphs. I think eyelids need a lot more options , it was really easy to ruin these in Zbrush because of the lashes but there wasn't quite the control i wanted in CC.
I did a quick mock-up of the base clothes and hair just to make sure the shapes are right. I started sculpting the lips and skin but I need to learn how to export normal maps and bring it back into iClone. Trying to find tutorials tonight.
Looking forward to building awesome hair and seeing how it animates in iClone. I'm saving my final export for the fbx.
My character is based on old references and concept I collected but I'll be making some clothing changes and adding gear to improve it.
Unfortunately not having a clue what I was doing with CC I only have one export left on the trial. I couldn't quite get the body shape I wanted (skinnier legs and flat chest) so I brought it into Zbrush as I've been mucking around in that recently.
I really liked CC for getting a quick base with UV's (because I have no idea how to unwrap..yet!) and how easy it was to make new body morphs. I think eyelids need a lot more options , it was really easy to ruin these in Zbrush because of the lashes but there wasn't quite the control i wanted in CC.
I did a quick mock-up of the base clothes and hair just to make sure the shapes are right. I started sculpting the lips and skin but I need to learn how to export normal maps and bring it back into iClone. Trying to find tutorials tonight.
Looking forward to building awesome hair and seeing how it animates in iClone. I'm saving my final export for the fbx.
Replies
Found this tutorial super awesome!
PS: Very cool model!
You sir, are a lifesaver! I had no idea i could do that.
Not much progress today as I had trouble finding good hair texture tutorials.. and had a rendering issue in maya that a friend had to help me fix. Finally chugging away at this now, did some test textures but I need to learn to paint hair. Im really struggling with the maya interface and keep finding myself back in zbrush which isnt ideal.
I also realised why i never see this haircut used in games that use this style of modelling. Because its a freaking nightmare.. i might start sweeping her fringe more to the left. I wanted it to be choppy but i might try curling in the tips of the fringe as hair naturally does with a looser cut.
Face look ....... so cute with natural hair.
Happy modelling and animation.
I don't know if you ever ended up finding a hair tutorial that you liked, but this one is pretty good:
http://www.3dartistonline.com/news/2015/04/how-do-i-create-real-time-hair-for-games/
I'm nearly done with the high poly for the trousers so I did a quick UV unwrap and generated a normal map to test in CC.
Unfortunately my character OBJ will no longer import and i have no idea why, losing a lot of my facial work so i've made a proxy mesh until I can figure out how to fix that. Im quite happy with the import and had some fun mucking around with it in CC : D
Im not really sure what would be better as some of the creases are quite severe.. should I have the topology follow the folds better or create nice verticals (what I've done so far) for easier texturing? What I have seems ok for the normal map but i figure it would be better if there wasnt so much diagonal folds conflicting with the topology?
-edit-
Been messing around with my diffuse in photoshop. I think im going to have to do alot of wear around the trim. Ive made the inside pocket and part of the back a thicker leather like on the left.. but I need to get the overall texture matching the thinner fabric I've sculpted.
Im still downloading iClone so I dropped her into mixamo for funsies
It's all looking good!
This tutorial has been really helpful
Also the CC devs got back to me real quick about my import issue :pleased: Brilliant support!
Turns out the objects in my file were named wrong, I had no idea, my zbrush file is a mess. But now its resolved I can spend tomorrow getting all the finished bits into CC to play around with! I'm already happy with the material editor, I manage to get the trousers looking exactly as I wanted despite the diffuse still just being a lazy texture.
At this point im a bit worried about how long this is taking me and I still dread the hair. Everyone else is so much faster :0 I hope I can finish in time
I keep getting a "failed to load the file" error when trying to import my .fbx file. Even brand new clean exports wont load back in after.. im probably doing something silly but i just cant figure out what im doing diffrently from yesterday.. hmmm
So I've spent the weekend devouring every fibermesh tutorial I could. Sadly the grooming tools seem well conceived for curly hair but not perfectly straight. I figured out I can do a lot with masking and transpose which is awesome because i was pretty close to giving in and creating a messier hairstyle for her. This is where i am so far:
My only real problem is poly count as she's currently at 80k. If i can keep her under 200k I can still render my turntable and anims okay.. my poor little computer wants to melt but I did a test and it does work :proud:
I really wanted to try win the vive and this might have made that difficult for me. I was going to build a 3d scene for her to wander around in... but Im not sure how such a high poly count will affect her real time performance. Its going to be down to time to see if i can build a low poly mesh from the fibermesh in maya that Im happy with.
I've been doing some iclone tutorials so once onyx is in i can light and animate her : D
-update-
Quite happy with the hair now, took a ton of ref and styling to get it looking even semi realistic. I dont have fly away hairs in yet but i want to keep the poly count as low as possible for now. I need to take it into maya next. The back is a mess but Im going to use xgen/nhair to generate that with physics. I should be able to easilly take that into iclone to weight for animation. I've also been working on my high poly for her body but its not worth showing yet.
Been thinking about her environment too and so far i've settled on an empty subway. Like this with the lighting really low
I'm trying to not do the same lips I always seem to draw, so before I break her symmetry I went back into iClone and messed around with her a bit before bringing her back into zbrush. It looks really different.. a bit wider? I assume this is due to an FOV diffrence, something i still need to look into with iClone. I've started the high poly and given her lips more detail. The pores dont really show up and the eyes still need a lot of work. I used the UV's as a guide and isolated the parts of the head I need to generate a normal map to bring back into CC : D
-Alex
D.T
Your tutorial was amazing! I never knew how to work with curves before i found it. Unfortunately I couldnt figure out how to texture the hair in a way i liked using polygon modelling but curves and your final render pass in maya have been really useful
An update from tonight. Quite happy with how the skin is coming along. Loads to do! I need to export the eyes properly from CC so i can get the diffuse to edit. Really happy with the lips and eye highlights. the eyelids need alot of work yet though. I want to get the lashes back in asap.
I think her skin needs more imperfections to look natural. some moles, scabs and spots. I gave her a little nerve damage in her cheeks as if shes been exposed to the elements so i need to show that in other ways. nose ridge needs more definition in the skin modelling.
Just did these to get a feel for the character. She's working in CC again (thanks Reallusion!)so I want want to bring in her normal map tomorrow.
Like yourself I keep changing a lot of my work flow as I'm not sure the best route.
I've spent the last week doing a few pipeline tests and have decided on what I think might be the best course of action for me.
My biggest problem is that I'm not a fan of low poly geometry, I want everything to be a bazillion polys. Using normal maps just isn't giving me what I want. So I've decided to use a proxy mesh system like what animated movies do.
I think this just looks horrible, its not maya or CC's fault because my computer would melt if i tried building a high poly character in either and its unnecessary if i dont really care if the character has realtime application. Im more interested in the best possible rendering for animation. But i can still use IC and CC to get everything else i need for animation efficiently.
So here is my plan:
- Keep building the character between CC and Zbrush.
- Use CC to create a low poly mesh. My high poly will be decimated and reprojected onto the low poly for normal maps and ao for the low poly and eventually bringing into maya.
-Build my environment in maya.
-Export her hair from zbrush as curves and rebuild in maya.
-Bring my environment and low poly character into iClone to compose and animate.
-Use iClones facial animation tools as they seem awesome, especially puppet.
-Export everything back out and into maya.
-Do my final render with renderman in maya using RIB archiving so my low poly proxy will be swapped out with the high poly.
I've chosen renderman because I absolutely love some of the basic lighting it provides and its free for non commercial use. RIB archiving also provides exactly what i need.
My only real concern is how well the skinning works as i don't fully understand it, CC has really done all the heavy lifting for me and I'm a little concerned that if something breaks I wont know how to fix it. So over the next few days I'm doing to finish the high poly for her naked body and run it through this pipeline before i continue adding bits.
This was just a basic test to check it worked. I also got renderman working but I have a lot to learn about materials and lighting. Sub surface scattering is giving me problems.
I've also decided to redesign my clothes, I think I can do a lot better than the original concept. I want the character to be less tacticool and more 80s cyberpunk street gang. I've abandoned anything military and replaced it with streetwear or the sort of armor civilians can buy. Originally I was just going to give her a sukajan jacket and it just sort of developed from there.
I also did some work on her teeth because It interested me to make them more lifelike I guess?
Not entirely necessary but as im still learning it feels like each new object has tons of stuff i need to learn about. Couldn't figure out how to get teeth transparency or SSS but here they are from renderman.
Part of it might just be personal taste changing over the years. Maybe I didn't realise how sick I was of military fashion blends until I had to sit and build pouches and rigging :P I think that's just what I've been most comfortable designing as most jobs I've had request that sort of thing.
this will hopefully give her a more interesting silhouette for animation. I've also set up the UV's for the jacket in a way that means I can generate planes of the basic shapes and use cloth sim. So maybe I'll do that after the competition as I doubt I'll have time beforehand.