Sculpting Stylized wood [Zbrush]
polycounter lvl 6
Okay, before I made the post I checked the forums, I've seen SOME posts about stylized wood but none that actually gave me the information I needed.
I'm having difficulties figuring out how to sculpt wood properly, now, I've checked google as well, lots of good Tutorials, but again, not going much into detail they mostly keep it simple.
What I'm looking to do is make stylized wood similar to the picture I have below.
These are perfect patterns I would like to learn how to sculpt, the randomness, the natural look to it, it's perfect.
now, talking about how to do it won't be enough really, I'm more of a visual learner, and I also need to know why certain things are done in a certain way.
Off topic: I'm having a small issue where I put brushes on my ui and when I restart the program they're gone and I have to put them back on my bar.
I'm having difficulties figuring out how to sculpt wood properly, now, I've checked google as well, lots of good Tutorials, but again, not going much into detail they mostly keep it simple.
What I'm looking to do is make stylized wood similar to the picture I have below.
These are perfect patterns I would like to learn how to sculpt, the randomness, the natural look to it, it's perfect.
now, talking about how to do it won't be enough really, I'm more of a visual learner, and I also need to know why certain things are done in a certain way.
Off topic: I'm having a small issue where I put brushes on my ui and when I restart the program they're gone and I have to put them back on my bar.
Replies
Yet to my surprise no one has said anything yet on the subject or directed me to any sources of information, which is surprising since a lot of people on here seem to use Zbrush for their works... I've tried google but *shrugs* not much help when I can't really describe what I'm trying to do without images.
I wanna be able and to know how to sculpt the wood to look similar to those textures...
The other two images look like they were 2D hand-painted in Photoshop.
It's difficult to provide guidance without knowing your current knowledge level, which is most clearly communicated by showing examples of your work. That's why TeriyakiStyle asked.
Here's what I would suggest, watch and follow along with these, try to replicate these techniques in your own model:
http://pixologic.com/zclassroom/workshop/how-to-start-in-zbrush
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/TexturingTutorials#Painting_Stylistic_Textures
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/EnvironmentSculpting
http://artbypapercut.com/
"I used to have horrible cars, because I never had money, so I'd always end up broken down on the highway. When I stood there trying to flag someone down, nobody stopped. But when I pushed my own car, other drivers would get out and push with me. If you want help, help yourself—people like to see that."
People aren't always going to be there to hold your hand, and it's usually way easier to tell people what they're doing wrong than it is to hold their hand and explain shit to them. Nobody wants to write a tutorial for someone who has put zero effort in.
In response to your actual question, all three of your references look like they were hand painted not sculpted. The top one looks similar to something I gave feedback on a while ago that you may find useful. If you want good references of sculpted wood I would suggest looking at Michael Vicente's work on Artstation. His sculpting work is very minimal and if I were to try it myself I'd probably just dynamesh and smooth a big shape then run his Crack Brush through it with Lazymouse to create the grooves.
That's all I have to suggest, no ones gonna make you a video tutorial step by step telling you how to do it. Put some of your own effort in before you complain that no one is helping you.
I would suggest Orb's crack brush from Michael Vicente, Trim dynamic, HPolish, and Clay/Claybuildup brushes to get started. I've been sculpting some really intricate tiling wood meshes recently that have to tile on themselves and I've only had to use these brushes to do everything.
Start building the larger forms with Claybuildup/Clay brushes, continuing to soft the noise/artifacts with shift (smooth). Use trim dynamic brushes to cut angular forms, HPolish will help tremendously with avoiding uneven, wobbly planar surfaces. Digging into surfaces with Clay brush (hold alt) and then sharpening these carved forms with trimdynamic/hpolish will help get the crispness back. Using DamStandard brush and Orb's crack brush will help you define exaggerated wood grain.
Wood takes time, especially sculpted, stylized wood. You gotta jump in and try the brushes to know what others are even talking about.
The top one I used more clay build up to define the grain direction but I felt like because I did this I wasn't able to get the grain density and flow I liked from the first attempt. I have the say though I feel like the second attempt really hits the mark on "Stylized" wood.
I really wanna work on making things slope/bend better like in the reference I used. I Suggest opening the images in another tab to get a closer look.
Try Trim Smooth border. It's not loaded by default so you have to load brush and find it in the trim folder of the zbrushes folder in pixologic directory.
Note: (I used Clip Curve to get the first two, this is what I would like to achieve with a brush rather than a tool I have to perfectly angle and position)
This is what I'm getting with trim smooth dynamic and trim dynamic:
Not very graceful...