Maya sculpting - possible to use levels like in zbrush/mudbox?

PollySong

Hi. I'm applying for a job where they use Maya for sculpting blendshapes and I'm coming from Modo/Max/Mudbox/Zbrush, so I basically know nothing about Maya. My question: is it at all possible to sculpt using something that behaves like levels in MB/ZB? I found some confusing tutorials that sounded like maybe perhaps something I could use, but I'm using 2019 and nothing they show in the tuts are in the same place as my version.
Thanks.

Alex_J

nope, nothing like that in maya. But you don't have to do the sculpting in maya. You can sculpt in zbrush or mudbox and export as blendshapes.

pior

Furthermore, there is no need for sculpting at high subdivision levels when creating blendshapes anyways (besides checking what the model looks like after subdivision).

You'll be passed a medium density model that behaves well when subdivided, and the blendhshape sculpting will consist of making the model express various emotions and mouth phonemes. No subdivision levels involved here, which is probably precisely why they do it in Maya (with no need to get the model out of the pipeline) rather than in an external sculpting app. It is of course possible to do so (Mudbox and Blender are both fantastic at that) but not necessary.

They probably even have their own custom set of brushes/specialized tools to help with the process.

Of course you could take the model and sculpt it/subdivide it as much as you want in Zbrush/Mudbox to previsualize the look of a given expression as a highres sculpt, but that's not what blendshape sculpting usually means (unless we're talking about blendshapes that also come with their own baked wrinkle maps, but that's a whole other topic altogether.)

PollySong

pior said:

Furthermore, there is no need for sculpting at high subdivision levels when creating blendshapes anyways (besides checking what the model looks like after subdivision).

You'll be passed a medium density model that behaves well when subdivided, and the blendhshape sculpting will consist of making the model express various emotions and mouth phonemes. No subdivision levels involved here, which is probably precisely why they do it in Maya (with no need to get the model out of the pipeline) rather than in an external sculpting app. It is of course possible to do so (Mudbox and Blender are both fantastic at that) but not necessary.

They probably even have their own custom set of brushes/specialized tools to help with the process.

Of course you could take the model and sculpt it/subdivide it as much as you want in Zbrush/Mudbox to previsualize the look of a given expression as a highres sculpt, but that's not what blendshape sculpting usually means (unless we're talking about blendshapes that also come with their own baked wrinkle maps, but that's a whole other topic altogether.)

Thanks! That's exactly what I was looking for.