Altar of Dark Magic, Looking to improve my sculpt
polycounter lvl 8
Hey everyone,
I just did a piece to practice working with Zbrush more and I started with Franny Vergne's tutorial on sculpting and then took it a bit further with my own design. I don't have a personal interest in doing hand-painted or heavily stylized stuff for my own work so I just focused on her sculpting sections to see what I could learn from it, but this is what I ended up with. Real-time game prop rendered in Toolbag 3.
Franny's tutorial https://www.artstation.com/artwork/bamPwa
This was my final render in toolbag, my workflow was base mesh in max, sculpt in Zbrush, low poly and UV in max and then bake and texture with Substance Painter and Designer. My wireframe looks a little dense because I usually work a little higher to get cleaner bakes and then go back and remove some edge loops for my in-game version if needed. The UV's for the platform are split down the middle to share space, so I couldn't add too much variation around as it made the symmetry very obvious, so I tried to make everything subtle with the textures except for the two runes on the right which have their own islands.
Since I mostly worked off my own design I didn't have a great reference to work from and I initially didn't think I was going to add the centerpiece to the stairs so I think personally moving forward for me will be to make sure I have a closer idea of what my final result is going to be, I had trouble texturing because I thought I could add some metal elements, but when I tried it, it just didn't seem to look right in a PBR render.
Would love some feedback on anything from the sculpt to the final render if you have anything to share, thanks.
Franny's tutorial https://www.artstation.com/artwork/bamPwa
This was my final render in toolbag, my workflow was base mesh in max, sculpt in Zbrush, low poly and UV in max and then bake and texture with Substance Painter and Designer. My wireframe looks a little dense because I usually work a little higher to get cleaner bakes and then go back and remove some edge loops for my in-game version if needed. The UV's for the platform are split down the middle to share space, so I couldn't add too much variation around as it made the symmetry very obvious, so I tried to make everything subtle with the textures except for the two runes on the right which have their own islands.
Since I mostly worked off my own design I didn't have a great reference to work from and I initially didn't think I was going to add the centerpiece to the stairs so I think personally moving forward for me will be to make sure I have a closer idea of what my final result is going to be, I had trouble texturing because I thought I could add some metal elements, but when I tried it, it just didn't seem to look right in a PBR render.
Would love some feedback on anything from the sculpt to the final render if you have anything to share, thanks.
Replies
1. In comparison to Frannys sculpt yours looks too soft and mushy, without many hard, defined planes for light to bounce against. Would definitely be worth revisiting that IMO.
2. It looks like you're not using any normal map at all in the textured shot as it comes across as incredibly flat. If you are using a normalmap maybe turn up the gloss a little bit to make it shine.
3. Some inlaid metal elements would help break the middle piece up a lot, but you said you already tried that. Could consider using a different stone material and/or applying some paint to parts of the circular pattern to make it stand out more.
4. The texture looks very flat atm. It needs a lot more work to make everything pop and look interesting. Could get some brown tones in there from mud and maybe some green from grass/moss/algaes instead of keeping it pretty much b/w. Just improving the HP would help a lot on it's own.
5. Add some kind of light source and reduce the amount of ambient light. You could potentially add a floating magic particle effect emitting light from the top of one or more of the pillars (would give you some cool shadows as well) or just add some torches/candles.
Hope that helps!
This is what I have now so far in Zbrush,
I redesigned the middle area so it acts as slotted stonework held together by grout and added some damage to break it up as well as added a singular gemstone that should resonate in the center. I also added some vines and a couple of banners that I plan on adding the skull I originally did as a logo on there.
I'll also figure out how to add some fire effects to the top of the pillars like you mentioned, that was originally planned, but I figured I'd get some feedback on what I had before going further with that stuff.