base mesh for sculpting?

snickerwicket

Starting to get more into 3D sculpting, do people usually make a base mesh by polymodeling in maya or something? Or is it common practice to take primitives in a sculpting program, I'm using Mudbox, and shape those into a base mesh?

oglu

Both. Depends on the Object and Artstyle.

kanga

I'm in zBrush and there are 3 or 4 ways to start a model. For characters I like using zspheres to map out the form. You can sculpt a finished result from that but I like to mess with the base mesh before sculpting. I add geometry so I have a continuous center line, ears, an open mouth cavity,  add some loops around the eyes and mouth and position them, delete loops on the arms and legs,  add some polys for the crotch, inner butt and nostril wings and check that the mesh is made up of quads.


In the face mesh there are quite a lot of star points that result in nodules while sculpting, but I can get rid of them with the polish and smooth brush. Since the advent of the modelling brush I can start a hard surface model from within zBrush or Blender and use GoB to append the base to the ztool.