Getting into Character design

playford

Good evening all,

I've been getting back into 3d for a few months now after a break. I used to visualise hard surface mainly, but my boss is trying to get me our of my comfort zone and do some organics for him.

I'm mainly a max user but have been moving over to Maya to fit within the studio pipe and of course comes with a lot of googling for how to do something in Maya like max, it's exhausting.

Anyway, I'm trying to get the pipeline down and moving between packages. currently we have Maya, Zbrush and Substance painter for character design. I'm trying to work out when to move between the too as there is a lot of crossover. I see people working in Zbrush then retopo in Maya, plus also blocking in Maya then over to zbrush with Substance for materials after the normals have been painted.

I'm looking for any inspiration and how to go, the ups and downs of doing it certain ways. I have got very frustrated with the complete difference that is Zbrush and not sure to block in Maya the detail in Zbrush.

I'd be very grateful of any help.

Many Thanks

Mark

kanga

You can see this workflow as frustrating or one that gives you ultimate flexibility. 3D app, zB and SP are a terrific combination. I'm no expert, but will put some general stuff that may help. Feel free to ask questions and I will do my best to answer them.

If you are using zB at all fist thing is to setup GoZ tween it and your 3D app. There are many ways yo do this but I:
1/ Put a cube in the viewport of your 3dapp. Move the pivot of the cube primitive to 0,0,0, check your co-ordinate system is in mm, and if you want move the cube (not the pivot) up to floor (grid) level.
2/ Resize the cube to a general figure size. You can use 2 meters high, 0.5 m deep and 0.5 m wide for a generic hero base if you want. Making the cube transparent helps. Then freeze transforms if 3dapp is Maya, Blender etc.
3/ If you haven't already make sure GoZ is installed/activated in 3dapp and zB.
4/ Open zB while the 3dapp is open. You will probably see a zB primitive which is the ultimate size at position 0,0,0 for sculpting in zB itself.
5/ GoZ your 3dapp cube to zB.
6/ Resize your 3dapp cube to fit into the zB primitive.
7/  Rename your 3dapp cube in the 3dapp if needed. You don't want the zB version to overwrite it.
8/ GoZ the cube back to the 3dapp. Note the position and scale of the zB cube version in the 3dapp.
9/ Switch back to zB and at the bottom of the Tool menu on the right side of the UI go to the bottom and open the export menu. Adjust the settings and keep GoZing the cube until the GoZ zB cube almost perfectly matches the original 3dapp cube.
10/ Save the zB tool with an appropriate name. This is your character start point.

That shud be enough for now.