Stylized Edge Definition by Michael Vicente (Orb) from Zbrush Summit 2016 Presentation
Hello Everyone.
So in my previous topic I was wandering how Michael creates his stylized blurry(smooth) edges. I've received some replies from users with their opinions and methods of sculpting those edges and I'm thankful for their participation. However, I've found a presentation from 2016 where Michael actually explains how he and his team sculpt these edges and even more about their sculpting process. Here is the link to the presentation if anybody is interested: https://youtu.be/eGHU8DI6fo4
The reason why I've created this topic is because I'm not able to properly utilize the information from this presentation. Please have a look at the images below from the presentation:
On the second image Michael explains that he gets those nice edges by using Dynamesh + inflat + polish. I'm not sure whether the "inflat" is actually the inflat brush or the inflate modifier, yet both give weird results and I'm most likely doing something wrong. The second issue is that Dynamesh makes some of the edges jagged and I know that this is ok for Dynamesh, I guess Michael used Zremesher to get clean edges but it might be also related to the issue with the "inflat".
I hope that you can help me with these issues and thank you in advance!
Replies
Try to use smooth on the edges before inlating (hold down shift and push pen down, release shift but keep pen down) and see if it gives you desired look.
You can also use smooth (polish) in deformation tab, see if that can give you a better results.
@wirrexx Hi, thank you for replying. I tried what you have mentioned above and I know about the smooth(polish) in deformation tab. My main concern, however, is the purpose of the inflate cause it makes the whole mesh to shrink and it gives weird result (inflate in the same deformation tab). I also have the issue with the Dynamesh cause it makes the edges to look a little jagged but I know that this is an expected behavior from Dynamesh, I'm just kinda confused if Michael used Zremesher to fix this issue. Moreover, it seems that the "original" asset of the second image has been beveled BEFORE being imported into Zbrush but I'm not sure...
why do you think the bevels have to be done in zbrush? its perfectly fine to have stuff bevelede before you process it inside zbrush.
@Neox I'm not saying that the bevels have to be done only in Zbrush and this doesn't really concern me that much. What does concern me is the Dynamesh and inflate options. Dynamesh gives some jagged edges and I'm not sure whether it is better to use Zremesher to fix them or something else (cause it is not explained in the images). Also, I'm not sure why they've used inflate cause basically it just shrinks your mesh?
inflate sholdnt shrink the mesh, unless you use negative values. otherwise it would... inflate the mesh :)
as for the edge jaggedness, maybe he is just using ridiculously high dynamesh values per piece.
@Neox Here is what I've got:
This is related to my previous topic about those beveled edges. So I beveled the edges before importing to Zbrush. Once imported, I Dynameshed and then Zremeshed the model to get a better edge flow. After that, I used polish to smooth those edges for a much blurry and smooth result.
Here is the second example:
In this example, I've followed the same steps as I did in the previous example, except here I smoothed all the edges manually (polished and then smoothed manually).
I didn't use inflate in any of these examples cause I just don't understand what is the point of deforming your model that much?
Do you think these examples are good or something else could be done for a better result?
i really dont understand the issue. importing, dynamesh and polish work just fine for me. no need to zremesh or handsmooth anything on my end. if you want less planar bevel and more rounded one, i would suggest to just use a different method to chamfer/bevel.
i feel like right now you are overthinking and underdoing. this is one simple brick thing, the first example isnt polished enough the second might be fine. i suggest you actually start putting what you learned into some actual testcase