Sculpting Too Soon, A Bad Thing?
polycounter lvl 13
I was wondering what your opinions are.
I have been told that jumping too soon into sculpting programs such as Zbrush and Mudbox, before one has a strong understanding of modeling and high poly modeling in a core program such as Maya, Max, Softimage XSI, Modo... anything, is detrimental to one's development as a 3D artist.
What are your views on this?
I have been told that jumping too soon into sculpting programs such as Zbrush and Mudbox, before one has a strong understanding of modeling and high poly modeling in a core program such as Maya, Max, Softimage XSI, Modo... anything, is detrimental to one's development as a 3D artist.
What are your views on this?
Replies
The most important is fundamental skills in art, that stuff takes time, the rest is tools and understanding the technical side of game art.
After a coulpe of days, she was following tutorials and doing things like retopology which really helped her to grasp some of the low poly modelling that was difficult at the start.
Learning it whenever will be no detriment.
Where as sculpting is more closely related to 2d, I've seen loads of concept artists with no 3d experience jump straight into zbrush like a fish to water and produce some quality stuff.
This isn't some philosophical nonsense. If you are interested in sculpting there's no reason to not start with it. Even if you are aiming to become an artist who can do everything eventually you are going to have to start somewhere. There is no correct path I'd say.. although there may wrong paths such as driving a car instead of sculpting... someone is going to prove me wrong and tell me about some amazing car driving experience that made them awesome artists
as in many other practices. there are two forms, theory and practical. while all forms of modeling are certainly "practical" in that they give you direct, instant feedback of your effort. Sculpting is surely more of a practical application of the theory you're learning. Sculpting is the practical side of learning proper anatomy, form etc.
on the flip side, i see sub-d modeling a "theory" practice. as it's far more rigid in its restrictions.
but that's just me.
Interestingly, I don't find this to be the case anymore. It used to be in zbrush if you subdivided too much too early, you'd end up with blobby looking sloppy sculpts.
With the addition of clay brushes and trim brushes, I find that I can subdivide like mad once I have an extremely basic shape, use clay brush / trim dynamic and basically ignore topology completely.
That's not to say that there isn't reason to step up slowly, but I kinda like the workflow of just blocking our proportions with an extremely simple mesh, then subdividing a bunch and blocking out planes with trim/clay brushes. It's a lot more like sculpting with clay to me, and is very enjoyable.
You can always Reto or start from scratch in zbrush.