Male arm sculpt

Olli. · Feb 2012

So its me again, i created a new thread since the old thread's title was really outdated and misleading..

Here's what i have so far. I'd saying the arm is like 90% ready, lacking some finer details and a skin texture.

Does anyone have any crits on the anatomy, or does it look fine?

mr_ace · Feb 2012

you should post some other shots from some 3/4 angles, rather than just top left front back.

initially I'd say it looks slightly undefined in some parts. I would also say where the bicep joins the forearm is too pointy and looks a bit off. Also, on the top right view, the palm kind of just merges into the forearm on the bottom side, wheras in reality there's some seperation, both with some creases, and some form changes.

Olli. · Feb 2012

alright i smoothed out the bicep/forearm joint. Could you explain what you mean by "undefined"? The seams between the muscles used the be a lot tighter or defined but that just made it look like hes got no skin so i smoothed all the seams..

and here are some pics from other angles

Rockley Bonner · Feb 2012

the bicept and brachialis muscle look fine but you might want to relook the tricepts and forearms.

Olli. · Feb 2012

alright i relooked the parts you mentioned. Here are some new pics

although i want to get the whole arm right, im most concerned about the forearm and hand, since these will be used as the players arms in 1st person, so the upper arm is rarely visible.

dirigible · Feb 2012

His thumb has been bothering me. The end joint of it looks really stubby. Just from looking at my hand, the end joint is as long as the one before it (measuring the inside of the hand, from the thumb's insertion into the fat+muscle of the palm). Yours is missing the clear insertion point as well.

Olli. · Feb 2012

insertion point? i dont know what you mean.

in the meantime ill go ahead and fix the length of the last thumb piece.

dirigible · Feb 2012

Where the thumb inserts into the rest of the hand.
Here's a paintover.

Donavonyoung · Feb 2012

Here is some solid anatomy reference for the muscles in the forearm and how they intertwine. It is a bit exaggerated, but it helps to see where the muscles start and finish.

Olli. · Feb 2012

dirigible wrote: »

http://i42.tinypic.com/xbg76a.png
Where the thumb inserts into the rest of the hand.
Here's a paintover.
http://i43.tinypic.com/2ahzg9y.png

ah yeah that part thanks got it. Ill fix it asap

Donavonyoung wrote: »

Here is some solid anatomy reference for the muscles in the forearm and how they intertwine. It is a bit exaggerated, but it helps to see where the muscles start and finish. http://madformuscle.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/forearms.jpg

thats actually the exact reference i used to redo the forearm.. The arm is in a slightly different pose (the wrist is more twisted) but i think i got the muscles about right.

Doubles · Feb 2012

the hand looks great. The way the biceps connects at the elbow joint looks like the skinless version. Also continuing from that insertion of the biceps you have this harsh line running towards the thumb, even if the underlying anatomy makes you think that there is a line there, it doesnt show on photo references of people. Overall the arm seems to give that skinless feel, try to wrap around skin on the whole thing, think of its thickness. You nailed the skin on the hand, try to do the same with the whole arm. The anatomy is okay right now you should try to sculpt the thing according to photo references, at this point imo it becomes more of an art of how something looks like in real life than the underlying structure.

Olli. · Feb 2012

after looking at some more references, i noticed that the way the muscles show from under the skin is quite different for people. on some people the shapes and bulges of the muscles show up really well through the skin like in this picture:

but then again on some people the skin smoothes out the muscles a lot.

Doubles · Feb 2012

yes i think that is because there is fat in the skin, and it depends on the persons genetics how much fat is in the skin. That fat smooths out the harsh lines to softer gradients. Also these are quite built bodies, you should think through how muscular you want it to be, the common not built person has lot less definition of shapes, and forms. But its okay to choose to go muscular, because you learn a lot while doing it. It is surprising how less definition the common body has.

Olli. · Feb 2012

well these arms in question will eventually be for a medieval warrior/hero sort of thing, so i think built is the way to go.

Ive hit a wall of sorts now though, Im trying to paint some pores, but the way i do it i need to use the smoothing brush in places, and i already have some other skin detail down, which gets destroyed if i use the smoothing brush..

is there a way to have the smoothing effect only apply to one layer or something?

Doubles · Feb 2012

As I understand you want to edit a layer in a way that it doesnt effect the underlying layer. I don't know a method for that in ZBrush sorry, this is the hard part of using these tools. The only thing i would suggest is thinking through the brush techniques to do it (maybe developing new ones). Check tablet settings in the Preferences > Tablet menu, there are the parameters the pen pressure effect, imo its easier to use it if the pressure effects only the intensity, but to have more control over the brush i would turn of all those, set every one of them to 0, and use static size, intensity values. Then choose the simple brushes like standard and smooth and use them with a low intensity, paying attention to the falloff what the focal angle setting creates. It takes some getting used to, but the only way to do delicate work in ZBrush is to understand everything about what your brush is doing. This is why I would avoid 'hard to understand' brushes, even the clay brush at this depth of detail.

Emil Mujanovic · Feb 2012

In Zbrush on the right hand side, there is a Layers section. You can create a new layer and smooth out the areas you want. There is also a slider where you can pull back on the level of effect. So in case you over smoothed it you can pull the slider to about 50% and it should reduce anything you've done on that particular layer.
Have a play around with it before committing it to your actual ZBrush sculpt. I haven't had the best of luck with using layers so you may find it's not exactly what you're after.

Olli. · Feb 2012

Emil Mujanovic wrote: »

In Zbrush on the right hand side, there is a Layers section. You can create a new layer and smooth out the areas you want. There is also a slider where you can pull back on the level of effect. So in case you over smoothed it you can pull the slider to about 50% and it should reduce anything you've done on that particular layer.
Have a play around with it before committing it to your actual ZBrush sculpt. I haven't had the best of luck with using layers so you may find it's not exactly what you're after.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3572065/random/layers.jpg

yeah i tried the layers but the problem is, that i have hard noise detail (which i need to smooth down a lot, to make them look like pores) and under that i have very faint skin detail, like tiny lines and creases etc, which need to stay untouched.. so even if i make the pores in a different layer, smoothing them would still destroy all the tiny skin detail i have underneath even if they are in a different layer..

here are some pics of the changes:

I extended the thumb to a more realistic proportion, and also lowered the backhand a bit, since it was a bit bulgy compared to my own hand.. Im really skinny so i dunno if my hand is skinny too but imo it looks more normal like that.

also smoothed out the muscle definition, so it looks like he has some actual skin on top of dem muscles

dirigible · Feb 2012

Olli. · Feb 2012

hows this

I moved the tendon up so its actually in between the wrist joint and the first thumb joint.
I made the muscle below that tendon more bold to create the little pit i have on my hand in between those (muscle and tendon) also shown in pic

im gonna take this on in to max soon to create the low poly, and then ill go ahead and bake dis dang

does anyone recommend doing the diffuse in zbrush polypaint or should i just wing it by hand in photoshop?

supefranky · Feb 2012

Personally, i think, that big thumb is too long. See it on your hand, in relaxed position. Use this as reference

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wrist_extensor_compartments_(numbered).PNG

Olli. · Feb 2012

well at least compared to my hand the proportions are correct:

that said, I know the lengths of fingers can vary drastically from person to person. For example in the army i had this one guy in my platoon who's thumb was about half the size of mine, and he wasnt a small guy or anything, just his fingers were short lol. And he also had a tiny foot..

l.croxton · Feb 2012

Olli. wrote: »

well at least compared to my hand the proportions are correct:

that said, I know the lengths of fingers can vary drastically from person to person. For example in the army i had this one guy in my platoon who's thumb was about half the size of mine, and he wasnt a small guy or anything, just his fingers were short lol. And he also had a tiny foot..

Was his other foot big though :poly121:

I cant offer much in techincal terms but from my own eyes, the finger knuckles need to be more prenounced like in your ref pic. Either make them bigger... but to me make the first part of the finger slightly thinner.

Olli. · Feb 2012

*feet, i mean feet

are you just saying that based on the ref pic? since i have really skinny hands, and these ones i'm making are supposed to be more muscular and built, so the ref might not be 100% accurate?

but i guess i could check out what it would look like.

Olli. · Feb 2012

decided to go for the polypaint option.. i can touch it up and edit sat/hue values later on in photoshop but atleast i learnt a bit more of zbrush today.

now ill probably go on and make a game engine compatible mesh and then do some baking.

Olli. · Feb 2012

finished the low poly

these renders are from 3ds MAX using Xoliul 2 shader. Currently looking at xnormal to render some sss maps so i can get this in cryengine3 and make it look sexy

Olli. · Mar 2012

and heres a quick test in cryengine 3

still trying to figure out how to get better sss effects out of that shader..

Dim · Mar 2012

Sculpt looks really good! Might be worth getting a little bit of blue and yellow in the more sensitive and fatty areas. Some yellow across the tendons can be nice.

Male arm sculpt

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