To learn Zbrush first then Maya or vice versa
Okey.... i think i am starting to losing my mind. And sometime i am not sure what to do.
I want to become character modeler. So for that, i want to use Zbrush sickly for character and creatures, or for some concept design. hard surface maybe. Not sure if hard surface in Zbrush is good for production. But
For hard surface, retopolgy and rest the pipeline i want to use Maya.
And top of that i want to learn Anatomy within Zbrush.
I am not sure how much time to spend on each per day. I have time, probably to much free time. And i want to use it to study.
Any advice/ Help for this?
I want to become character modeler. So for that, i want to use Zbrush sickly for character and creatures, or for some concept design. hard surface maybe. Not sure if hard surface in Zbrush is good for production. But
For hard surface, retopolgy and rest the pipeline i want to use Maya.
And top of that i want to learn Anatomy within Zbrush.
I am not sure how much time to spend on each per day. I have time, probably to much free time. And i want to use it to study.
Any advice/ Help for this?
Replies
I think it'd makes sense to pick up Maya first as you'll be able to make full assets and generally do a lot more with it.
On the other hand, it might actually be easier to pick up ZBrush without any preconceived notions of 3d. I've often seen artistic types with no real 3d experience pick it up really fast whereas more experiences folks tend to clash with the differences in interface.
You want to build a foundation of how the building blocks of 3d works, and for that you should learn polygon modelling first.
What jackablade is talking about is true from my experience as well. And that is great for concept dudes etc.
If you want to be a character artist, you should IMO have the foundation of what 3D really is first.
You dont really need to know ZBrush, you just need to know anatomy, and you will win in life.
Also, knowledge of how the technical aspects of a mesh/3D works, will help your Zbrush, whereas nothing you will learn in ZBrush will come in handy in Maya - that is my opinion.
I can really really really recommend Scott Eaton's Anatomy Course. If you dont know anatomy, that is probably the single best thing you can do to advance your skills. Left clicking clay tube in zbrush does you no good, if you dont know what you are sculpting. I hugely undervalued the need for anatomy lessons, when I started out, but it was the thing alone that gave me my first industry job.
I am a hobbyist so I didnt take things seriously until few weeks ago. I used to follow the tutorials for Maya found in the Help menu (not sure if they still do that,) along with other resources. Zbrush came very later in to the realization but it was much easier to learn.
So I would suggest that you start with whatever you can, and take things from there.
I got ZBrush first, and it was a huge mistake. Starting out, you won't get good use out of ZBrush, and you don't know yet if you'll even get good use out of it later.
I just recently re-sold my copy, because I wasn't satisfied with the use I was getting out of it.
I personally have a far easier time SubD modeling the base mesh, at which point I can also more easily just sculpt out the high poly details in the same modeling program anyway, much more easily than porting it back and forth with GoZ while handling multiple versions of meshes. Not to mention the need to adjust to the 100% different UI and controls between them.
None of the non-sculpting tools were useful to me either, like retopology, map baking, UV unwrapping and poly-painting. The sculpting is great, but it does a lot of other stuff at a mediocre level at best and other tools at my disposal were more effective.
It just didn't fit into my pipeline.
A primary modeling/rigging/animating program like Maya though is something you cannot work without. You'll be doing most of your work there regardless, and it isn't optional.
As in ... maybe post an image of the work you are the most satisfied with so far, and a picture of a piece from an artist you aspire to. Also : do you want to be a modeler or a concept artist ?
From there we will be able to give you more relevant recommendations.
I admire Vitaly Bulgarov. Want to become like him or even better lol.
However, in my opinion, you should start with Maya.
I was told in the past that you should spend at least a year in a package like Maya or Max before diving into ZBrush but I'm not sure how well that holds up now.
Although it sounds like he already owns both anyway, its not good advice to recommend that someone just blows $800 on something they won't likely use for a long time, and may not even need ever.
On the other hand, it is far better to spend $800 on software you'll use every day, vs $3500k+ on something you won't.
If you're favoring character modeling / design / anatomy more than hard surface subdivision modeling, then I'd definitely lean towards zbrush. The fundamentals that you are really going to need are going to be learned through drawing, painting, and sculpting. Starting in Maya won't give you any edge there.
the hard reality is zbrush will be much easier, and you will see resultants way quicker. but if you ever want to work in this industry you have to know your way around a modeling program.
Belive me, I have a friend who is taking a zbrush course right now, but never worked with 3D before, and she is a descent sculpter but has no idea what a polygon is and why she needs them to convay form, or what an edge loop even is xD
+1
What we are saying is learning zbrush would be alot easier then learning Maya. But Maya can be obtained easily and freely without a hassle. So I would strongly suggest starting off by learning Maya or any 3d software, studying it thoroughly From modeling part to texturing.
Once you are fully confident, you can then start learning other stuff like, Zbrush, Ndo, Ddo, Marmoset Toolbag, and so on.
NOTE1: If you dont want to spend money and anxious to learn 3d sculpting, you can just download sculptris from Pixologic and get the idea of how sculpting takes place in 3d.
I think that's anecdotal. I know people who have started with zbrush who are more than capable of using it to figure out what a polygon is, why conveying form is important to their sculpting, what edgeloops are, etc. If you approach and learn zbrush the way you'd attempt to learn a program like Maya, then you're going to come away with the same concepts: they're not really exclusive things when both programs employ them.
One problem that i have and i am not sure, But i don't know how to approach concept art for modeling. Let it be hard surface. Some objects, ship whatever, no idea how to start.
Also for Anatomy, i have 1 TB folder for anatomy, Collected every single photo for anatomy. Naked guys, girls, elder people. Close up photos from different part of the body, different body type, people races. I want to attend ZbrushWorkshops to learn Anatomy with Ryan. But many people don't recommend him.
Modeling from concept art? Comes down to experience and creating the basic shapes - Primitives. Instead of thinking how your going to model your next project, just dive in and tackle the problems later.
When beginning some people will recommend an item that is close to you to reference in real life (Like a speaker). Also refer to Polycount Wiki.
Referencing concept art purely, requires the eye and ability to correct scale, perspective, and intuitive detail IMO.
... You should upload some of those nice ref... Pinterest or tumblr is very nice place for that. I know many ppl who would love that.
Ummm... What's not to like about Ryan O o'?
Good pick ! Vitaly is a great guy too
It's very interesting actually, as there really are two facets of his work. One is being a great modeler - he is able to efficiently and beautifully recreate provided pieces of concept art into 3D models in a demanding production environment, a skill he demonstrated with this SC2 marine fanart which was a faithful recreation of a design with added twists.
http://www.bulgarov.com/p_marine.html
And then you have the other aspect of his work, which is being a great concept and preproduction artist, like shown on his most recent work :
http://www.bulgarov.com/index.html
These two aspects both rely heavily on great technical abilities ; however one type of work is derivative (modeler), while the other is purely creative (concept art). The catch tho is that on the job at a studio, it's almost always one or the other - not both.
So from there my advice would be to take that into consideration when deciding on your learning path. If you feel like you want to fit inside a production pipeline, I think you would be better off learning first about the core workings of modeling, using Max/Maya/Modo/XSI - just like how Vitaly started off.
However if you feel like you are more of "straight to the creative bits" person, and are not really interested in the finer detail of 3D production (as in, 3D assets made to be actually used in games or cinematics renders), I would say that starting straight with Zbrush could be just fine. However the drawback of going that way is that you won't be familiar with some of the more powerful (but also quite complex/technical) tools that someone like Vitaly leverages for speed and efficiency. But I suppose that can come later !
When you see a video of someone "improvising" a piece of 3D concept art, seeing the artist putting something cool together in a matter of minutes, just remember that the process didn't actually take 5 minutes. It tool years of being familiar with the subject thanks to countless studies and exercises. No secret here !
From there, you might actually want to take the "starting straight from Zbrush" advice with a grain of salt. When it comes to design work, ideas and design come first, execution and technique come second. Zbrush won't help you improving your visual library, only studies and familiarity with a given subject will.
As a matter of fact, if your goal is to be a great designer, my advice would be to not bother with Zbrush, 3D or even anything related to digital art for 6 months to a year, and just focus on sketching and photography instead !
Maya / Max / etc. before Zbrush. I've seen too many great sculptors that are awful at making game art. I wouldn't hire them at all.
To be honest, i am more interest in 3D than in 2D. I want to learn how to transfer drawings into 3D, I don't think i have mentality for drawing. Maybe will be hard if i don't draw, but i will give 200% of my capacity in 3D.
I will continue to study Maya most of my days, and will try to make some models and post here. But i will learn Zbrush also for 2-3h more. I will can make it:)