How would you use Zmodeler for medieval / fantasy armor?
polycounter lvl 4
Hey fellas, I know Zmodeler's been used a lot for robots, props and other stuff. When I was cruising the 2014 recap collection I came across some really killer concept work from Daven for Smite and I was wondering if Zmodeler could be put to use to create some 'clean' geo for this style of armor.
I know before 4r7 I'd just tackle this the usual way, messily. Concept sculpt > extract clean mesh & Edgeloop > sculpt away with Trim Dynamic, hPolish, Clip Brushes, etc. I've never gotten a superb result this way because frankly I'm still a bit of a noob and have yet to get a good retopo on hard surfaces with this method (let alone good UV's / Normals).
So for the more experienced folks out there: do you think it's worthwhile to try using Zmodeler to bust up this style of armor into a ton of bits and get 'clean' results? Or would you just perhaps use it sparingly for the base pieces and dynamesh from there? (Excluding the intricate details of course, I guess you'd bake them into a normal map).
Here's the concept art I was looking at in particular:
I know before 4r7 I'd just tackle this the usual way, messily. Concept sculpt > extract clean mesh & Edgeloop > sculpt away with Trim Dynamic, hPolish, Clip Brushes, etc. I've never gotten a superb result this way because frankly I'm still a bit of a noob and have yet to get a good retopo on hard surfaces with this method (let alone good UV's / Normals).
So for the more experienced folks out there: do you think it's worthwhile to try using Zmodeler to bust up this style of armor into a ton of bits and get 'clean' results? Or would you just perhaps use it sparingly for the base pieces and dynamesh from there? (Excluding the intricate details of course, I guess you'd bake them into a normal map).
Here's the concept art I was looking at in particular:
Replies
Personally I'd stick with getting the main curved shapes down first by sculpting, create some clean geometry with zspheres+thickness, and then maybe use zmodeler for any additional edgeloops, bevels, insets, and general cleaning.