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Chapter 1 Sculpting Tools and Workflow You face two core issues when you create realistic game characters: technology and artistic ability. Five years ago the biggest problem was technology. We simply couldn’t put enough polygons on the screen to get true realism. Today, artistic ability is the biggest factor limiting a 3D modeler’s growth in the game industry. The demand for realism increases with technological advances.
2 ■ Chapter 1: Sculpting Tools and Workflow The key to working with planes is to move from the largest to the smallest. You, the artist, must create inside of your own brain a 3D model that has multiple levels of resolution. On level 1, it should have the most basic and simplistic planes. On level 5, it might have planes small enough to describe the caruncula of the eye.
Our Sculpting Toolkit Our Sculpting Toolkit There are many features in ZBrush and many ways to work with the application. The goal of this book is to guide you in creating realistic game characters, and so in this section, I will present what I consider to be a sculptor’s workflow. This workflow should help you organize complexity, create your own hierarchy of planes, and sculpt realistic characters faster than ever before.
4 ■ Chapter 1: Sculpting Tools and Workflow Figure 1.4 Side view with the S curve of the side of face Rotate the model to a front view. Set your Draw Size to 256 and pull the sides inward to flatten them. Continue working over the surface of your model. At a certain point you will suffer diminishing returns and form will be harder to create. When that happens to you, it’s time to switch brushes. 3.
Our Sculpting Toolkit ■ 5 Figure 1.5 Results after using the Clay brush The Clay brush is an important part of our sculpting workflow because of its unique algorithm. ZBrush 4 has added newer brushes that build upon this and give us greater control, but the Clay brush remains an important part of the process in the early stages. 4. Make sure to add geometry to your model as needed by choosing Tool ➔ Geometry ➔ Divide.
6 ■ Chapter 1: Sculpting Tools and Workflow Figure 1.6 Results after using the Trim Dynamic brush Trim Dynamic is an extension of the Clay brush. Its algorithm goes further than the Clay brush, however, and allows you to build up planes with a loose freehand stroke that cannot be achieved any other way. It is an essential tool in your toolkit. 6. To create precise forms, we will need a sculpting knife. We can use the Standard brush for this.
Our Sculpting Toolkit ■ 7 Figure 1.7 Results after using the Standard brush 7. Now we should have a fairly good approximation of the face. We should have clear planes, but the separation of planes may not be very precise. All in all, our model should look like a blurry but planar version of what we want. To create more precise breaks in the form, we use Trim Adaptive. Click on the side plane of the nose and use Trim Adaptive to create a consistent plane.
8 ■ Chapter 1: Sculpting Tools and Workflow Figure 1.8 Results after using various Trim brushes Figure 1.
Unpacking Our Toolkit ■ 9 9. After you have worked the surface of your model, you may want to smooth out some areas and refine the surface. The Polish brushes are great tools to do this. I like to use H_Polish because it respects hard edges very well. This allows me to be looser and more freehand without worrying about messing up the clean edge work I created earlier. Consider H_Polish a finishing tool. The form has to be in place for this brush to do its job right. Use Figure 1.10 as your guide.
10 ■ Chapter 1: Sculpting Tools and Workflow Trim Dynamic Creates the primary planes of your model and keeps the surface clean and structured. Trim Adaptive Creates and extends planes. It is the wooden sculpting tool you would use to enforce a strong plane, and you may even cut into the model with it. Dam_Standard and Standard brushes These are great knifes. By setting DrawSize low, you can cut thin lines into the model.
Unpacking Our Toolkit Along the outside of this spectrum are the brush types. Every brush was created to fit a specific need. Some brushes, like the Blob brush, can create amazingly random concrete surfaces with just a few simple modifications. Other brushes, like the Planar brushes, create hard-edged and mechanical details but require some complicated brush modifications to work.
12 ■ Chapter 1: Sculpting Tools and Workflow Depth Figure 1.12 The Depth subpalette Figure 1.13 The Depth feature was introduced in ZBrush 3.5r3. It is located in the Brush ➔ Depth subpalette (see Figure 1.12) and is a change from ZBrush 3.1, where Brush ➔ Brush Modifier was sometimes used for this purpose. Now Depth is a major new feature that affects the entire spectrum of your brush’s behavior. What does Depth do? To understand it better, you should be clear that a brush in ZBrush is a 3D sphere.
Unpacking Our Toolkit Z Intensity controls how fast you will reach those limits. If you set Z Intensity to 100, then your brush will be at full intensity right from the start. If you set Z Intensity to 5, then it will take some time to reach full intensity, and you can be more subtle about it. A lot of other factors determine the maximum distance the brush will push or pull the form, such as Alphas, Tablet Pressure, Zadd, Zsub, Samples, and Stroke Type. Depth, though, could be considered über-Depth.
14 ■ Chapter 1: Sculpting Tools and Workflow Trim Dynamic Trim Dynamic is an extension of the Clay brush’s algorithm; it allows you to work freehand while creating both hard and soft surfaces. To create softer surfaces, you must lower the DrawSize and make smaller and smaller plane changes. To work with hard surfaces, you can use this brush to establish broad strokes and major planes and then switch over to Trim Adaptive for more localized control.
Unpacking Our Toolkit The heart of Samples is Sample Radius (see Figure 1.16). This is the shock absorber of the entire system. In simple terms, Sample Radius determines whether your brush’s response to the road is light and snappy to the road or whether it bulldozes through any surface variation. In more specific terms, Sample Radius determines how much of the area within your brush’s sphere of influence will be used to calculate the orientation of your brush.
16 ■ Chapter 1: Sculpting Tools and Workflow Orientation Orientation is the steering system in ZBrush. Often you aren’t even aware of it, and that’s the way it should be. We don’t think about the steering column once we are in our car. We just put the key in and go. Sometimes, though, we need to take full control of our steering wheel and we do this in the Picker palette.
Unpacking Our Toolkit The Once Ori option (see Figure 1.18) will lock down the orientation to the area of the model on which you first clicked. The selected angle will be used for the rest of your brush stroke. The Trim Adaptive brush uses this feature to great effect. In fact, Trim Dynamic and Trim Adaptive provide the clearest example of the steering differences. Once Ori is the defining characteristic of the Trim Adaptive brush. Set Cont Ori on and you essentially have the Trim Dynamic brush.
18 ■ Chapter 1: Sculpting Tools and Workflow Dam_Standard Brush and Brush Modifier Figure 1.20 Interface: BrushMod The Dam_Standard brush is amazingly smooth and cuts through your model as if it were butter! The secret of its power comes in the Brush ➔ Modifiers ➔ Brush Modifier slider. This slider behaves differently for each brush, but for the Standard brush it works to combine either the Pinch brush or the Magnify brush.
The Road Ahead It’s important to keep in mind that learning an art form is a lot like learning a new language. You cannot rush it. Your brain will change only so fast, and you can retain only so much information. Be patient with yourself. Learn to turn frustration into success, not by overcoming it but by outlasting it. Frustration is part of the learning process. Whatever you do, though, don’t give in.
