PolySculpt

This post is mainly for the french readers (who have to read the french version of this post), to announce the french availability of the Scott Spencer’s Digital Sculpting – Human Anatomy book.

If you don’t own it and you are looking for a better knowledge of how to improve your human character sculpting, it’s a real mistake! This is a book that you -must- own!

I saw some negative feedback that it’s not using ZBrush 4 features and almost no ZBrush 3.5 features. Yes, that’s true, but to be honest, it’s not a miss as Scott is focusing on the main sculpting an anatomy concepts and knowledge. ZBrush is just a tool, which mean that 95% of the content can be use by any other sculpting software… even if ZBrush is strongly advised

This is an -old- model which was done on the sculpting side, but which never had a painting (well, I did a crappy one some time ago).

Because of the Japan Expo tradeshow which will be in a week, I had to do the colored version for 3D printing purpose. Then, after a night, it’s done.

It took me more time than expected as the model had his pose and the ZBrush posable symmetry wasn’t able to work on some parts as it was not topologically symmetrical. The model is also 23 millions of polygons, then I had some slowdowns. Now, let’s wait the 3D printed one!

This is the come back of an old model I started in… 2006! I modeled it in Hexagon 2 and started to do a sculpt in ZBrush for my first tests with this software that I was testing… I stopped to work on it as my modeling has never been done for sculpting purposes: too large polygons on the belly while too small on the face and hands.

My old computer wasn’t able to subdivide enough to sculpt some areas with a decent amount of polygons… until my co-worker Paul asked me for this model for a testing purpose. It was time to finish what I started! And no more real polygons limits now as I can push my mesh up to 26 millions of polygons

Then after few hours, I finished the model. It’s not really my original idea, but not enough time to do what I wanted to do (Beeeer is the god of the beer in fact…). Then this model could be a good test for printing purposes too (except for cutting it…)

This is the final model with its pose (which I did quickly) and some ZBrush screenshots (click to enlarge)

Some changes and additions to my yesterday’s model. I didn’t have a lot of time to work on it because of my job to continue at home and then, I did several small tests to create the details. Most of it is composed of Projection Master, Alphas created with the help of the MRGBZGrabber tool and inflate masks, with, as usual, the addition of the Polish brush.

Click for the full scale image

Why days only have 24 hours… why do I only have two arms and one brain!! I’m really missing free time to do some 3D / sculpting. I need to change that and spend more time by doing 3D stuff for myself.

Then I decided to definitely plug my Cintiq 12″ to my main computer (triple screen!!) and not to my laptop. Now, the Cintiq at full time on my desktop. and damn.. I’m binded with ZBrush at home now!

I also decided to spend at least 1 hour a day to do 3D sculpting, rendering, speed sculpting (or painting / drawing). I will try to post what I’m doing on my blog

Then I started yesterday night with a small study of the lips based on a half sphere:

Finally, I started to add a nose and work on the shape itself..

Then, why not continuing this model… I loaded a ZSphere at a SubTool and started to do a Sketch, to create a kind of helmet, adding a neck, etc :

I worked a little bit more to change the shape of the helmet and all the ZSketch strokes I did to make the model more feminine as the ZSketch above was to masculine : stroke aroud the jaw was too much like the Gouvernator Then I tweaked, used the clay brush and also the new s/m hPolish brushes of ZBrush 3.5 R3 (I love them).

Perhaps I will continue this model tonight, perhaps I will do something else, we will see! (I want to do some real time stuff in fact )

This is two brushes I just made for ZBrush 3.5 R3. Click on the images to download them (Right click >> Save As).

The first one, OnTop, allow you to Sculpt, Mask or Polypaint on the top of a surface, especially a flat surface. It’s a little bit different from the Automasking >> Cavity Masking. This brush is using the brush Depth Mask with various settings. I strongly advise you to use a large brush and trying to remain on the top of the surfaces to avoid artifacts on the side of the object. A tip is to create masks, inverse the mask, blur and sharpen it twice.

This is a small video of the OnTop in action, used to create a mask.

The second one, Onborder, is a brush which work on border of small extrusions and is based on Automasking >> CavityMask.

This is a sculpt I did during the FormaCD event in Paris this Saturday. This event has been dedicated to the 3D illusion, with a drawing presentation, then Maya modeling, ZBrush sculpting and at the end, some Blender presentation.

It’s a speed sculpting, then sorry for the quality!

(Click to enlarge)

ZBrush, the leading software in 3D sculpting is now available in it’s 3.5 version! Pixologic made lot of improvements, changes and new features with this new release. Some of them are visible, some other, not really at the first glance:

• The new ZSpheres II which brings a new Adaptive Skin which more accurate results and provide a good topology on complex structures (like hands-fingers connections).
• The new ZSketch, which will let you freely sculpt strip of ZSphere in the 3D space and will allowing you a more creative art. try it, you won’t be disappointed!
• The new Surface Noise, to apply dynamically a procedural noise on your mesh in a non destructive way. But at anytime, you can apply it definitely on your mesh, or use one of the new noise brushes, or set a noise to all the other brushes.
• The new planar brushes and brushes / stroke settings, to create “hard sculpting” models!
• The Perspective, the zoom and the memory management has been a lot improved. This is not the kind of major feature which is always announced, but when working on daily basis with ZBrush, you will love these enhancements! Oh yes, a floor grid has been added!
• A tons of small things here and their, mostly not so small! Ambient Occlusion Masking, Textures per SubTools, Merge of SubTool, Enhanced Normal and displacement maps creation, geometry HD supported for the creation of these maps (and also the Polypainting in HD!), tons of new brushes, Masks and Polypainting in 16 bits, Light Lightbox browser to a fast access to the files, .ma export, improved import OBJ with reprojection of details. Ayaaaa !

You can check all these new features at ZBrushCentral on the announcement page. Check also the previous published movies (1 and 2).

Note: ZBrush 3.5 R2 is now available for download. If you have some troubles on the installation, install the vcredist2008 available in the troubleshoot folder. Check also that a “vmem” and a “ZStartup/Tempfiles” folders are created in the ZBrush 3.5 folder.

We worked hard on this new release, and we hope that you will enjoy it as we love it!

A small ZSketch I did quickly. I will post more soon:

A new model. Still a test / 3D doodling as I’m not looking for sculpting a very accurate model and also spending days on it.

This bust is far from being from the body of a thin girl, I know, but well, I wanted it like that

I didn’t have a lot of free time these last days because of the incoming of ZBrush 3.5 and other various daily tasks at work… and home

This is some 3D sketches and tests I did with ZBrush, nothing crazy, but practicing some stuff. Just a note, this is the first time I did a skull, I need to redo one several times. I also decided to spend some time on studying again and more in depth the human anatomy. My knowledge and skills related to this are too restricted, then I need to solve that. I bought some new books and for the next days/weeks, I will sculpt and draw some anatomy and post some works here. I also subscribe to “Female-anatomy-for-artist.com”