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1.
POLYSPHERES
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This image was created in the latest version of ZBrush
and uses the all new Polymesh feature. As with most of the newer
features in ZBrush Pixologic provide you with an extensive set of
ZScripts to help you understand the basics. Polyspheres is no
exception. The ZScript is the best way to learn! Run
them.
So, what are
they then!. Polyspheres help you to model a large or complex mesh by
allowing you to add inter-conected spheres to a group, one by one,
until you have the desired shape. Remember when you were taught to
draw as a kid? They told you to think of every object in terms of
primitive shapes. Well this is the same only in 3D. Some people will
liken it to metaballs but believe me, this is different.
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The spheres that you have placed can be moved, scaled,
rotated by themselves or as a group. To make an arm, you makes
a ball, add a ball doe each joint and pull the fingers into
the shape of a hand, easy.
Take a look at the new-look
transform panel. See figure 1. Notice that SYMMETRY is now in
with the transform panel?
When you are happy that the
Polysphere model is complete you can then use a process called
skinning. This creates a single mesh object based on the shape
of the combined Polyspheres. There are settings for resolution
and smoothness to help get the desired
result.
TOOL POLYSPHERE |
 figure 1. | |
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I wanted to
do this tutorial to show people how to take a character from an
image and turn it into a 3D ZBrush image. For reference I used an
image of a KROOT. This creature is taken from the War Hammer 40,000
game by Games workshop.©
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3. MODELING
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The Head
Although I wanted to
make this image to show the Polysphere feature I decided to
model a head separately. I used a basic 3D Sphere to create the head
and added features in EDIT mode.
(How
to model a head in ZBrush)
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| The Polysphere Body |
| The body of our
KROOT is in a very defiant stance gripping his SPLINTER RIFLE. With
Polyspheres you can set the symmetry feature so the body is
completely symmetrical. For this image I needed to add spheres in a
non-symmetrical way. |
I
started with a ball for the hips, a ball for the belly and one
for the chest. I changed to  with a draw setting of 1.
This then allowed
me to move any of the spheres without effecting the others.
Any setting higher than one and the areas of affect is
increased. As you move a sphere, the interconnecting gray
areas lengthens or shortens accordingly. |
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To continue
adding Spheres I switched back to  . |
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I
continued adding spheres for the shoulder and legs. I moved
them into place and moved onto the left arm. Down the arm and
onto the hands and then fingers. You need to be sure you are
placing the joints in the correct place early on in the
process. For example. If you wanted to move the entire arm
later in the process you would have to reposition every sphere
in the lower arm and hand. Get into the habit of positioning
the parts right first time.
This is where a good
reference image helps. One way to be sure is to load the image
you are trying to re-create into a back layer of the document.
That way, you can match the spheres to the image as you go.
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while I had a full body (minus feet and a head) and I was ready to
turn the Polysphere object into a mesh object by skinning
it. |
| 4. SKINNING |
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To
turn the object into a 'skin' or a mesh object you now need to
press 'MAKE 3D SKIN'
This will create a new mesh
in the TOOL panel. You can change skinning settings to get
different type of objects.
For this one I used a
resolution of 256 (maximum) and a SMOOTH setting of
20.
My result can be seen below. This mesh or ZTOOL can
now be altered as per a normal ZTOOL, i.e.. with the and features in the TRANSFORM
panel |
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| 5. TEXTURING |
I tend
towards TEXTUREMASTER for this type of image but on this
occasion I decided to place all the body ZTools (Objects) into the
image and then paint and texture them in the canvas.
If you
ever decide to use this method remember that you will have no
texture saved with your ZTool and therefore will have to redo a
texture every time you use that ZTool.
I used three BASIC
materials for the skin and decided to aim for a yellow/green skin
tone. The materials had differing levels or NOISE, NOISE RADIUS,
COLOR BUMP and specularity. I like to use a NEGATIVE
number in the COLOUR BUMP as this helps to 'raise' light
colored veins and arteries.
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| 6. THE BACKGROUND |
The
background for this image was created by adding a 3DPlane to a
background layer and painting onto it with the SIMPLE BRUSH. For
this image I used a BASIC ALPHA BRUSH and the DRAG
RECTANGLE stoke type. This process lets me build up layers of
colour that quickly start to look like clouds or smoke.
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| 7. MULTIMARKER GUN |
Although Polymesh allows you to make complex
organic meshes I still like to use the tried and tested
Multi-Marker. This little gem lets me take a set of primitive
shapes and add them all together into a Polymesh object.
One tip: Make sure that when you modify objects they
you do it using the deformations panel. If you just change the
sizes on screen the mesh doesn't work correctly. |
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