Base shape to detailed shape

If I want to achieve cloth tapering in the characters clothes then I'm going to have to compromise with neat topology. Its going to be a debate between the cloths form and topology making sure the character can deform properly. So far I've done the base shape and topology. Now its time to break its symmetry and see what I can do with the form. I'm not worried with the hands, face or boots seeing as there is no cloth there.

I like this Reference Because it shows a good topology for animation. It also shows that The mesh doesn't have to be so horrendously deformed like the last mesh. We can also use a normal map for stronger definition. The mesh will only subtle help for casting the shadows and showing form for cloth taper.

same Mesh with normal maps.

Low poly!

Going low poly this time. So I'm looking up some images of low poly faces. I always start from the head first when modelling a character. While trying to model low poly I'm also trying to ensure the topology follows the anatomy from the face. 

Looking at some of these references I like how the lips have been approached. I don't know if I'm gonna give him any nose holes though. I'll only do it if the director wants me to but no ones gonna observe that much detail.

My first step of modelling is just laying out the topology and work with the edge extrusion technique.
Face is going to be animated so this approach is best for me.

Retopology.

So I've have been given the responsibility of remodeling our main character and I've been given a week to complete this task. If I don't Complete this task by Next week Wednesday then The project will dysfunction and I will be fired from the team. I've let down the team twice due to a lack of problem solving and testing on my meshes. Main issue with the original mesh is that when subdiv preview is turned on it crashes maya and 8 out of 12 blendshapes that I sculpted didn't work. I didn't test the blendshapes before sending it to the team to work with and so I've cost time and damage to the team. I was able to achieve form and topology but the damage I caused was more technical issues. Even though it had for and topology I had to make sure the rest of the team were able to access an uncorrupt file and I have to make sure I test it myself prior to sending it over to the team.

Now that I've been given a week to model the character all over I've decided to spend the rest of my day doing some R&D figuring out the best methodology. I hope that my file won't be corrupt this time and I need to make sure everything is working. I also need to receive the green lights from the technical director, Producer and Director.

First I'm going to model a base shape with proper topology for the joints. Then I'm going to use a texture deformer for get some cloth tapering effect. I also want to use hard edges in specific areas to make the tapering effect stronger. I'm going low poly this time seeing I'm also afraid of using subD preview this time.

Mishu, 2015

First do the base shape and then subdivide once for tapering.

My plan is not to work with so many polys for the base. I should be seaking a good silhouette to work with and then I can later add in more polys in specific areas to define cloth pieces.

Mishu, M.R. (2015, May 24, 2008). Street Cop Workflow. [Weblog]. Retrieved 4 November 2015, from https://area.autodesk.com/tutorials/street_cop_workflow_by_mashru_mishu?o=print

Blendshapes

Sculpting some blend shapes on the character for the team. The Person rigging the character only wants me to deform the mouth area and overall the jobs isn't hard. I just have to spend the proper amount of time on each sculpt and make sure I'm focusing.

The team would also like these expressions to be more extreme so they can fiddle with a scale.

zbrush

I'm still very new to the program but reason I'm using the program is for its dynamesh function were you don't have to worry about topology when sculpting. The concept art contains allot of botany and organic shapes. Using zbrush my goal is to sculpt a form without the concern for its topology and then unwrap the shapes in maya.

Zbrush artists

The Golygon studios project consists of us having to go through creating a lot of surreal and organic shapes in a low poly art style. A lot of our concept art reveals this so for my research on I decided to look up artists who worked on Warframe. I looked at a lot of Lucas Hugs work who did plenty of zbrush sculpts for the game Warframe. (Hug, September 2009) I'm a personal fan of the game Warframe and seeing I'm responsible for the 3D art stage I decided to see how the artists from digital extremes approached their organic shapes in the game Warframe.

Lucas Hugs Workflow(Vimeo Link) (Hugs, 2014) is something I'd like to mimick in zbrush for the project and any future projects. Unlike most zbrush artists he doesn't use the dynamesh function for the sculpt. Throughout Lucas's workflow he just sculpts the mesh from the base mesh to the detailed version and he was able to maintain a good poly density to get the proper shapes he needed to mimic the concept art.

As described in the video description he first starts off with the general shapes, then goes to first pass detailing and lastly second pass detailing for the whips handle. Like many workflows this is a safe approach when creating any kind of art piece (mainly 2D and 3D) where you start with the basic blocking and then do more detailing once the proportions are figured out.

 

There aren't any tricks or skill requirements when sculpting in 3D. The most important thing for this kind of work is to figure out the best methodology to achieve the form and detail needed. This will require a lot of experimentation figuring out what sculpting tools are best and even have to create your own custom brushes to achieve the desired look. Here is an example of one of the brushes Lucas made for his sculpting.

Another art piece I'd like to look at is Vitaly Bulgarovs Atom Eater (Vitaly Bulgarov, 2015) who didn't just use Zbrush but other programs for his project. He first used Zbrush to sketch out the form he needed and then used a Kitbash he owned to add in some detailed pieces over the Dynamesh sculpt. Once he was satisfied with the body shape he then used the Zremesher to convert the mesh to quads. After converting the mesh to quads he then exported the mesh to a polygon modelling program Softimage.

 

Using these programs he was able to first get the general shape in Zbrush using the Dynamesh and Zremesher scripts to his advantage. For first pass detailing he used his own Kitbash (Bulgarov, 2015) to achieve and for the second pass detailing he did modelling in Softimage which took up the most time in his project.

Though both these artists have different techniques they both use the same basic method where they start from basic shapes and then slowly go into first and second passes for detailing. For someone who  has a basic understanding of Zbrush and is new to digital sculpting it is easier to use Vitalys method. If using Lucas's method you would have to keep topology and poly density in mind while sculpting where with Vitalys you can continually Dynamesh and not have to worry about either. All you need to focus on with Dynamesh is shape and form then Zremesh once done.

Hugs, L.U.C.A.S. (2014). Vimeo. Retrieved 23 October, 2015, from https://vimeo.com/109131114

Hug, L.U.C.A.S. (September 2009). Zbrushcentral. Retrieved 23 October 2015, from http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?183326-My-work-on-quot-Warframe-quot

Vitaly bulgarov, V. (2015, 20 May). Atom-Eater Robot - 3DModelling/Design Timelapse. [Weblog]. Retrieved 04 December 2015, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yi6Rg4RaIR4

Bulgarov, V. (2015). Vitalybulgarovcom. Retrieved 11 December, 2015, from http://vitalybulgarov.com/3d-kitbash/

UV layout mitigation Vlog

Here in this short video I represented a kind of a solution to my issue. Using transfer attributes so that most of the hair shares the same UV.