First attempt in 3dc

[michalis]

Another one, working on the other side, no symmetry you see. There isn't such a thing in real life, there isn't any undo either.

[Taros]

Looks good, so far. Are there any sharp edges in the figure? It looks a little bit smooth, like the most 3D Coat models.

[michalis]

Thanks taros, this is the point. Sharp edges. I haven't finnish it, I may increase the resolution, now its about 1.3 million. In this case I'll re sculpt everything, you know. Or using textures maybe. The other solution is to import it to zbrush, (blender-sculpt v2.5 is another solution, I'll import it there anyway). But first I want to see if I can finish it in 3DC. Any suggestions?

[michalis]

If I was in zb, now I could find myself in front of millions of poly and lot of artifacts. Re topology is out of question, I'm trying to learn some real sculpture here, not just coping these hairs, these ancient hairs are almost abstract compositions yet realistic wow...

Its not the first time I try to do an ancient sculpt. I just want to learn something not just copying. This, I did it in zb-blender some months ago. Sharpness looks ok but its photo-mapping not so real sculpture.

[Cube]

Very nice model! You have the beginnings of the hair detailing working really well. I find that old style of sculpture totally fascinating (like you say abstract, but somehow realistic st the same time). The British Museum in London has some amazing old classical sculptures, you could literally spend weeks there looking around - but of course you probably have 100 times what they have in your own country!

I agree about the surface detailing in 3D-Coat, this is the only problem i am having with it. I have been running the trial versions of both software for the last 20 days, and i have to say that even at my limited ability, ZBrush is far superior for very fine detailing. 3D-Coat is a lot more fun, and definately more compelling for sculpture, but the ultra-fine details are not there. Plus Zbrush has that fantastic surface noise tool, which is incredibly useful i think. I've tried experimenting with surface mode in 3D-Coat as the very last stage in a model, but even there i just can't get the detail i would like, and once you start pinching the surface around you have lost the advantage of using voxels anyway since your surface immediately gets looses it's uniformity.

I get the feeling we will have to work at 40-60m+ poly on say a full figure to get the same level of detail that people are achieving with ZBrush at the moment. Working at 20m i can get very good overall detail, but the the very finest details are not there (talking about skin pores, fine wrinkles etc..). Hopefully the Voxel room in 3D-Coat will grow in efficiency, with added detail and the ability to paint directly to voxels it would be the ultimate solution i think.

[michalis]

Yeah, thanks cube, its an interesting conversation, really thanks for this.

Its too early for me though, this is the first major experiment for 3DC. A million or two poly mess should be enough for this model. I'm not really interesting in pores etc, but the crispness of shapes is my concern. I'm not sure if voxels technology can support direct texture painting. Now I have a fine topology (detailed) in blender as a base mess, I can go to ZB and finish it. But this topology doesn't really help. The crispness of these statues is great, I have to use tris for this. We must not forget that this is an existing model. What about improvisation? Voxels is the best instrument I know. BTW I never liked these zsperes 1 or 2. Imagine me to work on these hairs trying to understand what the ancient artist did, placing some 'worms' here and there. No sir I wont. I even love this softness in 3DC (OK, I don't really)

About the British Museum: We have lot of masterpieces in greece, but there is the greater act in history of art (IMO). Pheidia's super sculpture... the marbles of Parthenon. (Elgin's marbles?) no (Pheidia's marbles) he he. I mean these look fine where they are, I visited them lot of times.

[Cube]

Andrew said he will add voxel painting for sure - at least on a surface level, maybe even per-voxel painting! I am really looking forward to this.

I agree completely about ZSphere, i don't like that technique at all. For me the muscle tool in 3D-Coat is far superior for 'bulking out' organic shapes. In fact i prefer every single element of 3D-Coat, the only thing lacking is the ultra-high detail. But i am sure this will evolve just like everything else! The voxel is king, just needs some time to mature.

Good luck with your model, i look forward to seeing the final result

[Taros]

To realise details in 3D Coat you should use the combination between surface mode and voxel mode.

You can sculpt a lot of fine details in surface mode, but you should know the following: switch to surface mode at the end of your voxel process only. The current problem is: The switch from surface mode and back to voxels is very slow and makes a project work uncomfortable, even impossible in some cases.

But if you are comfortable with your voxel result, set it to a higher resolution and move to the surface mode. There you can do the final details in a fast and good way.

Try it.

Best wishes

Chris

[michalis]

Good advise, thanks Taros. I'll do it. What to do with a high res model is another question. Retopo? If so then I should follow the 'traditional' approach. I could finnish the whole thing in blender. There is a confusion here, I mean the voxels approach, haven't found a satisfied workflow so far. But I will lol.

Having a license of zbrush I can just export the voxels tri decimated model at ~20 000 faces to zb, this lo poly (tri) model is comfortable for more sculpt there (sounds funny but its OK for me), new UV master there works fine etc etc. Lets face it. ZB is more efficient for surface sculpt (for the moment). We all want to see a standalone 3d app, but is this possible?

[michalis]

The voxel sculpt mode almost finished, its just a test for texture via pp. Its not crisp enough but crispness its a matter of composition sometimes.

[michalis]

Here's a final voxels sculpt, a Zbrush preview too. New zb UV mapper is great, but imported again in 3d coat and textured there. Please find me a stand alone app, you wont because I'm an artist lol.

[michalis]

First test render in blender. I need some more crispness. Its a 40 000 poly model.

[GED]

really nice render looks like something you would see on an old building

[Markus F.]

You have some nice Sculptures there, great job with the Hair on the last one!

Like the Rendering

regards

Markus

[michalis]

Thanks ged, markusF, please visit gallery of finished works. There's some better versions of this last one.

BTW, ged (Ursula LeGuin's 'ged' ?) you may also see it in an archeological museum, or (and) in your dreams, or even in a spaceship (hollywood has done this too...). lol cheers man thanks again.

[michalis]

OK another one. A boy and his... duck. Duck is coming soon. And a base etc... I like to finish it here in 3dC. For the moment is in voxels mode at ~one million faces. I'll increase resolution and go to surface mode.

Then what? I'm still a newbie. You can see hands and feet are not in right position, His hand must touch his bely, how can I avoid voxels joint there? Feet too, these have to touch each other...

How can I go for a 100-200 k model, retopo+UVs+textures. And at the same time export a very lo poly model too? I missed lot of things here, I'm trying to learn 3dc.

For this one I used, except increase and move of course, the fill and clay tools.

Fill tool +ctrl especially combined with scrape is similar to zb flattener (I love this). An idea is to have this combination in one tool, is this possible?

[Tony Nemo]

I would certainly deal with your pose before increasing res. And smoothing between hi res and low res (hands and body, for instance) volumes adds safety to the risk of things becoming unmanageable.

[michalis]

Thanks TonyNemo, but thats what I don't understand. How to deal with the pose? I certainly don't want hands and body become a mess. Anyway here's a preview of the whole composition, texture overlay via pp.

[Calabi]

I think its like the same problem with real clay isnt it.

The way I did it was to put the hand on a different voxel layer. Use the cut or clone tools I cant remember which ones. It doesnt matter if there is a gap or it doesnt look right because you retopo them both together in the retopo room. It might be a bit confusing at first as you will have to hide the main body and the hand with each bit. And you cant subdivide it, or you can but you have to make sure they dont touch. You just have to be careful.

[artman]

Yes,Calabi suggestion is your best chance.

Use Hide tool tough instead of Split tool,and press E...there you can pick different selectors to do your cutting.

Then in Voxel menu on top of screen there is a "Separate hidden" option ,it will split your sculpt.

The reason for using Hide tool instead of split tool...

is that there is problem with Split tool:

there is Border Width parameter in E panel that is supposed to determine the gap between parts....but it doesnt work .

Even if you set it to Zero there is always a pretty good gap and the cut is also not accurate.

Hide tool does not have this problem,so the workaround..

Also,in surface mode mesh wont merge together.

But the thing is even if it does not merge if you bring the hand too close to the body ...it will be hard to select it without selecting the mesh near it.

So that does not really help you.

-----------------------------

My suggestion is to finish your sculpting like you are presently doing without any posing.

Then use "Quadrangulate and Merge" from voxtree rmb menu.

Carcass value will determine the size of your lowres mesh.

Set 4096x4096 texture for 10 mil+ or 2048x2048 for 4-5mil sculpt.

Be sure automapping option is on.

(you will have to do this for each voxel layers seperately:body,duck+stand ect...)

Once merging is done model is transfered to Paint room

but it is now also avaible for Sculpt Room inside is a feature called "Drag Points",

which is actually a pretty cool posing system...its hard to explain but you will see how it works once you try it.

You set limiting sphere on model and then you can articulate the limited parts like if there was some armatures...

Once you are happy with everything.

Return to Paint room(might take a few minutes)

And use file export High-Poly options to get Hires

(3 different export there...last one gives extremely big meshes,so be careful).

And use file -Export Model option to get the Lowpoly.

Both will have same Uvs.

Or alternatively you can do all I wrote here and skip the "Drag Points" part from sculpt room and do your posing

in Zb on the exported Hires.Reconstruct Subd option in Zb will work because model is made of Quads it has Uvs.

(This Zb option will recreate subdivision levels out of your hires down to the original lowpoly)

You can also,instead of using "Quadrangulate and Merge" do your own retopo and use "merge into scene( microverts)"

from retopo menu,its the same....except you will have to learn Uving and retopo first...

[michalis]

wow, artman, how can I thanks you for these. Indeed I know how to retopo and do UVs, I'm a newbie in 3dc, not in blender or zbrush lol. Thanks for your time, you should post this as a tutorial. You made my day, no, my night, no, my nights. Time to have some beer, really...

[artman]

wow, artman, how can I thanks you for these. Indeed I know how to retopo and do UVs, I'm a newbie in 3dc, not in blender or zbrush lol. Thanks for your time, you should post this as a tutorial. You made my day, no, my night, no, my nights. Time to have some beer, really...

I was talking about making Uvs and retopo in 3DCoat of course ...But anyway if you are already used to Zb,Blender its not a big difference.

And I like beer very much,we are big beer drinkers here in Quebec.Are they some good beer in Greece?I will try to see if they got any imported greek beers at the SAQ,i might be lucky they have some chinese and russian beers there.I know you guys make pretty good wine tough.

[michalis]

lol artman, com on there isn't any good greek beer (any special I mean). I was drinking a heineken. But we have some good wines indeed. We are good drinkers too. We have economical problems too. Beer whiskey vodka wine champagne etc etc and of course 'raki'. lets concentrate in 3d its more healthy... (I said that?)

[michalis]

OK this what came after all these, I had to work in zbrush too, I had to modify sculpture in blender sculpt mode after first render tests, I always do this. The whole group is ~40 000 poly. Displacement map for the first 3 subdivitions, normal map for another sub levels too. All these in zbrush because if I had normals for the base model then displacement wont work as it should. But I'm sure you already know that problem.

[michalis]

And some render previews. I'm already working on another two statues. A scene about a museum, a rather huge scene.

[michalis]

I added a relief in the scene, this one modeled and textured in 3dC, (~1 hour). I should say that I love 3dC once more?

A blender internal render.

[Markus F.]

Superb, nothing more to say .

[GED]

nice render pity its so complicated to pose voxels

[michalis]

Thanks MarkusF, Ged.

Yes its pity. On the other hand, its the nature of these things. Its about real sculpture (voxels) vs surface (subsusrf too) sculpture. Apps like zbrush, are made to displace the surface of a quad mess having UVs. What I don't understand is, how materials work in voxels mode? Its not like ZB "matcaps", these last work via normals towards the camera. Andrew has something more to say about it. And he's working hard.

[michalis]

Another one. An 'ancient' lion (~550 BC). A three hours sculpt and texturing, a 27k model + displacement for the first 3 subsurf levels, normal map then , adopted from this level up to 7 millions poly final model. This is the best way IMO. It took me one hour just to model its tail (voxels). A nice study of a great composition there. Its a mash vs emptiness war.