blond Kouros's head

[michalis]

Starting a new project and maybe sketching a tutorial.

Its from a blond Kouros in Acropolis Athens museum ~480 BC. Still at 1M and symmetry. Its gonna be difficult, these "Kouros' statues have a great hidden geometry. Some yellow ochre still remains on his hair.

[3d_sculptress]

looking good...would love to see a tutorial on this

[michalis]

Thanks 3d sculptress.

Meanwhile, testing some textures and sss in blender. Its still a low poly model still having problems with retopo room (this time 'relax' did it)

[digman]

This kind of work in ideally suited for 3DCoat using voxels. Looking forward to seeing this sculpt progress.

What version of Blender are you using for the renders?

[michalis]

@digman: I'm using 2.49b for basic modeler but render branch 2.5.2 for rendering (64bit build from graphicall.org). Its a very fast render engine.

For this kind of work (no rigging) a decimated tri model exported from voxels works fine. But I'm trying to learn retopo and other adopting technics here.

These archaic 'kouros' statues look like they don't need crisp details. Quiet wrong. Modeling these is a nightmare, try it to see for yourself. Hair should not look like the above render. Now I increased resolution and sculpting again, thinking that I should export a high res from multiverts to zbrush and do the final sculpt there.

[michalis]

I just managed to save all this work (exported a higher res model, no textures) opened in blender and cleaned it, some nice UVs there (the best UV editior I know), reconstructed subdivisions in zbrush, ready to sculpt. Used subdivisions in retopo for this (microvertex was a disaster), after some crashes 3DC collapsed and waiting now someone to help me fix it.

Not exactly the tutorial I had in mind.

[michalis]

Another small 3DC adventure came to an end (I think). Rendered in blender, apps used to sculpt and paint, 3DC, zbrush, blender (all the three of them lol). This is a 15k model but a multires model, meaning you can do any rigging and animation you want but the renderer will see some 800K + normal maps. Much much better than displacement maps. But I need zbrush and blender to do this. Subdivisions in 3DC ( retopo room) doesn't work the way it should, sorry, this may be the reason why we don't have multi res modeling in 3dc (this was a question to Andrew).

[GED]

very good finish, would be wierd to see it animated

[michalis]

thanks ged, I never tried to learn how to animate, maybe I will. But enough with all these antiquities, I started an old fisherman's portrait, some great stories about this guy, he is 82 years old now.

And a watercolor I painted in front this model last summer. For the moment I'm not sure if I'll go for a realistic portrait or do just some sculpts.

[Taros]

I love the waterpainting.

[michalis]

Hey thanks Taros, traditional painting is my favorite, waterpainting especially. Paper is the medium not paints. A hand made heavy and expensive wet paper.

[haikalle]

Very impressive. Both works.

[michalis]

thanks haikalle, now this sculpt is at 200k, I can subdivide it at 800 k or once more (better because I don't like to loose crispness every time I subdivide) and finish it. (retopo UVs after). Or I can retopo right now and go for blender and zbrush. Your advice? I may prefer the second because I own zb and this is a stable workflow. It is the way that 3DC subdivides topology that frightens me. Where is the 'Catmull-Clark' method?

[haikalle]

I have been also wondered about the way how 3dc subdivides topology. There is something odd going on but in the end it gives okey results.

Right now How I work is that I try to take Meshes as low resolution as I can out from 3d-coat. Then using normal/bump and disp maps to build my model.

Right now I'm using Vray/Blender and it uses python to calc your meshes and if you have very high poly mesh it can take a long time to calc.

I should say that 200k is enough but in the end you have test it and see which way is better....Just remember to tell me the results of your tests

Also, if you have some free time, try 3d-coat with houdini. I think that houdini is the best program out there that handles 3d-coat disp maps amazingly well.

It just pure joy. Houdini is quite complex program so building the rest of your shader can take a time but with 3d-coat disp maps, houdini really masters it.

[michalis]

I did some new tests using zbrush to blender multi-res import.

I had the best and accurate results when exported one by one resolution from zbrush and using shrinkwrap four times. This is a 800k model after four subdivisions.

The difference between the zbrush and blender preview is because zbrush renders quads using gradient, blender uses a flat colour always.

Same technic using 3DC is not practical (lot of artifacts) due to loss of Catmull-Clark method, Anyway have a look.

This came from 3DC, being a guad mesh, zbrush could re-construct subdivisions.

[michalis]

I decided to use the 3DC to zbrush workflow. I'm also trying to improve my retopo skills. I never liked retopo, how wrong I was... This is a 2k base model, up to 100k now and still some nice details, so this is what nice topology does. What do you think about the likeness? He's an old fisherman, a modern pirate an ex contraband man. At least he drinks as a pirate. At 83...

[artman]

I decided to use the 3DC to zbrush workflow. I'm also trying to improve my retopo skills. I never liked retopo, how wrong I was... This is a 2k base model, up to 100k now and still some nice details, so this is what nice topology does. What do you think about the likeness? He's an old fisherman, a modern pirate an ex contraband man. At least he drinks as a pirate. At 83...

Likeness is very good I think.

[Calabi]

Cool, really nice details and characterful face.

[michalis]

Thanks, artman, calabi.

Where can I find a good tutorial about topology? I found some but these have to do with simple animated faces, more precise sculpture needs something more. Its so difficult to have square quads only.

I used quads only here, so I followed artman's advice (rebuild subdivisions in zbrush).

[Calabi]

Here's a couple of good ones.

http://www.phungdinhdung.org/Studies_paper/Realistic_face_modeling.shtm

http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=93651

[michalis]

Thanks calabi, these are the tutorials I was talking about, the problem maybe has not a solution Try to model some ancient sculpture and we'll see what these topo tricks can do Try especially to model archaic hair. Or some Feidias's drapery (Elgin marbles, british museum). Too many clear triangulated shapes there, you see.

[Calabi]

I've got plenty more but their not much better. I had the same trouble with my bat head(I gave up eventually) didnt matter because its not going to be animated or sculpted further.

I think its just a matter of terminating the edge loops correctly like in that blender thread, if your just looking for all quads. Perhaps a matter of practice and knowledge you cant be taught.

[michalis]

A week later, alone at last, some progress. Zbrush again, starting in voxels room, topology, subdivide, reconstruct subdivisions in zbrush. All I can do for the moment. I'm planing to texture it in 3dcoat. We'll see.

[Greg]

Beautiful work! Thanks for sharing it.

[michalis]

some more fixes and a copper matcap. I hope to save some time to finish this.

[Tony Nemo]

Very nice! Just to refresh, how much was done in 3DC?

[michalis]

Thanks tony nemo.

I already posted what I did in 3dc. Basic sculpture (voxels concept sculpture is a more precise word because this makes clear what we have in mind, not just a box modeling). Retopology then, subdivisions and export in zbrush (re-construct subs there) etc.

This is my way to say: 3DCoat is not a stand alone app as it is. Voxels are great (my favorite) but when jumping to a surface mode, I'm not expecting a way back to voxels, I'm expecting to find a zbrush like room. With all these goodies there. And a friendly GPU environment. Capable to bake AO normals bumps displacements materials etc.

Now I'll import this again to 3dc (UVs already there) and paint it. I'll import it to blender and bake AO too. I own a license of zbrush already so this is my workflow. It costs a zbrush+3DC... +blender lol

Now, tony nemo, 'just to refresh' : A question. How many models in the official 3DC gallery are made using zbrush? There is at least (a good one) that can be found in the official zbrush gallery too.

I don't believe in stand alone apps anyway. I can't find a better workflow to construct this portrait here.

[digman]

This gentleman is somewhat old but with a rugged quality about him, A man who has known hard work in his life(a little beaten down by the years of work too),(my interpretation) Great work again, Michalis.

[Tony Nemo]

Now, tony nemo, 'just to refresh' : A question. How many models in the official 3DC gallery are made using zbrush? There is at least (a good one) that can be found in the official zbrush gallery too.

I don't believe in stand alone apps anyway. I can't find a better workflow to construct this portrait here.

Thanks for your clarification, Michalis. C4D is my basic app but 3DC is my only sculpting app, so I rely on Andrew to develop it's attributes. So far, his development is faster than my need for stand alone sculpting/painting (I am currently busy trying to animate getting into and out of a lotus pose).