Leigh's Sketchbook

[LJB]

Good to see you posting regularly again Leigh, did you retopo the vox mesh in 3DCoat for integration into Silo then Zbrush?

Sure i did, I purposefully leave out fingers and toes and model them in seperately. Easier to get a controlled result. with even distribution of joints.

[Tony Nemo]

Sure i did, I purposefully leave out fingers and toes and model them in seperately. Easier to get a controlled result. with even distribution of joints.

Nice job on the retopology, Leigh! The twist in the forearm will allow the hand to be posed palm forward and show a straight edge flow. To be clear, had the retopo been done in the latter pose, the twist in the edge flow would be exactly were you put it when the pose was changed after skinning.

[LJB]

Sounds, smart right ?

I always do it like this as it aids twist and closer follows the muscle line, No? Palms forward as modelling pose feels very uncomfortable, Not rested at all. Maybe Im wrong, but it feels more comfortable. Please ellaborate.

[Tony Nemo]

I always do it like this as it aids twist and closer follows the muscle line, No? Palms forward as modelling pose feels very uncomfortable, Not rested at all. Maybe Im wrong, but it feels more comfortable. Please ellaborate.

My intent was to indicate the appropriate edge flow in your retop, not to suggest that palm forward is a "more comfortable" method. Had it been done palm forward, when the skinned mesh was posed with a downward palm, the edgeflow would match what you have done. Many, even myself (blush), using the standard palm down would neglect this juncture to the point where rotating the palm forward would twist the edge flow contrary to the muscle/wrist flow. I have made some ugly wrists (when deformed by joints) so I know the pitfalls. It might be that this issue has gotten beyond intelligent communication without a picture.

[robotbob]

hey Leigh, inspirational stuff, this is a beautiful character.

From what jack said do you use silo for modeling your fingers and toes and then zbrush for painting after a little detail enhancement ? you are right its a pity that you cant to it all in 3DC, yet.

i love your work. you mentioned games but have you designed characters for film or tv commercial work ?

[LJB]

No no, I'm with Nemo and you here, that's the best way :. I was making a snarky comment as a response on another thread about this exact issue

Btw, to avoid derailing this thread much further, did you project your voxel sculpt on the new topo in zbrush ? Or did you go the warrior way and resculpted everything ? That's something I would like to know cause I will probably do some cartoon style sculpts soon and need to know how zbrush is handling heavy tricount from 3dcoat meshes as projection source.

It really depends of what your doing, Im already past the point of trying to push Voxels to high detail. Warrior way is better for my workflow, I seldow work to high detail with Voxel's nowadays after my previous experiments. So in answer to your question Beatkitano I have neve tried it. But below Id offer a better more controllable alternative.

What I have done in the past is be very careful in my retop to keep everything to quads and THEN Increase the SubD level IN the retop room then use the retopo tools to clean things up at a higher resolution.

[Quick Edit as an explanation of why to be careful, and Im sure you already get this anyway Beats' but oithers reading may not, if you accidently put just one Tri in there, ZB will fail to Re construct to the base Res. ]

As long as your care and keep things quads, then you can take the Higher level into ZBrush and reconstruct the Lower levels back to the starting point before you SubD'd in the retopo room.

For me this is the cleanest way to reproject detail. Its much easy to clean in the retopo room using the brush tool at a higher res than to try andd chase things in ZB.

If Andrew is listening to this I would like to bring his attention back to a conversation we had a long while back about how the mesh should be divided when moving to the paint room. I would like very much to see the abillity to jump up and down res in the retopo room for easy cleanup with these levels be considered at Merge to paint stage. That way we would no longer have artifacting caused by uncotrollable re-projection of detail. Sound good????

[Quick edit This may lead to intergration of multes straight out of the retopo room get creative Andrew! ]

[LJB]

hey Leigh, inspirational stuff, this is a beautiful character.

From what jack said do you use silo for modeling your fingers and toes and then zbrush for painting after a little detail enhancement ? you are right its a pity that you cant to it all in 3DC, yet.

i love your work. you mentioned games but have you designed characters for film or tv commercial work ?

Thank you, You got it, From my previous experiments I tend to keep thing low and Formy in Voxels, I always take things into a poly modeller after retop for undercuts and details added, Internals and such, all the things that you would stuggle with, with a surface snapping retopolgy program like 3dCoat or Topogun. Fingers Unless very very detailed and seperated (Not easy with Voxels) will always be better like this.

I still favour ZB for detail as its for me more comfortable to work with. But that is a very personal pref, And i already invested in it.

Now in the future if brushes and Tools in the sculpt room mirror those on offer in the Voxel room and a good 'Displace' or 'Dam standard' type brush can be worked then 3d coat is a no brainer.

As to characters, 'Fat Manny' here is a possibillity for the lead in a independant short which may get into production. I would much rather work for TV, Film than games but Im struggling to find contracts in this economy, so im looking to gain some Max experience to make myself a bit more viable to studios. Softimage, Face Robot, LightWave not the most sought after skillset. Im not getting anywhere fast with them. I have only working knowledge in Maya, but no Max experience at all so Im being overlooked from pretty much the word go.

Anyways Thank you for you Comments, keeps me driving on!!

[philnolan3d]

It's funny, a while back a client asked me to a model a character who was a read "sad sack". That was the only description that was given and I thought that could look like anyone and I had no idea what do make him look like. turns out my client didn't get that project anyway, but I think your character here may fit the description perfectly if only he didn't look so darned cheery. lol

[michalis]

What I have done in the past is be very careful in my retop to keep everything to quads and THEN Increase the SubD level IN the retop room then use the retopo tools to clean things up at a higher resolution.

[Quick Edit as an explanation of why to be careful, and Im sure you already get this anyway Beats' but oithers reading may not, if you accidently put just one Tri in there, ZB will fail to Re construct to the base Res. ]

As long as your care and keep things quads, then you can take the Higher level into ZBrush and reconstruct the Lower levels back to the starting point before you SubD'd in the retopo room.

For me this is the cleanest way to reproject detail. Its much easy to clean in the retopo room using the brush tool at a higher res than to try andd chase things in ZB.

If Andrew is listening to this I would like to bring his attention back to a conversation we had a long while back about how the mesh should be divided when moving to the paint room. I would like very much to see the abillity to jump up and down res in the retopo room for easy cleanup with these levels be considered at Merge to paint stage. That way we would no longer have artifacting caused by uncotrollable re-projection of detail. Sound good????

It sounds good to me anyway! Please an indicator for non quad faces in retopo! Now I export the mesh to blender to fix this.

I started to use another workflow though. After a clean base re-topo, I export this low quads (even some tris there!). I also export a heavy hi-res tri model directly from voxels room (export scene only!). Import the two objs in ZBrush subdivide the low res retopo and project all. This way you can capture as much details you like. I like this method because it also works in blender so to have multi res meshes there.

1. I avoid displacement maps this way.

2. Lot of voxel sculpt details.

3. Some tris are acceptable.

[Tony Nemo]

It's funny, a while back a client asked me to a model a character who was a read "sad sack". That was the only description that was given and I thought that could look like anyone and I had no idea what do make him look like. turns out my client didn't get that project anyway, but I think your character here may fit the description perfectly if only he didn't look so darned cheery. lol

"Sad Sack" was a Sunday comic character WW2 vintage and was skinny and really didn't resemble Leigh's character (or maybe after a time in a prison camp).

[Calabi]

It does look a bit(tiny bit) like Sad Sack from the raggy dolls. Just needs the hair.

[artman]

I liked your first facial design more,I could see a a mighty gangster kingpin or somethin.

But just like that...with the underwear and the happy face...it feels weird to me.

Maybe as an oldschool baseball player?

Anyway,glad to see you posting again.

What happened to the texturing of your cool horned lizard,did file got corrupted or something?

[philnolan3d]

"Sad Sack" was a Sunday comic character WW2 vintage and was skinny and really didn't resemble Leigh's character (or maybe after a time in a prison camp).

Yeah I did lots of research at the time and saw the WWII era character, it was actually used in the 1920's though. But since then you can find it meaning any "inept person who makes mistakes despite good intentions" (dictionary quote).

Anyway, don't mean to take over the thread. Any more updates Leigh?

[LJB]

Not this weekend.

[LJB]

Update -

[artman]

Very nice!And good pose too,I also like the eyes alot. He looks like trustworthy fella.

[bantu]

This is looking sweet! I can see a fine illustration evolving here with mood and character.

[philnolan3d]

Nice update. The lighting seem a little harsh, perhaps tone it down a bit with a little more shadow. I'll look forward to seeing more!

[JensD]

I like the artistic execution of the guy. Outstanding skills!!

But I don't like the fella himself. In my eyes he looks like an ...hole.

(Well, maybe that is the intention).

Greetings

Jens

[bantu]

Nice update. The lighting seem a little harsh, perhaps tone it down a bit with a little more shadow. I'll look forward to seeing more!

i second that! I didn't even realize, that there weren't any "proper" shadows in your lighting besides self shadowing. Otherwise keep going, this might be a gallery piece soon.

cheers

[LJB]

Yep have to hold off work on him for a little while cos I have a more pressing project over the next week or so but I will pick up where i left off. Been looking at Fibre FX, but Trying to work out some solutions to Reusabilllity I want to consider this character for more than just a Static shot. If I want to use LW for rendering then More needs to be done with Hair and rigging so workflow is clearer in my head.

[LJB]

New project WIP -

Hope you like.

[bantu]

New project WIP -

Hope you like.

I dig the face and the overall proportions! Them toes and hands need a little bit more love they seem to have gotten the least attention. are these voxels? keep us posted.

[LJB]

Thanks, Yep I will redo the hands elsewhere, Its a lot to do with the scale and resoloution at which i work in Voxels, I like to keep things low and put Blobs of higher resolution where i need them (in this case Head) Hands I can do in voxels but I seldom retopologise the hands as accuracy for me epsecially on hands is more important. Hence they will be added in a poly modeller that way i dont waste time trying to place verts at precise locationson thin voxel volume fingers. I got better things to do than slide a vert over and over on a finger trying to get things even.

Beatkitano, no kit bashing here, but you can easily do so with voxels. The way i do ears is simple technique I came up with when 3d coat Voxels were young. I create a child layer of the head and use the copy tool to draw out the rough shape of the ear on the side of the head then rotate the ear to desired angle using the pose tool. do all the sahping to the seperated ear then once im happy i merge the two volumes back to one. see my video here for a quick demo (Please excuse the model, It's one of those Cringe moments I have mentioned before) - http://www.vimeo.com/6717623 and and

[LJB]

I should probably read the manual...

Well I didnt for a long while, and when I did a few things i just didnt get slotted into place (But i think a lot could be done to make things more conventional, that in my eyes would be a good thing!!!).

Voxels Are a different kettle of fish completely and therefore need to be treated very differently from Poly-sculpting. For instance boolean operations have no restriction unlike polys so they make a lot of sense. I love Tinker's work it was a real Eye opener to this. Alot of the frustration i see from new users is they expect a poly-sculpt workflow and just arent willing to experiment.

[michalis]

Thanks, Yep I will redo the hands elsewhere, Its a lot to do with the scale and resoloution at which i work in Voxels, I like to keep things low and put Blobs of higher resolution where i need them (in this case Head) Hands I can do in voxels but I seldom retopologise the hands as accuracy for me epsecially on hands is more important. Hence they will be added in a poly modeller that way i dont waste time trying to place verts at precise locationson thin voxel volume fingers. I got better things to do than slide a vert over and over on a finger trying to get things even.

:clapping: for modeling and texturing. But try for some better rendering just for fun. I mean better lighting.

As for subdividing in retopo room I already mentioned another work flow so to avoid reconstruction of sublevels.

Careful subdivisions in retopo are good for baking textures in 3DC. To bake in another app (zbrush) the other method looks interesting. To save all sculpted details made in 3DC its not.

The point is where do you prefer to sculpt details. If zb is the case then a simple 3dc retopo and editing using another modeler is the best. But what if you want to act like in real real clay sculpturing? To add new meshes etc? Re-topo and projection then. So its a good idea to almost finish sculpture in 3DC. In most cases. What we can't do in 3DC is to set up a complex static pose. And this problem will remain as 3DC hasn't a after retopo-surface-subdivisions sculpt room like blender,zb,mb etc.

[LJB]

:clapping: for modeling and texturing. But try for some better rendering just for fun. I mean better lighting.

As for subdividing in retopo room I already mentioned another work flow so to avoid reconstruction of sublevels.

Careful subdivisions in retopo are good for baking textures in 3DC. To bake in another app (zbrush) the other method looks interesting. To save all sculpted details made in 3DC its not.

The point is where do you prefer to sculpt details. If zb is the case then a simple 3dc retopo and editing using another modeler is the best. But what if you want to act like in real real clay sculpturing? To add new meshes etc? Re-topo and projection then. So its a good idea to almost finish sculpture in 3DC. In most cases. What we can't do in 3DC is to set up a complex static pose. And this problem will remain as 3DC hasn't a after retopo-surface-subdivisions sculpt room like blender,zb,mb etc.

I will go back and re adress Lighting and Rendering Later when I have more time for previous project. Right now I have to focus on this boy and his sister. Sure I will definitiely spend more time on the render for these two I have a little more time to work on them.

As to Which I prefer, I Prefer to work to Low level and Set out forms and general details in 3D Coat then Clean up add other impossible to work areas in Poly modeller then texture and detail in ZB For exactly the reason you mention Michalis. I choose to Detail & texture in ZB cos Performance, Blending and a couple of other features in 3d coat hold me back.

[LJB]

His Lil Sister Very WIP -

[LJB]

Tidied WireFrame after retopology.

[Rich_Art]

Nice character and dito mesh.

Peace,

Rich_Art.