Another portrait

[michalis]

Same island, another good friend here. This guy knows the most funny stories. Here a half an hour sculpture. You already know why mouth looks like this for the moment. I'll try to make this sculpt with some simple yet clear shapes-faces. Details and anatomy always welcome but they are the easy part. Not just IMO.

Using the 08 build I noticed a great performance in voxels room. Not only surface mode I mean. More fps, who knows why. But I need some better tools like a flattener (a combination of scrape and ctrl+fill tool). a flattener to the lower normal value not the middle. A nice simulator of a real sculpture tool. In reality we add clay, we cut shapes and smooth a little.

[Tony Nemo]

Same island, another good friend here. This guy knows the most funny stories. Here a half an hour sculpture. You already know why mouth looks like this for the moment. I'll try to make this sculpt with some simple yet clear shapes-faces. Details and anatomy always welcome but they are the easy part. Not just IMO.

Using the 08 build I noticed a great performance in voxels room. Not only surface mode I mean. More fps, who knows why. But I need some better tools like a flattener (a combination of scrape and ctrl+fill tool). a flattener to the lower normal value not the middle. A nice simulator of a real sculpture tool. In reality we add clay, we cut shapes and smooth a little.

As we have come to expect, a good likeness! Do you ever work from life or do you use photos? I'm glad I have your standards to work towards.

[michalis]

@ Tony Nemo: I love to work from life, I always do but not using digital sculpture. This is for the nights (I don't sleep much lately lol)

Here's something in front of this subject lol. A watercolor as always.

[Tony Nemo]

@ Tony Nemo: I love to work from life, I always do but not using digital sculpture. This is for the nights (I don't sleep much lately lol)

Here's something in front of this subject lol. A watercolor as always.

It looks like, "Portrait Through a Window With Raindrops". Excellent!

[JensD]

Great work and great skills!

Greetings from Germany

JensD

[Polygoon]

Very Good! You obviously have a lot of experience being able to do that sculpture in 1/2 hr. Did you load the photo into 3DCoat as reference to sculpt off of? Or just by looking at the photo? Either way there is a good likeness, the mouth is a bit different though as you explained.

Very nice oil painting also.

[michalis]

Thanks Tonu Nemo, JensD, Polygoon.

@polygoon:

Very nice oil painting also.

Not oil painting, its simple watercolors without the use of white paint, just a heavy french "arches " paper, I can wash it, I can scratch it, as long as its wet (half an hour bath before painting). The basic medium of a watercolor is the paper.

Two screens are better, two computers are even better. Reference photos on my laptop. But here my problem with this guy, all photos I've taken show a different person! Its happening some times. I thing I've captured him, at least as I see him in front of me. After retopo and subdividing so to capture some more 3DC details here's the zbrush version (at 180K). And this will be my workflow. 3dc to zb. I need the Zb sculpture tools, sorry. Then back to 3DC for painting.

[michalis]

A first study via pp, to help me understand what I have to do, the machinist, exactly what this man did in his life. Background is a 3DC scene of course, voxels in five min. No shirt and no eyes yet but blender is better for this job, as hair and sss. The portrait is a zbrush preview. The texture is painted in 3DC. (still painting lol)

[AbnRanger]

Outstanding work thus far.

[michalis]

Thanks AbnRanger, I'm still painting texture for this portrait. Here's the first steps.

What I have to say is: After voxels and retopo we're coming to sculpt room. Here I need to find the zbrush (multi res, rebuilds, great and close to artists tools, a graphics support up to millions of poly). I'm expecting a 'copy' of zbrush. This could turn 3DC to a stand alone app. But I already own a license of zb so no problem. I can export and import as many time I need between these apps. ZB is very close to an artist's needs (as a massive surface modeler) 3DC has all the great solutions to these dirty workflow problems. 3DC is a great texture painter, a great retopo modeler, a great voxels straight ahead sculpture tool but not a real surface modeler at all. My crits, waiting for your replies.

[AbnRanger]

Thanks AbnRanger, I'm still painting texture for this portrait. Here's the first steps.

What I have to say is: After voxels and retopo we're coming to sculpt room. Here I need to find the zbrush (multi res, rebuilds, great and close to artists tools, a graphics support up to millions of poly). I'm expecting a 'copy' of zbrush. This could turn 3DC to a stand alone app. But I already own a license of zb so no problem. I can export and import as many time I need between these apps. ZB is very close to an artist's needs (as a massive surface modeler) 3DC has all the great solutions to these dirty workflow problems. 3DC is a great texture painter, a great retopo modeler, a great voxels straight ahead sculpture tool but not a real surface modeler at all. My crits, waiting for your replies.

Are you working on a MAC? On a 32 bit version of 3DC, I can certainly understand why you NEED to take a model over to ZB for details...but on 64bit with plenty of RAM, you can get all the detail you want in Voxels...down to the smallest pores. That is if you split your model into discreet parts and cache whatever layers you are not actively working on. Much like hiding in ZB.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7ZJX9Nfy8w

[michalis]

That is if you split your model into discreet parts and cache whatever layers you are not actively working on. Much like hiding in ZB.

Where, on a portrait? Com on now. I was talking about the sculpt tools of zbrush. About the move tool and the flattener tool. About the options of tools so to customize them. About rebuilding subdivisions.

And yes, I'm working on a mac. 3DC will not be the reason to change OS of course. We must not forget that zbrush runs even on my laptop. Up to millions of poly. Fast!

About voxels. You need some 20 M res to catch the crispness of a 45k model of zbrush! And still you haven't it. Its the nature of a surface modeler. Even in blender sculpt room I can achieve this crispness I never have in 3DC. This is my point.

BTW this is a great subject for conversation. I'm not offensive as a mac user of course

[AbnRanger]

Where, on a portrait? Com on now. I was talking about the sculpt tools of zbrush. About the move tool and the flattener tool. About the options of tools so to customize them. About rebuilding subdivisions.

And yes, I'm working on a mac. 3DC will not be the reason to change OS of course. We must not forget that zbrush runs even on my laptop. Up to millions of poly. Fast!

About voxels. You need some 20 M res to catch the crispness of a 45k model of zbrush! And still you haven't it. Its the nature of a surface modeler. Even in blender sculpt room I can achieve this crispness I never have in 3DC. This is my point.

BTW this is a great subject for conversation. I'm not offensive as a mac user of course

I realize what you're saying....that's why I mentioned, that you almost NEED to have to do your high detail work in ZB if you are on a MAC (unless you use Bootcamp to run Windows), for the reasons you stated. That ZB utilizes hardware more efficently than 3DC. Nevertheless, I thought you might be implying that it's not really possible to do really high detail work in voxels.

Also, I think some of it is just getting used to all the different pens and modes in Voxel Sculpting. I still keep learning new little things that would help greatly if I had known them previously.

That's the other big bonus of working with ZB...lots and lots of training content available for it.

[michalis]

I'll try to explain, AbnRanger, voxel room is fine, its closer to a sculptor's needs, some issues though. The move tool and all transformations in general! Impossible to perform like in sculpt room.

As for the mac build, its working up to ~5M not more. Better at 1-2M. (on a macpro xeon 16threads 12Gb ram) ram is useless though (32bit)

Then, after retopo, subdividing 3-4 times, having capture all the existing details, export to zbrush.

Rebuild subdivisions there (as all quads), UV master (or even better, I use blender for UVs, I like it more than 3DC here).

Now, in zb, up to millions for details etc.

I export a low poly version to 3DC and paint the textures. I may also paint a bumpy texture and use it as displacement alpha in zb (interesting and simple trick).

In zb, having a 10M mesh, I can bake all the normal maps and the most important is that I can import it to blender as a multires mesh again. (cage method again). Good bye displacement stupid maps.

It looks complicated but this workflow is fast and safe.

BTW:

1. I'm trying to avoid baking normal maps in 3DC, zb does the job perfectly and never had issues with tangent maps there.

2. Using a multi res model in blender (or any other renderer), or even displacement (similar), I have to capture to normalmap the REST of details, not all details. How is this possible in 3DC? Subdividing the retopo and baking and exporting all versions. This is not for any user, only experts can do this. A warning LOL.

Soon I'll post two methods of sculpturing (as in real world) to explain why voxels is the only way to start. Sculptris like or zspheres like are not working here. The 'old' box modeling is more close to art IMO.

[michalis]

I forgot to post this, is this possible for 3dc? It should be because its the retopo that makes this possible. (and zb)

[Taros]

I forgot to post this, is this possible for 3dc? It should be because its the retopo that makes this possible. (and zb)

You definitely need a 64bit system Michalis, if you would like to work well in 3DC. And yes, there is a very good way to bake high details to a mesh in 3DC. But there seems to be differences in windows and mac versions. And you should have more ram, but again: 64 bit...

I create highpoly meshes every day in 3DC and have no critical problems. (Working on Windows 7 64bit)

It's sad to hear, that you have this much problems.

[michalis]

You definitely need a 64bit system Michalis, if you would like to work well in 3DC. And yes, there is a very good way to bake high details to a mesh in 3DC. But there seems to be differences in windows and mac versions. And you should have more ram, but again: 64 bit...

I create highpoly meshes every day in 3DC and have no critical problems. (Working on Windows 7 64bit)

It's sad to hear, that you have this much problems.

hm hm taros.

1. mac OSX 10.5-10.6 are 64 bit systems.

2. More than 12 GB ram? we'll see about this.

3. blender 2.5.2 runs at 64 bit and I can easily sculpt ~30-40 M poly. Render times are dramatically faster compared with some i7 PCs.

4. Why 3DC is not 64 bit on a MAC? Andrew could answer this not me. I bought an app for the mac here. And its a good choice.

5. Its not sad, to use zbrush is not sad at all. The combination of 3dc and zb is powerful.

6. Have you ever tried to import a multires model in blender? This is even more powerful, you can bake there too. To have a 2.5K model for rigging and render-bake some millions is not sad. More like heaven for me. Can you do this using 3DC only?

7. I posted a simple mesh in 3dc topic. Try to retopo and bake this in 3DC and we'll see if this is possible. Just for testing, 3DC is not for this kind of job.

Anyway I posted a test for a scene here, I would appreciate some crits because i'm not sure about the whole atmo but I started my complains once more.

But these are more apologies for using and posting zb stuff here.

[Tony Nemo]

Anyway I posted a test for a scene here, I would appreciate some crits because i'm not sure about the whole atmo but I started my complains once more.

But these are more apologies for using and posting zb stuff here.

I have not checked all your posts, but to expect "crits" of your wonderful work, is dis-ingenuous. Kudos, ooos-and-ahhs, slavish compliments perhaps but "Crits"?

[AbnRanger]

12GB of RAM is pretty good for 3DC...and I think Andrew really should lean on his guy (who does the MAC work) to release a 64bit version. 32bit is just entirely too restrictive for Voxel Sculpting...even with Cache to Disk. I would ask Andrew if he would allow the MAC users a Windows license so that you guys could use Bootcamp to run the Win 64 version of 3DC...I think the Linux version is 64 bit as well. There is no sense in having to pay extra just because the MAC version is so far behind.

On that machine, you'll see a dramatic difference if you go either way. I have a seat of Mudbox, and I don't feel the need to step out and use it to get the detail I need...now that Cache to Disk, Multi-Res, and Multi-threading have been added.

What I like to do is sculpt all the details in Voxels (usually in Surface Mode), and bake out both Displacement and Normal maps on a low-mid poly retopo mesh, and use both in 3ds Max. There is also no reason you can't add a lot of the super fine pores/skin cracks and such in the Paint room, instead of having to jump out to ZB to do that. If that workflow is what you like, more power to you. But I personally like to stay in one application for as much of the workload as I can. I hate bouncing around between applications, myself. 3DC and 3ds Max is enough for me.

[michalis]

What I like to do is sculpt all the details in Voxels (usually in Surface Mode), and bake out both Displacement and Normal maps on a low-mid poly retopo mesh, and use both in 3ds Max. There is also no reason you can't add a lot of the super fine pores/skin cracks and such in the Paint room, instead of having to jump out to ZB to do that. If that workflow is what you like, more power to you. But I personally like to stay in one application for as much of the workload as I can. I hate bouncing around between applications, myself. 3DC and 3ds Max is enough for me.

I really don't care about a window license as I wont use it. I wont discuss here why macs and no pcs as I was a mac user once, I became a pc user then for some years (xp) and returned to macs once again. I'll never make backups of NTUSER.DAT in my life again. I wont start saying more because I'm an advanced user of XP, well, I was. OK when using gpedit.msc disabling autostart devices, when xp or others win OSs don't care about this, then its time to change OS. 3DC wont change my mind. I may go for linux but never WIN again.

How do you bake normals and displacement maps simultaneously? Its wrong. Super fine pores is not my concern. Its easy in zbrush just turn the texture already painted in 3dc to a displacement. lol it works and its editable.

I think you already understood that the 3dc mac version is not working as it should. When I wrote to Andrew that this is not a mac friendly app he didn't understand what I was talking about.

I'm happy with my workflow though, I'm still asking for some crits here, any idea? What is this man? He constructs some tools, completely useless in our dimensions, but they carry the ability to function in another place. This makes them magical. The opportunity of a transportation to another dimension. A real story... Its happening every day.

[AbnRanger]

I really don't care about a window license as I wont use it. I wont discuss here why macs and no pcs as I was a mac user once, I became a pc user then for some years (xp) and returned to macs once again. I'll never make backups of NTUSER.DAT in my life again. I wont start saying more because I'm an advanced user of XP, well, I was. OK when using gpedit.msc disabling autostart devices, when xp or others win OSs don't care about this, then its time to change OS. 3DC wont change my mind. I may go for linux but never WIN again.

How do you bake normals and displacement maps simultaneously? Its wrong. Super fine pores is not my concern. Its easy in zbrush just turn the texture already painted in 3dc to a displacement. lol it works and its editable.

I think you already understood that the 3dc mac version is not working as it should. When I wrote to Andrew that this is not a mac friendly app he didn't understand what I was talking about.

I'm happy with my workflow though, I'm still asking for some crits here, any idea? What is this man? He constructs some tools, completely useless in our dimensions, but they carry the ability to function in another place. This makes them magical. The opportunity of a transportation to another dimension. A real story... Its happening every day.

I was going to ask who he is as well? BTW, you can export displacement maps and Normal maps from the texture baking tool:

http://www.3d-coat.com/wiki/index.php/9.10_Texture_baking_tool

[michalis]

I know AbnRanger about texture baking tool. The only displacement map I had was something completely useless. But still my answer is. How to bake a displacement for the first four subdivisions and normals for the rest? To have subdivisions and normals from the first level together is completely wrong. Lets make it real. So save displacement as you can, then subdivide retopo 4 times, then bake normals. As you may use mentalray this by default subdivides 4 times. Unfortunately every app except 3DC subdivides using catmull-clark method. Lets hope you haven't forget to delete objects etc before subdividing. Lets hope you've chosen the slower snapping method first.If there are some openings (like a mouth there) then cross your fingers.

The 3dc to zb workflow is not just a poor mac users choice. I insist. Have a look here

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?t=83524