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T he Pr oj ect
I wanted to take on something challenging and try out a new modeling pipeline.The human form is really complex and I decided to go for it. I found some reference on a great site called 3d.sk, but decided to use the reference only as a guide and make my model slightly more stylized. My intention was that my model should be used in film.

M ode li ng
Many people believe that Zbrush and similar applications is only for adding finer detail to your model. I think Zbrush is great for blocking out proportions, posing your model and getting the right gesture to your character. Make a very simple base mesh and bring that into Zbrush. This gives you more artistic freedom and you can make all decisions in Zbrush instead of pulling points inside your ordinary 3d software.

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This is the modeling workflow I did for my character: - Model very lowpoly mesh inside Maya. Keep it light and 100% quads. - Export to Zbrush and start sculpting until youre satisfied with the basic forms. - Retopologize the sculpted mesh. You can use many different softwares for this. I used Topogun, but you can also use Maya or Zbrush. Its just a matter of taste. Read more about resurfacing on ZBrushCentral. Great site with a lot of info. - Project the sculpted details on your new retopologized mesh. You can do this inside Zbrush. - Uv map the lowest subdivision level of your model - Import this into Zbrush - Now your ready to export your normalmaps/displacementmaps from Zbrush I hope that made any sense. Its a really good pipeline as it lets you be creative and focus on topology in a different way. There is a lot of information on cgtalk.com and zbrushcentral.com about this

T ex turi ng
For textures I used a variety of methods. I started with polypaint in Zbrush to lay out a basic color palette. Then I started projecting different textures on my model using projection master. After that I went back and forth between Photoshop and Zbrush alot and finally I used Bodypaint to paint out ugly seams. My intention was not to make this model for any close up shots. So my main concern was to get the colors right and not to get caught up with details.

S ce ne se tup

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The render setup is really simple. I used a directional light to get sharp shadows and rich contrast. For indirect light I used a sphere with a surface shader plugged into it. I used separate lights for the sss since I wanted more control over it. When rendering I made sure to use the EXR format (float 32bit) to get as much control in post as I could. Correcting gamma is one important thing the EXR format allowed me to do in post. To get correct gamma when testrendering in Maya you could plug in an exposure node in your camera lens shader. But dont forget to degamma all your textures first, cause they will get double gamma if you dont. Everything concerning gamma is really confusing. I suggest you read more about it on mentalray community page and CGtalk forum

R end e r p a sses
I used a lot of renderpasses for this project. It gave me much control and was very fun to work with. Everything was comped in fusion. You can use render layers to get the passes you want.

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A. Diffuse pass. Rendered with Lambert material and only the directional light active B. Indirect pass. Rendered with Lambert material and Hdri + Final gather C. SSS back pass. SSS shader broken into pieces. This showing only the bottom layer. D. SSS subdermal pass. Middle layer of the SSS shader. E. SSS epidermal pass. Final SSS layer. This layer is on top of the other SSS layers. F. Color pass. Only flat color. You can achieve this by using a surface shader. G. Specular pass. H. Reflection pass. Use in combination with the facing ratio pass (I) to get nice subtle reflections I. Facing ratio pass. Highlights everything on your model thats facing away from the camera. Can be used in combination with several other passes. J. AO pass. Ambient occlusion to get shadow in difficult places. And more contact against the ground. K. ID pass. In combination with other passes you can key out the color you want to work with. L. Depth pass. Based on the luminance of the image you can fake a DOF effect in post. M. Normal pass. A very cool pass that can be used to relight your model in post.

F ina l wo rd s
Hope you learned something. If you have any questions you can visit www.ollerydberg.com for contactinfo.

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