Sculpting in Zbrush

When using the tools in Zbrush, the one I liked the most is Clay Tubes, depending on the size of your brush you can add tiny details with it or huge facial things like nose or eyes. It's different working with Clay because I find it quicker working on Zbrush and makes your model look smoother and professional. When working with clay, it gets stuck on your tools or if you do one thing wrong you've got to start all over again but on zbrush if you do something wrong I can easily change it by adding or using low subdivision and use the move tool, and line it up with my image planes and create the jaw line or nose far more easier than I can with clay. When image planes are added it makes the process of modeling far more easier, I can make the model almost see through and I can grab parts of the face and line it up to make it more similar to the face i desgined. Another reason I liked zbrush more than clay is that when you make a clay model once you have completed it you have to start from scratch again to make a new one, but on zbrush you can use an old file and experiment or create a new face, which is a lot more resourceful than Clay. Using Zbrush is a lot more flexible than using clay which I like a lot, when using Zbrush you can delete your mistakes, create molds easier and your objects will be placed where you want it to be, and not get squished or stuck like it does when you use clay. Another easy thing was going into Maya and creating Teeth or Hair, and importing it into Zbrush, it a lot less time consuming than creating hair and teeth in clay, because you have to spend a while to get it precise. Another feature Zbrush has is Alphas, where Zbrush uses the different shades of grey on the black and white image to determine the depth of the picture features, thus making a 3D brush, you can create these for your self in Photoshop or use the ready made ones in the files, they are useful to add a lot of depth detail in your model, making it easier than just scratching on marks, this can create a professional look for your 3D model. Another tool that is useful tool in this program is the smoothing tool, when you add clay to your model it can look ridged and untidy, but smoothing tool can make it look sleek and more tidier, this is really useful to smooth your your details and make your model look clean. A thing bad about Zbrush is the camera angles, when using zbrush it's hard to get a precise angle of your model because it turns too easy and the sensitivity of the camera is too high, this can be time consuming trying to get your model facing towards you again or trying to turn your model around, it can end up upside down.

When using Clay I find it to be squishy and more practical, you have to use the same amounts of two different clay and sit there for a bit to squish it together, after a while it hurts your fingers because of the friction it creates. You apply the none sticky clay into the foil and mold it into a face, after you think you've got a basic shape, only using the images you have printed out as reference on the table, you can start taking little bits of clay and create facial features like nose and eyes, with the nose I found it easier for the clay to be fresh and squishy and apply it onto the face, using the tools to shape it into place though because of this, if I pick up the model and accidentally budge the nose, it would be ruined and I would have to start it again. Because the chin was too small it was easy to add a chunk of clay to the bottom of my model and mold it into a descent looking chin, the mold was again squishy and not very sticky and adding such a huge chunk made it unstable and easily fell off, I learned to leave the mold for a bit so I can push it on and it stays, i also used other bits of clay like glue and massaged it in, so it looks smooth and and not just simply pushed on. You can also use clay to scratch details on like I did with the clay mouth, I grabbed a scopul and gently scratched the details of the teeth on, I left the model to dry a bit first so it wasn't too squishy when I tried to do this, otherwise it would just become a mess because it hasn't dried enough to do an action, this can take a while and if you do it wrong you have to start again because it is too visible that you have done something incorrect. A mistake a made when making my model was when adding the eyes I didn't leave the clay to dry long enough when i rolled it up into an eye ball shape, so when inserting the eyes balls into the sockets, they became flat and marked easily, it didn't come out how I wanted, but after doing this mistake I learned that I have to be patient with clay models, or it will come out wrong. One thing I found easier to do with clay than on Zbrush was making the skin flaps around the face, using soft, fresh clay I rolled it into a ball and flattened it out onto the table, using the tools I picked it up, it didn't matter if it had scratched or bits fell off the pancaked piece of clay, because it would add more detail to the skin tearing off effect. I rolled it up side ways then unraveled it onto the model, using the tools I raised it slightly so around the mouth and jaw, it looked like the skin was coming off, this was a lot more harder to do on Zbrush. When we modeled with Greenstuff, it cured a lot quicker than the clay did and was also more sticker, making little details was hard but using clay it wasn't sticky at all and can do a lot more details than you can on green stuff. Another problem you have with Clay is that once it has dried you have to chisel off your mistakes, when you work on Zbrush you can just CTRL ALT DELETE and your mistake will be gone, chiseling is a lot of work and you could break your model if you are too rough.

The different with Clay that is alot more easier with Zbrush that it comes naturally, everyone know show to pick up a piece of clay and mold it into a basic shape and add details, but it's just having the eye and the steady hand to create something amazing. In Zbrush you have to learn different tools and how to work in it before you can make anything, which can take time, but i still find it easier and quicker to make than Clay with better results.

Week 7

  Even though I should be on my 3rd week of completing my work I have found that I have already completed my model, and due to finishing all my work during the Easter holidays (the writing unit 4 and 6) I was ahead of everyone and I was concreting on my model. Even though I couldn't create my model at college i spent a lot of time working on it at home, this made it quicker for me to complete because i spent most weekends sculpting and so in finished faster, this has given me an advantage but I made my planning cut short due to me expecting to finish later. This isn't a problem because I have finished my work which is a good thing, it would be worse if I was falling behind, but this is my last submission on my planning due to finish early. I found planning my project useful and helpful and has put me more of an advantage because I could work to a weekly target and know what I should do and how much I should be working for. Next time though I will make my planning shorter due to me completing work quick.

This is my model that I completed, I had my sculpt criticised by drew so I knew how to make it better, he said I needed to add bingo wings and make the face fatter in the face, as you can see from last week it has improved as the face looks like it would belong to a fat woman with big cheeks and I also added bingo wings. The problem was that I didn't use reference images so I collected a bunch of references images as you can see from below.

These are my references images, you see how I connected the bingo wings to the same as my model. I found a large asain woman on Google and used her face as reference with the cheeks and eyes. This really helped me and helped me understand how things look on a real person. I added a thong to my character and a bra, I used the reference image of the two large women at the bottom, you can see how the pants wrap around there butts and how it's placed on a large woman, I was having trouble knowing where the clothes go and how they wrap around the rolls, the bra cuts into you when you're larger so you need to know where the strap goes into a larger woman. I have learnt to use reference images more and to draw out the picture, so you can really see how the skin hangs or folds.

for my model I found using Maya to create hair was really helpful. it's hard to sculpt hair and it wasn't really the focus of my model, i wanted to focus on the body and empathize it, so going into Maya and exporting my tool as an OBJ so i could import it into Maya, this means i can use the head to model around so i know the perfect size the hair should be, i used a cube for the fringe and a cylinder as the pony tail, it was a bit tedious but I got it the way I wanted it and exported it and put it into Zbrush.

Week 6

It's now week 6 and I have been working on my model, since the last time I've been adding more shape to her and giving her the rolls she needs to become a larger woman. I created the fingers by using Spheres and then my my model in a higher poly. I used move topological tool to move around anything i thought was wrong, i moved the belly out to make her look fatter and give her the shapes larger women have. I've also been indenting the arms and adding to the legs to make her legs more realistic to a fat woman. In this progress I made the nose as well, but the face is too flat to be a fat woman's, this is all progress that needs to be finished.

I am still on time on my time table and I have not come along any complications other than being restricted to using Katy's computer, but being hard at work i haven't been falling behind in my project.

Week 5

This week I have started to create my Model, looking at reference pictures and my designs I went in using the Z sphere tool, where you can add balls and move them about on top of each other, doing this I made a basic body shape as you can see below, I use the body for measurement saying the arms should go down to the thighs and such which helped me create a basic body. I then added fingers and boobs to the model, I made the butt wide because I knew she was going to be a large woman and weight tends to gain on the thighs and butt for women. After I had this basic shape I made it higher resolution and added detail, I want plenty of detail on the thighs, stomic and breasts, which I started to add rolls and used the move topology tool to make the belly stick out more and move it down to create a sagging look. This is as far as i got for this week but it's coming along nicely. I also added eyes which just small Z spheres but make it easier for me to know where the nose and mouth is. It has just been a basic week where I am getting used to the program again and since I have never made a body from scratch, it was all too new for me but I think I have been getting along well since I've been watching videos on you tube to help me, and I am still way ahead of schedule. But their have been no problems or changes yet to my work.

Week 4

I have finished my design phase of my project.I have decided on the face and I am sure on the body, I am ahead  of schedule as I have already started on Zbrush on my project. Though their isn't much work for me to submit this week as I was doing all the papers for my lessons, but I have finished so I have made more progress in my project. I created a mood board full of pictures that would inspire me with my design, using chubby women and lips and eyes.

Week 2 & 3 easter

Here in my spreadsheet and Line graph I have been on time with my planning and design, my planning phase has been completed after doing my research and some concept art. I did a survey asking questions, made a spider graph and generated my idea. I also did some designs. So i am doing fine with work and being on time.

Week 2 & 3 we all had two weeks off for Easter holidays, in the time I had off I have decided to a Spider graph to decide what model i wanted to create. While doing my own survey which you will find in my research paper, you see that people want to see more of a positive body image and more women, so I've decided to create a model which has flaws. I didn't know what type though, so to originate my idea i decided to see what idea I liked best on my spider graph

 

You can see I had ideas for ethnic backgrounds and what type of body shape, but the idea I liked the most was doing a chubby/fat woman. This is because you can add details like stretch marks and women have more interesting shapes then men, the more bumps and curves would create an interesting and fun model. I decided not to do men because in the survey it's said they would see more women in a p[positive light. I was thinking about doing a skinny woman who's flat chested but it wouldn't be as fun to create and also their is a lot of skinny woman in video games, flat chested or not. The idea for her to be Chinese is also in my research, it has been found out there is not a lot of Chinese characters in video games. 

After this I wanted to draw and design what my model would look like, I gathered some pictures of women's body, a good one i found was when a woman just had a baby, their belly's are saggy and have stretch marks, I found this useful for my design.

Here is a simple design, you can see he has rolls and a fat belly, I still haven't designed her face or hair, it is still to be deiced.

Pics

Week 1

I have completed week 1 for my new project. I designed this spreadsheet to keep me on track of my work, every week I will fill it in, showing what work I have done and haven't done and if I have succeeded my expectations or not. For my brief I decided to unit AB and to create a sculpt, doing this i shall create a survey to see what people want and then move on to the design phase after finding out what type of model people want to see more of in video games.

I have also created a line sheet to show when I am ahead of schedule and how much or when I'm behind and how much I'm falling behind, at the moment I'm right on schedule.

Work

Here you see some concept art for the bed I have created in Maya, I also used this as orthagraphics. The bed was for the prison level in the game but wasn't but in because the designers levels kept on crashing, or used a different version of UDK at home. But  before all of this we did a test an the bed worked fine inside the game, same with the toilet and the robot.

Below you see the joints I created for the robot, this was so the robot could move and when creating I know what type of shapes to make and how it would move.

this is the dance cycle I made for the robot, it was meant to be the malfunction it does inside the game. but sadly the robot didn't go into the game because the designers level crashed when they we're working on it, but I put on the frames so I know how many frames each it would move and how it would dance.  

Animation

 Before I started my animation, I created a story board like walk cycle to help me create the animation, it was simple but easy for me to understand, in the pass I've had trouble creating walk cycles because I'm terrible with sequencing. But creating a story board really helped me do the walk animation. The numbers and arrows show what frame I'm going to start and finish at and the L & R on the feet shows me which is left and which is right, this helps me a lot since I'm not very good at sequencing so this gives me a struchterd organised way of animating.







Today I used the IK tool in Maya to animate my robot, it made things easier and gave me easier ways to move my simply rigged robot to move more dynamically. I did simple animation, moving the forwards back and forth then going back and making some adjustments y going off what I planned in my story board.

You can see the top leg join is connect to the ankle, because that's the main joins that move, the knee joint inbetween moves by its self when using the IK tool.When doing this I moved one leg forward and one backwards and key framed that position. After I went to frame 20 and did the legs in the opposite position it was on the first key frame, when played it just looked like the robot was sliding back to forth. But because of my story board I moved the ankles where I thought they should be picked up and when played it looked like the robot was walking.

When in our group, Dilon, the lead designer asked me to do a Meltdown animation, where his head pops off but do it in the funny way, because in game you brake the robot, he need an animation for it to work.it was decided I could do this anyway I wanted, so i decided to make the robot do a little catwalk before he melts down. I did a Storyboard and how many frames I would use before this


in the picture you can see how I wanted the robot to move, and when and which frame everything was going to happen. I followed my storyboard and I manged to get the walk I wanted, it's featured in the video below.

Rigging

Today I learnt how to rig my robot. I painted weights on the joints by naming each joint where it was placed on the body part, this made it easier to find each joint and paint the parts I didn't paint. While painting you can turn the value down to 'rub out' any excess weight you don't want, so this means you can turn your model when you select a joint, and it will turn smoothly whatever way you turn it. This makes it easier, when rigging you also add bones, you do this by using the joint tool and selecting from the bottom half of the body to the top the certain points you would want to move. you do this again with the limbs and parent them to the middle body joint so they are all connected. You then bind these joints to the skin using the ridged bind tool, this is so when you move the joints the skin will move too, but in this case it rotates the joins with the skin still connected.As you can see I showed that my weighting worked by moving the leg, and the mesh doesnt move with it like it did before.

Group

Being in the group I feel like I have done the most work even though I don't have many objects, the others haven't textured or designed everything. I was given less to work on because I was given the task to create a model, which I am still learning to make in a productive manner. I have never added joints and rigs before and I feel like this will take some time, even though I only have 2 weeks left to complete the final product 

New model

(After and before)

I was told to design I way that my character can bend his arms and legs just like in real life, so I changed the robots arms and legs so when I rig the character it will be easier for the character to move. First I googled robots and observed how the arms and legs move and designed it in a way that would make sense.

doing this can really improve on my final product, I am falling behind because my first model crashed, and I've only been able to create other objects, but I have manged to texture the toilet, bed and the robot. I have also added joints to my robot after replacing the arms and legs, this was an easy process as I have looked at videos on how to do it before, but I think rigging my character will be difficult and I will need some help understanding how to do it.