Creating a Mask by Polygroup Toggle

Creating a Mask by Polygroup Toggle
Macros, Hotkeys and a Touch of ZScripting
ZBrush 3.5 Tutorial
by Ryan Kingslien

In this tutorial we will explore the following features:

• Macros
• ZScript

We will need to have a grasp of the following features to complete this tutorial:

• Hotkeys

For more ZScript Information visit the ZScript Command Reference Page.

ZBrush Tutorial: Submarine Hatch: Sculpting the Surface

ZBrush Tutorial: Submarine Hatch: Sculpting the Surface

Sculpting the surface of our hatch door showcases a few more cool tools.

In this tutorial we will use:

• Surface Noise
• Planar brush system

Lets start by creating the side of the door that connects to the wall.  To do this we will use the TrimFront brush.

Rotate the model to its side.  Turn on Y Symmetry from the Transform menu.  Make sure to turn X symmetry off so that it only effects one side.

Press ALT.  Click along the side of the model and drag up and down.  This will flatten everything under the brush and create a straight side that will connect with the wall.  You may also want to smooth this out afterwards.

We begin by brushing on some surface noise.  I do this in several layers.  First, select the Noise brush and the Spray stroke.  Set ZIntensity to around 4.  Turn on Brush: AutoMasking: Backface Masking.  Press very lightly over the surface.  This will create an good base for surface texturing.  Important: turn Spray stroke on or you may not see the effect of the brush.

Next, I turn on “By Brush” in the Brush: Surface tab.  If this is on then ZBrush will adjust the scale of the noise based on my brush size.  This will allow me to more easily replicate the complexity of real-world surfaces.

Then I clean this up using the HPolish brush with default settings.  If used lightly this brush can soften the noise and allow you to control which areas are smoother and which are rougher.

Lets, further adjust the surface of the hatch by creating a ChickenScratch brush.  Select the PenSketch brush.  Turn on ZSub.  Turn off RGB.  Also, even though the image doesn’t show it, turn Brush: Alpha and Texture: AlphaTile to 20.  Now brush back and forth on the model and you will get, hopefully, chicken scratch marks!

Finally, Lets create a weld line brush.  Select the Clay brush and Alpha 14.  Set Brush: Modifiers: Tilt Brush to somewhere between 30 and 50 and Lower ZIntensity.  Click in the space between the two parts you are welding.  Go slowly, just as if you were welding them.

Here we go.

ZBrush Tutorial: Submarine Hatch: Adding Valve

ZBrush Tutorial: Submarine Hatch: Adding Valve
by Ryan Kingslien

Now, its time to create the hatch’s valve mechanism.  We are going to use a simple wheel and spoke arrangement.

In this tutorial we will use:

• Primitives
• ZSpheres

We will need to be familar with:

• SubTools
• ZSpheres

First select Ring3D from the Tool palette.  Go to the Tool: Initialize menu and set SRadius to somewhere between 10 and 20.  Remember, you want a thin wheel.

Select the hatch door from the Tool palette, press Tool: SubTool: Append and select the Ring3D that you just edited.  Note, it will give you a choice to convert to a polymesh or keep it as a ZBrush Primitive.  You will want to press Yes to convert it.  If you don’t then you wont be able to sculpt it.

Use Tool: Deformation: Size to decrease the size of the SubTool.  Move slider to -100 a few times.

We will use zspheres to create the spokes.  Press Tool: SubTool: Append and select a ZSphere.  Press R and scale the ZSphere down to fit better.

Turn on Radial Symmetry as shown except you should work with Z symmetry.  Create one row of ZSpheres that will serve as roots.

Then click on any root, press CTRL and drag up or down to push the zsphere out along the normal.  This create the straight line of the spoke.  It is essential that you click on one of hte roots BEFORE you press CTRL.

Turn on Transperancy and make sure everything is sized correctly.  You may have to rotate the zsphere if you worked with X symmetry.  You can do this in the Tool: Preview window.  Simple click in the Preview window and rotate the model like you do in the ZBrush canvas.  Then press Tool: Preview: Store and the model on the canvas will adjust its orientation.

Press A to check the mesh.  This looks good.  Then press Tool: Adaptive Skin: Make Adaptive Skin

Append the skinned ZSphere to the model.  Press Tool: SubTool: Append and select it.

Spend some time cleaning up the polygroups so that all spokes share the same group.  This makes life much easier down the road.

Here we go.

ZBrush Tutorial: Submarine Hatch: Group Loops and Mesh Extraction

Working with Your Mesh
Group Loops and Mesh Extraction
ZBrush 3.5 Tutorial
by Ryan Kingslien

In this tutorial we will explore the following features:

• Mesh Extraction
• Group Loops

We will need to have a grasp of the following features to complete this tutorial:

• Transpose
• Masking

We begin in Photoshop with an alpha that is the shape of our object.  In this case, a door hatch for an old submarine.  This was created in Photoshop and is perfectly centered on a 1000×1000 pixel image.

In ZBrush, we want to select a PolyPlane and press Tool: MakePolymesh.  I also subdivided the resulting mesh to around a million polygons.

Import the hatch shape as an Alpha.

Press Tool: Mask by Alpha.  This will apply the image in the alpha palette to the model using the model’s UVs.

We convert this using Mesh Extraction in the Tool: SubTool menu.  Set Thick to 1.  If you object is too thick then lower this number.

Divide this once to give us some extra geometry to work with.

Get ready paint the porthole pattern by turning symmetry on for both the left and right of the model as well as the front and back.  In my case, I turned X and Z symmetry on.  You will also need to turn on L. Sym to line everything up correctly.

Select Alpha 14 and Drag Rectangle.  Press and hold CTRL and Click in the center but near the top and drag out till the hole is the size you want.  You may have to turn Focal Shift to -100.

Press Tool: Polygroup: From Masking Convert this to a Polygroup.

Repeat the masking and polygroup steps above to create groups for the hatch’s valve.

Delete Lower Subdivision, then press Tool: Geometry: GroupLoops.  Note, this creates a softer version of our model with new edge loops around our groups.  These edge loops will help us create cleaner edges when sculpting.  To smooth the model out less you can decrease the amount of Polish.

Its wise to clean up the new Polygroups.  I prefer to keep the groups specific to side plane, front place, etc.  This requires a good bit of time pressing CTRL+SHIFT and clicking on your model but it pays off in spades in the future.

Isolate different Polygroups and push and pull the forms to create the basic shape of the hatch.

Remesh All Tutorial – The Broken Wall

Remesh All Tutorial – The Broken Wall
Union, Intersection, Subtraction
ZBrush 3.5 Tutorial
by Ryan Kingslien

In this tutorial we will explore the following features:

• Remesh All
  • Union
  • Intersection
  • Subtraction

We will need to have a grasp of the following features to complete this tutorial:

• Transpose
• SubTools

1. We begin in ZBrush with a PolyCube.
2. Use the Transpose Move function to make the wall thickness.
3. Press Tool: Clone to duplicate wall in Tool palette.  Then Append the duplicate wall by pressing Tool: SubTool: Append.
4. Use Transpose’s Rotate feature to Position the side wall.
5. Append the Wall again and use Rotate to position the ground floor.  Note, you do not need to press Clone again.
6. Append the wall again and then use Move to scale the sides non-uniformly inwards.  Also, use Move to make this window thicker than the wall itself.  This will give us the window frame.
7. Clone the window you just created.  Append it to it back to our Walls and use Move to scale it smaller and thicker than the window.  We will use this SubTool to subtract out the window area.
8. Turn Subtraction on in the SubTool palette for the window area.  This is the last SubTool we created.  For this to work properly it must be the last SubTool created.
9. Turn off X symmetry and press Remesh All in the SubTool palette.
10. Here is our finished result.  For straight edges try setting Polish to 0.

ZBrush 3.5R3 Tips for Environment Artist

Creating A Cliff Wall

by Ryan Kingslien

In this tutorial we will look at how to use a few well-suited tools in ZBrush 3.5R3 in the creation of a cliff wall.  We will cover creating the basic shape, the natural striation and surface texture of a rocky surface.  We will use the Clay Tubes brush, hPolish brush, PlanarCutThin brush and Surface Noise.  We will use most of the tools at their default settings with one exception, the PlanarCutThin brush.

We begin with a basic poly sphere.  I use a PolySphere because its there when I start ZBrush and because I prefer working with closed surfaces.  If I was to use a plane then I may end up having to deal with the polygons on the outside edges of the surface which always behave differently than other polygons.

Select the ClayTubes brush and change the stroke to Spray.  Using Zadd and Zsub block in the general shape of a cliff wall.

Next we will smooth out our polygon distribution using Reproject Higher Subdiv.  Lower the resolution of the PolySphere and smooth out the areas where you want to adjust the polygon distribution.  Then press Tool: Geometry: Reproject Higher Subdiv.  Please note that you must press Reproject before you change the subdivision level.

Our next goal is to refine the planes of the cliff wall.  Select the HPolish brush and use it to establish strong planes in the cliff.  Note, the HPolish brushes uses the normal of the surface you first click on to orientate the rest of the stroke.  Choose the angle carefully and you will be able to create natural striations in the surface.  Selecting an area that is perpendicular to the rock wall will work best for this.

Another tip when working with HPolish is to set the orientation of the brush manually.  Open the Picker palette, click on the arrow next to Once Ori and drag it to a blank spot on the canvas.  Rotate your model so you are looking at it from a three quarters perspective and establish more planes. 

To further the natural striation of the rock wall we will use the PlanarCutThin brush with the Spray stroke.  It is also useful to adjust the Outer and Inner Depth slightly.  In this case I have adjusted them to .5 and -.5, respectively.

Be careful of the direction of your brush stroke and the orientation of the surface your brush strokes begins on.  You may also want to set Stroke: Placement to .9 and Stroke: Flow to .1 to spread out the striations.

Finally, add some surface texture using ZBrush’s new Surface Noise feature.  Try to match the curve you see in the image.  Note, NoiseScale is set to 80.

I hope you enjoyed!

How to Sculpt Face Anatomy in ZBrush 3.1

[from Gnomonology’s blog)

Hello! I have created a new tutorial that I have uploaded to YouTube the shows me creating facial anatomy using a base skull from Freedom of Teach and ZSpheres. I used the Clay Tubes Brush and masks for sculpting.

The movie is sped up and there is no audio at this time. This movie builds on the process that I developed in the Sculpting Facial Anatomy post at Sculpt.Paint.Create and in Scott Spencer’s book ZBrush Character Creation

Noise Sucks

Ever tried Camtasia automatic noise reduction? I had a difficult noise removal project recently. I tried Audacity, which didn’t cut it. I couldn’t get my hands on Audition or Soundbooth as I was traveling with my laptop. So, I looked into Camtasia and 30 seconds later was a happy man. Thanks Techsmith! I love little gems like this that just keep giving.

Grey Displacement Map Button Leaves You Feeling Grey?

Here is the situation: your displacement map button is greyed-out in ZBrush.
You search ZBrushCentral, CGTalk, Google, under your bed, in your bible, at Barnes & Nobles, and Wikipedia. You can’t figure it out. Wikipedia leads you to Nietzche and a quote used in the Watchman, “Battle not with monsters, lest you become one.” You think, “I will kill this computer. I have decided. Tonight. When its power is off I will creep up to it and I will kill it.”
But wait! Go to the Tool: Texture tab and make sure you have uvs. If not, press Enable UVs and create new ones by pressing AUV.

Camtasia .AVI problem in Premiere

Sometimes .avi’s from Camtasia will behave very badly in Premiere. Don’t bring out the gimp. Simply save the file as a .mov reference movie. No need to flatten the whole movie. Then import the reference. mov file into Premiere. Problem fixed. Weird. I know.