ZBrushCentral

Mech helmet 100% ZBrush sculpt (plus game res real time renders!)

ZBrush Artworks
#1

Here’s the game res of my ZBrush sculpt (see below), textured in dDo and real time rendered in Marmoset:

Playing with Marmoset lighting and dDo materials

^ ^ that’s me playing around with the different textures and materials I got out of dDo. Super fun stuff!!

Here’s the zbrush sculpt; I wanted to see how far I could take a “hard edge” sculpt while staying 100% in ZBrush. Practiced and refined a few techniques; most of my time was spent concepting rather than worrying about how to build something. And that’s a win in my book.

Also gave a 4 hour demo on how I created this thing from start to finish in San Antonio on friday. My voice is a little hoarse!

Some detail shots:

I’ll post some more pics and some process stuff when I get home!

Attachments

DesertDirtyPavement.jpg

Detail001.jpg

Detail002.jpg

Detail003.jpg

FrontFullRes.jpg

#2

That’s crazy, definitely a win!
Hope a tutorial will follow :slight_smile:

Thanks for sharing.

#3

Nice, I love it :slight_smile:

#4

grrrt hardsurface skills… love this… would love to see the demo…

#5

wow great job! a tutorial or some tips on your approach would be awesome if you ever get time.

#6

Very good work :+1:

#7

This is the progression; I started with a base mesh female that I had previously made, then did a quick concept sculpt using a combination of dynamesh and clay / clay buildup / smooth trim border / standard / move / zspheres / trim dynamic and hpolish brushes:

Progression.jpg

This is about where I left off in the loose concept sculpting phase (the body anyway), then I went through and refined each piece. I usually have three refinement phases, starting with the quick loose concept sculpt (hpolish, pinch, trim dynamic to refine shapes), then breaking pieces apart that make sense (mask, hidept, split, re-dynamesh, then refine each piece quickly. Last, I’ll rebuild those pieces using the topology brush / zspheres / zremesh, then hide / crease borders, subdivide, uncrease / subdivide to get a nice bevel. What this does is provide me with basic forms quickly that have super smooth surfaces, then I dynamesh them at a high resolution and keep refining / detailing / combining / subtracting forms from there, or slicing / group dynameshing / autogroups / smooth to make really clean cuts between forms:

FullBody.jpg

Smaller, specific pieces I’ll make using primitives / initialize / transpose modeling, or use shadowbox and clip brushes to refine, then decimate them and add them to my insert mesh library. The different wires and tubes are default insert mesh curve brushes in Zbrush:

Turnaround.jpg

I have the helmet split so that if I want to eventually animate it open, I can add some padding, respirator, and / or some other things stuffed in there:

HelmetBreaks.jpg

1 Like
#8

Thanks for the tips :slight_smile: :+1:

#9

This is pretty impressive :slight_smile:

#10

Wow, that’s really amazing!

Big question: do you think this kind of workflow is usable in production or it is way more time consuming than using a traditional software along with Zbrush?

Thanks!

#11

I concepted, sculpted / refined the highres, game res-ed, baked maps, and textured this thing in 2 weeks, working on it off and on, not full time. Trying to concept this thing in a standard 3D package alone would have probably killed me, but in ZBrush was the funnest, fastest part (concepted the base helmet in probably a few hours at most). Much less doing all those cuts, keeping the topology smoothed correctly…ugh no thanks lol. Much much faster in ZBrush, I wouldn’t have even attempted this in a standard 3D package. That’s just me though, your mileage may vary :wink:

And like I said before, MOST of my time was spent trying things out and concepting as I went; the actual process of building the pieces and refining them goes very quickly if you’ve got a good working process and custom menus attached to hotkeys.

#12

Here’'s an example of a super quick process for making very quick inset shapes, and as an added bonus, getting a nearly-instant separate rubber seal mesh:

FrameMeshDetails.jpg
FrameMeshDetails.jpg1450×1039 196 KB

The above process I can do over and over again, each time taking me less than a minute (once you’ve got your polygroup isolated, try using the slice curve brush for straight lines, like the side of the recessed helmet mesh, for very precise, straight cuts too). The colored portions are areas where I utilized frame mesh:

FrameMeshOverview.jpg

#13

awesome man!
loving it!
I just can’t figure how she can see with that…

#14

when I do the interior helmet stuff, I’ll probably just run wires directly into her bionic eyes lol. I figure she sees more from the helmet sensor inputs than actual visibility. The future…TODAY!! :smiley:

#15

Neat work! Thanks for sharing your process :+1:small_orange_diamond:+1:small_orange_diamond:+1:

#16

Thanks for the kind words everybody!

For the mesh parts of my character, I used the micromesh replacement method; if the diagram is difficult to follow, watch the Joseph Drust videos below from zclassroom, he explains it in depth:

MeshExtractionInstruction.jpg
MeshExtractionInstruction.jpg1850×1057 353 KB


#17

Great helmet design.
While looking at some renders I got a feeling that you were inspired by Infiltration Unit made by Mike Andrew Nash - another awesome sculptor. Especially the top-middle part of the helmet. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Also thanks for the tips - much appreciated

#18

Absolutely! When I was doing my main shapes I didn’t have anything up (was probably watching star trek off to the side), just a lot of sculpting and moving things around. But once I started refining I had all sorts of reference up; at any given time probably a dozen images from cghub, nash, motorcycle parts, and military rifles. I wouldn’t be surprised if you could pick out any number of things from those sources. Just DECIDING what kind of little things to make was probably the most time consuming part, not so much actually making them.

Here’s another quick one for repetitive shape type stuff (using initialize and mask functions instead of just radial symmetry this time, although both methods will work):

DialRingInstruction.jpg

#19

great design, and nice to see your process! thanks for the mini tuts as well, will have to try out that micro mesh trick!

#20

Thanks! Also another reminder about the smart transpose and alphas–it was a life saver on placing specific alphas on my mesh (especially the round areas):

SmartTranspose.jpg

Here’s the sculpt compared to the game res:

HelmetCompare.jpg
HelmetCompare.jpg1298×872 352 KB

And the shaded game res and the wireframe:

Wires.jpg