Sculpting tutorials make it look so easy but as soon as I try it it turns into a hot mess.... I'm mostly trying to figure out the head and torso volume&gesture right now, but I think I'm very confused on the shapes of the arms and the knees. Also, is there a way to retopology a polygroup without making the connecting borders develop a crease? When I try to retopo hands an feet (zsphere-generated topology is horrifying) I always get a dented crease at wrist/ankles O_O Also, I'm sketching in high-poly mode, and turning/hiding has become very slow. I heard there's a way to separate body parts into subtools to push the poly count w/o slowing down your computer, but I don't know what words to look for to find those settings. (The eyeballs are their own subtool, so I've played around with the settings...but it doesn't let me puuush) If anyone has anatomy references, please share! I have the vilppu dvds, proko videos, and a gnomon digital sculpting (8 heads, heroic male) but I'm still really fuzzy on a lot of the planes and volumes of the human body...
Can't help you with the Zbrush stuff, but so far he's looking really good! The arms and knees are about perfect for the overall mass, so is it just fine detailing you need help with? If you got some friends or family that wont mind you checking out body parts on them it might help.
Sorry, penguu, I too can't help you with 3D technicalities. Reading the description of your problem unfortunately was like attempting a Chinese script :-). There must be a forum for people who use this program or simply deal with 3D projects. You'll probably get an answer there a lot faster. But just wanted to second cheshirepanda and say that I think you are off to a really solid start here :-) His toes look like they can be moveable... Yes... everything looks so much easier when other people do it, doesn't it?! It's only after you've traveled the road yourself that you can start to truly appreciate other people's work!
Thanks for the encouragement guys. My problem (the anatomical parts) is mostly...I don't know how the muscles of the thigh connect at the knee...and I don't know where the volumes are. There's this massive tube that goes from the inner thigh down to the inner leg bone and runs alongside the knee, but I'm not sure how anterior or posterior (front-back position) and how much it widens the box of the knee...? It's weird... And there are fatty pads and knee caps and...while I know roughly where they are, it's hard to sculpt them... The knees look like a skewered egg to me right now. The forearm muscles are also giving me a lot of trouble because somehow I can't make them look like muscles over bone. You're supposed to feel the bones in the lower forearms going into the muscles in the upper forearms and right now the entire arm looks like a soft rubbery shape.
Have you tried googling "human muscle anatomy"? The search throws up some good illustrations from various angles and during movement too. That's what I used for reference when I was fuzzy on anatomy. I found them more comprehensive than just looking at body pictures of real people. I hope this helps somewhat.
I sometimes wish I can take life casts of body parts from random strangers for this purpose, but I feel a bit weird asking.
Lol, I know! Since I got into bjds, I often find myself staring at total strangers, trying to commit some detail of a feature to memory. Got some weird stares back from the said strangers :-)
Are you using remesh? I find that I have to then subdivide and project from the original mesh(s) to get a good result out of remesh. With regards to making multiple subtools, what you'll need to do is mask the area you want to split off, make a poly group, and then split by groups. Repeat until your model is divided up the way you want it to be. Hope that helps! He's looking great so far.
Morgan let me show you my problem? So I already have things in polygroups, like the following picture. As you can see the geometry is really bad and I hoped to distribute polygons more evenly with ZRemesher. View attachment 593 So then I hid all the other polygroups except for the palm and fingers. View attachment 592 And I pull subdiv lvl to 1, and use preserve border in Zremesher View attachment 594
And end up with this crease at the border! View attachment 595 I want to note that I've tried this before I had any subdivisions and the crease was still there... What am I doing wrong...
Ah, I've never used zRemesher, I'm running 4R4. I got a lot of crashes in 4R5, so I kinda stopped upgrading. Still, if you keep a copy of your mesh from before you remesh, you should be able to use it to project and get your previous shape back.
Do you recommend sculpting in dynamesh? I'm afraid that bits that are close together will morph into one piece, like toes and armpits. Oh...I've never reprojected a mesh before! I will have to try this
I did some tests early on with Dynamesh and wasn't happy with the results. Quite possibly that's just because I don't know how to use it, though. :P Personally, I create my base topology in Maya, then subdivide it a bunch in zBrush and sculpt from there. I also use a lot of boolean operations via remesh -- handy when you're trying to make pieces fit exactly together! But it looks terrible until you use projection to fix it. I don't know why they don't just include that in the remesh command, but using the two together works really well.
I tried to make the base topology in Maya, but bending fingers and toes took too long (possibly because I didn't know how to use it either...?). So I moved to Zsphere. Bending things is really quick, but the generated topology is really horrible. So now I'm looking for good ways to retopology...maybe I have to do zsphere rigging retopo after all? And here's a lumpy head block-in. I don't want to add any more details until I've blocked in the rest of the body. So for now please comment on proportions and general shapes mostly? Like if the bridge of the nose should have an extra bump at the side where they connect with the eye sockets or something...? And I can't decide if the eyeballs are too small or if the eyelids are too thin. View attachment 596
Yeah, that makes sense... I haven't had to deal with hands yet, since Kit just has paws. XD I think the eyeballs do look too small, but overall it looks like a good start!
The eyeballs are too small, there should be more of a 'bulge'. The actual visible part of the eye should be wider too, the space between two eyes is usually close to the size of the eyes themselves, though some choose to exaggerate. It's coming along really nicely though, I love his jawline and slight smile.
I really like his face! I think the eye size and shape are fine, but I think they lack a certain anatomical correctness. Right now they look a little flat. The eyelids need to recede into more of a dome over the eyeball, and the eyewells should be a little deeper closer to his nose. You are doing a great job! Can't wait to see this guy progress!
So I tried out 10mm eyes (in a 58cm model) and this is the result: View attachment 597 The picture from the last screencap would be 8mm eyes.
I think this looks better. It's very easy to see the remodeling you did around the eyes, the anatomy is much more defined.
I think the bigger eyes work better, too. At some point I probably needs to remesh. The tip of the nose is pulled so much that I don't have enough polygons for sculpting. View attachment 598 Actually, does the nose look too short for the face...?
Nose longer, not enough? Right now I think the lower face is a bit pinched too... I think I need to leave the face and work on the body....and then come back to the face. Please leave comments about what to fix, though... View attachment 599
I love the nose, wouldn't change it. At least not until all the other features are more clear, then you can readjust. I like the rounder bigger eyes you made, before it looked a bit reptilian. If you are making him a mature male, I would agree - the chin needs to be more square for a masculine look. Cool so far :-)
So this is what I've got. I think the cheekbone/temple/eye sockets are a bit illogical looking??? And I think he has a weird slouch... View attachment 603 View attachment 604
I think the eye-area looks amaaazing! Although it looks like the part above the tear ducts needs just a tiny bit more refining. The mouth is looking beautiful as well! And as for the slouch it just looks like his head is leaning foreward a little bit.
