Zbrush - Week 16:

In this blog we will be looking at VDMs and Alphas looking at what they can be used for and how they are made.

Alpha:

- Basic methodology
- Good for repeating forms
- Good for high detail & skin textures
- Black and white information
- Works like a stamp

VDM:

- More complex
- Vector Displacement Mesh
- More depth of detail
- Good for kit bashing 
- Save things like ears, eyes, nose etc to use later


Creating Alphas:

Get an image

Make photoshop doc with 500x500 pixels 
 
Change resolution to 150 pixels / inch

Change background to black

Add image and scale it up / down to fit

Add black & white adjustment layer

Change settings to get high contrast between dark and light

Add a layer mask on the image layer 

Make black layer mask

Use soft brush in white to create vignette 

Save as psd so it can be edited in the future

Export as a png

Go to Zbrush and open a project

Divide model to about 2mil polys 

Go to alpha at the side and import the png

Edit the settings to create the look you want with them 


Creating VDMs:

Is a brush

Get a polyplane from the tools menu in the (,) menu

Divide the polyplane to around 250,000 polys

Mask it and paint out the area that the detail is going in 

Put the detail in

Clear the mask and go to the brush menu

Choose the Create MultiAlpha Brush

Change brush type to drag rectangle

It will act like a detail that you can rotate before it actually stays on the model