Zbrush Project 2 - Sculpting Process & Finished Character:

In this blog I will be talking about my 3D model that I created for this project. This will contain the process I went through to sculpt the character, retop them, rig and texture and all of the issues I had throughout this.

I first used the female body that zbrush has as a tool to use which I then took into maya after using zremesher to make the poly count not as high so that maya wouldn't have as big of an issue when trying to load it. Once I had it in maya I made a copy of the torso so that I could more easily make the top from it when I put it into zbrush and then I created a low poly of the skirt so that it would be easier when starting with the basic shape of the skirt already. After making the skirt I moved onto the shoes however due to using zremesher I didn't realise till it was in maya that the hands and feet were like sticks so for the boots I used it as a guide of what they would look like but when I got into zbrush I extracted the part where I wanted the boot.




 Below is the character before I put it back into zbrush to continue sculpting on. When I put the model into zbrush I continued by taking the anime head and changing the eyes and adding hair by using the IMM brushes and adding more geometry to the model to make it. 


The image below is the final version of my character after I put it into maya again after zremeshing it. I would still have to retop it however it was a start from what it was originally. Once I had put it into maya I was ready to retop it, I know how to retop using maya as you use a tool called quad draw to be able to make new topology that snaps to the old one when you make it live and it allows you to keep the same shape as you had originally however it means that the poly count is much lower than it is in zbrush.

To be able to retopologise you need to use a tool called quad-draw however to have the mesh that will be created snap to the model you need to make the model live so that it will snap to it. You will then need to select the quad draw tool. Clicking on the mesh with the tool selected will add a dot and having 4 dots in a square will mean that when you click in that square you will get a blue square appear.

Final Sculpt placed in Maya:




Retopology:


Once you have a square you can build of it and if you add two more dots underneath you can click inbetween the two dots and the square that you already and it creates a new one. 


You need to continue to do this throughout the whole model following certain loops so that if you were to move the character with a rig to pose them or animate them it means that they would then be able to move better and not deform in a way they shouldn't.

Due to my time management I wasn't able to do the retopology myself and used an auto retopology tool that maya has. I was hoping to go back and be able to do it myself once I had finished everything else however I wasn't able to get around to it due to my time management.


UVs:

I tried for a few days to be able to get the uvs to work by using the cut and sew tool which was the best way I knew of to be able to make the uv better than when just using the automatic uv. After spending quite a few days unable to move past the issues I was having I decided I was just going to use the automatic uv just so that I could continue on however I didn't think that I would have the time to be able to go back and redo them. If I could have redone the uvs myself I would have however I was just wasting time and getting mad that it didn't work so I wanted to move onto something else.


I was struggling with creating the UVs as there were several issues such as when I was using cut and sew nothing was happening and I couldn't figure out why. I also had issues where I had non-manifold geometry which I didn't know what it meant or how to fix it. One of my friends suggested that I use the cleanup tool to fix it but when I did use it it added triangles throughout the model that were otherwise fine as quads.



The image below shows an example of the automatic uv unwrap and on the right side I put a cut using the cut and sew tool to put a line in the uv to seperate it so I could start to move where the seams are. To use the cut and sew tool you need to select the edges selection tool and then select a line that you would like to create and then press cut. If you want the cut to not be there anymore you can either sew or use move and sew. They both do a similar thing however if the two parts of the uv are away from each other it may be easier to move and sew it so that it moves them to each other but if they are next to each other you can just use sew instead.


Whilst I was trying to move the seams, I ran into an issue where the model wasn't unfolding how it should and in a certain part in the ear it had combined into one point and I had tried to fix it by moving the points around to where it should be but it wasn't working so I deleted them but I couldn't figure out how to make the geometry connect again or to fill the space so it left a whole in the uv where I didn't want it so it may cause issues later when I come to texture it however the ears aren't seen so you won't see where the whole in the uv is.



Rigging:

This is the rig I made in class which I was hoping to use so that I could speed up creating the rig as I am still quite new to how to make rigs and still find them confusing so I didn't want to spend a lot of time trying to recreate one when I already had one however when I went to use it, I was testing it and it wasn't working how it should have as it wasn't moving when I moved the circles which were the controls for the back so it would bend. I am assuming that I hadn't connected them right however I didn't have the time to try and fix it when I didn't know what the issue is so I opted to use the quick rig function in maya as it gave me a basic rig to work with to pose my character. If I had time I would go back and try and get the rig I made to work and go and weight paint my model.



The auto rig was fine for what I needed it for but the shoulders and the head were too high up and when I tried to move them they wouldn't move down. I tried several different methods like doing the auto rig step by step to move them down but when I went to put the bones in it would move them up again so I just used it to the best of my abilities.

Texturing:

I was limited to when I could use substance to texture as I don't have it at home however I was able to complete it in class however I wasn't able to test it until I got home. When I did test it in maya and I put it on the model it showed the specific colours that I wanted to use however it didn't place them in the right places which is due to my use of the automatic uvs. Instead of spending time worrying I decided that I was going to use maya's textures as I only used base colours to texture in substance anyway which is how I could replicate a similar design in maya. 


In maya I used a standard surface material and changed the base colour for each of them and gave each part of the body the colour they needed to be however I needed to change the roughness to 1 as originally all the colours were shiny as if they were metals and not clothes and by putting them to 1 it makes them completely matte.

I wasn't able to make the eyes textured as it would fill them just with one colour. With the substance painter version I had drawn pupils onto the eyes however as I can't use the substance painter version and I haven't modelled it separately it means that I can't have it textured.






Front and Back:






Posed Version:



I do like the pose however she does look a bit stiff due to the limitations of the rig however I am happy with how it turned out, I just wish that I was able to use the rig I made without having issues with it not working.

Final Render in SketchFab: