ZBrushCentral

ZBrush 'Paintings' -- Pushing 2.5D

I am interested in exploring a workflow that supports painting-sized gallery product using 2.5D as a platform to replace Painter/Photoshop for digital art. Hypothesis is that the ‘infinite facet’ idea of 2.5D will support a much more powerful sense of dimension than my previous experience with those other tools…plus, those tools can still be integrated with Zapplink and layered renders…so it’s all good.

I have made a few dozen first attempts which I will post in this thread, with an eye toward defining the core technique that typifies each set/series of pieces.

In this first group I wanted to see what happens when one render is used as painting layer over another.

…the above in another iteration of conversion to color layer for another render fusion:

These can be confusing (in a good way, I hope) because one doesn’t know if the dimensionality is within the texture or within the current pixol layer. This proved to me right off the bat that the ZBrush system has deep, deep capacities for expanding how depth can effect overall forms in promising directions!

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Cellgroove-onto-zsphere_as_brush_web.jpg

BallFlowers-SteamPunk-on-topweb.jpg

Import-bigzlittlez-ONTO-smokeribbons_web.jpg

MagnetSphereScape-double-onto-import_1web.jpg

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zproj_glitch_valleys_web.jpg

Now, another ‘principle’:

A reflective material with the piece itself as a texture recursively integrates new forms into the whole. Note especially the torus in this first one. I was especially pleased with how the forms that go through the middle of the hole ‘emerged’ from sinking the toroid into the canvas:

somesmearstuff_1web.jpg

…which got me interested in the embedded torus for another round:

zproj_glitch_valleys_web.jpg

Also, though, I wanted to get a handle on reflective material as a layering method, so did this with one of the standard assets in the Zbrush texture library:

Alpha17-made-mesh-with-rainbow-refmap_web.jpg

In this segment, we look at making heavily repeated applications of skinned zsphere chains. In this first image the background is formed using the old Photoshop plugin Terrazo:

Zsphere-chain-Reduced-display-size-web.jpg

A more sinuous form with the chain-skin using a reflective material and environ texture:

Return-to-Sticky_web.jpg

And here integrating the ‘magnet sphere’ concept from zspheres:

MagnetsphereDragonWing_web.jpg

This next one keeps eliciting a sort of “ugh” from viewers…kind of a psychedelic intestines aesthetic:

Zsphere_sticky-adhoc-pixol_web.jpg

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This group uses imported mesh to get quick hard-surface structures that, until recently, were very laborious to achieve at a base level in Zbrush and then uses 2.5D to go to town. I am thinking of retrying these in 4R5, to see if it can be done.

This one uses a base mesh from SketchUp(!) and then copies are ‘sunk’ to different levels inside of each other:

Rutylys_stacks_web.jpg

A similar trick with a staircase from an architectural project (note the quantized color posterization):

spiralstair2web.jpg

I think this could be done with a rotated and refused subtool now, but when I first tried it in version 3 it was just too hard. I wanted to get the feeling of a bunch of books tossed in the air:

RotateArray_web.jpg

On this one I used the ZomeTool system to generate the lattice like structures and then put the ever-slightest hint of a figurative element (sort of a wolf-face) gazing out from inside:

zomeZ_2web.jpg

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2.5D has lots of potential

This group was a quick sketchy trip through some of the ‘primitives’ in Zbrush to see what they looked like in organic arrangements/environments:

This one ended up being VERY sub-aqueous:

Spiral_init_3web.jpg

…and this one more ‘basket-like’:

Spiral_init_2web.jpg

…I really like the idea of getting a whole formal vocabulary out of using varying degrees of some parameter, in this series in particular the attribute ‘twist’:

Spiral_init_1web.jpg

why don’t you create only one thread about your experiments with 2.5D ?..i see part 1-2-3-4
@_@’

This group utilizes the idea of having multiple 2.5D layers with the top one being transparent and the refractive index warping the view of the layers behind it…a principle that could go in a LOT of directions, here is just three shots to start out.

This one if the most fully realized concept:

watersim_3-transparent-smudgesweb.jpg

Similar structurally, though simpler:

watersim_2-transparent-smudgesweb.jpg

This one ended up sort of ‘gelatinous’:

watersim_1web.jpg

This group uses lettering as a design element. I used two basic strategies: a) bring in a 3d letter base mesh from import; b) mask with alpha and extrude.

I like the ‘implicit’ sphere here. In kind of a nod to geekdom I use the phrase ‘Hello there’ like the proverbial ‘Hello world’ in programming:

HelloThere_Spheres_1web.jpg

More flat and stacked:

LetterPlay_1web.jpg

Inflate function really does something wonderful here (Note: Soo is the name of a character in a graphic novel that I am working on, with the intention of using the techniques from this series of posts as the artistic platform):

SooSooSooSoo_3web.jpg

My goodness the Depth brush is fantastic – because you can use the MRGZB capture to use your previous 2.5D pieces as a BRUSH in a new piece!

Depth-brush-MRGZB_1web.jpg

If you add the principle that I call ‘bone scaffolding’ – which is using a brush as a negative z-space cutter – you can get REALLY complex forms:

depth-brush-w-erasetexture-transpheres_web.jpg

A couple more in that mode:

depth-brush-w-erasetexture-transpheres_3web.jpg

Of particular interest here is using zsphere chains as ‘cutters’:

depth-brush-w-erasetexture-transpheres_4web.jpg

Sorry about this…my first thread and I wasn’t getting any joy on the ‘replies to own thread’ images/thumbs showing up in my User Gallery so I thought I had to start new threads. BUT, it turns out the Gallery is a Cron Job and it is better to wait until after the witching hour to see if it is updating.

All future experiments in this topic will be appended here!

My goodness the Depth brush is fantastic – because you can use the MRGZB capture to use your previous 2.5D pieces as a BRUSH in a new piece!

Depth-brush-MRGZB_1web.jpg

If you add the principle that I call ‘bone scaffolding’ – which is using a brush as a negative z-space cutter – you can get REALLY complex forms:

depth-brush-w-erasetexture-transpheres_web.jpg

A couple more in that mode:

depth-brush-w-erasetexture-transpheres_3web.jpg

Of particular interest here is using zsphere chains as ‘cutters’:

depth-brush-w-erasetexture-transpheres_4web.jpg

This group demonstrates using more than one depth brush capture from more than one piece and then synthesizing them into a new piece:

ZZZZtest_1web.jpg

Depth-brush-MRGZB_3web.jpg

depthclone-reclone_1web.jpg

This group riffs off a mesh I got from the Koch fractal:

kochscape1web.jpg

The texture layer on top of this piece puts a more fluid ‘attractor’ aesthetic on top of the straight segmented substrate, one of my favorite tropes:

kochstars_1web.jpg

Fractals of the complexity below really show off what 2.5 ‘perspectival limit’ can do…you can never exhaust it because it simply replaces everything in front of previous complexity with totally new information. You can draw things that would have trillions of facets if you needed to rotate them, not even HD divs can do that!!!

KochStel_1web.jpg

And just to show the previous statement to literally be true, here is an even more massive ‘mesh-pile’ with Serpinski and Geodesics:

ColorSprayStroke_3.we.jpg

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Here is group focusing on the use of human poses as design-structural elements:

ZpassbackatYou_1-metamesh1_b_web.jpg

Here again the facet count would be astronomical, but this allows thinking of literally oceans of flesh as a surface:

posergroup1_mixup2web.jpg

Same image as above, but with the 2.5D captured and moved through a layer of another 2.5D piece:

Two-pieces_one3d-thru-other_web1.jpg

Add a few wings in there, why not?

Soo5_withwings_1web.jpg

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Here is a one-off piece based on a fascinating principle, which I have not had a chance to go back and repeat (but would love to) which relies entirely on certain neo-physical rules of contiguous ‘stickiness’ when drawing a Tool/brush across previous copies of itself in 2.5D. Basically, it acts like a clay pot made with the ‘coil method’ and you can build up over repeated passes. It is best to use a cubical or spherical brush to get reliable orientation behaviors, though some variance is responsible for the best part of the more organic aspect of the final product.

Cubespheres-do-Pottery-Coils-Method_web.jpg

Three examples of Zbrush transparency – I have found that layer transparency (as opposed to subtool BPR) behaves very strangely, especially when there are more than two items in front of each other. Maybe this is so because otherwise 2.5D could not prevent an infinite cascade as infinite layers show through from below. Would love to be able to set this though.

transparency_test_1web.jpg

SUscapesbrush_2web.jpg

Here is a totally different use of transparency, where a ‘cutting tool’ is transparent so that a Koch fractal can cut holes in another shape without effecting anything but it’s negative space:

Transparent-KochTool-and-Depthbrush-hills_web.jpg

Whoah, ZAppLink basically lets you do any darn thing you want to a surface design!

zsphere-baskets-2_web.jpg

snakedeco3_texturespheres2_smeared_web.jpg

ZAppLink-with-Bumps_1web.jpg

ZAppLink-with-cubes_web1.jpg

This thread is mind bending