Melanin

[jBibble]

Has anyone ever tried creating hair in another program like shave and haircut and then bringing that hairstyle into zBrush?

[joe_seig]

Hey sven,
Wow great link, must say I'm intrigued by the GeoVideo - RealTime Motion Capture Camera technology.
That video is excellent just for its' reference alone. The wave of the future?
Tried to download the GeoUV-Texture Mapper but I'll need maya 7.0.
Upgrade-time! Impressive technology coming out, thanks for the info Sven...
(and if we've learned anything here, it's that ya just gotta be careful who you link to out there.)

hey again coye, yeah well hope that helps, just a merge-vertice check, the rest of the Zbrush workflow can be found by searching here on the forum.

Ivanperezayala...thanks Ivan, hey I enjoyed looking at your site, nice work there!

Blaine glad you liked the links, alot of great work out there in the world.

rtwolfenstein hey you're the second person to mention Seinfield. I watch the reruns all the time, but it never occured to me. Maybe we'll name him Jerry...(Nah!)

Greetings jBibble ...seems like you've already gotten some great answers in your thread from Derlandvogt, Jason Belec, and Kircho.
I emailed jAlter about it and he warned that once converted, the poly count can get heavy in maya pretty quick. Yep, yep...

So I did a little test by converting the model's shave hair to polys and imported the OBJ into Zbrush.

600,000 polys on this wig, kind of heavy for a hairdo don'tcha think?

Seems Bas Mazur has it going on for zbrush and photoshop hair... Hey Bas!



Nevertheless your question is a good one, because some other non-hair related things could come out of working with Shave and ZBrush together.

[Bas Mazur]

Hehehe, I did some tests with the fiberbrush and also with hair made from Zspheres. Making 3d hair in ZBrush (hair by hair) mostly gives unwanted black shadows because we work in pixols and not in real 3d. The light cannot shine behind a hair. Importing 3d hair gives the same problems. The best way I found was using a layer and render it without shadows. Another way is to make solid strings of hair and detail it after with an rgb brush.

[jBibble]

Hey Joe. Greetings to you.
Thanks for testing the "Shave" import. Very interesting and insightful. What do you think of my new post?:
http://www.pixolator.com/zbc/showthr...330#post240330

[Bas Mazur]

Did visit you wonderful webside, nice sculptures! What kind of meterial did you use? Cannot find a translation Hahaha, the butt-man. Why smashed the man eating his toes? Grrr, I am the same, burned all the paintings I made to clean memories.

[jBibble]

It would be cool if zBrush had collision detection. Also if you could take a dot pattern, alpha skin it and mark each dot with the multi marker tool. You could kinda grow hair while maintaining control of the hairs. It would also be nice if you could pick more than one brush/tool to use at the same time. Then pick up each tool's drawn objects. Does anybody know the extent of the multimarker's capabilities in this area? With multiple tools that is?

I'm trying to keep it zBrush painterly but whatever external packages (meshpaint, shave, ornatrix) would still be informative.

Thanks.

[joe_seig]

Hello Bas and jBibble... everyone else reading along.

On the topic of hair:

Hair especially cg, can be difficult, but really worth exploring for all of its' expressiveness.
Its' seen as an outward statement in society, a symbol for how we want to be perceived...(or stereotyped).

Really good example of how important hair can be -Sebastian Kruger always considers it so well.
Oh man he has to be one of the best examples out there of seeing the head and hair as equally important. And in so many styles.
What do you check first when you look in the mirror? Your hair, your pores, or your lip cracks? heheh...
Never under estimate the power of a good head of hair. Shaved heads are cool too, but maybe just too many digital ones.

So jBibble, hope you can post some images of your hair explorations, maybe a 'hair challenge' too.
Oh yeah, are you planning to buy a hair plugin? Seems you're a Mac Lightwaver, how about Sasquatch...

Regarding the sculptural work Bas...
Really not sure if it applies to the Zbrush focus here, but since you asked, I'll oblige a little...
Yes for the material: Most of the work has been done with fired clay, not everything, and more recent works not at all...



Here's an example of a clay piece when it was in progress, unfired at this point. (The hair is a wig, not clay)
If you've ever taken a pottery class, or watched someone throw on a wheel...
you've realised there are two sides of the clay wall being worked on the hollow form, often at the same time...
and that's an important difference from working solid on an armature, a very significant difference in this case.

Just to back up a little, you start with the feet and build the hollow form upwards, like laying bricks,(or clayburgers).
and then when the clay wants to fall, you stop, cover the edge with plastic (as shown here at wrists), wait for the exposed clay to set.
So you're creating a foundation onto which you'll add more weight. Once set, unwrap the plastic, continue up from the fresh wet edge...
Only when it starts to fall or sag do you stop and wrap the edge...patience is a virtue. No interior steel or wood armature needed.
Now and then I'd use an exterior prop to hold the form in place while the clay sets to a leather hard state.

Bas you may ask,"But why Joe, why do it this way?"
Easier to sculpt (imho) when you can work from the inside as well as the outside.
Let's you sculpt the internal 'pushing out' we all seem to have in common, and the push doesn't destroy the exterior detail either.(!)
Easier also because no molds are needed, the fired clay is the finished piece. (Although molds can be taken of course at anytime).
Cheaper too, water based clay costs very little. Found objects, mixed media costs very little as well.

So it's the analog version of zbrush et al, in that you're basically sculpting a hollow form. Goes way back in time this process.
Eventually the negative aspects of this material, (fragility, heaviness on a large scale), made me search for other options...
Epoxy, a non toxic one. Lately I've been carving foam and covering that with a non-toxic sculpture epoxy that is almost like water-based clay.
You can smooth it with water, texture/emboss it, just amazing how close to clay it is. Sets hard, paintable, magic stuff really.
A comparison to zbrush would be using foam for divisions 1,2,3, and the epoxy at divisions 4,5,6...for all the detail.

Bas you asked "Why smashed the man eating his toes?"
Actually needed the room he was taking up, to be honest. Kind of wish I didn't now, but at the time it seemed necessary.
So hey don't burn anymore of your paintings man, hope you're at least taking photos before you light the match.


Okay, guess my next post here will have to be less talk and more melanin...(still in the oven)... see ya!

[Moochie]

Yowza .. thanks for the info Joe. Fascinating stuff on the sculpting. And a great link to the work of Mr Kruger .. really love the humour and affection in his portraits. The link as is doesn't work .. just take out the two extra //.

[Bas Mazur]

Hi Joe, thanks for the explaination

[Frenchy Pilou]

...forum about sculpture : shiflettbrothers.com
@ Joe_Seig : praise of the Uggly looking?
Ps
Your Krugger is more than a caricaturist

[ctedin]

I can vouch for the strange process of building clay sculptural forms from the bottom up. Simply a natural process of gravity over creativity. You just need to spread the creative urge over a long period of time. The "gestalt" is something you have to put on the back burner and try to re-discover it with every sag and droop (unless you are like Joe and are pretty adept at keeping it straight.)

Been lurking on this site for a while. My teaching schedule keeps me from doing a lot of work with ZeeBrush (or ZedBrush if you are Canadian...) I've been following Joe's work since 1988, and watched the growth of this woman above since the solid clay feet. Impressive sight, to see it go up. Kinda like a skyscraper. One part of the process that Joe forgot to mention is the cigarettes and coffee he burns through during the making of these landscapes of flesh.

Joe and I went to grad school together, and both in the clay department. I was probably the one to blame when I showed him Maya. I think I ruined him ;-) ZBrush really reflects the way we both work in clay. I do mostly figurative relief on large forms, while Joe works "in the round", but this metaphor really works nicely. And, our studios have become portable and compact. Not to mention the addition of animation. Look for much more from this guy, trust me. We have only seen the beginning.

Sorry Joe. That sounded a little like "the pressure's on", but I didn't mean it that way. The pressure is on me to match the work you've done. Time to put my new copy of XSI 5.0 in high gear. Nice interface with ZBrush, in case anyone cares about my 2 cents.

Zbrush 2.5 in December? Nice birthday present. :-)

Christopher Tedin
instructor, Illinois Institute of Art -- Schaumburg

[Moochie]

Hello Christopher. Course, now you've stuck your head over the parapet, you'll have to show us some of your stuff. Heh heh.

It's been bugging me, but I've finally worked out what Joe's woman sculpture reminds me of .. the work of Hans Bellmer (sorry, can't recall if that's one or two 'Ls' in his surname). I only really know a tiny bit about him, but he crops up in ummm erotic compendiums from time to time. He drew the most amazing women's shoes. Oh dear, that's going to look very odd. But he made some sculptures out of doll and manikin parts too, if memory serves, which had a similar feel to Joe's work.

Later: turns out there are loads of links to sites if you google his name. I hadn't realised there were quite so many doll sculptures, most of which look and feel nothing like Joe's stuff. A false lead, but cool all the same. If you go looking for Bellmer's stuff, be warned. It's pretty ... thought provoking. Ahem.

[joe_seig]

Dang wasn't planning on posting yet but...

wtf?...yo ctedin!!! hey you got that $150 bux you still owe me?
Pay up bro, all this yadda yadda's cool...but still, gimmee da cash! .
So you sneaky ole sacka-poo, laying low then poppin'out without even knockin' on the door...

Hahaheh, glad to see you here Chris!
How's your crazy brother Mark doin btw?
Yep, you know every 3d program out there (ha! except maybe Zbrush) ... (but you'll have that down by Friday no doubt).
So I guess you have all your 3dsMax animation students lurking away too ?
You dawg. Nice surprise. Let's have some beers sometime.

Moochie is right, you stuck your pretty head up, now you gotta show us what ya got. Watch out Moochie.
...and yes it is spelled Bellmer btw.

Hi Frenchy, your "ugly" question... for later, d'accord?
Hi Bas, seems your question about the sculptures made a good friend come out of hiding.

[Bas Mazur]

Hi dude :-)
Where is the final animation of the albino?
Every time when my dog dies I look to your Peegunn animation what makes me happy again. I have an old white rabbit, so maybe I need.... Dang, be quick, this mornig his nose was a bit dry!! Cheer me up!
BTW, wonderful claywork you make! Keep going

[tiktok]

hey joe--
I was wondering what kind of sculptable epoxy you use? I have done a bit of foam sculpting myself, I ended up just coating it in resin and sanding it smooth. Is it magic sculpt?....or epoxysculpt or one of those? Can you get it in large quantities? only time I've got it was from compleat sculptor in ny...but I recall it came in a small quantity I rememeber it being rather pricy...(as is that plumber's putty you get at the hardware store)....

Would love to know more about this stuff
love going between this portable digital sculpting and real sculpting

very cool
titkotk