ZBrushCentral

VIDEO - Render Layers and Texturing

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[[video-splash.jpg]](javascript:zb_insimg(‘63740’,‘video-splash.jpg’,1,0))

Part 1 20 mins (texturing the head by hand)

Part 2 22mins (using render layers)

Quicktime required (files are zipped as winrar files to save space)


Veoh Links

Part 1 on Veoh

Part 2 on Veoh


Topics covered:

Speed texturing by hand without photo reference

Rendering out lay passes

Compositing and adjusting layer passes in photoshop

Use of cavity masking as a texturing tool

This video runs 42 mins in total and covers the process from texturing to final render using render passes and compostiing them in photoshop. My intention with these two videos was to outline the main concepts in an easy to understand way.

Enjoy

Wayne…

Many thanks, believe problem with the link:cry:

Links fixed now. :slight_smile: I realised that I’d forgot to add them a few mins ago…good job I wasn’t away for a few days lol.

Wayne…

Great Tutorial!
Thank you very much for sharing.

Hi there

Downloaded the clips and they jusr render black

Is it maybe possible to upload them as avi files

Dont know why but the mudbox vids from yout homepage all play fine

Thanks

Sagan

very good tutorial :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

thank you so much

They are encoded as H264 codec under quicktime so maybe you need to update it, although its odd how the others work fine (all use the same codec).

For those still having problems I’ve added a few veoh links to the tutorials as well to the 1st post.

Wayne…

Hmmm that Veoh site looks nice, what’s the deal with getting your own page DW, did you have to pay for that???

What software did you use to record the sessions???

Sorry nosey bugger here, great work BTW…

Nah its completely free mate, took me a while to work out how to customise the look, but isn’t too bad. Its got some good options for letting you upload to otehr sites like youtube automatically (I haven’t tried that bit yet myself though.)

I used camtasia for recording the sessions, it can eat up a fair bit of resources but does a good job.

‘Eventally’ I’l be uploading the rest of my free vids to it in a seperate section, mainly as it saves bloody space on my site…I’m not short of it, but if to many people download at the same time server gets slow.

Wayne…

Yeah I’m thinking bandwidth, seems like a good little set up, cheers for the reply… :+1:

Thank you Wayne :+1:

I know creating this stuff eats up lots of time and it is appreciated.

awesome!!

Now that’s what I needed for a long time!Thanks once more,I totally agree with Blaine91555 and am one very apprieciative learner!

cal

That was very cool and educational. I never thought of doing compositing like that before.

…and here I use Photoshop everyday.

I’m glad you all found it useful, I’ll be puting out a few more freebies as I have time to encode and release them. :slight_smile:

Wayne…

thanks so much wayne!

i watched the first video… gonna watch the 2nd one now… is it possible to include the materials u used on the head? in particular the skin shaders u were switching back and forth with! all of them looked very interesting :slight_smile:

Thanks again! :+1:

Update crit~lol. Hey can you translate from the Geordish tones to Southern git for me! Just kidden,you sound like Sir Alan Shearer(hope your not from sunderland)!I wanted to ask if you have anything else on layers ? I enjoyed your methods and was wondering how come so many layers ? I need to freeze frame your video to remember the layer types for each pass.With photoshop they are to hard to see apart from when you select the type of style at first which threw me a little due to you looking through several outcomes .Could I ask if there are any golden rules when setting down layers . I have seen a few other artists show around 4 layers on average but the opacity and styles (in general ?) for each layer seem to be the part Im missing . I appreciate that each image will be different and will use differing settings but its the basis Im trying to find instead of my add randomly n see method .A little opacity slide here and there.etc etc .Thats about my method summed up!:roll_eyes:
Giving all that help and I come and bombard you with questions.Im sorry Wayne,I learn everything from you guys and tutorial Dvd’s ! I hope to help others when Im able to also . How did you learn about layering in photoshop with characters in mind ?Is there a resource anywhere or was it college.
I cant find what Im looking for as yet…

Well,just a final note agin of THANKS .Your time spent doing what you do is greatly appreciated and I hope you dont mind me asking those questions.They may benefit others reading on this thread too.Maybe Im the only one that missed some basic stuff at birth into 3d.(probally).

Cal :+1:

Nope not from Sunderland, in fact if someone wanted to be REALLY technical as I was born in south west Durham I dont qualify as a ‘true geordie’ as I wasnt born in sight of the river Tyne…but anyway I digress.

My approach to layer compositing may be a little different to some peoples. Although using multiple and screen modes are my usual choices I do often try other ones as well to see if I get a more interesting effect in post. I’ll drag out the photoshop document tomorrow and attach it here so everyone can get a better feeling for things.

I’ll also if I have time knock out a quick word document with some basic guidelines etc. (Been a long day and my mouth feels like hell …had an extraction at the dentists today.) I am entirely self taught and this whole thing basically came from some composting theory I absorded into my head along my ‘travels’ in 3D.

One day I was sitting thinking how it can sometimes be a pain to have to tweak a shader for example to get the specularity you need. It just seemed to make the most sense to use a compositing technque as its both flexable and saves time in the long run I find.

I use as many render passes as I feel I need at the time (currently I working on a workflow for better quality subsurface shader effects for human skin…something more rocksolid and predictible than my current methods). Sometimes it can be a good idea to try and think outside the rules of things, works for me at least.

I’ll do my best to track them down as soon as I have time, the main base skin shader I used was one of ralph stumfs. Although its worth remembering that I’m somewhat infamous for my incredibly bad filling system so I can’t gaurentee I can still find them, although I promise you I’ll do my best.

I think there still a heck of a lot of mileage still left in the zbrush render engine that we haven’t covered as yet as I mentined to Ryan a few days ago. I’ve got a gut feeling that the results of renders using layer compostites will get both better and more flexible as time goes on.

Of course once Zmapper is back we could then also add a ambient occlusion pass to the mix…which opens up a whole new world again. There’s still alot to try out with this technque that I’ve not had time to as yet.

Wayne…

Photoshop PDS & word doc explanation(8mb winrar archive)

OK here’s the document (with some dead unused layers removed) and clearly named layers. I’ve knocked out a very quick word document as a basic guide to what each layer does.

As yet I’m unable to track down the skin shaders, but I’l keep my eye out on my machine for them. I also added an extra fake sss layer in the document to show one quick way to get some sort of a subsurface effect. (You’ll also see why I am trying to find another way when you open the document, I find this way not as satisfactory as others I’m trying at the moment.)

Hope this helps.

Wayne…

thanks man