week 3
as a base for the body i used the Zbrush male base mesh and used the move brush to adjust the proportions.
the base mesh will consist of the body, jacket, sleeves, gloves, boots, and trousers all in the same mesh. the jacket will be cut off before the trailing element which will be a separate object and the shoulder pad and belts and chains will be separate objects. the buttons will also be separate objects to avoid distortion during weight painting.
i have decided to sculpt the base shapes now, and then take screenshots of the orthographic views so i can draw over them with the different cape and corrected proportions. i also need to draw a version of my character without the cloak or flag or tailcoat as this will make the watertight base mesh.
updated character ref sheet with corrected proportions and tail included:
base mesh plan:
character watertight base mesh plan: (I may need to separate the head when creating the base mesh as well, also the buttons and potentially any buckles will be separate objects too)
colours
when deciding the values to use for my character i was stuck between choosing 2, 3, or 5. in the end i decided to go with 5 because the darker shades fit the character more and the flag and tail cape would be brighter as i imagine them having brighter colours
i felt like the tail cape should be green and the jacket should be a navy blue, however i did experiment with different colours to see what might work. i have decided to go with 3 as i liked having yellow and blue as those colours are associated with the navy but the more faded variation looks more harmonious with the green tail.
wanted to add some red and black into the 3rd one to make it appear more villainous
worked on the colours some more but not sure if I’m getting anywhere. i think it looks too overcomplicated and doesn’t look like a villain. also, the colours of the jacket look modern despite being accurate to the 18th century. i think instead of focusing on what i think the colours should be i will just try to go with what looks good.
building up more of the character with basic shapes in Zbrush:
As I was unsure weather to make the glove seperate, I asked for some advice about what to do. Amil suggested to make the glove in the same mesh, although it would be possible to make it separate, but this would present another rigging challenge. The advice was to model the sleeve down into the glove, then have the glove go back over the sleeve mesh and back down into the hand. From there I can extract the fold of the glove and merge everything into one object. additionally, i am now aware that distortion is normal with watertight meshes so i will have some of the belts be in the same object. however, the buckle and spurs will be separate objects as they can be parented.
i decided not to spend too long on the folds at this stage however i did want to decide on the thickness of the fabric and how that would affect the appearance and direction of the folds.
I decided I wanted the tail to be white (because i want to make the scales iridescent when texturing), and I finally decided on this colour pallet with the red jacket. Red, black, white and gold are commonly seen in villain characters, however I think making the red jacket slightly grey and washed out and also adding brown into the boots recovers it slightly, as well as making it look more pirate-like. Losing the navy blue made sense as this is a fantasy navy so the uniform can look different. I think it’s still recognisable because of the buttons and the symbols.
coloured ref sheet:
Marvellous designer
i decided it would be better if i made the jacket in marvellous designer, as it would be more logical in how the seams go and the folds would look better. i followed this document for the pattern:
https://www.nwta.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/243RegCoat.pdf
doing this has also made me consider how the jacket actually works. i have decided the buttons on the outside will be purely decorative and it will be fastened down the middle. i will do the sleeve folds in zbrush as i think it will be easier as i haven’t used marvellous much.
i decided not to make it perfect in marvellous as i could edit the proportions in zbrush. i am mainly using it for the folds and seams.
had to make sure it was welded when i exported it.
the difference is very subtle. i moved on to something else as i felt like i wasn’t getting anywhere with it
week 4
shoulder pad- I sculpted another version:
tail cloak:
masked off one of the poly groups and moved it out and scaled it to create a ridged effect.
used dynamic subdiv to add thickness to tail
added thickness to the coat, had to zremesh so dynamic subdivide would look neater, but this lost some detail. i will sculpt it back when i have merged the jacket in the final stages
adding the drapery made the silhouette start to look closer to what i was aiming for in my concept art. i found it easier to shape when there was less topology so i zremeshed until it was low poly
need to start merging my subtools so i can start sculpting details, but still need to sculpt straps around boots and waist first, as well as block out hair shapes which will be a guide for hair cards later.
starting to merge the hat, needed to put the dynamesh resolution very high
decided there’s no point merging the hat at this stage. it ruins the edges. i might make the hat as three or four separate parts
Pipeline:
Starting with base male character in zbrush, retopo in maya, back to zbrush to sculpt details for baking high and low poly in substance painter
Merging subtools:
dynamesh ruins edges of mesh
fixed by turning blur to 0, adding auto clay polish, and making the resolution 2000
when zremeshing, i chose keep groups, creases, detect edges and freeze groups and halved the polycount.
but then there was a zremeshing error and it didnt work
so in the settings i only enabled keep groups and then i went to deformation and polished by groups and this gave a very good result. i also made sure to check mesh integrity and weld points after dynameshing
Its also helpful to keep the inside as a separate polygroup as i will be merging this mesh with the body later and may need to delete it
Steps for merging:
make sure dynamic subdiv is applied and looks good. all base shapes are correct THEN MERGE, BUT DUPLICATE FIRST IN CASE IT GOES WRONG
dynamesh: blur 0, auto clay polish, resolution 2000
zremesher: half, keep groups
deformation: polish by groups
sculpted the face shape, will make it asymmetrical later
sculpted some folds into the sleeves
the reason i was unable to achieve folds in MD was because it was the wrong size. i did resize it in maya however it was in cm and md is in mm so it was 100 times too small. a solution would have been to make it 1000% the size in the import settings and export it as its original size.
merged and dynameshed the base mesh
sculpted the seams back in again, they will be lost when i retopo it but i can make the topology flow follow them so the uvs will be accurate
marvellous designer attempt 2
because i really wanted realistic folds for this character, I decided to try again in marvellous designer, this time making sure the size was correct.
added buttons this time
tried adjusting it to get some interesting folds however the more i tweak it the worse it seems to look
week 5
decided to try again because of all the issues with the fit and crumpling
this time i was able to get the pleats to work
there were still a lot of issues with the folds
as well as the toolkit on importing md into zbrush, i found this video helpful. mostly it was the weld points feature and panel loops
importing to zbrush
seams not working again. my process involved welding points however checking and fixing mesh integrity may have unwelded them somehow. not sure what else it could have been
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