REALISTIC HAIR IN ZBRUSH
Dmitry Gaborak shares his workflow and professional advice for creating detailed, lifelike hair
Get professional advice for creating detailed, lifelike hair
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is packed full of really cool characters so I was spolit for choice when I wanted to create a character from the movie to hone my skills. Eventually, I chose to create a model of Baze Malbus (played by Wen Jiang), as I wanted to tackle sculpting in Zbrush, as well as develop in some technically challenging areas, such as hair grooming and character sculpting.
This tutorial will mainly focus on hair, but I will cover other fundamental areas of the sculpting process, such as head and organic sculpting and armour or hard surface modelling.
Before you begin, I would urge you to gather references. It’s good practice not to underestimate this stage in the process as everyone, especially movie actors, can look different in different photos. The human face is alive, which means it can change even within one day or look different under different lighting conditions. A second thing to note is that actors have make-up, and on top of that, photo editing. As it would be impossible to replicate how the actor looks in every single photo, it is important to choose one or use multiple reference photos to get a better understanding of the person you’re sculpting.
So, now that we’ve covered the importance of reference, let’s start sculpting.
01 creating the Base mesh and topology
The most important thing to note when sculpting in Zbrush is to keep polygons square and relatively similar in density, especially for organic parts like faces or when sculpting cloth folds. This will give you a smoother, more precise and predictable sculpting brush effect (the brush will behave consistently along the surface). There are also areas that can aid workflow, for example, the back of the head or the scalp, which are covered by hair and therefore invisible. These can have lower topology density to make a scene lighter for better PC performance.
02 Blocking BIG and medium-sized shapes
The number one common mistake artists make when they are rushing is to start sculpting right away on the highest subdivision. It’s better to not jump into detailing too early and stick to building the solid, big and medium-sized shapes first (details will only distract from this). I always work on subdivisions first, moving back and forth from the first to the third and back to the second. This is a good workflow to adopt as it forces you to avoid moving to high subdivisions until you have achieved the maximum you can with the lowest subdivision.
03 adding Details
First, I roughly draw the position of big folds of skin with the Standard brush or Formsoft brush in order to choose the optimal position and curve. I mostly sculpt big wrinkles with the Standard and Inflate brushes, with Gravity and masking turned on. Sculpting organic surfaces works best if each wrinkle (skin fold) has both concave and convex features.
04 adding micro-details to the skin
When working on the small details of skin sculpts, I use a combination of alphas in two or three layers. I also sculpt and polish the surface to exaggerate, smooth or add extra details where needed. Doing this makes the skin surface more artistic and natural-looking. Alphas are necessary to save time and cover surface area more quickly. There are a few good skin alphas out there, for example Frenk Tzengs’s skin alphas and scans at www.texturing.
xyz alphas. For micro-wrinkles, it’s also very helpful to use the Dam_ Standard brush.
05 Blocking in the hair
When it comes to blocking in the hair, I begin with a rough shape as a new subtool and use Dynamesh to update the topology before moving forward with Fibermesh. I do it this way because lowresolution sculptured hair is much easier to adjust and manipulate to find the best silhouette compared to using Fibermesh hair or 3ds Max or Maya hair, and it will serve as a foundation for the character’s hair.
06 hard surface armour modelling
For hard surface modelling, such as the character’s armour, I use polymodelling software (I used 3ds Max for this project) to block hard surface areas. Once done, the next step is to take these models into Zbrush and deform or refine the shapes. In Zbrush, you can add micro-details, scratches and
surface noise by using the Surface tool. Check first if you have enough polygon density for the desirable details, and if not add more subdivisions. Make details on a new layer so you can adjust the intensity or erase some parts by using the Morph brush. Also use handmade or scanned alphas to upload with the Surface tool. Use noise by UVS, then adjust the scale and strength accordingly, making sure that you turn off Mix Basic Noise.
07 creating realisticlooking fabric
I find the most efficient way to create fabric is to use Marvelous Designer for the base of the realistic clothes and fabric parts (use the latest version of Marvelous Designer if you can because it’s a lot more advanced, has better simulation and more user control). Using just Marvelous Designer is not enough, however, as some clothes feature ‘memory folds’, and to achieve realism you’ll need to hand sculpt these. These folds usually cover almost the whole surface of a fabric, especially if the character has old clothes (older clothes have more memory folds). Remember to add small details of wear and tear. It is important to improve the clothes’ fold direction and flow to make them more artistic and elegant to please the viewer. Don’t make the cloth too messy and at the same time avoid bare patches – make proper fold distributions. In this case, I added more folds around the armpits and the metal armour and added micro-folds along the seams.
08 making fibermesh hair
It’s helpful to split hair by types, for example, hair on top and at the side of the head, as often the length and design are quite different. The most practical method for any digital hair, both real-time or pre-rendered hair, is to build in three layers. I use the following workflow: 1. The first layer sits beneath everything in the hair set-up and serves as a base. Its density can help form the base for the hair. 2. The middle layer features unique hair strands on top of the first layer and this layer can be in multiple layers (as for this project). 3. The third layer is for the tiny details to sell the realism of the hair, I use this for the ‘flying’ random hairs to give the silhouette a fuzz, and add variation in colour and thickness.
09 hair settings
The main settings to adjust are Gravity, which bends hair down; Revolve Rate, which twists and curves hair and is a quick way to achieve extra realism and variety; Maxfibers, which controls the number of hairs (keep this a relatively low number); Hair Length
and Width profile. For length, it’s easier to make hair shorter later with the Move brush, and for Width keep the middle part thicker. There’s also Base root and Tip colours – make these different for some layers. For Segments, make sure that you have enough polygons so the hair looks round. Do not add Segments unecessarily, as this significantly slows down performance.
10 fibermesh hair tips
For bending and deformation, mask, hide and group hair. Remember to have variety of thickness and colour (for example, by adding a few white strands on the top layer) and vary by density and the hair strand’s thickness.
The most useful brushes include Groomspike, which enables you to group hair into strands; Groomhairlong to grow and shorten the hair; and Move. I use the Move brush to reshape the hair, adjusting the bend and curve to add variety, group or shorten. This particular brush is used in all aspects of creating digital sculpture as it has great control and flexibility.
I like to save a few settings that I use a lot. They are: ‘long hair’, ‘long thin curvy’, ‘white’, and ‘rare hair’.
Focus on one side at a time. Develop a workflow for this side, then later you can reuse some elements of it when creating the whole head. Even if you use Symmetry, you’ll need these techniques to make asymmetrical adjustments, which will critically save time, especially when working on a video game or film production.
As a final tip, use the Smooth or Inflate brushes if you want thinner or thicker strands of hair.
11 Beards and moustaches
As we did with the main hair, begin any beard or moustache by building hair in layers and groups, and splitting into types of hair. Build layers of hair for mass. Make the middle layer with separate strands to increase density in some areas or make specific unique strand shapes for direction and interest.
12 face polishing
I do a final face touch-up when most of the hair is in place because it’s at this point that I can see how it all fits together to offer a view of the character in its entirety. Hair is often a critical part of a character’s personality, so you need to see it as a complete portrait. It’s good practice to come back to work after a day to make final decisions and polish as you can get too used to the picture and not spot mistakes. With fresh eyes and a clear head you can make better decisions. You can also ask friends and colleagues for their input – all advice should be welcome.
13 facial hair
I add an extra hair layer with super small, almost invisible hairs all around the character’s face as almost all of the human body is covered with tiny micro hairs. This will help to achieve extra realism, especially when lit and rendered. This step should be done at the very end when you’re sure that the sculpt has its final shape.