your cg problems solved
Ricky Smolliere, UK
How to model organic shapes, create a hot burning effect for metal and eliminate seams
Hard surface robots have been a struggle for me over the years. So I spent a fair bit of time gathering my skills and getting better. One of the most basic forms of conceptualising your design is by starting with a drawing or a concept. I start by creating a character concept in Photoshop, which is the first step to really visualising the character and the vibe I want to create for the character. I spend a lot of time working out the detail and the tiny bits of information that I want in the final piece. Doing a 2D concept gives you a good visual representation of where to start, but it is limited in its nature. That is why when you get into 3D there are heaps of other problems that arise and that have to be resolved because of the extra dimension that is added, but in my opinion it is hands down the best method in getting you where you need to go and establishing a direction for your piece. There are some things that kind of come together at the end, but here is the process.
In regard to the physical mesh that is created, all of the sculpting is done entirely in Zbrush without ever leaving the program to retopologise any of the mesh, as well as two phases or levels of completion – the concept sculpt and the final hard-surface sculpted detail. The latter of the two eluded me for quite some time. Zbrush is well capable of providing a totally clean, animation-friendly mesh right within the software, with the Zremesher function. It is just in the way that you use the tool that makes all of the difference. It takes a couple of reductions for the Zremesher function to work properly.
What I tend to do is click on the Adaptive button and also click on Half resolution and Zremesh it down slowly so the software can carry out a proper level of mesh reduction.
The approach is to start with large parts to block out the initial form of the 2D concept in 3D concept format. I tend to work large to small, cutting pieces as I go, and creating and refining levels of detail as I get deeper into the mesh. I use Dynamesh to quickly build shapes with minimal effort, but having said that, I do spend a fair amount of time refining the shapes later on.
After the initial process is complete, I move on to making selections and digging deeper into the detail. So, let’s start with a breakdown of the concept.