How can I achieve the look of modelling clay?

Alexis replies The first thing I do when I create a material is that I always look for a lot of references on the internet. In this case I searched for clay, wet clay, play doh and plasticine or whatever I could come up with. I do this to find the look that I am searching for and to see the differences in the behaviour of the material. I also have to see how the material reacts to different types of lighting.

ZBrush is an extremely powerful tool for sculpting in details... It allows you to work with a very high polygon count

When I have finished my character in Maya I export it to ZBrush to make a detailed clay look. ZBrush is an extremely powerful tool for sculpting details on models. It allows you to work with a very high polygon count.

In ZBrush I use Claybrush and Trim Dynamic to kind of roughen up and randomise the mesh, and try to simulate a finger dragging over the clay and sculpting it – just as if it is real clay or plasticine that you are trying to mould.

Clay usually has creases and fingerprints. To make these fine details we can use alphas in ZBrush. I looked for fingerprints on the internet, but if you have ink you can make your own. You then import it to Photoshop and invert it because the white part in the alpha is what’s affecting the mesh; it’s like with a bump map. Then you need to save the file as a .psd and import it to ZBrush as an alpha. I choose to paint the creases in using Photoshop.

Now, returning to ZBrush, I choose the Standard brush and for the stroke I select the dragrRect. Finally, by selecting the alpha I can drag out the details.

When I am done in ZBrush I use Multi Map Exporter to extract the maps that I need. For my render here I exported a 32-bit displacement and a cavity map.

For rendering in Maya I use V-Ray and Fast SSS 2 Mtl on the character, and play with the parameters to get the effects that I want. I use a pretty low scatter radius as otherwise details like the fingerprints would be blown out.