CREATE A FANTASY PRINCESS
Achieve a beautiful render of a fantasy character using Arnold 6
In this tutorial, we will go over the entire process of creating a beautiful fantasy render using Arnold 6 GPU, Maya, Xgen, Zbrush and Photoshop. First of all, we will start with the base mesh in pose using Zbrush from a mannequin preset or Zspheres. Then we will sculpt a face, hands, and parts of the body that will be used in the render. After that, we will export the whole mesh to Maya and start to make the guides in Ornatrix. We will use a special Draw Strand tool to achieve the heart forms of the hair. Finally, we will create the hair using Xgen and render it with Arnold Renderer 6 on GPU.
01 POSE THE MANNEQUIN
First of all, we need to create a base mesh in Zbrush. To create it, we will use the mannequin preset from the standard library. The mannequin collection is located in the Lightbox, in the Mannequin folder. You just need to go into this folder, choose a female mannequin 8Headfemale_ryan_kingslien.zpr and double-click on it. It will appear in the Zbrush viewport. Next, using the left mouse button, move the limbs and put them in the desired position by simply clicking and pulling in the right direction.
02 CREATE ADAPTIVE SKIN
After we put the mannequin in a pose, it’s time for a basic sculpture. First of all, you need to turn this dummy into Adaptive Skin. In the Adaptive Skin tab, which is located in Tools on the right, use the default settings and click Make Adaptive Skin. After that, go up
and select the resulting object called Skin_mannequin to start working with it. This is a readymade mesh that can work with all the sculpt brushes.
03 SCULPT A BASE MESH
To sculpt a basic shape, first you can use the four brushes, Standard, Inflate, Clay and Move in Sculptris Pro mode. This mode allows you to quickly smooth out unnecessary parts with a large radius of the brush using the Shift key, or vice versa to add small details using a small radius. At this first stage we are sculpting just to find the proportions and primary shapes, so we don’t need to get involved in detailing. It is important to sculpt the foundation while maintaining all the proportions and correct posture, but don't spend too much time blocking.
04 DETAIL THE ANATOMY
For detailing, you can basically use the same brushes plus Dam Standard, Trim Dynamic and Pinch. To make it convenient to work on a specific part, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+shift+left mouse button and select the desired part of the geometry to hide everything else. I also check references in the Anatomy For Sculptors book and do all the detailing for the face and other parts of the body. Don't forget about the so-called Landmarks, these are places where the bone is located closest to the surface of the skin and therefore protrudes slightly. Many beginners make this mistake initially.
05 RETOPOLOGY
Since we won't use this mesh in animation, just for rendering, you can do auto-retopology using the Quad Remesher plugin for Maya. This is a plugin from the Zremesher developer and it forms a mesh suitable for further development and transfer of all parts using the high-poly mesh. Auto-retopology is easy. Import a high-poly mesh into Maya, then run the plugin. You can leave all the default settings; 100,000 quads will be enough.
06 CREATE UVS IN RIZOMUV
Rizomuv is a revolutionary program for creating, packaging and optimising your UV sets. First, you need to select the edges you want to cut. To select edge loops, just double-click on one edge. If you want to select a specific set of edges, just hold Shift. To deselect, hold Ctrl. As soon as you select the desired edges, press the C key to make a cut and U to make an unfold.
07 TRANSFER FROM HIGHPOLY TO RETOPOLOGY
When the retopology and UV are ready, we proceed to transfer the high-poly parts, since during auto retopology some of the small parts may be lost – for example in the eyes, lips and nose area. To do this, import the retopology mesh back into Zbrush and transfer all the details using the Project tool. Don’t rush to immediately smooth the retopo mesh and bring its number of polygons closer to the high-poly model. Press Ctrl+d and select Projectall. Then, use the same key combination and bring the number of polygons closer to high poly. Export the new model to Maya.
08 LIGHTING SETUP: PART 1
We will illuminate the scene with the three-point lighting method – using a Key, Back (Rim) and Fill light. Back (Rim) is located behind and is used to emphasise the contour, Fill highlights the darkened areas of the image and Key is the main source for the formation of shadows and the base spot of light. But we are modifying it a bit, since the girl is lying on the floor and not all contours are important in this composition, so Back (Rim) will play a different role. Key will remain the main one, and Fill will slightly emphasise the contour, but not as sharply as usual.
09 LIGHTING SETUP: PART 2
Select Key Light. Next, in its settings, turn on the Use Color Temperature option and enter 3,600 to create a warm light. As for Intensity and Exposure, for each scene, these values will be
different. For Light Shape, select Disk. In the Visibility tab, don't forget to turn off the Camera parameter to exclude the shape of the light source from the render. We use the same approach for the Back and Fill Light.
10 CAMERA SETUP
Before we create the hair, let’s install a camera. Select Space, go to the Create menu, then choose Cameras. Then in Outliner, go to the Panels menu and select Look Through Selected. You can now adjust the desired angle.
11 AI STANDARD SURFACE
To assign material to an object, select it, then right-click and select Assign New Material. Then go to the Arnold menu and select aistandardsurface. We perform such an operation with the body and eyes. That is, we create two different aistandardsurface materials for them.
12 CUSTOMISE SKIN MATERIAL: PART 1
So, after we’ve added the material for the eyes and torso, naturally they
need to be customised. Standard SSS material will be enough. In the Base tab, Weight can be set to 0, since we don’t need a standard colour. For SSS materials, it is set in the Subsurface tab in the Subsurface Color parameter. We choose bright red for Radius to get an interesting SSS effect and set the Scale parameter to a small value, otherwise, it will turn out silicone, not leather. In Type, select the new randomwalk_v2.
13 CUSTOMISE SKIN MATERIAL: PART 2
To give the skin a little fantasy and alien effect, you just need to pay attention to the Coat and Sheen tabs, which are located below the Subsurface tab. With these parameters, you can get quite interesting skin material that will look slightly unusual and fantasy. Coat is responsible for the absorption and colouring of all transmitted light, and Sheen for additional shine and velvet. In this project, it is worth paying attention to changing the Coat Weight and Coat Roughness parameters, and all Sheen parameters. See the screenshots on the next page for the settings.
14 SET AI STANDARD SURFACE FOR THE EYES
After you have configured the skin material, proceed to the adjustment of the eye material. Open the aistandardsurface settings and in the first Base tab, reduce the value of the Weight parameter to 0.5. For Color: Hue = 198, Saturation = 0.3, and Value
= 1. Thus, we get a slightly blue tint. Next, go to the Specular tab. For Roughness, enter 0.250, and for IOR 1.3. Next, add a little SSS effect by heading to the Subsurface tab. Weight = 0.8, Scale = 5, Type = randomwalk_v2 and Anisotropy = 0.4. For Subsurface Color, select the orange hue.
15 DRAW ORNATRIX GUIDES
Let’s start creating Xgen Hair. Personally, it’s convenient for me to create guides in Ornatrix since there you can draw them using the Draw Strand tool. To start drawing guides in Ornatrix, first we select the object and apply the Furball preset. Delete the modifiers that are above Edit Guides, then go to this modifier, delete unnecessary guides in Root mode and draw new ones using Draw Strand. After that, we need to convert them to Curves. To do this, on top of Edit Guides, assign the Curves From Strands modifier and use the right mouse button to clear the history.
16 SCALP CREATION FOR XGEN
When your curves are ready, you can start creating an Xgen Description for the head. To do this, you need to make a copy of the scalp mesh, since we don't need the entire body. To separate the scalp, select the girl’s mesh, right-click and select Face in the menu that appears. This way you activate the selection of polygons. We select the scalp of the head with a margin, since then we will draw a mask. In order to enable convenient selection, activate the Paint Selection tool. If you select extra polygons, hold Ctrl and deselect. To separate this part of the scalp, just make a duplicate of the model using Ctrl+d, invert the selection with Ctrl+shift+i and delete the excess.
17 CREATE XGEN DESCRIPTION
When you have a separated scalp, you can start creating the Xgen Description. In this project there will be two of them – one for the basic form of hair, the other for baby hairs. So, to create the first Xgen Description, select the scalp, then activate the Xgen tab. Go to the Generate menu and select Xgen Editor. Then click on Create New Description. Next, you will see
a window in which we’ll write the name in New Description Name. Then, enter the name for ‘Create new Collection named’ and note three options below: ‘Splines (use for long hair, vines, etc)’, ‘Randomly across the surface’, and ‘Placing and shaping Guides’. Click Create.
18 ADD THE RESULTING CURVES TO XGEN
After we created the Xgen Description, you can add all the drawn curves to it. To do this, select them and go to the Xgen Editor. In the Utilities tab we then select the Curves To Guides tool and below in its settings, check the Delete Curves option if we want to delete the curves after creation. Click on the Add Guides button. As a result, you will get ready-made guides for Xgen that you can work with. After that, you can see what you get by clicking on the eye icon with an exclamation mark. Of course, this is not the result that we expect to see in the final. Therefore, you need to work with some different settings and modifiers.
19 EDIT XGEN PARAMETERS: PART 1
The essence of working with Xgen is this. First, we add the necessary modifiers and look at the result. If there is not enough interpolation, we add more guides and check the result again. First, we need to change the basic settings in the Primitives tab. To start, increase the value of the Density parameter to 50. Then click the icon opposite this parameter and select Create Map. Be sure to assign Lambert material to the scalp, otherwise the 3D Paint Tool won’t work.
20 EDIT XGEN PARAMETERS: PART 2
For Modifier CV Count, enter a value between 50-100 for easy editing of the smoothness of the guides. Next, for the Width parameter, enter 0.05 – this will be enough for the initial preview. Then we change the value of the Taper parameter to 1. This will make the ends of the hair thinner than the base. Next, go to the Modifiers tab and create three Clump modifiers, two Noise and one Cut. To do this, click the sheet icon with a plus and
select the desired modifiers in the list that appears.
21 EDIT XGEN PARAMETERS: PART 3
Next, turn on Clump 1 and edit the Clump Scale curve. In order to draw a heterogeneous pattern, head to the Tool Settings, and in the Brush tab, click on the folder and select the desired pattern. Next, save the result by clicking on the diskette icon, but also don't forget to click on the Save Textures button in Tool Settings, which is located in the File Textures tab. But since the guides have not yet been generated, we need to scroll down in the Clump settings. There we click Setup Maps, then the Guides button and Generate. Click Save.
22 EDIT XGEN PARAMETERS: PART 4
Go to the settings of the second clump. In the Clump field, paste the mask from the first, simply copying the path. Make a curve for the Clump Scale parameter (see image). Then we scroll down and make the settings shown for the Noise Effect tab to add a little fly-away effect and unevenness to the clumps. This will add some realism. Now it remains to add guides for this clump. Activate the Setup Maps button, but this time we’re generating clumps, not from guides, simply using Density and the Generate button.
23 EDIT XGEN PARAMETERS: PART 5
Now turn on the third clump. It will break up into even smaller clumps. In real life, there are always several sub-clumps. Copy the same mask into the Clump slot and make a curve for the Clump Scale as per the screenshot. Then go down to the Noise Effect tab and write the expression for the Noise parameter. To do this, click on the icon opposite it. This is done in order to make complex noise with a random value for each of the clumps.
24 EDIT XGEN PARAMETERS: PART 6
Turn on the Noise modifier and proceed to its settings. For the first Mask parameter, we add a special expression that will add variety, and the noise effect will look more natural. To convey realism in 3D graphics, you need to try to make each parameter unique. Therefore, we add a Noise modifier to add a bit of chaos to the uniform shape.
25 EDIT XGEN PARAMETERS: PART 7
Next, turn on another Noise. It is already used for fly-away hairs, so the Magnitude value is usually more than 5-10. If you carefully look at any photo of a girl with long hair, you will see how several hairs are always above the rest. They seem to be
knocked out of the general form, and such hairs in the CG sphere are called ‘fly-away hairs’ and must be added to achieve even greater realism. Also for Mask, create an expression that will control the percentage of such hairs. The result Before and After can be seen in the below image.
26 EDIT XGEN PARAMETERS: PART 8
To give the hair even more realism, turn on the Cut modifier. But we are not interested in having the tips trimmed the same everywhere. For the Amount parameter, add a special expression to add variety. After you add it, you will have several options for varying the minimum and maximum lengths, as well as Seed, which will also allow you to add further randomisation; simply enter different numbers and you will get a completely new result. Now we return to the Primitives tab and adjust the final value for the width of the hairs using the Width parameter, and increase the number of hairs using Density.
27 EDIT XGEN PARAMETERS: PART 9
Go to the Descriptions menu and select Create New Description. In the window that appears, make the same settings as for the first Description with basic hair, but change the name to Babyhairs.
After that, add the curves using the same method and make the required settings.
28 INTERACTIVE GROOM
When all Xgen layers are ready, now you can convert them to Interactive Groom and cut, modify and so on. Using this mode, it is very convenient to select unnecessary parts and move/remove them. To convert any of the layers, select it, go to the Generate menu and click Convert to Interactive Groom. After that, you will have a separate layer with which you can work. Select it, add Sculpt layers and edit the shape of the hairstyle using the tools on the top panel. Everything here is quite simple and intuitive.
29 HAIR SHADER SETTINGS
Once the hair shape is ready, it is time to assign aistandardhair. To do this, select the object with the hair and assign this material by right-clicking, as was done with the skin of the girl. Then open Hypershade and put ailayerrgba in the Base Color slot. To add this node, press Tab and write its name. Then we add one more node with the name airamprgb and connect it to the Input1 slot of the node ailayerrgba. For Input2 we make a red colour and for Input1 we change the blend mode in the Operation parameter to Multiply.
30 FINAL RENDER
Now it's time to set up the final render and do post-processing in Photoshop. See below screenshot for the final render settings. Turn on the DOF in the camera. Next, go to Photoshop and use the Camera RAW filter to add contrast. Using the Threshold option, you can check which parts of the image are emphasised – in a portrait render like this, it is desirable that the emphasis be on the face and hair. •