This is a multi-part tutorial on creating a Demon-like ‘Lok Warrior’ with realistic muscle anatomy. In the first day of this tutorial we created a base mesh for our character using poly modeling. Today we will take this mesh into ZBrush and sculpt intricate muscle anatomy. On day three we will texture the creature and add the finishing touches to the artwork.

Let’s begin day 2 of this tutorial.

Step 40

Open ZBrush and click on ‘Import an OBJ file’. Select our exported object (this way you don’t need to drag the object into the ZBrush workspace) and select ‘Edit mode’.

Step 41

Now subdivide the model by clicking Cntrl + D to create more polygons. Press X to select a symmetrical brush and start sculpting the torso while holding down the Alt key on your keyboard. The red lines below are where you have to sculpt while holding down the Alt key. The blue areas are where you have to sculpt without holding the Alt key down. Please pay attention to the brush size and Z intensity too.

Step 42

Use this image as a guide when preparing the back.

Step 43

We will finish the front part of the torso first. Press Ctrl + D again and now we are on subdivision level 3. Try to form the chest and stomach muscles using the inflat brush. You can increase the Draw size and Z intensity if necessary.

Picture 1. The end result could look for example like this. Notice that this is a stylized head which is not exactly realistic. For example the eyes are too big.

Human head is one of the most difficult subjects to model believably. The structure and form of a human face is so familiar to everyone that even a small fault in the 3D model is easy to notice.

This tutorial covers the 3D modeling of a human head in 3D Studio MAX using polygons. The head is modeled roughly using polygons. The head will get its final form when Meshsmooth modifier is added to it. When the Meshsmooth modifier is added to it the face becomes a so called subdivision surface. Subdivision surface means a surface which is created by dividing the original surface into smaller polygons. Meshmooth modifier does exactly this. This way the rough surface can be made rounder and smoother. The end results is a head similar to the one in picture 1. Notice that this is a stylized head which is not fully realistic. For example the eyes are too big and the ears have been simplified. However, I believe that this model could very well work as a basis for realistic geometry of a human head.

Topology, Edge loops and Poles

Picture 2. In the picture above you can see the polygon construction of the model. By seeing the construction of the model you can conclude how well the model is suited for animation.

Picture 3. The picture above is rendered so that you can see the Isolines of the Meshsmooth modifier.

In picture 2 and 3 you can see the topology and edge loops of the model. By seeing the structure of the model you can conclude how well the model is suited for animation. Edge loop means a row of edges that goes through successive four sided vertices. Four sided vertex is a vertex where four edges meet. In my opinion, in an ideal model that is made for animation edge loops are parallel or perpendicular to the movements of the muscles.

There are almost only four sided polygons (quads) in this model which is good if the model is going to be animated. One should always aim to construct the model from four sided polygons when modeling a character. There are naturally three sided and five sided poles in this model. A pole is a vertex where less or more than four edges meet. Pole ends an edge loop and might sometimes cause trouble in animation. If you want to know more about the subject I recommend reading Bay Raitt’s instructions about 3D modeling and edge loops. Another great resource where to find more information about edge loops, head modeling and 3DS MAX is www.cgsociety.com.

3D Studio MAX Tools

Picture 4. Low polygon version of the human head. This is how the complete 3d model will look like before the Meshsmooth modifier is added.

Before starting the 3D modeling one should be familiar with the following concepts and 3DS MAX tools:

• Editable poly
  • working in sub-object modes
  • copying polygons
  • weld
  • cut
  • extrude
  • create
• Symmetry modifier
• Meshmooth modifier
• Basics about materials

Reference Pictures for the 3D Head

Picture 5. Reference pictures provide a lot of help when modeling a human head.

It’s best to use real photographs as reference pictures when modeling a human head but if real photos are not available you can download pictures below.

Create reference pictures in 3D Studio MAX according to picture 5. Change Left view to Right view. Create two plane objects whose size is 512 x 512 (the same as the pixel dimensions of the pictures. It’s relevant that the proportion between width and height is the same as in the pictures) and add textures to them. Set the Self-Illumination of the materials to 100 (material will become self illuminating and therefore is easier to see).

• Human head reference picture: right
• Human head reference picture: front

Prepare the Views

Turn on Smooth + Highlights (F3) and turn off grid (g) in all view ports. Set the width and height segments to one in both plane objects. The head is considerably easier to to create when we can model according to the reference pictures in the background.

Page 2: 3D Modeling a Mouth in 3DS MAX

First of all I want you to know that this image was created for a competition, the goal of which was Lighting & Rendering Atmosphere.

As this is a making of article, I’m not gonna cover every step of the whole process. I assume you have some basic knowledge of 3D in general, and basic to intermediate level for all the 3ds max users.

First I created my concept sketch to focusing better on my idea for the challenge. I wanted to play most with the lightening and atmosphere so i concentrated more on that. The baby in the scene was used to give more expression to the whole situation.

For me it’s better to start modelling from simple shapes, using the box modelling technique. So I started modelling the head from a simple box. It’s better to study your model first and find how many divisions the box needs to get the look of the face better and faster. That’s why I recommend to always start with the simplest shape, and adding details gradually.

stage 1

stage 2

stage 3

stage 4
A very important fact to consider is the modeling flow. I’m talking about the way you build the surface; edge loops/edge rings.

Ok, after dividing the box several times, I converted it to a editable poly, and started adding details. Although I was dealing with a complex organic modeling, the tools I’ve used were very few. 3ds max has a very robust polygon toolset. 90-95% of the work was done using 2 or 3 tools.( cut, extrude, bevel, weld). Cutting here and there, I’ve modeled the face of my character. I built the mask using surface patch technique. Drawing splines first, and than adding the surface modifier.

stage 5

stage 6

stage 7

stage 8

stage 9

stage 10

Using the method above, I started modelling the body. Starting from a simple shape/ turning to poly/ and adding detail with the tools I’ve mentioned before.

Now that I’ve finished the modeling, it’s time to skin it. Doing this I can make the pose, like my concept drawing.
I built a fairly simple skeleton rig with max’s standard bones and added some simple controls for the limbs.
I added the skin modifier on top of my poly surface first, and then all the bones of the skeleton rig.

As soon as the skin phase is finished, it’s time to do some texturing work!… I added Unwrap UVW modifier and started pulling and pushing the UV’s, trying to make them as flat as possible. It’s good way to be in sub object mode, so you can see directly in the view port, all the polygons you select in the UV editor.

After I opened photo shop, I imported a screen shot of the UV’s, and started painting the diffuse map. I wanted the skin to be smooth and translucent, so I don’t need to create a bump map for the skin.

Hey all, in this tutorial I’m going to show you how I created the final render of my Chesney Baker caricature. First thing, I got the inspiration to do this piece after looking through “Stars,” a book of caricatures by the very talented Sebastian Kruger; you should definitely check it out (www.krugerstars.com).This is not my original concept. It is based on one of his drawings.

This is going to be more of a demonstration on my general approach and workflow. All of the actual sculpting was done using Skymatter’s awesome new modeling program, Mudbox (www.mudbox3d.com). Since this program is still in beta testing, I can only show so much. Also, when I work, I’m not trying to re-invent the wheel, I use what works for me. My workflow is setup to spend as much of my time sculpting the model. When it comes to rendering, I think it is most effective to render out passes separately and composite them in post. Ultimately, there are many ways to approach your work; I’m not saying that mine is the approach that you should take; it’s just what works for me. Try a bunch of options and find what you are comfortable with and what works for you.

Okay let’s get started. So going into this project I knew exactly what I wanted as an end result which was a front view render, not photoreal, more of a casted maquette look, kind of like a bust. Knowing this allowed me to focus exactly on what was going to be seen and saved a lot of time in the end. I think that it is extremely important to know what you are trying to accomplish ahead of time. It really allows you to focus on the end result and spend the greater part of you time specifically on what is necessary to reach that final look.

I started by creating a low resolution base mesh in Maya based on Kruger’s Drawing and just roughed out the exaggerated proportions. I wasn’t focusing on anything other then the major structure and silhouette. The exact positions of the eyes, lips, nose and such would be adjusted later in Mudbox.

The clothing and hair were also done first in Maya as separate meshes. I’m like box modeling so it wasn’t hard keeping this model all quads for the Mudbox import.

The final sculpt which includes all of the finer details such as the pores, fine wrinkles, and eyebrows was done using pre-made alphas and a lot of hand sculpting. The final model was subdivided to about 3.5 million polygons. I added smaller details like the carunculas and little individual eyebrow hairs lastly in Maya.

At this point I exported out my displacement map from Mudbox to use in my shader network in Maya. I learned how to render displacements from various Gnomon DVD’s, friends, and from one excellent tutorial in particular written by Scott Spencer, called “Zbrush to Maya Pipeline Guide”

(http://zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=25542&highlight=displacement+exporter)

Definitely check it out. He explains how to render out displacement maps in Mental Ray in great detail, so I’m not going to go over all of that here. These are settings that I used to export my map out of Mudbox. I tweaked the levels of the map so that it is easier to see.

click image for larger version and settings.

Now since I was only going to be rendering out one view, render time wasn’t exactly a concern, though it should always be in the back of your mind when working. In any case, I like to work from a level where the mesh that you apply the map to is of a high enough resolution so that it doesn’t have to be displaced too far to reach the final look. For that reason, I decided to work from the highest level that Maya would allow me to import, this turned out to be about to be the level 2 mesh at about 200,000 polys.

Since there is no camera move or change in our light direction, we can reach the same result in a fraction of the time by using a bump map instead of a displacement map. Sometimes I use both, but for this specific single view render, the bump map alone will work fine. This will not work in all cases but since the Level 2 head includes the majority of the larger wrinkles, the only thing we need is the fine skin detail which the bump map will illustrate. Here’s an image of an early test I did to realize this. As you can see here, there is very little difference between the two other then render times.

Now that we have the render matching the original sculpt, let’s move onto the shader network and lighting setup. I am using a modified shading network that a buddy of mine gave me back when I was in school. I had to alter it a bit to get more of the brushed plaster cast look that I was going for.

click image for larger version

The eye texture was created from scratch using the tutorial, “Realistic Eye Texture Painting” by the very talented Krishnamurti Martins Costa that was in fact written for 3D Total, you may know him online as Antropus.

For my lighting setup, I did a few early tests and since we’re not going for photo real, I decided to go with good old Maya software and GI_Joe. You can get this lighting script from highend3d.com. Here are the settings I used.

click image for larger version

So first I got my basic color pass with only the light dome and no additional lighting. I then rendered out a separate pass with an additional key light and a subtle rim light so I could control that in the comp. I also rendered out an occlusion pass using Maya’s preset render layer at 64 samples. Lastly, I rendered the eyes also in a separate pass and used applied the “use background shader” to mask out the head so that I could independently control the eyes in Photoshop. Here are all of the passes.

Now we move onto compositing the image in Photoshop (I’m assuming you have basic knowledge of the program). I think its best to work with as few variables at a time, similar to lighting, less is better at first. Get as few layers looking the way you like, then introduce more and more passes. So the first thing I did was work on the color passes by correcting the levels. I then took those two layers and blended them via Saturation mode. Here we are at this point, starting simple.

click image for larger version

I then desaturated the “CLR_Pass” layer a little to get the colors muted down a bit more. Next I turned on the “OCC_Pass,” set its blend mode to Multiple and decreased its opacity. After that I added layer masks to all the layers to remove the black outlines. Then added a gradient to the background and tweaked the overall hue/saturation and brightness/contrast of the two color passes. This is where we are now.

click image for larger version

After that I merged the two color channels, duplicated it, desaturated that new layer, sharpened it, and decreased the opacity. Here we are now.

click image for larger version

Now its time to add the “Eyes” layer which were originally blue, so I tweaked the hue to match the sepia tone I was going for. At this point I separated the eyes into two new layers to allow independent control of each. I also adjusted their saturation and found that I had to put the eye layers underneath the occlusion pass to dirty them up a little.

click image for larger version

Lastly I took all of the layers and did more adjusting. I did some more color correction, duplication, level tweaking, sharpened up areas like the eyebrows and added a little dodge and burn around the eyes to bring out the highlights a bit more. I also re-imported the occlusion pass and darkened up some areas slightly more. And that about does it. Here’s the final comp again.

I hope you found this tutorial helpful and can take away something useful from it. It was a lot of fun creating and I’m always up for giving back to our very open 3D community. Thanks to everyone for taking the time to read my approach and a big thank you to all of artists out there who have shared and continue to share their ideas and workflow which help make us all better artists. Until next time,

I started the cowgirl with a simple base mesh (provided by Marshu Mishu AKA FX81) did some minor mesh changes on it to reduce pinches is some areas.

When I was done with that I took the base mesh to zbrush and started sculpting the female body. Once I was done with a decent sculpt which I thought was ready to pose, using zbrush transpose tools I posed the body and gave some final touches to the sculpt acc. to the pose. I mainly focused on the curves of her body to make her look hot and sexy.
These are the shots of the workflow.

Before I started the sculpt on the head I split it into diff. subtool so as to make things easier and faster to sculpt on.
Once I was done with the head I took a cube and started to sculpt hairs on it as I wanted to try hair scultping in Zbrush.and using subtool master I mirrored and merged the hairs into a single subtool and tweaked it to fit them on her head. Here is the process.

After finishing the head and the body, I started to focus on the cloth and leathers she would be wearing. what I did was I took the mid res posed body into max, and made simple base meshes on the areas I need the cloth and leathers, then I imported all those meshes in zbrush and started sculpting them individually as it gave me more freedom to switch on higher sub-div levels.

when I was done with the clothing and leathers, I started doing the hard surface accessories and stuff like that in 3dsmax by importing the midres meshes from zbrush and simply making poly surface on the midres meshes
Using polyboost tools .After that it was time to make the guns… which I always hate the most: P. but I made them…
Here are some caps of that process.

Finally I merged everything together and it was great that zbrush was able to handle so many subtools with high subdiv levels.
For the final touch I used transpose masted to make some final tweaks
To the model to get everything fit nicely. Hence this was the final result.