In this process, I've chosen a more challenging character to use my skills and learn to improve myself. He will be the first full body low poly/mid poly character.
Jaime Martinez
http://www.dabanaworks.com
I'm trying my best to be precise. I have a few bits to adjust and fix, I'll be drawing over to see the anatomy in 2d, essentially checking anatomy in another perspective, and making those adjustments this week and then begin my detail and textures for this guy. Of course, after the detail bits and inserting his eyes. His wrist and the shape of his upper arm and biceps still need adjusting. Fix his ears and work on the hands. Details to the face will be finalized, including the eyes, pores, and moving on to the texture. After this, I can finally get the clothes on him, but I do have the armor in the process ready to have a symmetry modifier and shaped to fit him.
PANTS - TURNAROUND - BASE
First, I used a Symmetry modifier to start with the whole pants. In the end, they are not symmetrical, but I wanted to make sure that at least they are not showing any of the legs. I wanted to make that the waste in in place. I'll adjust to asymmetrical later once I have the base start. In this image, I'm adding edges and shaping the baggy pants in more detail. I feel as though this is cleaner and more efficient to do in Max than in zbrush for a start. I may delete or move the edges and verts as I go. I try to keep symmetrical till I enter zbrush.
I've shaped from planes, grabbing edges and extruding them down or in other directions. I started with half since they split at the crotch. I play with the size constantly to grab the verts one at a time or as a whole to make a larger difference.
I used the Paint Deform tools under Freeform to help shape the pants to the body. I pushed and pulled to block-in a baggy shape, but keeping in mind the shape and placement the wrinkles are due to the boots and the hip and thigh straps.
PANTS - TURNAROUND - HIGH POLY
I divided by 2 in zbrush, and then used the clay and standard brushes to sculpt the pants. I see that he is a bit baggy in some parts, so I need to keep that scaled balanced in this, too. I will then place my armor that I've already started and symmetry then finish.
I've started the placement for the straps on the thighs and hip, roughly. I'm just push, pulling, and sculpting to form the wrinkles where I see them at this point. It may change when I add my armor, which is focused mainly in max, unless I absolutely need to pull them in zbrush for sculpting.
I'm adjusting the wrinkles bit by bit. Overall, once I have my straps and armor in, these pieces will change gradually. It's halfway there. The details will come in after I've placed the shape and wrinkles down.
This is the start of the back side, I'm playing with wrinkles along the supposed seem, which will be added afterwards. I want it to be clean, yet subtle in detail. I'll have stitches in soon enough.
SHIRT - BASE
The shirt will be a bit more of a challenge as it is skin tight and there are actually three different shirts. One is white, but only shows at the top and under this neck shirt. I will probably just use a piece of geometry to save polys. For the other, I believe is the tileable texture shirt, but has no neck collar, revealing this piece.
Here is it with a Symmetry modifier. I'm using the same Deform paint brushes in Max to help push and pull where needed and just hovering over the skin. I also added edges and moved verts where needed.
HIGH POLY BODY
Here is the high poly man. I detailed him in zbrush. I may add some more refined muscle details, possibly the legs before I begin texturing him with skin and dirt.
HIGH POLY ACCESSORIES
The boot is another difficult piece I had to deal with. I ran into issues with the bend modifiers, feeling entirely limited. I will use zbrush or another modifier to fit them together properly. For the rest of the accessories, I've already set up a couple of bend modifiers to test out the lengths and scaling. These pieces are all built in Max from boxes and cylinders with meshsmooth and bend modifiers.In the end, I will touch them up and texture them in zbrush entirely, possibly some could have procedurals.
I already have the shoulder pieces built, but need some cuts and scrapes for detail and worn look.
ARMOR EXPERIMENT
Here, I started out building the armor in pieces, but took a moment to decide what other option I could take. I decided to scrap this and build in zbrush and clean up in Max with the graphite tools.
POLYPAINTING AND CREATING UV MAP TO SEND TO 3DSMAX
A decent poly paint in zbrush that I had done already, just learning to pass over to Max. Figured a way through PUV. I now have to figure out how to get these into Max through the Texture Map tab to the right side of zBrush. You then need to flip this material, as I've been told, otherwise it will not fit the character properly in Max. After, I opened the UV Map tab to create the UV Map size. 4096 was used with a 1 for the UV Map Border.
DYNAMESH LOW POLY - ZBRUSH
For the body, since I'm working to have him in Max, millions and millions of polys wouldn't run well, so then I needed to retypologize a mid-poly to low-poly body. Here is an experiment in the new zbrush, 4r4, where you can create a quick and clean low poly geo. You can also create paths for the flow of the geometry. He was cut down from 1 to 2 million polys to 48 thousand, still keeping his shape and detail. Then I will need to unwrap. This was easier, and actually fun, to create a fast low poly.
RE-TOPOLOGY USING WRAPIT PLUGIN IN 3DSMAX
It had been interested trying to clean this up. I used the Wrapit plugin, which is really useful and difficult to control. You can paint along the surface, however ever far from it as you would like. Also, I had decimated this body through zbrush first. Wrapit also has a way of ringing around tube like shapes and instantly wrapping with lower poly count, which you can also control the amount.
WRAPPING THE PIECES
I had already began to piece everything together. Majority I have used the bend modifier to wrap around his torso and body. However, the vest is still that big challenge for me. Placing together every piece is incredibly difficult.
