[Lars Magnusson]

Decided to try a concept that is rather common in the ZBrush forums, to have a single Sketchbook thread for my WIP's.
( Maybe I should call it WNF's instead...."Will Never Finish" since I tend to abandon them )

Previous WIP's and WNF's:

Shatzia Ni Challum ( WNF )
Maxwell thread: http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/view ... 48&t=32238


Shatzia Ni Challum WIP 9/9-09 by LarsMagnusson, on Flickr
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Clawsnake ( actually finished this...how unlike me! )
Maxwell thread: http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/view ... 48&t=34865


ClawSnake Finished by LarsMagnusson, on Flickr
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Friendly Alien ( WNF ) - started as a test for eye's, became an alien, then looked like an ape...
Maxwell thread: http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/view ... 48&t=34940


Friendly Alien, final render by LarsMagnusson, on Flickr
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After a long brake ( playing several great games, including replaying DragonAgeOrigins with all DLC's )
I wanted to start fresh with ZBrush and Maxwell.
So... I created another alien....that hopefully doesn't turn into a monkey or a celebrity lookalike

Here's "Slender Alien" ( amazingly creative name, eh ?)

First a screenshot of the first three stages in ZBrush:
1. ZSpheres rig.
2. That you ZSketch on.
3. and then convert to polygons and start sculpting.

Slender Alien - WIP by LarsMagnusson, on Flickr


A quick render in Maxwell with the SSS wizard for "Orange Juice". I can't resist SSS now
( this was a very quick 30min render, so I used a little noise reduction on it...and some Simulense scattering and diffraction )

Slender Alien - WIP by LarsMagnusson, on Flickr


And another ZBrush screenshot after some detail sculpting.

Slender Alien - WIP by LarsMagnusson, on Flickr

[mcj1984]

Very cool stuff! The Friendly Alien looks like he has some awesome stories to tell.

[Lars Magnusson]

Thanks!

Here's a quick 1h testrender of the 850'000 polygon version of the Slender Alien with an experimental SSS material.


Slender Alien - WIP by LarsMagnusson, on Flickr

[David Solito]

Nice Lars!

Did you have some advices for the maxwell render conversion?
What about your normal maps, your geometry level import?
What is your process?

thks!

[Half Life]

I always enjoy seeing your work Lars -- it's nice to have it all in one thread, I hope to see it updated often

Best,
Jason.

[Lars Magnusson]

@Half Life:
Thanks, and we'll see about the update progress, I'll try to keep sculpting/rendering even if new PC-games arrives.
( But it'll be hard...apparantly TestDriveUnlimited2 arrived in the mailbox today...and in march DragonAge2 might be released )

@David:
Thanks! And regarding advice....I can only say what works for me with my "Directly from ZBrush4 into MaxwellStudio" and "Don't have to worry about deadlines since it's only for fun" approach

I don't use normal maps... Maxwell is the first software I've had that supports displacement maps and I'm completely sold on displacement now.
Geometry level... that is very much depending on Maxwell's smoothing in the object tab. If I see sharp edges when it's smooth shaded, the displacement will cause black holes.
And then I just export a higher subdiv level from ZBrush.
Usually between 200k - 1 million polys is enough for a creature. And I don't think it really affect rendertime much if the polys are from real geometry or the displacement. ( apart from the calculations before the render starts )
Should note that the reason for using 850k polys in the latest render was that I haven't UVmapped the creature yet, so displacement map couldn't be generated.
I think 200k poly + displacement might be enough for this alien...dependes on what type of detail I put in.

There are some things I haven't learned/tested in ZBrush that might improve the displacement map generation and lower the requirement of the polygon amount in Maxwell.
If there is a way to generate a displacement map as the difference between a smoothed low poly model and high poly model instead of using one of the sculpt-subdivlevels (which can be really jagged).
And the Polygon Decimation tool...but that generates differently sized triangles...not sure how that affects displacement?

EDIT: And SCALE...always remember the scale issue with the unit-lacking ZBrush. Use a modelling software that uses UNITS and create reference size OBJ files ( box with height of human, car etc).
Import into MaxwellStudio to verify that the size is correct, then import into ZBrush and use them as starting tools.
Don't just start sculpting in ZBrush.. because then you might end up with the same problem I had with Shatzia... a 100 meter long creature

[Half Life]

Hey Lars, once you have the Z-brush low poly in Studio you can re-calculate the normals to smooth out the jaggedness.

Best,
Jason.

[Lars Magnusson]

Hey Lars, once you have the Z-brush low poly in Studio you can re-calculate the normals to smooth out the jaggedness.

I don't have Maxwell on my worklaptop, but I assume that you mean the object tab when you can enter for example 60degree and press Recalc?
That was what I ment with "Maxwell's smoothing in the object tab"....just couldn't remember the name of the function.

The problem is that in some areas of a ZBrush sculpt on the lowest subdivlevels the corners of the polygons "go bananas" (the corners don't represent a planar surface any more).
Happens for example if i sculpt a deep scar that goes diagonally compared to the flow of the quadratic polygons.
And the Recalc smoothing degree doesn't always succeed in those areas, no matter what angle I enter.
It's not a big problem for me since my computer and Maxwell can handle lots and lots of polygons

[David Solito]

Thank you Lars.
I am at this moment testing conversion on a new wip.
I wil post a screenshot of my model before maxwell conversion.

David

[Lars Magnusson]

Been uncreative for a long, looooong time now.
Pretty much got hooked on a MMO game, "Star Wars The Old Republic", so not been doing any sculpting/rendering for years now

But good thing is that my obsession made me want to do a lightsaber. ( 98% of the design from Luke's in SW Ep4 )
I modelled it in CatiaV5R23 ( or V5-6R2013 as it is called now ) and exported it as Step.
Bought and used Polytrans with the Granite plugin to convert from step to OBJ.
And when I had my creditcard out I upgraded to MaxwellRender3


WIP Lightsaber by LarsMagnusson, on Flickr

This is just a quick testrender with basic materials (not a single texture involved on saber, and the wood material is from the MXM gallery ) and simple lighting.
Also think I only had time to let it render to SL 6 or something because it was very late in the evening.

I'm hoping I can use this one to improve my material skills, since I've not really done alot of that in Maxwell.
Like finally trying to make it look worn, dirty, smudgy etc.