Environmental Project

Here is a major update on that environmental project I have been working on.

I ran into some texturing and map transferal problems so I don't consider this a

finished product. The lighting needs work as well, I was trying to have the hanging

lanterns give off a soft blue light, however I couldn't seem to pull it off.

The light kept coming out white. Something to work on I guess.

Environmental Modeling Project

In my Environmental Modeling class our assignment is to model an extreme

environment with a bit of a story told in the visuals. I decided on trying to do something

along the lines of the dwarven mines of Moria in The Lord of the Rings.

I haven't gotten too much done yet, we got the project yesterday, so I spent

some time grabbing reference images and I just banged out this rough pillar design:

Anyhoo, back to modeling!

-Daniel Strauss

Improvement Project

A lot has been done one my improvement project. I think I have come to the conclusion that I don't like organic modeling in Maya, I think I'll stick to Zbrush for that.

The ear was on of the biggest things i wanted to fix and it's the thing I spent the most time on. All that's left is to fix the geometry where the ear will be connecting to the head,

The mouth needed a lot of attention as well. It hasn't been fully fixed yet but it looks a lot better than before

The chin no longer looks like the freakish bulge it did before, the geometry is a lot better and the neck muscles look a little more accurate.

Zbrush Mech Quick Update

Thought I'd throw up a quick update on my Zbrush Mech. I have been finishing up the chest and back before I move onto the pelvis. Here are some screen caps showing a bit off.

Like I said, super quick update. Now I need to go get cleaned up, it's time for the premier of season 3 of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

Zbrush Hard Surface Mech Model

So how about an update on my Zbrush project? I spent a good 12-14 hours straight  on this project yesterday. I spent a lot of my time learning new Zbrush techniques and what-not. I learned how to separate

the mesh into polygroups using polypaint, which you can see the mesh polypainted below:

The separation wasn't perfect, so I had to go in and do some more separation using masking. once the model was split into polygroups I used the group loops function to create some very defined edges between the pieces. Here are two images showing the polygroups and the group loops:

It took awhile but I think I finally got the hang of the hPolish brush, which is the key to hard surface modeling in Zbrush. I have been focusing on the chest piece and it's coming along nice. This model still has a long way to go but I am getting the hang of it.

Improvement project update 2

It's been awhile since I posted an update on this project, I forgot to upload my progress from last week. I have been focusing on trying to fix the sad excuse for an ear on this model. I have spent a good four and a half hours on this damn ear and I can honestly say I never want to model an ear again. I did a lot of research and based my edge flow off of different examples. Of course I hit quite a few problems along the way that I still haven't quite figured out how to fix.

Here is a look at the unsmoothed model. Their are some rectangles that look bad along the inside of the ear, but that will be a quick fix before I attach the ear to the rest of the model.

And here is the smoothed mesh

Here is the big problem I am still trying to fix. It is easy to see where the specular highlight abruptly stops and  how the smoothed edges curve around in weird random ways.

I'm still not sure on how to fix it quite yet but I'm trying to find a solution. Once I fix that little slip then I will fix up the mouth and the model should be good to go!

Zbrush Hard Surface Modeling

For the final project in my high poly modeling class I decided to try some hard surface sculpting in Zbrush. I have been watching videos by the incredible Zbrush artist Mike Jenson. I wish I simply watching his videos could put me on his skill level.

I developed a skeleton using Zspheres, the design is roughly

based off of one of his videos

Then I began laying out a mesh using Zsketch, here is the product so far.

I'm very nervous about a project like this because I am still very new to Zbrush, and hard surface modeling is not very easy in Zbrush. I am going to give it my all though and hope for the best.