Book Image

Sculpting in ZBrush Made Simple

By : Lukas Kutschera
Book Image

Sculpting in ZBrush Made Simple

By: Lukas Kutschera

Overview of this book

Embark on a creative journey with ZBrush, the leading software for creating characters, creatures, and props in films, games, and 3D printing. This guide will take you through its powerful yet user-friendly workflows, allowing you to explore its dynamic organic sculpting, painting, and hard-surface modeling tools. The first part of this book is dedicated to helping you become familiar with ZBrush’s user interface and learning the very basics, from sculpting brushes and painting the model with Polypaint to setting up lights and rendering images. You’ll also create a demon bust with the help of ZBrush’s concept sculpting tool, DynaMesh. In the second part, you’ll get to grips with the creation of a humanoid character that is optimized for 3D printing. Focusing on anatomy, poly-modeling, and preparing the model for 3D printing, you’ll acquire the skills essential for sculptors. The final part delves into portrait sculpting, where you’ll learn everything from basic facial anatomy to hair creation with FiberMesh. By the end of this book, you'll have developed the expertise necessary to succeed in the ever-evolving world of 3D character modeling, complemented by portfolio and social media tips for showcasing your standout work.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Free Chapter
1
Part 1: The Adventure Begins: Sculpting in ZBrush
9
Part 2: Creating Characters from Scratch: A Comprehensive Guide
13
Part 3: Sculpting a Female Head: Tips and Techniques

Adding color to your model with Polypaint

Besides its vast sculpting and modeling functionality, ZBrush also gives you the ability to color your models using an array of different tools and techniques. In this section, you’ll learn about ZBrush’s Polypaint feature, which lets you add color to your demon bust.

What is Polypaint?

Polypaint is a tool for painting on the surface of a mesh, storing color information in the vertices. It lets you paint on any mesh without the need for UVs, which makes it very flexible and great for concept sculpting:

Figure 6.12 – A sculpture created with Polypaint in ZBrush

Figure 6.12 – A sculpture created with Polypaint in ZBrush

However, adding detailed color information requires a high-resolution mesh with a large polycount since the number of vertices determines the amount of color information that can be stored. If very sharp color textures are needed, Polypaint might not be the best choice – the maximum polycount of a mesh is limited and your...