{"id":784,"date":"2024-05-06T20:27:54","date_gmt":"2024-05-06T19:27:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/liambenstead.co.uk\/?p=784"},"modified":"2024-05-06T20:36:35","modified_gmt":"2024-05-06T19:36:35","slug":"zbrush-character-modelling-part-v-other-details-hair-hands-accessories-etc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/liambenstead.co.uk\/?p=784","title":{"rendered":"ZBrush Character Modelling Part V: Other Details (Hair, Hands, Accessories etc.)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It was time for me to add some detailing to the hands using some reference images to get an idea of what they look like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 62 – Backhand<\/em> (Doctorlib, 2019)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Figure 63 – Palm<\/em> (Doctorlib, 2019)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The first thing I had to do was sculpt the shape of the hand before dynameshing it to add detail, including the fingers, palms and back hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 64 – General Hand Shape<\/em> (Virtus Creative, 2020)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Figure 65 – Hand Veins<\/em> (Virtus Creative, 2020) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I had to sculpt the fingernails on each of the fingers like this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 66 – Fingernails<\/em> (Virtus Creative, 2020) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Then the knuckle lines of each finger, both front and back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 67 – Knuckle Definition<\/em> (Virtus Creative, 2020) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I did the sculpting on one hand basically. All I had to to was mirror the subtool and position it on the other side of the body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 68 – Mirroring the Arm Subtool<\/em> (CG MAGUS, 2015)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I would adjust the arms later, merging and dynameshing them with the rest of the body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hair<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now it’s time to add some hair onto my character. I figured I would take some inspiration from a few of these and attempt to combine them into one hairstyle if all goes well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 69 – Back, Swept<\/em> (MachoHairstyles.com, 2021)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Figure 70 – Short, Back & Sides<\/em> (HAIRMANZ, 2021)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Figure 71 – Skater Hair<\/em> (becomegorgeous.com, 2018)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Figure 72 – Court Wig<\/em> (Amazon.com, Inc, 2022)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I downloaded a custom hair brush that will help me sculpt the character’s hair fairly easy and efficiently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 73 – Makkon_Haircurves_03 Custom Brush<\/em> (Chris Whitaker, n.d)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Upon sculpting the hair stroke, the strand starts off way smaller compared to end, so I had to modify the curve in the stroke panel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 74 – Curve Modifying in the Stroke Panel<\/em> (edricew, 2018)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Now when I select a stroke, the hair looks better. I ensured myself to cover the top half with multiple strands of hair to make the mesh look good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 75 – Side Hair First<\/em> (edricew, 2018) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Figure 76 – Hair Around the Ears<\/em> (edricew, 2018) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Figure 77 – Back View<\/em> (edricew, 2018) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I also made the hair its own separate subtool for polypainting later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 78 – Separate Subtool<\/em> (edricew, 2018) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Accessories<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the accessories that my character will be holding, I settled for a skateboard to carry around and ride on. I gathered up an image to take some influence from when making my own skateboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 79 – Black Skateboard<\/em> (SkateHut LTD, 2021) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I used Maya to model the skateboard since I’m more skilled than using ZBrush’s Zmodler feature. I documented the progress of the skateboard as I go along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 80 – Making the Base<\/em> (fillx 3D Modeling, 2021) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Figure 81 – Board Slant near the End<\/em> (fillx 3D Modeling, 2021) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Figure 82 – Making the <\/em>Wheels (fillx 3D Modeling, 2021) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Figure 83 – Rim Detail<\/em> (fillx 3D Modeling, 2021) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I mirrored the wheel on one side and combined the objects together to smooth and mirror the other side of the board, like so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 84 – One Side Mirrored <\/em>(fillx 3D Modeling, 2021) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Figure 85 – The Finished Model <\/em>(fillx 3D Modeling, 2021) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Now all I had to do was export the model as an FBX and import into ZBrush, like so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 86 – Maya to ZBrush<\/em> (Cobus Van Staden, 2017)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Figure 87 – The Skateboard Inside of ZBrush<\/em> (Cobus Van Staden, 2017) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Clothing<\/strong>\/Topology<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I will take the clothing influences from Part I and use the extract function to create some simple clothing for my character. I masked out the area for the T-shirt to extract a new polygroup from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 88 – Masked Area<\/em> (Sean Forsyth, 2021)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Figure 89 – Polygrouped Shirt<\/em> (Sean Forsyth, 2021) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I had to clean out the neck area of the T-shirt by navigating to GroupLoops in the Edge Loops panel and ZRemesh the model to get a clean topology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 90 – Cleaner Topology<\/em> (Sean Forsyth, 2021) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Now it was time to make the extractions. I carefully repeated the process but made the extractions its own subtool to clean out before merging it with the shirt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 91 – Shirt Extractions<\/em> (North Pixel, 2016)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Figure 92 – Extraction Tweaking<\/em> (North Pixel, 2016) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I repeated the process of masking out the areas for the shoes and jeans in which the character will be wearing, like so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 93 – Shoes Topology<\/em> (Sean Forsyth, 2021) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Figure 94 – Jeans<\/em> (Sean Forsyth, 2021) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I cleaned out some of the messy geometry in the neck area of the shirt, like so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For the topology, I duplicated the model to distinguish itself from High Poly to Low Poly, and I ensured myself to adjust the lips slightly beforehand so it looks more natural.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From there, I draw some ZRemesher guides around the key areas of the faces so that the topology would wrap around them, like this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 95 – Retopologizing the Face<\/em> (SpeedChar, 2019)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The following orthographic topology examples are before I adjusted the mouth area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Polypainting<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last thing before rigging the character was to polypaint the entire body, so I got to work starting with the colour of the skin. After that, I had to colour the eyes on both the low poly and high poly versions of the character to get a desired result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 96 – LP Eye Colour<\/em> (Pixologic ZBrush, 2016e)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Figure 97 – HP Eye Colour<\/em> (Pixologic ZBrush, 2016e) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Now it’s time to colour in the remaining subtools, starting with the jeans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 98 – Demin Colour<\/em> (Pixologic ZBrush, 2016e) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Figure 99 – Hair Colour<\/em> (Pixologic ZBrush, 2016e) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Figure 100 – Skateboard Colour<\/em> (Pixologic ZBrush, 2016e) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Figure 101 – Shoe Colouring<\/em> (Pixologic ZBrush, 2016e) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I decided to change the skin tone from a cream to a natural skin colour to finish it off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 102 – Skin Tone Change<\/em> (Follygon, 2019)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Rigging<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s time for me to put this guy into a T-pose for rendering. I ensured to go into Transpose Master > ZSphere Rigging since it’s much quicker and more efficient<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 103 – Transpose Master<\/em> (FlippedNormals, 2018b)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Before I did that, I split the HP and LP characters into its own subtools, like so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I basically positioned the ZSphere into the center of the mesh and started to make the skeletal parts of the rig, like so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 104 – Making the Skeletal Base<\/em> (FlippedNormals, 2018b) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Figure 105 – Result So Far<\/em> (FlippedNormals, 2018b) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I had to carefully position the rig so that it wouldn’t overlap with the outlines of the hands and fingers, like this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 106 – Rigging the Fingers<\/em> (FlippedNormals, 2018b) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And I had to make the Rib Cage so the torso wouldn’t move with the arms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 107 – Rib-Cage<\/em> (FlippedNormals, 2018b) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And here is the full skeletal rig, which I used to pose the character into a T-pose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 108 – Full Rig<\/em> (FlippedNormals, 2018b) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Figure 109 – T-pose<\/em> (FlippedNormals, 2018b) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Turntable Render<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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