3D Mod Class 06

Human Skeletal Muscles

Types of Muscles:

There are three types of muscle:

• —Cardiac Muscle

  Muscles of the heart

• Smooth Muscle

  Involuntary muscle, ex digestion

• Skeletal Muscle

  Voluntary muscle, ex biceps

We are going to concerns ourselves with skeletal muscle since that visibly affects the form of the body.

Adipose & Epithelial Tissue

Epithelial Tissue:

Like a rubber suit or clothing the skin will ripple and fold. Use these as nice accents where possible.
Look for overlap and hint at it where possible. This helps avoid “flatness.”

Other Features (hair, eyes, teeth)

Eyes:

• The eyes are the “window to the soul” and are the first thing the audience looks to, so it is crucial to get them right.
• The eyeball contains a number of structural features that affect the way it looks.
• The eyeball is not in fact a perfect sphere. It is slightly oblong.
• The sclera is the white of the eye and slightly overhangs over the iris that creates the shadow that makes the outer edge of the iris appear darker.
• The cornea is the clear lens protecting the iris and pupil.
• The pupil is the hole in the iris that direct light to the retina. This hole obviously appears black.
• The head is approximately 5.6 eyeballs wide.
• The iris is close to half the size of the of the whole eyeball.
• The eyeballs should point outwards roughly 3 degrees.
• Really observe your eyes and you will notice how asymmetrical they are
• We will create two piece of geometry to fake the structure of the single organ.
• We create an elongated transparent sphere for the lens and a perfect sphere with a dent in it.

Hair:

• Like cloth it is best to use reference when producing hair since there are so many variations.
• Generally speaking it is best to treat hair similar to cloth, as whole shapes and not individual strains.

Teeth:

• Like ears, teeth are very annoying to model but have little affect on the overall look of the figure.
• Mainly what you want is asymmetry and variation throughout.
• You may model the teeth, gums, and pallets as one piece or individually.

Auto-Topology

ZRemesher:

Zbrush has a built in retopology tool that will automatically remesh your model with a better gridflow without having to do it manually in a program like Autodesk Maya. It is as simple as a button press. Be aware, although the results are impressive manual retopology allows for better control and therefore better results.

To apply ZRemesher:

1. Expand Geometry in the Tool panel (at most right
2. Adjust the settings (Target Polygons Count at around 15 [15,000] is a good start)
3. Press ZRemesher to execute

ZClassroom Lesson - ZRemesher

Hair Creation

Fibermesh:

Zbrush has a built in hair modeling system. Fibermesh produces real geometry strands for each hair (may be other things such as plants, feathers, anything that is repeated in a hair-strand like pattern) that may be trimmed, colored, and generally groomed.

To apply Fibermesh:

1. Mask the area you wish to apply hair (Fibermesh)
2. Expand FiberMesh in the Tool panel (at most right) and click on Lightbox>Fibers
3. In the Lightbox select the preset closest to what you are looking for
4. Expand Modifiers in the FiberMesh section and adjust the settings (length is a good start)
5. Press Accept to execute the fibermesh creation
6. Expand the SubTool section of Tool panel and select the fibers layer
7. You may now use the various grooming brushes to interact with the hair and style it

ZClassroom Lesson - FiberMesh Overview

Planes:

Many games will simply use a series of image planes to give the illusion of hair strands since this is computationally less expensive than actual hair geometry. This is a bit cumbersome to produce.

To produce hair planes (Maya + Photoshop):

1. In Photoshop
   1. Create an image around at 512px or 1024
   2. Select a brush that represents hair strands well
   3. Paint bucket the background to black
   4. On a new layer paint the color map
   5. Duplicate the color layer and desaturate it for the bump map
   6. Duplicate the bump layer and apply exposure and set it is perfectly white to make the alpha/specular maps
   7. Save each layer separately
2. In Maya
   1. Create a plane that is longer than wide and make sure there are enough subdivision to support hair shapes
   2. Manipulate the shape to form a hair group
   3. Create a new material (blinn)
   4. Apply the color map to the color channel, the alpha to transparency, bump to bump, and alpha also to specular color
   5. Duplicate the hair model and form it to fit the head until the head is covered. Look for variation

Solid Shapes:

The easiest method for producing hair is simply to create a hair shape. Just simple object/s with hair details painted on it.

To produce a hair shape (Zbrush):

1. Mask the area you wish to model hair
2. In the Tools (at most right) panel expand the Subtool section
3. At the bottom expand Extract, adjust the settings for thickness & smoothness, and press Extract
4. A new piece of geometry is produced. Use the various sculpting tools to form a hair shape

Lab Time

Get to work!

Assignment 02