ZBrush Professional Tips and Techniques

ZBrush Magic from Pixologic′s In–House Expert What better way to learn creative and timesaving ZBrush tips and techniques than from the creators of ZBrush? Paul Gaboury, Lead 3D Application Engineer at Pixologic, travels the world teaching professionals and clients such as Pixar, Disney, and ILM how to use ZBrush. In this beautiful, four–color, easy–to–follow guide, he lays out all his secrets, as well as insights from some of the most renowned ZBrush artists in the world. Want a quick way to create meshes or custom brushes? Need to set up a ZSphere rig with a single tool? From the basics through advanced techniques for sculpting, posing, and rendering, this fun and practical book will help you work more creatively and effectively in ZBrush. Although written for ZBrush 4R3, many of the topics in the book are universal to using the popular digital sculpting tool. Review ZBrush basics and create quick accessories Sculpt, use hard surface tools, and discover the power of Shadowbox Check out the CreateDiff Mesh button in the Morph Target subpalette Manipulate scan data and project it into a topology–ready mesh Save time with some quick ways to sculpt hair Make posing characters more fun and less work Learn the favorite tricks of several ZBrush artists, complete with step–by–step tips The accompanying DVD includes all the files you need to complete the projects in the book. Artist Spotlight contributions from: Christopher Brandstrom Vitaly Bulgarov Magdalena Dadela Mark Dedecker Michael Defeo Joseph Drust Mike Jensen Julian Kenning Joe Lee Sebastien Legrain Rudy Massar Geert Melis Marco Menco Morgan Morey Zack Petroc Steve Warner Tomas Wittelsbach Bryan Wynia

Foreword xii Introduction xiii Chapter 1 Understanding the Basics 1 Customizing Your ZBrush 2 Customizing Your 3D Brush Fly–Out Window 2 Customizing Your LightBox Tabs 3 Adding a Folder Shortcut to LightBox 4 Adding a Texture or Alpha to a 3D Brush from LightBox 5 Recovering Your Subdivision Levels 6 Using Reproject Higher Subdivision 8 Using Relax Deformation 10 Using Local Subdivision 10 Creating a Custom Tileable Alpha with 2.5D 13 Using Alphas to Create Meshes 17 Creating Wallpaper 20 Creating Your Own Palette 25 What’s Next 26 Artist Spotlight: Joe Lee 27 Artist Spotlight: Magdalena Dadela 35 Chapter 2 Special Project—Creating Accessories for a Bust 43 Creating the ZMan Logo 43 Placing the ZMan Logo on the Hoody 48 Creating the Zipper 49 Making the Zipper Shape 49 Making the Zipper Mask 50 Creating the Stand 52 Completing the Stand 55 Creating a Skin Texture 57 What’s Next 59 Artist Spotlight: Morgan Morey 60 Artist Spotlight: Zack Petroc 68 Chapter 3 Sculpting—Developing Your Next Piece 75 Using Hard–Edge Brush Techniques 75 ClipCurve Brush with BRadius 76 ZSketch Brushes for BaseMesh 78 Adjusting and Creating Brushes 81 Using a Custom Brush with Tilt 81 Creating a Stone Column 84 Creating a Surface Noise Brush 87 Understanding the Power of ShadowBox 88 Getting Started with ShadowBox 88 Silhouette Drawing with ShadowBox 89 Using ShadowBox to Create Accessories 92 Making Difficult Items with ZSpheres 93 Creating Chain Mail 93 Creating a String of Bullets 97 Using Morph Difference to Create Thickness 99 Artist Spotlight: Tomas Wittelsbach 102 Artist Spotlight: Vitaly Bulgarov 110 Chapter 4 Sculpting Hard–Surface Details 115 Creating a Hose Component 115 Creating the Front Eye Piece 128 Using NoiseMaker for Patterns 135 Artist Spotlight: Sebastien Legrain 138 Artist Spotlight: Steve Warner 146 Chapter 5 Adding a Splash of Color 151 Understanding the Basics of Polypaint 152 Using AO to Colorize 153 Using Mask By Cavity to Paint Out Detail 156 Painting with UV Master 157 Texturing with Projection Master 160 Using Photoshop to Paint 163 Using ZAppLink 163 Using GoZ Photoshop 167 Using SpotLight 170 Adjusting Hue 172 Masking Out a Texture 174 Using the Pin Feature 175 Texturing a Face 178 Artist Spotlight: Michael Defeo 181 Artist Spotlight: Rudy Massar 188 Chapter 6 Working with Scan Data 193 Starting with Scan Data 193 Understanding How to Manipulate Scan Data 194 Capturing Color from the Scan Data 198 Making the Back Mesh of the Ball Cap 201 Sculpting the Hair with FiberMesh 205 Artist Spotlight: Mike Jensen 211 Artist Spotlight: Bryan Wynia 215 Chapter 7 Posing—Bringing Movement to Your Work 221 Setting Up a ZSphere Rig with a Single Subtool 221 Rigging a Single Subtool with Sculpted Detail 226 Using a Rig with Transpose Master 227 Creating Multiple Poses with Layers 229 Assigning Multiple Poses to the Timeline 231 Exporting Blend Shapes from ZBrush to Maya 233 Artist Spotlight: Geert Melis 236 Artist Spotlight: Marco Menco 240 Chapter 8 Special Project—Creating Hockey Skates 245 Creating the Laces 245 Using the CurveTube Brush 245 Using ZSpheres 248 Using a Custom Stitch Brush 250 Creating the Model Used for the Alpha 251 Creating the Alpha from the Model 252 Using Decimation Master to Reduce Poly Count 254 Artist Spotlight: Joseph Drust 258 Artist Spotlight: Christopher Brändström 264 Chapter 9 Rendering—Bringing Life to Your Image 271 Rendering a More Realistic Eye 271 Creating the LightCaps 272 Adjusting the Materials 273 Creating the Second Material 276 Adjusting the Shadow Settings 276 Creating an SSS Material 280 Adjusting the Lights 281 Building the Material 281 Making Adjustments to the Render 285 Using the Filter System with BPR 288 Artist Spotlight: Mark Dedecker 292 Artist Spotlight: Julian Kenning 296 Appendix About the Companion DVD 303 What You’ll Find on the DVD 303 Chapter Files 303 System Requirements 304 Using the DVD 304 Troubleshooting 305 Customer Care 305 Index 306

Paul Gaboury is the ZBrush Lead 3D Application Engineer for Pixologic, the makers of ZBrush. He helps clients such as Pixar, Disney, Hasbro, Sideshow Collectibles, Weta Workshop, and others incorporate ZBrush in their pipeline and recommends features that will improve their efficiency and the quality of their projects. Paul is an accomplished digital sculptor and also travels the world to demonstrate ZBrush at studios and schools. In addition, he was the technical editor on Introducing ZBrush 4 ; ZBrush Character Creation , Second Edition; and ZBrush Studio Projects: Realistic Game Characters , all from Sybex.