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Tag: Modeling

Categories
Manos - Modelling, Texturing, Animation VFX Fundamentals Zbrush

23/10 Organic Modeling II – Dynmesh, Remesh

Dynamesh

DynaMesh is a great tool for free-form sculpting because it removes the need for concerns about a geometry’s topology. It’s possible to change the overall shape of any DynaMesh by using the brushes in Zbrush. I think it is very useful for me to create low and middle-resolution sculpts, for blocking or low-resolution models. It is also a great way for me to make the base mesh before adding more details to my models and progressing to high-resolution models.

Zremesher

I find the remesher tool in Zbrush really useful, it automatically produces topology for my dynamesh model. Also in the V3, the new algorithm can produce better results on the sculpts.

Reflection

Today we continue with Zbrush organic sculpting/modelling. I really enjoy sculpting because somehow I find it very therapeutic. I continue to work on my skull. I also try different brushes that is inbuilt within Zbrush. I also found out about stencils where you can sculpt details with texture alphas which is super cool.

Another cool feature about Zbrush would definitely be Dynamesh and Zremesher. Dynamesh quickly allows me to start sculpting from a sphere to a base mesh with low details in a short time. After having the proper proportions I can then increase the amount of polygons to sculpt in even more details. I am amazed by how much polygons Zbrush can handle and not crash. Previously sculpting in blender gives me quite bad experience as the software will crash after the geometry exceeds >1mil polys. Zbrush can handle a few mil polys easily.

Furthermore, ZRemesher is really a cool tool to quickly optimise the topology of my model, from a few million polygons to a few hundred thousand in just one click. The software dev behind this is really a genius.

INSERT SKULL SS HERE

Categories
Manos - Modelling, Texturing, Animation VFX Fundamentals Zbrush

16/10 – Concept Art & Organic Modelling

Importance of concept art. It occurs early in the creative process and the pipeline whether games or film.

Discussion of Assasin’s Creed concept art. Breakdown frame composition/color/mood/shadows etc…

Shape design/ Silhouette design

Concept art allows ideas to be more grounded and concrete. It also allows for further development.

Discussion of photo bashing, a combination of different elements into one concept art. Fast and efficient over quality. The idea is to quickly generate many different variations over polishing and refining a single concept.

We gave photobashing a try and we all collected some images online and created our own concept art.

For my work, I tried to combine a bee and a shark with a cybernetic element included in the final result

Final Work

Introduction to Zbrush

What was covered:

  • Basic UI navigation
  • Masking
  • Some brushes
    • Move
    • Clay Tubes
    • Smooth
  • Colouring
  • SubDiv Concepts
  • Importing & Exporting
  • Saving files

Reflection

As someone that struggled with drawing, I always admired people that can create good drawing. I always like those hyper realistic portrait drawings or breath taking big scenes. They always leave me in awe and wondering how it is humanly possible for someone to complete it (i am guessing years of practice). Although I feel my skill level at concept art is really low, I do appreciate good concept artist as they lay the ground work for any content. Without their imagination, we will not have such diverse content on our screens.

For the next part of the Zbrush class, as half of the class before covered concept art, we did not have much time left to cover for Zbrush. We only went through the basic UI navigation. We were tasked to sculpt a smiley face to ourselves familiarise with the brushes and operators in Zbrush. I know that we need to sculpt a skull so I started to find some reference images of a anomaly accurate skull. I started with a sphere and did the base shape. I will continue working on it during my free time in the week.

Categories
Emily - Unreal Engine Manos - Modelling, Texturing, Animation Unreal Engine 5 VFX Fundamentals

09/10/2023 – 3D modelling in Maya, Asset Gathering and UE5 Modelling Tools

We need to model a hot air balloon as it will be used for a class assignment with Gonzalo for composition class in the coming weeks.

Using reference images, we model the air hot balloon so that we can use it for our compositing assignment.

Concepts of modelling technique used:

extrude, edge loop, inset, and soft/weight transformation,

Reflections

Since I have not touched modeling for some time. I feel quite rusty with the software. But after awhile, it gradually came back to me and I was able to model a hot air balloon as requested. As part of the nuke assignment, I think the next step will be to UV unwrap it and apply textures for rendering. I look forward to the next modeling class with Manos as we will be covering organic modeling with Zbrush.

Emily’s Class

Asset Gathering in UE5

Need to enable the various plugins that support the file formats to be imported into UE5.

Sketchfab.com is a good place for 3D models but caution the copyright rules.

Models need to follow the proper naming conventions so that the correct material IDs can be assigned.

Modeling in UE5

Unreal DOES NOT support quads or N-gons so all models will be triangulated.

Nanite in UE5 supports VERY high poly counts such as photo scans or Zbrush sculpts.

Reflections

Today we learnt a bit of modelling with UE5. Although, UE5 can do modeling, I feel that maybe it is not the best tool for the job as I feel that it is missing some of the features that the other software has. Perhaps it would be better to just model in other DCCs and import it to UE5 for layout and rendering. But it is comforting to know that UE5 does allow for simple geometry editing.

Homework:

  • Find references for cabin in the woods, and relevant small environments
  • Also, need to block out the environment for the UE5 assignment
Categories
Emily - Unreal Engine Manos - Modelling, Texturing, Animation Unreal Engine 5 VFX Fundamentals

02/10/2023 – Intro to Modeling, Unreal Engine 5 Workshop (Quixel Bridge)

Manos’ Class

Basic Maya interface navigation.

Basic modeling techniques. Rotation, Translation, Scale in Maya.

Poly bevel, Poly extrude.

Emily’s Class

Introduction to UE5:

Advantages: Real-time, High fidelity (relatively), flexible workflow

Uses:

  • Game Dev
  • Arch Vis
  • Training & Sims
  • Film & TV
TV/Film Pipeline

UE5 is used in VFX

  1. LED Wall Cinematography
  2. Projection Screen Cinematography
  3. Eg. Mandalorian

UE5 Course Content Page

  1. Introduction
  2. Asset gathering and Quixel Library
  3. Creating and Editing Static Meshes
  4. Materials, Textures and UV
  5. Landscapes, Foliage and Water Systems
  6. Lighting, Atmospheric, and PPV
  7. Cameras, PPV, and Sequencer
  8. Rendering and Movie Render Queue (MRQ)
  9. Niagara Particles
  10. Blueprints and Visual Scripting

Basic UE5 interface and operations

Reflections:

Today is first day of school and it was nice meeting the 2/3 of the lecturers. It was also a pleasure getting introduced to the classmates for my course. We did a bit of introduction to the two main software that we need to learn for this term. It wasn’t very difficult as I already understand some of the basics of 3D.

Manos taught a bit of the basics of Maya, I modeled a snowman, but I deleted in at the end of the class so I did not have a screenshot of it.

Emily introduce us to the basic pipeline of VFX and the real life applications of UE 5 in VFX. She proceed to teach us the basic navigation of UE5.