Ronald's Blog

In this post, I am going to show some difficulty I mate in the Zbrush learning experiments. In Zbrush, move and drag is very easy, but in position rotation needs to reset the beginning and end rotation point, and make sure all other non-move surface are masked.  If any of these are not done proper, the geometer(mesh) will have a false rotation. The result for solving this is to make sure to make poly-groups when the model is done in T post position. make each arms, legs, body and head in its own group so it can easily select and rotate. Example for my learning experience model: Begin with zSphere and create a zSkin to start sculpting. The model is referenced by "Winged Victory of Samothrace" the Greek goddess of Victory. I had a hard time to re-position it since I never re-group the poly surface. So every time I try to rotate the body part, I need to re masking the spot individually. Here are some more images after it re-posing And here are some Extra mode...

For the final, I wish to do something that's related to my Thesis project in this Independent, so I choose to modeling one of the Zodiac Constellation symbol "Capricorn" Capricorn is the tenth astrological sign in the Zodiac, originating from the constellation of Capricornus. In astrology, Capricorn is considered an introvert sign, an earth sign, and one of the four cardinal signs. Capricorn is ruled by the planet Saturn. In Sidereal astrology, the sun currently transits the constellation of Capricorn from, approximately, January 15 - February 14. By the Middle Eastern Mythology: The constellation was a symbol of the god Ea. and in the Early Bronze Age marked the winter solstice. He has the lower half of a fish and the head and torso of a goat. The god lived in the ocean. He came out every day to watch over the land, and he returned to the sea every night. (source from: http://www.crystalinks.com/capricorn.html ) At beginning, I was wondering what would be this model ...

In these weeks, I had follow many different tutorial and learning many different skill/ technique for Zbrush modeling. By using Zsphere to create the basic mash shape and ZRemesher for a quick re-topology, most of the model are do-able by this technique, but its mostly for high-poly modeling. I had tried to use ZRemesher directly to low down the poly count but until the end the mesh never goes lower than 5000 poly-face. Ex: this mesh model is a example done in 15 minutes. At the end, the result for for lowing down the poly count is using the old way! create another zTool on top and project the mesh for the high-poly mesh detail. Which is the same idea to work on Autodesk Maya, but in Zbrush its faster since there are many plugin / default tools can help with. I'll focus on "How It will Make it as the best result for Digital Fabrication use"

From the Lynda tutorials, I had learned many different techniques to build up the 3D model mesh parts and save for later use. The technique i oftenly use is zSphere and symatery tool. By this two tools I can easily pull out the basic form of the model shape bake it as the mesh for detail sculpting. Then the understanding of how to sculpting poly shape will be important! Example for some false connection of zSphere: You  will see bad edge on the thumb  and hand, its because it had extra zSphere inside and make it render extra polygons so create a clean zSphere is very important! Here is a better connection of zSphere:

My name is Ronald Wu, I majored in Art and Technology(ATEC) at UT Dallas for master degree. Before master degree, I was at ATEC focus on Modeling and Texturing on Bachelor degree. In my undergraduate period, I had well learning Autodesk Maya and Mudbox. By this two powerful program, I had a great experiment and understand how to creating 3D models for Gaming and Animation. But many people suggest me to learn Zbrush and improve my modeling skill. At 2016 Fall semester, I had assigned an independent study for learning Zbrush sculpting program. "Zbrush is a digital sculpting and painting program that has revolutionized the 3D industry with its powerful features and intuitive workflow., copy by pixologic.com " In first three weeks, I had watch lots of the totural from Lynda.com for the technique and defaule useage of the Zbrush. Its totally different from Maya and Mudbox setting. So the learning steps is like a baby climb to walk, but surely it is a very hard program t...