From ZBrush Info

Contents 1 Shading and Rendering 1.1 Setting up a Standard Shader 1.2 MatCap, a new way to shade your models 2 The Eye 2.1 Texturing the Eyeball 2.2 Positioning the Eyeballs 2.3 Adding Eyelashes 3 Painting the model 4 Creating the Set 5 HD Sculpting and Painting 5.1 Creating an Alpha From a Photo 5.2 Creating an Alpha Manually and Using It With the Edit Brush 6 Creating the Illustration 6.1 Rendering the Shadows 7 Compositing and Final Touches

Shading and Rendering

Before texturing the model, you will need to create a nice shader that mimic skins, with a Subsurface Scattering look, in order to have a better feedback.

For that purpose, you'll use a new type of ZBrush 3 material; a Matcap material. It can be created in two different ways: By using a Ball picture rendered in a 3d application; or from within Zbrush.

Using a good material from this point will also give you a good idea of what the model will look like in a final render.

Setting up a Standard Shader

If you can't use an external app to create a Shaded ball, you can also arrive at the same result by using a standard material.

• In The Material Palette, select a DoubleShade Material, and set it as shown.
• Now, draw a sphere on the Document, to preview the material.
• Open the Light Palette, and

Adjust the lights to get a nice result. Four sun lights should do the job

• You can do some experiments at your own will, or open the light setup also included in the Zip file.

• Select the MRGBZ Grabber tool. In the Tool's modifier's palette, make sure that Auto Crop is on, and drag a selection on the document around the Ball. A copy of the Ball is stored in the Texture Palette.
• Change the specular settings of the material to have some variations of the material, and grab more pictures.
• Save all the pictures, the lights and your document if you want to make further modifications of the material.

MatCap, a new way to shade your models

The Sphere on the left is rendered in Mental Ray, using the MiSSS Skin shader. The subsurface settings were adjusted so that there are no dark zones, and so that the translucence is really visible.

• Select a MatCap Material in the Material Palette, like the Red Wax, open the Modifiers Sub Palette,
• If the Material Palette is greyed, select a 3d Primitive tool. Some tools don't allow you to modify the Material settings.
• Click on the Material texture 1 Slot at the lower Left corner, and select the one of the Ball pictures grabbed previously, or a picture rendered in a 3d app.
• In The Color Palette, select a brown color, then click on the Base Color Modifier.
• It will bring in the pink color of the material when you will paint it.

The Eye

We're going to model the eye, now.

• Select a Sphere 3d Primitive, and set the HDivide and VDivide to 24, in the Initialize SubPalette. Convert the Pritive to a Polymesh 3D.
• Select the Move Edit Brush, click on a Pole vertex to shape the Iris, then, hold Shift to constraint the translation to the vertex normal.
• Hide the Eyeball, except the Iris, and do a Crease, and create a new Polygroup from.
• Unhide all, and subdivide the eyeball up to level 5.
• That's all for the modeling, now .

Texturing the Eyeball

• Now, switch back to the Eye model, open the Tool - Texture subpalette and activate the Colorize option. You don't need any UVs on your model, as the color is actually stored on the model vertices.

• Deactivate the Zadd option, And leave only the RGB activated.

To paint a model, you can simply use the same Standard Edit Brush as to sculpt. You only have to choose between different Alphas, different Strokes. and pick a color in the Color palette. To pick a color from your model, of simply from the canvas, click on the Color Palette, and drag the cursor to the area of the document you want to sample.

As you created earlier several Polygroups, these will allow you to mask easily the white of the eye, and to bind the texture of the iris.

The Iris has a specific radial pattern. To reproduce it more easily, activate in the Transform Palette the Radial and Z Symmetry, and set the radial count around 25.

When the basic texture is created, you can deactivate the symmetry, and continue to detail the eye

Positioning the Eyeballs

One of the big novelties of Zbrush 3 is the possibility of grouping together several models, called Subtools. It is in this way that we are going to be able to add eyes to our model, as well as lashes, and a set later.

At the moment, we have two separate models: a body, and an eye. Select the Body model, click on the Append button, and, then, select the Eye.

You will certainly have to adjust the position, size and the orientation of the eye with the Transpose tool. After this has been, Clone the Eye, append the cloned eye as a new subtool (for the second eye in the figure), and adjust it's position.

Adding Eyelashes

Lashes are going to be created separately, from ZSpheres.

• Draw on the canvas a ZSphere tool. Ensure its dark half points upward. This first Z Sphere will be the pivot point of the lash, and its orientation is very important.
• Draw an additional Z Sphere from the light side, and a Z Sphere chain from the dark side of the first Z Sphere.
• Preview the model, and convert it to a 3d mesh using the Make Adaptative Skin tool
• Select the new 3d mesh, and delete the lower subdiv levels.
• In the Tool Deformation Subpalette, rotate the model on the Z axis of 90 degrees.

Lashes are not going to be put directly on the final model of the body, but on a template without any subdivision levels.

• Select the model of the body. Clone it.
• Go to the fifth subdiv level, and delete the higher and lower levels.
• Create a single Polygroup from the model.
• Hide all the model except the head, and mask it all.
• Open the Brush Palette, select the MeshInsert Fit Tool, then select the Lash as the mesh you will insert.

Add lashes.

• Lashes may not be directed in the right direction when you go to add them.
• If it is the case, change their orientation by using the Rotation slider, in the Deformation Sub Palette. You can also tweak them with the Move and the Transpose tools.
• When you are satisfied by the result, hide the Body Polygroup, and delete the hidden polygons.
• Finally, add the lashes as a new Subtool to the final model.

Painting the model

To paint the model does not present any particular difficulty.

Start with flat tint of color, to define areas like hair, lips, nails, then, using a low RGB opacity add color variations on fingers, cheeks, knees.

To finish, select a spray stroke and Alpha 23, to add some blemish to the skin.

Creating the Set

To create the Set, we are going to start from a simple cube primitive.

• In The Tool Palette, select the Primitive, draw it on the canvas, then convert it to a Polymesh 3d.

As most of the primitives in Zbrush, this mesh has poles, and that will not be convenient when you sculpt it. So we are going to change that.

• Open the Tool:Unified Skin Sub Palette, set the resolution to 8, then click on the Unified Skin button
• A new tool is created in the Tool Palette. Switch to it.

• Subdivide the model one or two times.
• Open the Deformation Sub Palette. Spherize the mesh, then Flatten the bottom.

• Draw a mask, to bound the shape of the new model, and Hide the Unmasked part

• In the Subtool Palette, click on the Extract button. A mesh with some thickness is created as a new subtool. That's the one that we will use a the final model of the set.

Before sculpting the set in HD, give it a sharp look with the Move Brush

HD Sculpting and Painting

Now that the model is in its final pose, we'll do some high-definition sculpting for details. HD Sculpting allows you to detail a single model up to one billion polygons. This works almost exactly as for normal subdivision, but keep the portion of the model that is being worked with at any time to a size that leaves your system responsive.

In Tool:Geometry HD, divide the girl model two times. This will be enough to add all the needed details.

Then, hover your mouse over the area you want to sculpt and press the a key. A circular area around the mouse has been selected. The number of polygons of this area is determined by Preferences:Mem:MaxPolyPerMesh. You can then sculpt in that area.

When done with HD sculpting, press the a key again to exit Sculpt HD mode.

On this model, thanks to the HD, we are going to be able to add the skin grain, the relief tattoos, and all the details necessary to add exactly the realism we want.

You can detail the skin grain in two different ways. The first solution is to use a simple brush, a spray stroke, and the Alpha Brush 15, which will allow you to both sculpt and paint your model. Or, you can capture it from a photo

Creating an Alpha From a Photo

It's easy to create an alpha from a photo and to use it as a stencil or as a stamp with a 3d brush.

For this, you will need two additional pieces of software; Photoshop® or something similar, and a little help from Jpeg Enhancer to remove Jpeg artifacts from photos. Here's what to do:

1. Open the original photo in Photoshop, and do a High Pass filter to remove all the relief and shadows but the skin grain. Save the picture in .Psd format and open it as an alpha in Zbrush

2. Set Alpha:Alpha Depth Factor to a value between 2 and 12. It may vary according to the shading of the picture.

3. Adjust the Alpha curve to get a nicer depth effect, and fill the document with the Alpha, using the Alpha:CropAndFill button.

4. Select the GlowBrush Tool, and activate the ZAdd Button. Press and hold the Alt key (which is a shortcut to access the Smooth sculpting brush), and use the tool on your document to smooth it, except for the creases.

5. Grab the whole document, or a portion of it with the MRGBZ Grabber tool. The new alpha is stored in the alpha palette.

6. If you intend to use this Alpha as a stencil, set it to be the current stencil using the Alpha:Make St Button.

Creating an Alpha Manually and Using It With the Edit Brush

In some cases, you will have to create your own Alphas from scratch. We are going to need it to stylize the hair, and to make it look like a clay sculpting.

1. Create a New Document.

2. Change its size to 400 * 400, and Store Depth History. Storing depth history will allow us to add a constant depth layer.

3. Now, draw a 3d plane on and parallel to the canvas. You can easily snap a tool by rotations of 90 degrees, by pressing the Shift key while you rotate the tool.

4. Switch to the Layer brush, select Alpha 15 and a Spray stroke.

5. Draw a first stroke, by paying attention not to draw on the edges of the Canvas.

6. On the Layer Palette, Displace vertically the canvas, This will allow us to create tileable alphas.

7. Draw an additional stroke, and repeat the operation one or two times.

8. When you're fully satisfied with the result, press Alpha:GrabDoc.

9. Now, switch back to the girl model, select the Clay brush and the new Alpha you just created.

10. Open the Stroke menu and activate the Roll option. You are now ready to give the hair a detailed look, which looks like clay.

The rest of the models presents no technical difficulty. The blue tattoos of the girl are sculpted and painted using the Lazy Mouse mode, which gives us perfect smoothed curves. The hair is sculpted in HD using the Clay brush with lazy mouse mode too.

Creating the Illustration

Actually, in Zbrush, you can't render multiple subtools at the same time. To do it, we are going to snapshot each HD subtool on a separate layer, and we will need the help of the Zapplink plugin.

1. Create a new document which will have the size of the final image, place your tool on the document, and switch off the visiblity of the girl, the eyes and lashes Subtool.

2.In ZAppLink, store the position of the tool on the Custom 1 view.

3.Select the Set subtool, which is the bigger one, open the Geometry HD subpalette, and press the Sculpt HD button. The whole model is displayed in HD.

4. Open the Transform Palette, and Snapshot the tool on the layer.

Open the Layer menu and create a new layer.

5. Draw your model on this new layer, and recall it's stored position using the Zapplink Palette.

6.Switch on the visibility of all the subtools.

7. Now, in the Render menu, set the Flatten option Off.

8. Select a BasicMaterial and set the Specular and Transparency values and the Transparency curve as shown.

8. Paint the Set subtool and the two red balls subtools with this transparent material. The HD model of the set should appear on the underlying layer.

9. Select the girl model, render it in HD.

10. Save your document, and turn Edit Object mode off.

11. Export the Document in Tif or Psd Format.

12. Turn off the Set subtool.

13. In the Alpha menu, grab the document, and save the related alpha.

14. Turn on Set, grab the document again, and save another picture. We will use them as masks later in Photoshop.

Rendering the Shadows

To have a better control over the final image, we are going to need to render the shadows on separate layers.

To do it, select a new BasicMaterial, and set the Ambient, Diffuse, Diffuse curve and Specular parameters as shown.

The picture should look completely white, but don't worry. This kind of material doesn't have any shading, but will catch the shadows.

To use the Light menu, click on a light to select it, and click again to turn it on or off.

The placement sphere in the upper left of the palette shows where the currently selected light is placed, and also shows the combined effect of all lights currently turned on. Drag the small yellow rectangle to change the placement of the current light; click it to toggle it from a front light to a backlight, or vice versa.

On this Document, two lights will be enough to get nice shadows; one front light and one backlight. Switch on the ZMode only for the key light.

When you're fully satisfied with the result, render each light separately, and export the document as .tif or .psd.

Here are the five pictures you should have saved.

Compositing and Final Touches

In Photoshop group the shadow layers together, and set the Blending mode of this group to Multiply. Use the Alpha picture of the girl model to create a mask so that the backlight shadow layer dosen't affect the Set. Then, give to the Key shadow layer a parma tint, and to the backlight layer a blue tint. The drops of water are simply painted in Photoshop. Set the Layer Style to add Drop shadow and Inner Bevel effects. Use the second alpha picture to mask the background, and to composite the sky.

That's all.