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Farsthary update channel


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I have just watched this ZBrush workflow where someone makes a Bracelet and thinking how great it would be if LiveClay could allow this type of object creation -

Basically the main part of it is after they have the base mesh they mask it with radial symmetry and then extrude the mask and then enhance it with edge creases and sculpting, then adding a bit of decay and texturing everything.

With LiveClay you can now get very high detail with alphas and also it has some great the new commands which clean the mesh so with a few new options it would be great for this type of workflow i think. LiveClay could maybe allow that type of masking with various projection methods then various ways to shape the extruding like auto crease and edge rounding or sharpening etc

Hopefully Farsthary will like this idea as i think these types of masking workflows with the clean well organized mesh results LC is allowing recently would be totally amazing.

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The above video is something you simply can't do in 3DC. It's the tools - brushes, it's the core of zbrush multi res engine.

Simple brushes well tuned but in this case, also modified a lot.

The renders are also great, this guy is a talented man. It's his first posts, impressive.

Watch the video carefully, in this case, dynamic tessellation can't help much. An evenly subdivided mesh is all you need.

The artist uses the well hidden (lol) relax technic of zb. The equivalent of 'remove stretching'. It exists in zb a long time now but it's funny when I read comments in this forum like... zb may copy remove stretching of 3dc blah blah.

Zbrush core engine is great on projecting hi def meshes to lower ones. So, the basic idea is to smooth-relax the basic mesh and reproject high res mesh. Have you noticed how many smooth-relax variations exist in zb?

Zbrush is very clean and capable on the multi-resolution thing, a long time now. Its power can be noticed on "rebuild subdivisions". Some great algorithm there. A long conversation on this, in blenderartists forum, some time ago. Developers claimed that it isn't an easy to do thing.

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I know you can't really do that with 3DC which is why i am suggesting it, if added and done right it could be amazing for that type of workflow also. :)

The main thing seems to be the projected mask extrude which starts off the details which is what i mainly suggest above. You can use Masks in 3DC but from what i know you can't cover a surface and extrude it with the mask applied, right now all we can do is resize a giant square brush and click with the camera aligned which works ok for flat surfaces but that is annoying to setup and not really up to the task of what is done in that workflow either.

Of course then they also do a load of sculpting, if LiveClay allowed the use of mapped masking where it would differ however is in ZB you have what seem to be solid masks but in 3DC the masks are more like true bump maps so you have the height data. LiveClay is great at adding detail only where needed so i am also thinking if anything like this were ever added you could calculate some of that mesh detail directly from the mask.

I also suggest some edge shaping features if this was ever added as you could then set the desired mapping (radial in the above), depth and edge shape. As you have the bump map style masks in 3DC you could probably skip a lot of the sculpting workflow above as you could have it done directly from the mask (even the decay and extra patterns) then it's just final adjustments like edge creasing and sculpting more depth in certain areas and later texturing.

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hmm interesting video, thanks for sharing, though I think for that particular model a Microvertex painting or per pixel painting is more than suited for the task, though fro LC it would be possible to do the same (of course not using the same steps) except for the radial symmetry that is currently not integrated, we still need to find a better way to integrate my early radial symm patch.

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To do that in Voxels, you would use the stamp brush with the copy or clone tool to place and scale ornate brush alphas or paint by hand...including the spline tools. Once you have your selection all cleaned up > Right click the layer the copy is on > EXTRUDE > use sculpting tools to modify > Axial tool to create copies along the ring.

Doesn't appear to be entirely different than what is done in the video.

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hmm interesting video, thanks for sharing, though I think for that particular model a Microvertex painting or per pixel painting is more than suited for the task, though fro LC it would be possible to do the same (of course not using the same steps) except for the radial symmetry that is currently not integrated, we still need to find a better way to integrate my early radial symm patch.

@ "though I think for that particular model a Microvertex painting or per pixel painting is more than suited for the task"

I think you are correct that one could do this sort of texture-work nicely inside the Paint-Room.

But please consider that getting to this point alone is a hugely more complex task overall than in Zbrush!

If one did this Ring in PPP or MVP one needed to start in Voxels/Surface-Mode to some medium degree of refinement, had to go through the whole Retopo

and UV-Limbo and finally start adding finer Details and Colour inside one of the Low-Poly-Modes. Going back to the original shape at a later stage

and doing larger changes isn't easy.

Not so inside Zbrush.

Here one can start painting at any point in time without having to think about underlying Topology.

There's just one Sculpt-Mode and not Sculpting spread out over several Modes and Rooms and Sub-Rooms (Surface-Mode) as in 3DCoat.

That makes the difference.

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@polyxo

You're so right. And still, as this is based on a ready made topology (multi res) you may UV it and export it.

hmm interesting video, thanks for sharing, though I think for that particular model a Microvertex painting or per pixel painting is more than suited for the task

Not really, not at all. Not with this quality, I mean.

There're many cases that 3dc is superior, in many ways. But not this one. It's the tools-brushes that makes the difference. Most of all.

There's always the same mistake. Looking at an achievement and rating the tool that was used. How logically wrong is this, please tell me. Always different tools-methods for every situation. Not one, never a generic method. Something smells wrong here.

LOL, noting is wrong, I believe in a real democracy after all. Polyphony!

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Well there could be various ways to get the result i guess but i don't think doing that Microvertex painting, per pixel painting, bump maps would be best either unless i was going for a game model or something. The Axial tool as suggested is great and allows for similar results but then again that is a different workflow really in my opinion.

I think it's the mask then modify workflow though which is what is done here and it also seems to be one strength ZB has over 3DC at the moment. Once the extruded mask is there it's the template for the whole sculpting and detailing process.

We can use masks already in LC which works well but we really need a good way to wrap them around surfaces in various different ways, if that were to be added it would be a amazing update i think with the high quality meshes it allows.

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  • Advanced Member

The LiveClay Flatten tool is looking really useful. There is some previews available, the second test is the latest but i have included a link to the first version also.

LC based Flatten tool -

http://farsthary.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/lc-based-flatten-tool/

LC Flatten tool second test -

http://farsthary.wordpress.com/2011/12/17/lc-flatten-tool-second-test/

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Hi guys!

I'm keeping making improvements to it :P

Please I need that some experienced Zbrushers here answer me this question:

I've been tinkering recently with ZB brush system and while there's a bunch of user controlled parameters (among them there are artist that will never touch/know what are those but that's other story) I cannot find the way to convert for exaple a Pich brush into a Clay brush by adjusting its parameters as someone suggested me sometime ago, so my question is if those options are present (and show me how) or the basic brush behaviour is hardcoded and you can only adjust the external modifier and parameter of the tool...?

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A Happy New Year! Raul.

Thanks for all the work you have done on LiveClay so far. I am having a very enjoyable time using LC plus I look forward to all that you will bring to 3DCoat in the coming year.

A big thumbs up! :paint2:

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Hi guys!

I'm keeping making improvements to it :P

Please I need that some experienced Zbrushers here answer me this question:

I've been tinkering recently with ZB brush system and while there's a bunch of user controlled parameters (among them there are artist that will never touch/know what are those but that's other story) I cannot find the way to convert for exaple a Pich brush into a Clay brush by adjusting its parameters as someone suggested me sometime ago, so my question is if those options are present (and show me how) or the basic brush behaviour is hardcoded and you can only adjust the external modifier and parameter of the tool...?

had you have an answer ? I think the brush is hardcoded.

Happy New Year

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Happy new year everyone :D

I posted these in the 3DC updates thread but i will post them here also, there was some great LiveClay updates.

http://farsthary.wordpress.com/2011/12/28/freeze-with-liveclay/

http://farsthary.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/end-of-the-year-goodies/

Some of the comments on your blog posts seem to have quite good suggestions for possible updates also. You have done some really amazing work with LiveClay, the Freeze tool looks really good and should hopefully allow the ZB workflow with the Bracelet sculpting.

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Wow! awsome. Nice work Farsthary and the Pilgway team.

So with the noise brush, in the video it can make like a mud cracks surface or other bumpy inward or outwards by selecting an option in noisebasis. Are these like masks? could you load any mask into there? Now that would be very nice!

In any case really looking forward to having a go with these.

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As far as i know this would be maths based so the advantages are you can scale to any size and always keep high quality, you can change the random and as it's maths based you save a load of space where you would otherwise need multiple high res alphas.

So it seems to work a bit like masks but it will give better results, just like most of the other LC tools it would probably work with alpha brushes and the normal masking feature also.

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From my using and testing LiveClay an area that could use some more optimizing is the smoothing routines for both Tsmooth and the regular surface smooth brushes. Both of these produce tiny pole like bumps in the mesh. These are best seen using a metal shader. I have tested voxel smoothing which leaves a very clean and smooth surface.

Surface Mode

Areas that have been brushed with LC brushes or regular brushes with remove stretching enabled leave as stated tiny bumps when you smooth these areas.

Ridges are very hard to smooth without getting these bumps too.

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Farsthary,look at this discussion I started

http://3d-coat.com/f...?showtopic=9204

My english it's not good but I hope you can understand what I'm trying to explain about some of the problems I have with smoothing(my problems I think are really similar to what digman said)

I hope it can be helpful.

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