First Week with Zbrush

  The past week or so I've been experimenting with Zbrush. It's quite advanced compared to Mudbox and I can see why a lot of studios are asking for experience with it. It's versatile, complex, and I've found I can get an outline of something after about half a day of working.

  So for now I've mostly been trying to see what I can make out of a single ball. As I had hoped, my experience with Mudbox translated well. I've yet to try texturing, that's going to be something of a later stage experiment.

  Considering how long it has been since I last touched sculpting software I was slightly surprised at how well I was able to create a face I've had people describe as handsome and good-looking, That's likely a very good thing when this is my first attempt at human features and started out with a generic template head. The drawing classes  msut have contributed considerably to that.

  Overall, I've enjoyed the product so far. Really glad I invested in it. I've already been asked by friends if I could sculpt their own characters with this, which means I'm either appealing to eager friends or I might have a creative skillset I can really sell.

Four: Weighting the Adult Fins

  Time was put aside today to work on the adult. All that needs doing so far is to get her fins working right.

  So far the current system has been to move control of the fins from the main body to another blendshape. Central controls that move the entire fin have been installed and the skin has been weighted so that any twist to the fins will be provided by the rotation of the body.

Four: Correction Sculpting Complete

  It's taking its time but the pose space corrections are about finished. The hard part was correcting the changes, now what remains are linking up the blendshapes above and creating splines for the tendrils on the head. Turning the head has proven tricky but I have a solution of tying the twist and/or roll parameters of the spine IKs into attributes on the body, allowing for easier correction when they twist the body out of shape.

  Some of the controls have already been tied in but not all. That is something I am currently working on. I may also need a new system for controlling the fins.now that I have fewer controls along the creature's spine.

Four: Shaping the Grub

  Today the primary goal was to establish pose space corrections for the grub's model to allow for smoother animation. This was hampered slightly by a couple of design choices. Rather than being mirrored, the joints for the limbs and mouth were constructed through direct placement of joints on both sides. This turned out to be a hindrance as it meant I could not smoothly mirror the pose corrections. Movements on the Y and Z axes would be reversed on the other side so these poses had to be built manually.

  The process today took a little longer than I had hoped but it is almost complete and controls can be installed after that. The insectoid nature has a benefit that the face can be relatively immobile compared to later forms, though it seems I might have to build a set of teeth to go inside the mouth so there's something inside in case the camera catches a moment where the inside can be seen.

Four: Something Grubby

  I started work on a grub form the Sunday after I returned from my break, today I made considerable progress on it, crafting the rest of the body, adding definition and then rigging and skinning. As it is quite a simple shape compared to the other forms, the skinning process did not take long.

Aside from the legs, already the grub is about ready for controls. Like with the juvenile, it will require a spline IK in the spine, as it is quite a flexible creature and attempts at bones serving two segments did not work out particularly well.

It might need pose space corrections to give solidity to the segments. So when the segments compress they push upwards for that fatty "squidgyness" the grub will have.

I have considered that it might be best if there would only be one grub due to time constraints, There's no drastic change for the two considered forms apart from maybe the grub getting fatter, which could be achieved either with a blendshape or controlling the scale of certain bones. Or the talk of scale mentioned in one scene could simply be represented by the camera looking at what is simply a bigger grub in the tank. David's shock could easily come from simply how gigantic a little bug like this gets - growing from 5-10cm to almost a metre across the months it is studied.

Four: Retooling the Juvenile Skin

Basic displacement map

  Having some difficulty with the normal maps and the Mila shader I investigated another angle. Exporting a displacement map from Mudbox appears to have given Four definition where there was none before, and while it has added a fair degree to render times, an added benefit could be that when these regions fold, the sharper geometry in the compressed spaces will create a (somewhat) more realistic set of folds when it comes to lighting.

an occlusion map was added to bring out the darker regions

The result of a normal map added alongside the displacement map

  One plan was to use a normal map alongside the displacement, as the image above shows however, this caused a couple of errors that annihilated some of the definition; the opposite of what I was after. The experiment concluded, the normal map was removed and definition was kept to the displacement map.

The specular was toned down and a highlight added to give translucency to the skin

 Now that the displacement map is providing something that needed to be supplemented by features on the texture map, I figured the textures need redesigning.

  To od this, the displacement and ambient occlusion maps will be used as a template to work out where the folds are, crevices will be darkened to give colour. The image below is the model with this template, which looks somewhat horrifying as the poor creature is covered in yellow-green marks. After I'm done with the texture, something much cleaner should take this image's place. 

Four: Furnishing the Biolab

  With the corridor models done I've gone back to the biolab to build David's office and the corresponding articles starting with the largest furniture - the chairs and tables.

  As can be seen by the figure behind the chair, I needed a scale, which in hindsight I perhaps should have made first. It's only basic but it serves the neccesity of providing a means to brig in a more human scale for construction as this is an ultimately human environment. The biolab needed furniture that conformed to human ergonomics. For the furniture I went back to my references of 1970s designs

  So far the components I can call complete aside from UVs are a desk, an office chair, and a stool. While close to completion, the computer terminal in David's office (an attempt at designing a terminal with the elegant sleek side of the 60s while understanding that CRT screens were what people thought would always be used for monitors) needs a keyboard. Looking at my influences (the source of the CRT screen, all-in-one look and integrated keyboard area), maybe the computer is better off with more of a back to it as right now it more closely resembles a flatscreen pretending to be a CRT.

One of the elements of Four's isolation unit that I drew up in concept art was a bed that mostly resembled some kind of bean-bag. With some geometry tweaks, the moulded seats of the stools might work as a foundation for the bed's model.

Four: Corridor Geometry Progress

  The geometry for the corridor elements are almost complete. With this finished I can move back to designing the biolab which will be good as on Friday I had some solid feedback on how to give these different areas character.

  I worked out in a discussion with Alan that I am somewhat blending the two aesthetics of 1960s and 1970s science fiction. To put it simply, the Sixties were more rounded while the Seventies were more angular when it came to shapes.

So while I think I can find a synchronous level between the two, the idea we settled was that the corridor would be industrial. It would have that grey, gritty Seventies feel while the biolab would be something of a blend of the two, most importantly the biolab would be quite white; it is a clean space and the first impression that the viewer would get is looking though the windows in the corridor into this bright white laboratory, with the pure-white isolation units at the back.

   One of the selling differences would be light fixtures. More industrial sites tend to cage their fixings to safeguard them from the heavy duty operations. So the idea came to install these caged flourescent lights inside the corridors while the biolab would be downlit from wall-embedded set into the upper sections of walls.

  However an alternative location for these lights could be in the ceiling. Maybe they could even be on a track and hanging down.

The UV map for the corridor is fairly large, but to create space I might reduce the size of the ten panels at the top, which will allow me to increase the size of the main element of the corridor i nthe centre of the map.

Four: Polished Juvenile, Now With Skin

  More time was spent today on Four. The primary tasks today were finalising the gemonetry, fitting the claws and creating the foundation for the skeleton.

While the framework for the skeleton has been established, With Mudbox, the ins and outs of Four's skin was sculpted. However after exporting I am conflicted as to whether a displacement map would work better to distinguish the folds. At an intermediate distance, like a full-body shot, the normal map works

  Some work still needs to be done with her skin, as right now it is just a repeated texture and lacking the details the adult has like around the eyes or the colouration down the back. I am tempted to go with the pinker colouration. The yellowish colouration appears dead and rotting.

Four: Ceti Base Rework Begins

  I wanted to make some progress on environments so I made a start on assets for the corridor. The primary elements being segment doors and the tunnels.

  As I get further on the plan is to make normal maps out of sections of the hi-res models that will replace the details in more distant segments of corridor. The pipes and the paneling in the middle are specific locations where this technique will likely be used.

  Researching for the segment door I didn't like the first outcome. Looking back on my influences I took notice that while there were indentations, they appeared to represent points where the door's structure was weaker. More solid areas I believe are more reinforce points to reinfoce the door's strength. These spans are noticeable on places like the doors to the bunker in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.

Because of the shape of the hole the door fits in, I might be able to shore up some of the geometry neat the corners. I worry that in these areas there could be a good deal of stretching.

Four: Inserting Younger Teeth

  I took a break this evening from dissertation writing to attend to the juvenile. It was a rather simple task: Install the teeth into his mouth. In order to not disturb the UVs I had worked on but still have room to work, Four's body was copied, lifted up and cut in half and was to act as a template for the full mouth.

The arrangement of the teeth and gums was done by adjusting the gums using a lattice deformer and then inserting the teeth back in one-by-one in order to minimise shape deformation. The roof of the mouth may be a little high, I had to buff it as the roof was very flat in the main model.

I attempted to neotinise the teeth in an attempt to make them fatter and stubbier to hint they are from a younger mouth, though perhaps some of them could do with a little more de-aging. And while I haven't got around to them yet, the claws will receive similar treatment in terms of reshaping.