Thanks so much to all who got something out of it, glad its being helpful at least!
I had the thought when writing it that actually it would be just a bunch of crap that noone would really give a shit about to be honest. My process is pretty organic so its really difficult to describe, and so many people do a much better job of writing how-to stuff.
I know its not a step by step ' oh this is how I model a head ' but this stuff is what I want to ask artists that I look up to, much more than asking them to show me how to do something.
vivin: Dude sumea, holy shit those were the days!! It could have been me I'm not sure! Just checking out your work now... holy shit dude!! pure insanity! badass stuff man! I feel like you flew under my radar.. are you a Kiwi like me ?
Scythe: Thanks man Ill attempt to explain more stuff about the hair and eyes in detail in part 2.
Thanks again guys, glad its prooving useful ill get to writing part two shortly.
Yep, Kiwi born and bred, I thought you were aussie? =P
I didnt have much of a presence back on sumea, I was just some nub trying to break into the industry. Your crits and comments back then definitely set me on the right path thought, so cheers ^_^
And so I dont derail things too much, cant wait until part 2~
Nah man, Kiwi - South Auckland hard!! I just had to escape NZ 11 years ago because it simply had no industry.... at all back then!... hmm MAYBE Binary Star ?! I think Weta wasnt even really WETA back then and i didnt have the chops to work there, probably still dont!! so my options where slim at best!!
Well, it may be "organic" as you said, but in a way it's somewhat more helpful than a step by step tutorial, because we can read what your mind is like when doing this or that, the process of thoughts for going to one point to another, how, what, when and all those thing that aren't really explained in tutorial...how can I say it, the "feeling" of the process, I guess.
Anyway if you want some more question just wave here because I have tons
NICE! what are you using for your eye shader. that has me perplexed. good work by the way! and i agree on the mouth chin crit, that was a problem spot for me, mad her look like he was pulling her chin into her face a tad too much.
Props to Scythe for finding this. This is the metal tutorial I mentioned in my first post. You can pretty much use this method to create any material you want from skin t tree bark to metal - IF your intended end result is supposed to look like whats commonly coined as 'realistic' this is a really good way to go about i think.
Scythe: Ask as many questions as you want man, its no bother!
Mrskullface: Im not using any special shader for the eyes man just straight xoliul 2.0 beta - it does a really nice job on eyes imo
Tbh I already tried it and ...Gosh, this technique is the work of the devil and I just sold my soul to him. It's so amazing, can't find word
You can get some nice result quite fast, but mastering it should take some time
Ah, I had no idea you were a kiwi, serious respect+100!! XD
I feel yah about the industry in NZ. Even theses days, things are looking pretty slim. Binary star went under a few years ago, which basically leaves a single game studio (Sidhe) and things are looking even worse in Aussie.
Cheers Scythe/Hazardous for the tut, I'm all for selling my soul to the devil if it means producing better textures
The hair and eyes stuff I'll explain more in part 2 Im almost done with it.
The Specular is something that I work on while im going along with the diffuse and though it doesnt really start to take shape until the diffuse is really starting to take shape. Its difficult to say 'heres how do you do it' because the specular is one of those maps that makes all the difference between a convincing materials and non convincing materials. The spec ( and gloss ) are really the heavy hitting map(s) that determine how your materials will interact with light.
For example, in default lighting conditions in max or maya when you apply a basic blinn to your model and turn of all specularity but then put a normal map on it - look how lackluster the forms are, they really lack depth and impact. But start playing with specular and that transforms things considerably.
I usually work my all my maps by material and layers in PS. So when im working on my skin diffuse layer, if i put some freckles or moles etc i can easily grab that layer, and work it into my spec layer for skin. And that process is the same for every material. So i basically break down my entire PSD into materials. Cloth, Metal, Leather, Skin etc
For my base polypaint - i dont actually use this in my base diffuse texture, but i probably could have in chun li's case. I've always started from scratch, but I'm working on some stuff right now that definitely will utilise my polypaint.
She looks awesome The face is great and I like the texturing. The only thing I see is like the tattoo looks more like a plastic sticker, like it's brand new or something. Again'; great stuff
Huhu yah thank you for the answers Maybe you forgot to say you have to lay off a little when you feel frustrated, because working into frustration just gets you moar frustrations XD
All-in-all it answers, I once tested the bliss of working there and I f***** want it back
(maybe more parts than just 2 as well jesus christ! )
So firstly Ill throw down some sensational reference material while I remember to share it - I strongly suggest picking these books up and bookmarking these sites if you really want to get into studying hair and the female face, and how makeup is used to either enhance / change the planes of the face or even completely eliminate some features! Along with all kinds of interesting theories and of course a lot of full page face close-ups.
Once you start really getting into all this, you start to get the sensation that all of these things more or less go together. Good makeup takes the natural features of the face and works with it, highlights the good parts and compensates for others. It works with the skin, eyebrows, eye color, the eye lashes, the shapes and contours of the nose, lips, brow, cheekbones etc etc and of course its all framed by a hairstyle.
So Hair....
Essentially a big part of the hairstyle choice has to do with the shape of the face, and the personality of the character. Its a big silhouette impacter (Im constantly making up words its epic), and can often be one of, if not the most standout and memorable feature of a female character.
So again go back into doing a craptonne of serious 'looking'
Grab a whole bunch of possible hairstyles you like, then take a front view of your model and dump it into PS and start drawing some rough shapes to match the ones you like, youll quickly see that some hairstyles or volumes just work better than others mainly due to the shape of the face you chose.
Once youve got your hairstyle chosen out, what I do is build a few rough shells in Maya to basically give an overall volume at the back front and sides its pretty rough really - feels dirty to show but hey!
It really shouldnt take long to build this stuff - just extrude edges like a maniac until youve got something you like - then throw it straight into zbrush and start smooshing those shells around to further shape it and move it into something more like you wanted. Once I get to that point with those basic shells, I move to the next level of detail and the front part of the face the fringe etc.
I basically make some smaller strands using the same edge extrude method - maybe 4 or 5 thinner wispier lengths and shapes to begin with and I throw those into zbrush and start duplicating and placing them around to build up more volume and shape - I prefer to do this in zbrush because is super easy to quickly shape all the strands by polygroup using the move tool.
While it looks like a huge jump from the last image to this one, its really not - its a simple process of taking a few more strands and duplicating, then moving them into place and smooshing them round - If you look closely you can see Ive just duplicated the hell out of the same strands! The entire fringe is basically one strand, duplicated and moved, smooshed around, and same goes for almost all the rest of the hair volume.
It probably shouldnt take more than a couple hours to reach this point if youre in the zone.
Important note: In my infinite wisdom I didnt actually realize until fairly recently that its a good idea to unwrapped those strands straight before you send them to zbrush and start messing with them :P So make sure you do that if you plan to use this as your final hair shape.
The other thing Id like to hit in this part is the eyelashes because they are essentially the exact same approach, I make one eyelash and then duplicate that in zbrush and place them around the lids. I havent yet actually attempted to go full on cinematic style so ill generally use a much thicker lash at the base and far fewer strands - as readability is generally more important than accuracy for a game style character, even for a next gen hero unless youre getting RIGHT up close to the eye. I will typically only do this for an approximation to help get a better feel for the whole face in zbrush though, I will generally paint some eyelashes on to an eyelash shaped single sided plane for the actual game model.
Zbrush
Game
Some important notes about this though, if youre going to try go for all those strands in there, eyelashes always look more natural when they are kind of clumped together at the tips and maybe even like so:
I personally think it looks fake / weird / strange when eyelashes are all the same length, same curve, spaced out the same etc etc:
Lastly the eyebrows are also a key part of what goes into making an attractive eye area, they can throw the whole package out of whack so easily (as can most of the parts tbh) thicker eyebrows can give a youthful appearance while thinner brows can often make the face look more mature. Getting the arch correct is another key too.
Some good info here as well as the two books I mentioned at the start.
I'll go into how I tackle my eye textures in the next part..... but again if theres any q's fire them out. I think I will eventually convert this stuff into some PDF's or something....
You sir, are a tremendous individual. The insight and advice in this thread as well as where you've given it in the past, have been incredibly helpful and motivating.
This is some really insightful information. Very much appreciated! It's not often we get an inside look at a great artist's approach to certain things.
question:
how do you deal with alpha sorting? or do you have hair set to alpha test?
I will usually sort the hair manually.
Sounds scary.... and it is. Yup I sort each piece from back to front by hand, in max. There is actually a shorter way to get a pretty good result in max but it requires 100% self illumination - basically apply a standard shader to your hair, 100% self illumination and flat diffuse only (no normal) that will give you nicely sorting alpha hair planes
thank god in UDK i can tell it to sort automatically from inside out! there's usually the odd strand that needs manually sorting, but it's pretty quick.
someone seriously needs to make a tool for max that lets you sort hair easily/quickly.
awesome job though man, as always! looking forward to november
Once youve got your hairstyle chosen out, what I do is build a few rough shells in Maya to basically give an overall volume at the back front and sides its pretty rough really - feels dirty to show but hey!
Iiiiiiincredible part, as expected ! Really helpful, I love how you do the eyelash and the hair. Really sounds scary when I read you actually unwrap the hair after moving them
I thought about the idea of putting the whole thing into a good pdf with the images and all too, if you need some help, I'll gladly help
another question:
how easy/hard do you find it to remain within a polygon budget with this method of hair?
Its acually really easy man, just scale it as far or as little as you need. You can take the same approach with as little as 250 - 500 tri budgets and up. Just keep it in mind when you first set out and you should be totally fine.
Typically i think a good rule of thumb is to use about a 3rd of your budget on the head / hair of a girl
Oh wow I forgot how to speak english. I meant in Zbrush there are different types of move brushes (Move, Move Elastic, Move Part, etc.) Do you only use the basic move brush?
Oh wow I forgot how to speak english. I meant in Zbrush there are different types of move brushes (Move, Move Elastic, Move Part, etc.) Do you only use the basic move brush?
Haha its okay! I was reading it over and over trying to figure out what you meant, but i couldnt get it! I only really use the standard move tool - the other ones could well be better!
Can't wait to try your hair method for my next work, but right now gotta finish what i gotta finish Y.Y
almighty : Man, looks great !
I'm sure combining the help for the skin and the help for the hair we'll get to create tremendous faces ;D Can't wait for the eyes. Hazardous, sir, you....well you just rules
Yo Hazardous, I wanted to know, maybe you didn't see it. I have quite the free time these days because of rendering :ssss. Want me to repack your info and images in a pdt (wouldn't take much time ) I thought about doing it before but I ain't gonna do it if you already started working on it
That, and I love the way you sculpt lips, it makes me want to bite them
hey jon,
fucking great stuff. and thanks for all your explanations and steps - i will have to study them carefully. can*t wait for your psd to have all your infos collected together.
like your skin very much and haircut is nicely done.
just some additional thoughts:
-noise is a bit too extreme. i would vary it for the different parts.
-the full cloth version works best for me; nice distribution of shapes and colors and her red top is mostly hidden - something feels wrong with it. the thickness is too strong and the structure doesn't feel right. it is just random noise. on this high detail level you are working you should really care for materials and tiny structures. her top has the same structure as the leather.
-same problem with her tattoo. it doesn't feel like tint on/ under skin. skin pores should be visible and the paint is too perfect and clean so it looks like a sticker for me. if you look how gradients and colors are mixing - it is hard or imposible to achieve a nice unified look with an electrical moving machine on an uneven skin pattern.
-her face looks a bit normal and unspectacular, even a bit clumsy especially in your beauty shot. nice contrast with her eyes but some stronger recognisable marks on her face would push the design more i think.
MFTitus: Dude thanks for your honest thoughts always appreciated! I do agree with all of the stuff you mention there - but as the piece is a couple years old now, im not going to go back and work on her again - will tell you more on our next skype chat!
Speaking of which, we need to get together and have one of those again real soon man
So I haven't forgotten to finish up part 3 of this tutorial - but ive just relocated from the US back to Australia - and now awaiting my machines to arrive. Promise ill have it all done when that happens... even though they are not due for another 3 - 4 weeks!!!
Replies
I had the thought when writing it that actually it would be just a bunch of crap that noone would really give a shit about to be honest. My process is pretty organic so its really difficult to describe, and so many people do a much better job of writing how-to stuff.
I know its not a step by step ' oh this is how I model a head ' but this stuff is what I want to ask artists that I look up to, much more than asking them to show me how to do something.
vivin: Dude sumea, holy shit those were the days!! It could have been me I'm not sure! Just checking out your work now... holy shit dude!! pure insanity! badass stuff man! I feel like you flew under my radar.. are you a Kiwi like me ?
Scythe: Thanks man Ill attempt to explain more stuff about the hair and eyes in detail in part 2.
Thanks again guys, glad its prooving useful ill get to writing part two shortly.
I didnt have much of a presence back on sumea, I was just some nub trying to break into the industry. Your crits and comments back then definitely set me on the right path thought, so cheers ^_^
And so I dont derail things too much, cant wait until part 2~
I'm formulating Part 2....
Anyway if you want some more question just wave here because I have tons
Props to Scythe for finding this. This is the metal tutorial I mentioned in my first post. You can pretty much use this method to create any material you want from skin t tree bark to metal - IF your intended end result is supposed to look like whats commonly coined as 'realistic' this is a really good way to go about i think.
Scythe: Ask as many questions as you want man, its no bother!
Mrskullface: Im not using any special shader for the eyes man just straight xoliul 2.0 beta - it does a really nice job on eyes imo
You can get some nice result quite fast, but mastering it should take some time
Epic method is epic
I feel yah about the industry in NZ. Even theses days, things are looking pretty slim. Binary star went under a few years ago, which basically leaves a single game studio (Sidhe) and things are looking even worse in Aussie.
Cheers Scythe/Hazardous for the tut, I'm all for selling my soul to the devil if it means producing better textures
Thanks for the explanations too!
The hair and eyes stuff I'll explain more in part 2
The Specular is something that I work on while im going along with the diffuse and though it doesnt really start to take shape until the diffuse is really starting to take shape. Its difficult to say 'heres how do you do it' because the specular is one of those maps that makes all the difference between a convincing materials and non convincing materials. The spec ( and gloss ) are really the heavy hitting map(s) that determine how your materials will interact with light.
For example, in default lighting conditions in max or maya when you apply a basic blinn to your model and turn of all specularity but then put a normal map on it - look how lackluster the forms are, they really lack depth and impact. But start playing with specular and that transforms things considerably.
I usually work my all my maps by material and layers in PS. So when im working on my skin diffuse layer, if i put some freckles or moles etc i can easily grab that layer, and work it into my spec layer for skin. And that process is the same for every material. So i basically break down my entire PSD into materials. Cloth, Metal, Leather, Skin etc
For my base polypaint - i dont actually use this in my base diffuse texture, but i probably could have in chun li's case. I've always started from scratch, but I'm working on some stuff right now that definitely will utilise my polypaint.
As far as tips / tricks / advice goes for people wanting to get a job as a character artist I'll refer you to one of my old posts here: http://hyperdivine.deviantart.com/journal/30393504/
Let me know if that satisfies your questions or if you were looking for something else
All-in-all it answers, I once tested the bliss of working there and I f***** want it back
Can't wait for part II then, thanks
(maybe more parts than just 2 as well jesus christ! )
So firstly Ill throw down some sensational reference material while I remember to share it - I strongly suggest picking these books up and bookmarking these sites if you really want to get into studying hair and the female face, and how makeup is used to either enhance / change the planes of the face or even completely eliminate some features! Along with all kinds of interesting theories and of course a lot of full page face close-ups.
Face Forward - Kevyn Aucoin [ame]http://www.amazon.com/Face-Forward-Kevyn-Aucoin/dp/0316287059/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1315535834&sr=8-2[/ame]
Making Faces - Kevyn Aucoin [ame]http://www.amazon.com/Making-Faces-Kevyn-Aucoin/dp/0316286850/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1315535834&sr=8-1[/ame]
For Hairstyles I usually hit: http://www.ukhairdressers.com/ or http://www.hairstylesdesign.com/
Once you start really getting into all this, you start to get the sensation that all of these things more or less go together. Good makeup takes the natural features of the face and works with it, highlights the good parts and compensates for others. It works with the skin, eyebrows, eye color, the eye lashes, the shapes and contours of the nose, lips, brow, cheekbones etc etc and of course its all framed by a hairstyle.
So Hair....
Essentially a big part of the hairstyle choice has to do with the shape of the face, and the personality of the character. Its a big silhouette impacter (Im constantly making up words its epic), and can often be one of, if not the most standout and memorable feature of a female character.
So again go back into doing a craptonne of serious 'looking'
Grab a whole bunch of possible hairstyles you like, then take a front view of your model and dump it into PS and start drawing some rough shapes to match the ones you like, youll quickly see that some hairstyles or volumes just work better than others mainly due to the shape of the face you chose.
Once youve got your hairstyle chosen out, what I do is build a few rough shells in Maya to basically give an overall volume at the back front and sides its pretty rough really - feels dirty to show but hey!
It really shouldnt take long to build this stuff - just extrude edges like a maniac until youve got something you like - then throw it straight into zbrush and start smooshing those shells around to further shape it and move it into something more like you wanted. Once I get to that point with those basic shells, I move to the next level of detail and the front part of the face the fringe etc.
I basically make some smaller strands using the same edge extrude method - maybe 4 or 5 thinner wispier lengths and shapes to begin with and I throw those into zbrush and start duplicating and placing them around to build up more volume and shape - I prefer to do this in zbrush because is super easy to quickly shape all the strands by polygroup using the move tool.
While it looks like a huge jump from the last image to this one, its really not - its a simple process of taking a few more strands and duplicating, then moving them into place and smooshing them round - If you look closely you can see Ive just duplicated the hell out of the same strands! The entire fringe is basically one strand, duplicated and moved, smooshed around, and same goes for almost all the rest of the hair volume.
It probably shouldnt take more than a couple hours to reach this point if youre in the zone.
Important note: In my infinite wisdom I didnt actually realize until fairly recently that its a good idea to unwrapped those strands straight before you send them to zbrush and start messing with them :P So make sure you do that if you plan to use this as your final hair shape.
Im not going to go into how to texture hair, theres good tutorials out there about that hell heres two: http://www.cgsociety.org/index.php/CGSFeatures/CGSFeatureSpecial/tutorial_how_to_paint_realistic_hair
http://www.paultosca.com/varga_hair.html
The other thing Id like to hit in this part is the eyelashes because they are essentially the exact same approach, I make one eyelash and then duplicate that in zbrush and place them around the lids. I havent yet actually attempted to go full on cinematic style so ill generally use a much thicker lash at the base and far fewer strands - as readability is generally more important than accuracy for a game style character, even for a next gen hero unless youre getting RIGHT up close to the eye. I will typically only do this for an approximation to help get a better feel for the whole face in zbrush though, I will generally paint some eyelashes on to an eyelash shaped single sided plane for the actual game model.
Zbrush
Game
Some important notes about this though, if youre going to try go for all those strands in there, eyelashes always look more natural when they are kind of clumped together at the tips and maybe even like so:
I personally think it looks fake / weird / strange when eyelashes are all the same length, same curve, spaced out the same etc etc:
Lastly the eyebrows are also a key part of what goes into making an attractive eye area, they can throw the whole package out of whack so easily (as can most of the parts tbh) thicker eyebrows can give a youthful appearance while thinner brows can often make the face look more mature. Getting the arch correct is another key too.
Some good info here as well as the two books I mentioned at the start.
http://www.publishersvault.com/best-way-to-shape-eyebrows.html
Nice Eyebrow
Lastly here is an awesome reference for crazy eye makeup:
http://hedwyg23.deviantart.com/gallery/
I'll go into how I tackle my eye textures in the next part..... but again if theres any q's fire them out. I think I will eventually convert this stuff into some PDF's or something....
Edit: just ordered "Making Faces - Kevyn Aucoin"
Thanks
As always thanks for sharing!
o/
how do you deal with alpha sorting? or do you have hair set to alpha test?
I use the duplicate / move, rotate and scale tools in zbrush to place the strands and then the move tool to finesse each strand into place.
google translate or.....?
I will usually sort the hair manually.
Sounds scary.... and it is. Yup I sort each piece from back to front by hand, in max. There is actually a shorter way to get a pretty good result in max but it requires 100% self illumination - basically apply a standard shader to your hair, 100% self illumination and flat diffuse only (no normal) that will give you nicely sorting alpha hair planes
someone seriously needs to make a tool for max that lets you sort hair easily/quickly.
awesome job though man, as always! looking forward to november
I knew you'd start to love Maya eventually!
I thought about the idea of putting the whole thing into a good pdf with the images and all too, if you need some help, I'll gladly help
Then again..Can't wait for part III
how easy/hard do you find it to remain within a polygon budget with this method of hair?
I'll call it a fling, a one night stand, in and out burger style!!
Its acually really easy man, just scale it as far or as little as you need. You can take the same approach with as little as 250 - 500 tri budgets and up. Just keep it in mind when you first set out and you should be totally fine.
Typically i think a good rule of thumb is to use about a 3rd of your budget on the head / hair of a girl
http://crazyferretstudios.com/public/hairlawlz2.jpg
Oh wow I forgot how to speak english. I meant in Zbrush there are different types of move brushes (Move, Move Elastic, Move Part, etc.) Do you only use the basic move brush?
Haha its okay! I was reading it over and over trying to figure out what you meant, but i couldnt get it! I only really use the standard move tool - the other ones could well be better!
much love Troy
I'm just curious, is there a reason to why you make the base hair strands in Maya?
Seeing as you're a native max user (?) this intrigues me.
Thanks,
- Andr
almighty : Man, looks great !
I'm sure combining the help for the skin and the help for the hair we'll get to create tremendous faces ;D Can't wait for the eyes. Hazardous, sir, you....well you just rules
"how YOU doin'?"
That, and I love the way you sculpt lips, it makes me want to bite them
Thanks for offering though I appreciate it!
Final part coming soon
fucking great stuff. and thanks for all your explanations and steps - i will have to study them carefully. can*t wait for your psd to have all your infos collected together.
like your skin very much and haircut is nicely done.
just some additional thoughts:
-noise is a bit too extreme. i would vary it for the different parts.
-the full cloth version works best for me; nice distribution of shapes and colors and her red top is mostly hidden - something feels wrong with it. the thickness is too strong and the structure doesn't feel right. it is just random noise. on this high detail level you are working you should really care for materials and tiny structures. her top has the same structure as the leather.
-same problem with her tattoo. it doesn't feel like tint on/ under skin. skin pores should be visible and the paint is too perfect and clean so it looks like a sticker for me. if you look how gradients and colors are mixing - it is hard or imposible to achieve a nice unified look with an electrical moving machine on an uneven skin pattern.
-her face looks a bit normal and unspectacular, even a bit clumsy especially in your beauty shot. nice contrast with her eyes but some stronger recognisable marks on her face would push the design more i think.
Speaking of which, we need to get together and have one of those again real soon man
So I haven't forgotten to finish up part 3 of this tutorial - but ive just relocated from the US back to Australia - and now awaiting my machines to arrive. Promise ill have it all done when that happens... even though they are not due for another 3 - 4 weeks!!!