Zbrush Sculpting Workshop

Zbrush has become the industry standard character and environment creation tool for feature film and game studios across the world. This ZBrush training course takes a comprehensive look at ZBrush 3.1’s toolset for high-end 3D modeling and texturing.

Instruction includes a complete ZBrush workflow, starting with a low-poly base mesh and finishing it at up to a 6 million polygon level. The class is only a week long, however, much emphasis is given on the aesthetic nature of sculpting and texturing from an artistic perspective.

Topics

• Learn about the basic and core concepts of ZBrush.

• Master several ZBrush workflow for sculpting.

• Modeling with Zspheres.

• Alphas, Masks, Stencils

• Sub-tools

• Poly-painting

• Projection master

• Transposing

• Retopologizing

• Material capture

Prerequisites

An art degree or a basic understanding of form, color, and texture is helpful.

Discussion

Each class period will consist primarily of lectures and demonstrations ranging from 60-90 minutes in the morning session and once again after lunch in the afternoon session.

Lessons will be given on a main screen projector and there will be small classes usually under four students. After the demonstration, students will be required to work on in-class assignments that will reiterate the day’s lesson plan.

Course notes will be provided as reference, however, students should be drafting their own, in-depth notes, for a better grasp on the software. Homework is not assigned, but practice makes perfect.

• Discuss Import for Maya preparations.

• Discuss texture application process.

• Scars, tattoos, and muscle definition.

Goals

• Introduction to ZBrush 3 interface and modeling with z spheres, uv groups, alphas, masking, and stencils.

• Brushes, ztools and sculpting techniques, subtools, and multi-level modeling.

• Materials and shading, polypainting, texturing, matcap and UV Mapping in ZBrush.

• Rigging and posing, transpose master and retopologize.

• ZBrush to Maya and Photoshop, displacement maps, lighting and rendering.

• Projects: Average man, rhinoceros, soldier, demo head, dog, elephant, Poseidon, sword, and horse. More specific models available on request for personal projects.