Ari Weidenbaum| CG Student Work
My name is Ari, and I am currently enrolled at Think Tank Training Centre as a CG Student, specializing in 3D characters and creatures for film. This collection includes my first two final projects for the foundations and intermediate terms.
Earth Genasi Monk
Final project: Intermediate Term (characters and creatures for film) at Think Tank Training Centre.
Concept Art By: Alexander Korepov
Term Supervisor: Claudio Tumiati
Concept/PurRef:
Anatomy Sculpting Progress:
Block-out starting from a simple male base mesh. I used both the concept art as well as a 3D scan as reference inside of Zbrush. After finalizing the anatomy with symmetry, I then used Zwrap to wrap the scan (purchased from 3D Scan Store) to my model, which allowed me to use the skin textures provided by the scan as a starting point to edit and build off of.
Zbrush Progress:
Project Description: Earth Genasi Monk
I chose this character concept (by Alexander Korepov) in order to focus on anatomy sculpting and practice adding some realism to a fictional character. For this five-week project, I began by blocking out all the elements inside of Zbrush and marvelous designer to get quick base sculpt down. The Second week was spent adjusting the anatomy and overall proportions of the character, focusing on the primary and secondary shapes, with symmetry in a neutral pose. I then used Zwrap (as described above), to establish a base for texturing, and the skin pores.
On week three, I went about finalizing the models for the hard surface elements within Zbrush, using z-modeler, adding thickness and control edges before bringing into Maya for a final cleanup of the topology. I then began to pose my character with Transpose-Master inside of Zbrush, and brought the posed model on sub-division level two, inside of Marvelous Designer to work on the final clothing simulations. I created some of the larger fringes as well as holes inside of Marvelous as geometry as well as used some wind to get the final simulated cloth, before brining into Maya for retopology.
On week four I finalized the topology of the clothing and accessories, posing the hard surface elements inside of Maya. I brought the established elements back into Zbrush for a final pass of detail sculpting before, UV unwrapping and organizing all of the elements with UDIMs for the ease of texturing multiple elements within a single material. (For example, all of the clothing pieces, or all of the rings are in a single material separated into multiple UV tiles).
I baked geometry maps for the clothing and accessories and textured the elements inside of Substance painter; creating a custom (worn gold) smart material to be used and tweaked through-out the texturing process. For the clothing, I used opacity maps, to build upon the damage, for added holes and fringes.
For the character, I exported the displacement map for my posed model, (without skin pore detail), and combined this with the normal map and the tile-able micro-normal, provided by the 3D scan for tertiary details within Maya/ V-Ray. I used Photoshop to adjust the diffuse maps provided by the scan for a base for the skin and eye color. For his tattoos, I first created a black and white mask using poly-paint inside of Zbrush on the symmetrical version (non-posed) of my model. Since the models shared the same UVs, I was able to apply this mask as a texture map on my posed model and further edit the mask inside of Substance painter, (using fill layers and projection to get the scale pattern within the mask). This mask was used to drive the separation of gold and skin materials in Substance painter, as well as in V-Ray (applied to the blend opacity of the V-Ray Blend Material).
Final images and turntable rendered with V-Ray and composited with Nuke and Photoshop.
Fox's Revenge
Final Project: Foundations Term at Think Tank Training Centre
Concept Art By: Thomas Brissot
Term Supervisor: Aaron Coleman-Hayes
Concept_breakdown
Block_out to Final
Project Description: Fox's Revenge
For the foundations term project at Think Tank, I was tasked to recreate a 2D illustration or scene in 3D. I chose this concept art (by Thomas Brissot) for its overall cinematic quality and composition, including a variety of hard-surface and organic objects. With some experience, creating stylized characters I decided to challenge myself with this full scene, as well as taking the opportunity to practice/learn more about XGen and hair/fur creation.
I first blocked out the scene in Maya with primitive shapes, establishing the pose of the character, as well as the perspective and focal length of the camera early on in the process. The environment was modeled in Maya with standard modeling tools and the wires were created using curves.
I then moved the character block-out, into Zbrush, using dynamesh and Z-remesher to connect pieces and get a base sculpt down for the character and clothing. Back in Maya I then used quad draw to retopologize the character, and separated his limbs, head, and tail, since they were going to be hidden underneath his jacket. I then went about UV unwrapping the character and brought him back into Zbrush for further sculpting as well as to establish the color gradients in the fur using polypaint and exporting out texture maps to be used to drive the diffuse/color in XGen and Arnold.
In total I ended up with 15 different descriptions: one each for his arms, hands, legs, feet, and tail. His head and neck were separated, with one for each of his ears as well as one for the tip of his nose, one for the longer hairs on his face, and two more for the eyebrows. The reason for separating the descriptions on these parts was determined roughly by the overall length of the hairs in parts and to and variations within the groom. Using masking within XGen I was able to control the falloff of density and length of hairs, to blend descriptions together. I used XGen's tools and modifiers to fine tune the length, width, taper, noise, and stray percentage of the fur, for each description throughout the rest of the process.
After finalizing the models for the environment and accessories, I went about setting up UV maps, to prepare for texturing, which was done with Substance painter. I took advantage of baking maps in Substance (nrml, AO, cavity, etc..) to be used to drive areas of either damage or dirt, etc..
I finally worked on the overall lighting and the scene as a whole in Maya and Arnold. I used Maya's built in fire and smoke preset in the FX samples to generate a base for the FX's to be later adjusted in Photoshop. I rendered out various images and render layers, adjusting and fine tuning all of the elements, such as lights, textures, and fur, as well as adding some depth of field.
The final Image was composited, and color corrected in Photoshop.
Comments (1)