I’ve been working a lot lately on the technical side of things, all in preparation for the short. I’ll post some more tools when I get them ironed out, but for now here’s an update of my weight saving and loading tool called seithWeighTools. It’s made specifically for Maya 2011 (and up) and uses both MEL and Python code. And hopefully, it’s still very easy to use!
Update: It also works with Maya 2012!
This time I tried a portrait (quite different from the generic monster, you’ll agree) and was able to get there in about 2 hours. I feel like I’m starting to get a hold of it. Sculptris truly is a fantastic tool to quickly sketch an idea from scratch without having to plan anything ahead. A little bit like taking a blank sheet of paper and starting to doodle…
Another picture strip of a Sculptris sketch. Not really happy about where I ended up (not enough sense of design here), but at least I got much faster at shaping things up and it served as a good reminder about facial structure. I might decide to take this up again later and move it in another (hopefully more interesting) direction…
Here’s a picture strip of “fishboy” showing the progression of the sculpt from a simple ball to a completed sketch (before taking it to Zbrush to finalize it).
Ok, I think I’m done with “Fishboy” (at least for now). It’s a bit hard to let it go, but it’s just a test sculpture anyway. I might go back to it later if I learn some nifty things than can be applied to make it better, but for now, signing off…
This is a work-in-progress of the texture surrounding fishboy’s facial area. Still learning Zbrush’s… ahem… “intricacies”…
Through trial and error, I’m starting to get a feel for it. I did several things wrong here, that I would call little “naivetes”, like not really planning the use of alpha maps, and testing directly on the model without thinking ahead. But hey, that’s called “gathering experience” I guess. Hopefully I’ll learn from the process. I already discovered some material effects that work really well for the iridescence and sheen on the wet fish-like skin. But damn, Zbrush is soooo idiosyncratic it hurts…
