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Both characters has pretty much been completed in modelling wise, the only remain thing to was add remaining surface details to polish as much as possible and render them out.
For Ip Man, the remaining things to was to refine his hair. Dynamesh was turned off as the it smooths the mesh out every time new extra polygons were made. So i subdivided it the dynameshed hair for denser polygons. Claybuildup was still used to reedit the strands it need to, damstandard was used for sharpening the edges of the strands, and carving into the sculpt to separate the strands. Trimdynamic and smooth were then used for clean the surface of the strands. After the hair was refined, extra skin pores and wrinkles were added onto the hands and face.
process of creating hair
The last thing to do was add weave detail to Ip Man's clothes. It may had seem point less as the details were so small to look, but it was done nonetheless. Since these details need a lot of polygons to project details that are so small, the were sent back to 3ds max and a turbosmooth modifier was applied, what this has done was it made the polygons doubled on the first subdivision, effectively doubling the poly count when imported back into zbrush. The shirt was then unwrapped, so a noise modifier can be applied in zbrush. Using a weave alpha the details are applied according to the alpha, with size and strength to adjust. The same process was also applied to the shoes and trousers.
The modelling phase has now completed.
With Twister, the same process was done like Ip Man. Skin pore and wrinkles details were applied through layers. The boxing glove had extra creases and folds, as well a leather texture detail added to it. The shoes also the leather alpha for details, also with some stitch details applied on to it too. The hair was polished the same way as Ip Man's hair.
Now that all of the sculpting id done, the characters needed to pose for render. Within zbrush i used Transpose master to rig the characters. Tranpose master works by using zpshere to construct a skeleton for the mesh to pose. After it has been created, the skeleton binds to the mesh, and by moving the zpshere the mesh moves with them. I added extra zpsheres on the joint of the body to portray how humans move. I also added some on the eyes and face area, so that when the body move, it holds the form as it may deform due to zpsheres may not skin the area properly.
One neutral pose and fighting stance were posed for both characters. With the fighting pose i choose to pose them in their respective martial arts. With the neutral stance I posed Twister with his chest to portray the arrogant cocky personality he has in the movie. With Ip Man, since his neutral pose were quite normal in the movie, i made his stance a little more interesting by combining a kung fu pose from the matrix, so one hand is behind his back and one up front. This pose kinda gives him a aura of a martial art master.A plinth was also made for rendering purposes, so the character looks like he's standing on something and not in mid-air.
With the posing done, I used vray to render my characters. Unfortunately the results werent as great as what i did on the tutorial before hand. Maybe partly due to the insufficient texture, which caused the whole render of the character to look bland, the details also looked blurry and washed out. So other methods were sought out to render, i tried keyshot afterwards. Keyshot is a photorealistic render engine so i put a character in there and done some test. The test produced better results than vray in my opinion, the contrast helped breaking the character away from the background and helped highlighting the form of the character. I felt that the shadows were too strong as there were a lot of shadows on Ip man's face. Ultimately zbrush best preview render was used for render, as i have previously used it before.
vray render
keyshot render
The lights were done in a similar fashion of a studio photography set up. A main keylight was added at the front with a strong intensity, a rim light was added at the back for lighting up the shadows on the back. Lights were moved about for each character so that they don't have a similar lighting position. Several render were made in Zbrush to be composited in photoshop, as quick adjustments can be made quickly without rendering again. With the main render, the rim and key light were render separately, Zbrush also renders a ambient occlusion and shadow map, as a depth map for a field of depth effect. For the compilation scene a boxing ring was quickly constructed in 3ds max, so it adds a little something in the background.
photoshop composite process
I also rendered some turntables within zbrush to add to the finial product, showcase the character in a full turnaround. The project has pretty much complete now, ive rendered out some images of the characters in their poses, a compilation image of both characters, a set of images of the characters assets and 2 turntables of the characters.
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With deadlines closing in, the characters still have not sculpted properly yet and a few bits of more modeling were still needed to be done. The initial plan was to texture by this stage now, a decision was made to polish the character as much as possible as i felt that i rather submit a quality product than a mediocre one. Also as the project aim was to sculpt two character likenss, the compromise was a wise choice in order to achieve the objective.
After spending some time focusing on Twister, the focus was back on Ip Man. I started to work his shoes, even though his shoes were simple to make. I still split it into pieces just like Twister's shoes for better control on sculpting. The work process were just as the same as Twister's glove of remodeling. I then started to sculpt the creases and folds of the shoes. I also started to polish the details of the shirt a bit more, adding buttons and the breast pocket. Clothing creases were added on the collar and the bottom of the shirt, to mimic the compression creases caused by the stitches on the shirt.
I started to add surface details to Ip Man's face. Since surface details will be loss if adjustments where still needed, i used layers as a mean to store those details. The layers can be turned on or off, and stack-able. I used an assorted of alpha maps that mimic skin pores and wrinkles, to project those details onto the face. A new layer was made every time a new detail or adjustments were done.
I also started to experiment with different methods of creating hair: Fibermesh from zbrush, Hair and fur from 3ds max. Testing was carried to see which method produced the results.After experimenting on using fibermesh, i found it hard to groom the hair to look like the actor's hair in the movie, as the brushes were not behaving the way i want them to, a lot of brushes in zbrush are more tailored in groom long hair. I also tried 3ds max's hair and fur modifier to see the results better. With 3ds max i found it even harder to groom than zbrush, the brushed used in 3ds max was a cylindrical 3d brush and the hair were behaved by splines. The hair gets affected by splines when it contacts it. The reason why i thought the hair was hard to groom because often, i would find the splines were moved inside the mesh.. This was more prominent when i grooming the hair on the side of the head, it occurred because the area of the brush had affected the other side.
So ultimately sculpting was decide to produce the hair as it was straight forward and doesn't require extra testing. Dynamesh was used to sculpt the initial shape of the hair, claybuildup was used to build up the form and damstandard for carving in.
A little progress was also made on Twister. I started to work on the gloves a little bit more, by adding folds and creases. I started a thread on www.polycount.com for extra feedback, even though its probably a bit late into this stage but it was done nonetheless. I got some feedback on Twister that he looked short and stacky. Since i can't do any heavy modification as the deadline is closing fast, i adjusted the torso muscles to slim him down a little, the arm were toned down too as i felt that the arms were quite big for the height.Extra sculpting on the abdominal muscles, the softening of the muscles were too much so sculpting was done to portray the muscles a little better.
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After the likeness was starting to achieve in both characters, ive started to concentrating on the clothing of the characters a bit more.
Some of references from the movie were quite hard to work out. Analyzing the reference more clearly there were extra parts needed to made, such as the frog button on Ip man's shirt, and the detail on Ip man's slippers. The folds on Ip Man's trousers were quite plain, so I used external references to sculpt the folds a bit interesting to the eye. Combining with the references from the movie helped developing the looks of the clothing. With the shirt i used long sleeve reference to sculpt the fold, ive also made the pockets separately as well.
Fabric folds reference were looked to see what types of folds occurs on clothing, there were the websites i used.http://www.mightyartdemos.com/mightyartdemos-bradley.htmlhttp://www.drawsh.com/search/label/FabricClaybuildup was used to build the forms, trimdynamic was used to give that nice clothing surface along with the smooth brush.
A lot of progress was made in Twister since the last update.The torso from previous update was a bit too exaggerated, so I softened them up to make them a bit more appropriate. I have started to wok on the shorts now, the shorts were extracted from the initial base mesh, so the mesh still contained some uneven topology. To make the shorts to be sculpted more efficiently, I've imported the mesh into 3ds max to remodel the shorts for a better topology.
Before and after
Sculpting made from before was then reprojected onto the new topology. The waistband crease were done by a mask by alpha technique. First two alpha maps were made from zbrush, then the short were unwrapped to allow the mesh to be masked, the alpha maps made zbrush are then tiled within photoshop and exported out as a new alpha map. The new alpha was imported into the alpha map slot, and mask by alpha was selected. The creases on the alpha are then masked according to the alpha on the uv map. Claybuildup was then used to quickly build up the surface and softened up by smooth.
After creating the shorts, I started to make progress on the boxing glove. Same as before, since the initial block out was taken from the base mesh, the hands were then imported into 3ds max to remodel into the shape of a boxing glove with better topology. The glove was then imported back into zbrush, and i used s mixture of claybuildup and move brush to push the mesh to make the form better. The glove was divided into polygroups afterwards for better control on sculpting. The laces were made with the same method as the shoe laces of using zpsheres.
Upon almost reaching the deadline, Twister's face was still not worked on. So efforts were made to achieve the likeness as soon as possible. The mistakes made on Ip Man's face occurred again, proportions were not checked often. But after realizing they were checked regularly when a period of time of sculpting was done. Upon reading some forums, sculpting the eyes closed prevents the artist from getting distracted by them when sculpting. So I applied this technique into the process. Surprisingly it worked.I was getting less distracted by the eyes and was able to concentrate of the form and anatomy better. The camera locking method was not usable as there wasn't any references that has a front or side angle. But regularly checking the reference and proportions, likeness has started to achieve. I also sculpted the hair as suggested by colleagues that without the hair, it was a bit difficult to tell the comparisons.
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Right it has been a while since I've updates. Here is my progress so far
The progression with Ip Man at the moment is starting to improve, I wasn't too sure but I may have looked at my previous model for too long, and I couldn't spot my mistakes and the features of the face seems to look right. But after taking a little break from it, I analysed the head, matching it with some references and looking fro landmarks to see whether the distances between the features look correct. I also used a method where in zbrush you can snap a camera angle, so whenever you move the mesh around, you click the camera button it would revert back to the camera angle it was snapped at. With proved extremely useful as I inserted a side angle reference of the character, and adjusted the mesh at an angle to match the reference, this helped adjusting the mesh for more accurate landmarks, and kept on checking to see whether the shape of the head is deviating from the reference.
Before (left) and after (right)
With the face starting to get into shape, I started to work on the clothes more now and all I have been focusing was just on the face. First I started to form the shape with dynamesh, what dynamesh is a lump polygons that is useful for creating initial shapes as the polygons are evenly distributed no matter what shape. After getting the initial shape, I used zRemesher, which is retopology tool in zbrush, to get some form of topology as the tool isn't very accurate, then I imported it into 3ds Max to do a revise topology. However noticing from the reference that it's an open shirt, I split the middle seam and extrude to create an extra layer that goes on top, added some extra edge around the collar area to define the shape a bit more. Next i split the collar the shirt and the front layer where the shirt buttons up into 3 different polygroups, as this helps controlling the sculpt in further stages.
Camera snapping in zbrush, check does the mesh match with reference for a accurate sculpt
With the second character, Twister, I noticed I have not added any progression to my blog. So now I will show my progress so far.
With the creation of this character, I used a base mesh as a starter, and then I split the mesh into polygroups as it was easier to sculpt individual parts of the mesh instead of as a whole, and without detaching the mesh into pieces. To create the clothes I used a mask extract in zbrush, with this method I mask the mesh and from the mask I am able to create a mesh from it. This quickly helped producing a base shape for the shoes and shorts, the boxing gloves hasn't been created just yet.The faces is a bit more easier to shape and sculpt as the features of the character is more defined and not as subtle as Ip Man, the most prominent features is the ridge of the brow and the shape of mouth. Although it still not completely like the actor yet, but the shape and form is on the way.
Base mesh broke down into polygroups As this character focuses quite a lot on anatomy, I gathered anatomy references to gain a better in the muscle formation of the body and a bit of knowledge of how it deforms and works. In the mean time I also gathered references for the clothes as well.
As I started to sculpt the torso, I found it difficult to define the shape of how the latissimus dorsi flows down into the form of the rib cage,and down the obliques into legs. It was hard to grasp as each angel of the torso looks different, at front it may seem right but when the camera is panned you can tell where it doesn't look natural. So this part of the modelling proved to be challenging, to tackle it easier, I broke down the torso and sculpted the initial form with shapes, the rib cage was a very prominent shape as it defines the torso, then I started to add layer of the muscles and the flow of them, then used a sharper brush to define the muscles a it more, and used smoothing afterwards to make the muscles look subtle and not too defined.
As you can see the torso still doesn't look natural still, but the form is starting to shape like a torso. So with a few more adjustments with smoothing and certain bits of the form, the torso should look reasonably like a boxer's torso.
Aside from the torso I worked on the shoes, I broke the shoe down into pieces, as this give more control in the aspect of creating the asset. In the early stage of the creation, the shoe wasn't exactly looking the shoes of what a boxer wears. So I gathered and looked at the reference more, and moved and molded the shoes in its lower subdivision to get the initial shape.
Next, I imported it into 3ds Max to create the holes for the laces to feed in, as well as hook eyelets for the upper part of the shoes, as it was easier to create holes in the mesh and hard surface shapes in my opinion. Afterwards, I placed the eyelets in the right places and imported all of into zbrush, within zbrush I then used zspheres to create the laces, as it was easier to control the splines. I threaded the zspheres through the hoes, eyelets and through the eyelets, then i ended the spline with a knot. I then created a tube shaped mesh with the zpsheres, and began flattening it to create that flat thin shoelace. Even though the shoe hasn't reached the final stage, but the shape of each component is created and steadily reaching to it's final form.Progression so far isn't as fast as I expected, as I kept on going backwards and forwards correcting errors without identifying what I'm doing wrong. So i think from know I need to start analyzing the work I've done after a few hours, and start seeing where where is going wrong and how to correct it. Hopefully the modelling stage would be completed this month so that I would have more time to do texturing.
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