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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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It has been a while since I have updated my progress, it has been busy due to my other modules.
Nevertheless, here is my progress so far:
At this point of the modelling stage, I found myself struggling to sculpt the face, reason being is that I lack the understanding of the form, shape and the anatomy of the face.So to understand it more, I started to sculpt a skull as it defines the face with it's features. The only problem with that is that everyone's skull is different, so at best I can use this as a landmark for the features of the face when sculpting.With the skull in place as a base, I then used a sphere and start moving it around to form the shape of the head, with the skull underneath. From this point I started to look at references of the anatomy of the face, with done some anatomy analysis of a few shots, and started to sculpt and layer the muscles of the faces.
creating the form of the head with the skull underneath 
Side moodboard with some analysis example
Front moodboard example Because of the amount of references I have for the character, I find myself scrolling though the mass amount of references to find a few images I need to sculpt my character. I then condensed my research into 1 or 2 mood boards, with each mood board referencing at certain angles. As some of my references look the same at certain angles, some of them are captured in different lighting, this gives the references a bit more accurate to look at.
With the creation of the clothes and other body features, I used a base mesh as my base to extract the shape of the clothes and features. This has reduced my time to create the clothes than from scratch. With this method i quickly created the shirt, trousers, hands, socks and the shoes. -
This week i haven't sculpted more on my character, but I have been researching and testing on using the Vray render engine. I was following a tutorial on using the free Infinite Lee Perry-Smith head from infinite-realities, it includes the ztool for the head, which contain all the subdivisions, you could render extra map or make your own textures on it. It also contained a normal map, displacement map and a overall colour map, as well as an .obj of the model.
Following the tutorial i produced these images.
Displacement map off
Displacement map on
As you can see the image with the displacement map has the model look puffier, especially it's more noticeable on the ears. Out of the two this image took approximately 3 hours to render, where as the one without displacement took 15 minutes. Looking at both results they look more or less the same, but from my limited knowledge of displacement maps, the displacement map should add in extra details to the face, ie skin pores and wrinkles to the face, but instead it has increased the scale of the model. Even though the model itself is about 8000+ tris, there should be suffice geometry to make the displacement maps work, even the geometry on the ears were quite dense.
I think further research into displacement might be needed to achieve or even a better result than my test. Things that I learned from using vray, if im correct, that the fastSSS shader can produce quicker and use Global Illumination to render than Mental Ray. Use can also use just an overall colour map only to produce a lot maps for the shader slots within the shader, with the use colour correction. Of course normal map and displacement is needed to achieve a depth of realism. HDRI maps are also important as they mimic a real life environment when rendering.
Until the final stage, this is limited knowledge of Vray. -
These couple of days, i've been juggling a few pieces of uni work, and haven't really started to tackle the actual project.
But the week before i had complete gather my references for my characters from watching the movie, by print screen a lot to gather as much reference of the characters face in different angles, as well as the clothes and body shape.From looking at these reference i am able to look at the characters from all different angles, to get an accurate face sculpt as well as the style of cloths and poses.
Following the research I have attempted to start sculpting the characters's faces, bu because I lack the understanding of the planes, my sculpt was inaccurate and lack realism. So to further up my understanding I have looked at video on traditional sculpting, and look at head planes references.
Phillip Faraut sculpter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY5pCPzzXwM
Head plane reference
http://loveandhotsauce.net/HD1080/johnasaro-planesofthehead.jpg
http://vertexbee.com/wp-content/uploads/blogpics/HeadPlanesStudy.jpg
http://www.enliighten.com/guts/reference/asaro_head_ref.jpg
http://s.cghub.com/files/Image/252001-253000/252525/098_max.jpg
In doing so I did my own sculpt to help boosting my confidence in placing land marks and forms of the face.
Te next step would be for me is to find a few images of the characters and break down the planes to construct their faces. -
Hi there all,
Currently i'm in my final year in my degree, for my final year project i am doing two characters from a martial art movie that i like called Ip Man 2.
The characters that i am going to sculpt are the main character called Ip Man, and the english boxer called Twister.
Each of these two characters tackles different aspect of sculpting. The focus on Ip Man sculpt will be mainly on his clothing, as it pretty much covers up the entire body. Whereas Twister focuses on a lot of human anatomy, as he wears minimum clothing and exposes a lot of muscles. Tackling this project, i hope to achieve a good understand of sculpting drapery and anatomy.
As well as the sculpt, i hope to achieve a good level of skill in texturing and rendering. Both of these elements are important to achieve a good piece of art work.
Each week i will try and update as much as possible, with as much detail about the process of tackling this project.
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A RPG tutorial that i followed on cgtuts, given the fact it was created straight to high poly, i cannot even think about unwrapping and texturing! But i may do that later on.....
But i rendered the model in MentalRay for a beauty shot, very basic render so I guess i need to experiment more in rendering techniques.
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