This is the second DVD set that I have reviewed from Gnomon
Workshop on ZBrush 2. [The first Zbrush 2 DVD was an Introduction to ZBrush 2 with Meats Meier].
This DVD set is Head Sculpting and Texturing - ZBrush Techniques with
Alex Alvarez, who is the founder and director of
Gnomon
School of Visual Effects. Initially, I thought this DVD set was
going to be excellent, and parts of it are the first few
lectures, I felt, were superb. However, I don't think the lessons
did exactly what the DVD implied they would do. I wanted to learn
how to sculpt and texture a whole head in ZBrush, even though I
knew it would be rendered outside of ZBrush. That is not what
happened. This tutorial does not go into putting in teeth or eyes
as the picture on the DVD cover illustrates. The author created
this head to be rigged, or used, in another program where the teeth
and eyes would be set up separately. If this was his goal, it
should have been stated up front. Otherwise, I believe all should
have been included. There was plenty of time, since it took him
three lectures to texture the bust using basically the same ZBrush
tools, and doing it in a similar fashion, just on different parts
of the model. This could have been condensed. Other than being
disappointed in finding out that creating teeth and eyes in ZBrush
was not included in these DVDs, what Alvarez taught initially was
excellent; he definitely did not leave out any steps. The
illustrations below shows the head worked on by Alvarez from start
to finish. The final rendering (the last picture) was done outside
of ZBrush. The third picture shows the final ZBrush work.
Although a minimal knowledge of ZBrush is required, I believe both
novices and skilled ZBrush users can benefit from these DVDs. The 2
DVDs take you through the steps necessary to sculpt and texture a
head in ZBrush, and then render it in Maya. However, as I stated in
the beginning, I believe they should not have left out the eyes.
Some of the topics covered along the way are: Zspheres, the pinch
brush, edgeloops, working with SDIV levels, symmetry techniques,
stencils, projection master, UVS and texture creation, creating
maps - bump, color, specular- using bumpviewer material, exporting
GEO and displacement, and, then, rendering with Maya and Mental
Ray. This first group of pictures [below] shows the subject matter
of just lecture two, where Alvarez shows one how to rough in a
head. The following are what mine looked like. The picture on the
far left, are the Zspheres that formed the base for the Adaptive
skin.
Alvarez not only instructs the user on how to develop the head with
ZBrush, he also gives a basic course in the anatomy of the skull.
Thus, even a beginner who does not have an idea of muscle or bone
structure, has the potential of producing a head that is
anatomically correct. While he does this, he also is instructing
the user on different brushes and settings, etc. in ZBrush. He
finished his tutorial by showing how to bring color maps,
displacement maps, bump maps into Photoshop and combine them. For
his finale, he brings his head into Maya and Mental Ray and shows
how to go through the process of rendering it. Below are pictures
of the head I created, partially finished. Without the tutorial, I
would not have known how to do this.
If you work along with the tutorial, you will not only learn
the different steps, but they should become imbedded in your bones.
However, Alvarez states that he likes to "tweak a lot." That is
very obvious. He likes to tweak too much. While some of his
tweaking shows how one can change a structure, much of it gets too
repetitive; and I found myself fast forwarding through a number of
the lectures [not because I knew the material prior to the DVD]. I
believe he should have condensed some of this, because after awhile
the repetition loses its teaching value. My main criticism of the
DVDs, aside from the fact that they left out creating eyes for
those individuals who want to complete the work in ZBrush, is that
Alvarez did not allocate his time wisely. As an example, instead of
detailing the whole bust using basically the same technique, be it
at normal sped or even at an accelerated speed, he could have just
demonstrated how to do it, and then resumed the recording after he
had finished using that same technique on the other parts of the
bust. Unfortunately, towards the end of the second DVD, he started
to rush through other parts of the tutorial such as how to create a
specular map, or any kind of colored map, probably because he began
to run out of time. The lecture notes in PDF format reinforce some
of what has been taught on the DVDs such as Custom Alphas, the use
of the Deco brush, symmetry techniques, etc. As I stated in the
beginning, part of this tutorial was superb. I learned a lot from
it, however, I believe it could have been better. I still would
definitely recommend it, but the user needs to know what it does
and does not teach.
- Head Sculpting and Texturing - ZBrush Techniques
with Alex Alvarez DVD: $69 [USD]
- The minimum system requirements are: 1GHz or faster processor,
512MB Ram, 64 MB Video Ram, DVD-ROM drive,500 MB hard disk space,
1280 x 1024 display.
- The minimum operating system requirements are: Microsoft
Windows XP Pro, Windows 2000, or Apple Mac OS X 10.2.
I invite you to visit the following sites:
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- The Paula Sander's Report is a regular
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