Character 3D: joel fan art (the last of us) - portrait by kopfstoff

[kopfstoff]

hey there guys, i took part in the "the last of us fan art contest" hosted by max3d.pl and my entry was a sculpt of joel. since i did not manage to finish the textures and some detail, i decided to continue with the bust and keep on learning 3d (i am kinda new to all of this stuff). i don't want to repeat myself, that's why i post a link to the old contest WIP thread beneath this text, so that you can dive into the past and see how everything has started. ;)

 

please feel free to give feedback, i would love to read some comments!

 

old thread:

 

http://max3d.pl/forum/showthread.php?t=90179

 

last step was my first try composing in photoshop... bald head, no hair, since the material behaves kinda strange sometimes ;) ->

 

thank you rotcore! i really appreciate your comment, especially that you think that i am experienced in 3d! i am learning so much new stuff in the last few weeks, my head feels like it's going to blow in a few minutes. :D

 

so, heres some very early bpr render test, composed in photoshop (no overpaints!) ->

 

 

the skin texture is polypainted inside zbrush without using any photos or other textures. the render is without hair and dramatic lighting, just so that it's not too much to handle for me for the first time. tomorrow i am going to texture the cloth and hope that i can finish it and render it again... everything this time. ;)

 

hope you like!

 

(ps: i am going to post some steps then too. i am just too tired right now! just wanted to share that outcome immediately ;))

 

 

new wip steps:

 

 

 

 

current status (straight bpr, no edits or composing!):

 

 

if you guys have any good lighting tutorials or tips for setting up light for portraits in zbrush, PLEASE share them!

i only own zbrush, so i can just work with that. i could go with the simple light setup shown above in the composition and the unedited bpr shots above, but i wanted to have something like that maybe:

 

1) http://www.thesoftboxstudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/JCW_1526-COLOR-1000x1250.jpg

 

2) http://th05.deviantart.net/fs71/200H/i/2013/208/0/b/dramatic_portrait_number_12_by_cable9tuba-d6fhcdc.jpg

 

3) http://www.edwardshaw.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/dramatic-photo-birmingham-studio-portrait-14365sm.jpg

 

i think it's kinda hard to adjust lights in zbrush, since you have no light in a 3 dimensional space, but that mat-ball and a dot to move...

plus: does any one know why i still can see details if i turn off all lights inside zbrush? shouldn't it be black then? :/

[kopfstoff]

a bit more fooling around, i think i start to understand lighting in zbrush... this is just a fast test, rendered out 3 lights and composed them in photoshop. it's a long road. :/

 

winter joel ;) :

 

 

ps: found out why my materials wasn't black when turning the lights out... ambience and diffuse has to be "0" in the material settings.

Edytowane 6 Wrzesień 2013 przez kopfstoff

[Ania]

Specular (or reflection?) is much too strong on the skin. I would get rid of the chromatic aberration on the hair, it looks cheap. Apart from that very nice.

[kamil.ochel]

With such strong specular highlights it looks almost like a photo of a real life model of the bust. However I do agree with Ania on chromatic aberration. It should be either barely visible, or not present at all :) I like it!

[tr3buh]

skin material needs more sub surface scattering effect, otherwise it looks like made from wood

check this:

good method for SSS pass http://www.zbrushcentral.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=299030

and from this same author http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?167137-R3-model

[kopfstoff]

@ania: hey there, thanks! yeah, you're right about the specs and the "chromatic aberration"... i made the mistake and tryed to push the lightsource on his cheeks only with the specularity of it. after i changed the colours i felt like it's actually frosty wet and cold... that's why i sayed "winter". ;) for the "chromatic aberration": i just found out about how to do that, that's why i wanted to show it in this test :D i've seen it so often in artworks in the last months but never knew how its actually made, so yeah - totally true about that it's way to heavy here! i still have a lot to learn, but compared to the knowledge i've had two weeks ago i think i can improve here. :D

 

@kamil.ochel: thank you too! i think i dont understand exactly what you mean.. do you think that the heavy specularity actually makes it look like a real human beeing or a photo of a real life sculpture? i think you mean real life sculpture, since i believe tr3buh is right about the missing sss and "dead look" here. ;)

 

@tr3buh: hey dude, thanks for the links, man! appreciated! i use a good sss material with some shaders to play around with and i already tryed some sss settings, but didn't set the renderer for the "winter" image above. you're totally right about that it doesn't look like flesh because of the missing sss here... i just wanted to test lighting with this one and will go on with sss from now on. adds so much realism!

 

wow, that second link! his alien render image looks so awesome! :O really great stuff, thanks for sharing!

 

i did another bpr render tonight: sss, ao, shadow, spec, diffuse, ambient, depth, mask... i like the result, even if it's the basic light again.

 

small steps, small steps. ;)

 

painted some dirt on the skin (standard brush rgb in combination with masking brushm two browns and one red), since he looked way to "clean" and new, especially beside that apocalypse shirt he wears - much better now i think. :D

 

[xmass]

i'm not convinced to this skin reflection. For now it looks like he was very sweaty or even wet. Maybe paint some more variation on specular map, you know, dirt and dust etc. I like the shirt though. I'll be watching your thread :) Keep going!!!

PS thanks for the mini tutorial on painting dirt on the shirt. Thanks :)

[kopfstoff]

hey xmass, you're welcome and thank you too. :) for the last shot i wanted to have him a bit glossy / sweaty, but it's still hard for me to find the right settings for a realistic look. and yeah, you're right... it makes no sense that the specularity isn't effected by the dirt on his skin! since i dont use a specular map (i am using zbrush only for rendering, and there are only diffuse-, bump- and displacement maps i think), i have to edit it later on in photoshop... i edit the material shader to get specularity.

 

 

another night, another renderer. ;) for the skin i am getting where i want i think. also the lighting, i kinda know now what to do here, but the hair is still a bit strange to render. it's fibermesh and material "hair 2" - why isn't the specularity of the hair effected by my lightsources? it's not a matcap (baked in light) i thought?! any good material tips for hair?

 

Edytowane 8 Wrzesień 2013 przez kopfstoff

[Sebazx6r]

Me like it xD soo much xD... mucho

[kopfstoff]

thank you, sebazx6r! :D

 

i edited the renderer in the dark room again... adjusted the focus areas again and now it looks more like sweat too i think. ;)

 

Edytowane 8 Wrzesień 2013 przez kopfstoff

[Sebazx6r]

I find first picture better, more pleasing to look at it. Second one is to dark for me. No bounce lights around the room. Some volume light with dust could make it more pleasing to watch. A bit of godrays that is coming threw the window, no to much. Now it is a bit dull. I am missing a rim light from the first picture. It adds a bit of variation to the hair on the first one. At the moment I would stick to the first of this two renders.

 

Cheeres

[kopfstoff]

hey sebazx6r, you're right i think. the darker one needs most of all more background integration. the dayshot works great because of that i think. maybe i should give him some white backlight from the window and paint some godrays in later on, thanks for the ideas! what a hustle to just render out - i thought the sculpting and texturing would be the hardest part... :) maybe i can enhance that one with some small edits then, but for now...

 

a new render! :D wanted to play around with another perspective and mood. hope you like this one! (finally i know how to change the resolution in zbrush) i LOVE the red sss ears ;)

 

 

i also like the b&w version of it, fits the original render artworks of the game imho:

 

Edytowane 10 Wrzesień 2013 przez kopfstoff

[tr3buh]

This looks AWESOME

[kopfstoff]

thank you tr3buh! :> glad you like it that much! i must confess that i am very satisfied with this one too. ;)

[Sebazx6r]

These two look good.

[kopfstoff]

thanks sebazx6r! :)

[xmass]

yeah, looks awesome :) I love this wrinkles and scars on the nose :) Maybe is a little bit too dark to me. I think the fill light should be little stronger to show the model. Finally, the skin looks awesome :) Keep going !!!

[kopfstoff]

hey xmass! thank you man, glad you like it - i love that scar on the nose too, that's why i put a lot of effort into it ^^

i played around with the fill light and liked it more subtle at the end, with the focus is more on the left and the forms are more vague on the right side. it's hard sometimes to not care about showing every feature in the render image, but i think it is good to zero in on what's actually important for the image / the message you want to deliver. i hope you understand me correctly. :D

 

anyway. new ones... b&w version one light, colour version two lights (sss, spec, diff, shadow passes composed in ps). hope you like.