ZBrush: Simple Dragon, Part 2 – Sculpt

1. Rough Sculpt
2. Mouth Mask
3. Sculpt Details
4. Send To Maya

ZRemesher (alt ctrl shift z)

This model isn’t the final sculpt base mesh; we’ll need to add the teeth, even so, it’s worth using a ZRemeshed mesh here as we’ll be able to use levels in our sculpting for this section of the class.

Remember the hotkeys to add and navigate the division levels are…

Divide Mesh (ctrl d)
Higher Res Division (shift d)
Lower Res Division (shift d)

Clay Buildup Brush (4)
Move Brush (2)
Smooth Brush (hold shift (any brush))
H Polish Brush (5)

Also, remember the floor-grid vis is how we can show and hide the image planes.

Floor Grid (alt g)

Mask Pen (hold ctrl (alt 1))

Dam Standard Brush (3)

IMM Primitive Brush (shift 1)

To add the eye balls is a little complex in this case since the IMM Primitive Brush only works on the meshes without division levels.

To get around this issue, you can…

1. Duplicate Subtool (ctrl shift d) the current subtool
2. Delete the Delete Higher Division (ctrl alt shift (up arrow)).
3. Create the Sphere with IMM Primitive Brush (shift 1)
4. Split Unmasked Points (alt ctrl shift e)
5. Select the duplicated subtool
6. Delete Subtool (alt ctrl shift d)

We can also smooth the eye ball using Dynamic SubDs (ctrl alt 3) which is similar to Maya’s “3” key SubD smooth where we are displaying but not adding further divisions.

Here you’ll discover how to make the mouth mask with the Mask Pen (hold ctrl (alt 1)). The Mask Pen is the most common masking brush, and when you use it with invert, it’s possible to create lovely shapes.

Also use Focal Shift (alt f) to adjust the brush falloff. In the case of the Mask Pen you’ll need to hold ctrl while adjusting the focal shift.

In a later video, you’ll also see how to use the Mask Lasso (alt 2 (then ctrl)) to mask with a lasso tool.

At this stage, the mesh is almost ready for creating the base-sculpt mesh with ZRemesher (alt ctrl shift z) which will help reduce the jaggy polygons seen here.

It’s a good idea to sharpen lines in the model before using ZRemesher ; this will help out the retopology algorithm making it smarter.

We want to lock down the sculpt-base mesh now. So you should add features such as the nostrils before the re-mesh.

ZRemesher (alt ctrl shift z)

The overall goal is to get to a good Sculpt Base Mesh as quickly as possible. This mesh isn’t the animation base mesh, although technically you could animate it. It’ll be the unchanging base mesh you’ll use until you finish the concept.

To build a clean animation base mesh, it’s still preferable to manually create it, using tools like Maya’s Quad Draw. But in some cases, it’s possible to use hacky workflows to get ZRemeshed topology animated. ZRemesher can also be useful for props, trees, and background objects. There are also cases when you can use a reduced poly object with Decimation Master, unwrap the triangulated mesh and just use that in your final renders. It depends on the project’s quality requirements and if the mesh needs to deform.

You’ll use all the regular sculpting tools from here to tighten and polish up the object to finish the final concept sculpt.

This video shows hwo to use the move brush at a low division level to push the model back into shape.

Remember the division hotkeys…

Divide Mesh (ctrl d)
Higher Res Division (shift d)
Lower Res Division (shift d)

You’ll also see how the Pinch Brush (6) can help tighten the mouth forms.

This time you can see how the Lasso Mask works. Once you switch to the Lasso Mask it’s used on the ctrl key.

Mask Lasso (alt 2 (then ctrl))

Remember to switch back to the Pen Mask. You can use the hotkey…

Mask Pen (hold ctrl (alt 1))

Lazy Mouse (L)
Lazy Radius (alt L)

And you’ll see how to detail the nostrils too.

Spotlight shows a clearer jaw in the original. So this video uses masking and clay build-up with smooth to build up the jaw area.

Now that we’ve finished, it’s time to render a turntable movie and send an optimized version back to Maya.

C3dC Color > Create Turntable Movie

Use the following settings…

Large Movie Size On
Playback Frames/Sec 24
Full Window Recording Off
Full Window Recording 24
Spin Frames 180
Spin Cycles 2
Overlay Opacity 0
Title Fade In Time 0
Title Fade Out Time 0

Then click Turntable to create the movie.

To play the movie click Play Movie and to save it to a file use Export Movie Movie .

To Poly-Reduce using ZBrush, you can use the plugin Decimation Master. Find the settings under…

C3dC Mesh > Poly Reduce (Decimation Master)

Pre-Process Current will put the mesh into memory so that it can be reduced quickly for testing. Percentage Of Decimation and K Polys sets the polygon count. The polygon count will be based on the triangle count, not quads. ZBrush Active Points usually equals a quad count so double that number for the triangle count.

Decimate Current will perform the decimation, you can try decimating at various levels, the mesh is always compared to the mesh stored when you hit Pre-Process Current .

For Maya a good triangle count is about 150k polys. This number can vary.

1. GoZ (fast and recommended, requires install)
2. .obj export (you can also export as .ma)
3. .fbx (can be slow with heavy models)

To install the plugin…

1. Close Maya if open
2. Run GoZ Force Reinstall
3. Set the GoZ Path To Maya

Once installed you can export all subtools to Maya with GoZ All ( has no hotkey). If Maya is closed, it will automatically open. If it’s open, the model will be sent to the current scene.

You could set up the scene to render or use Enter Quad Draw (ctl shft q) to start the animation retopology.