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Maya 2018: Wireframes Hardware Render Tutorial – Turntable Renders

Tutorial Assets: https://3dmodelsworld.com/downloads/sikorsky-uh-60m-black-hawk-3d-model/

In this Maya tutorial I will show you a step by step on how to render wireframes in different styles on top of your 3d models using Maya hardware 2.0 render, this way you will be able to show the polys/ wireframes of your 3d models and the topology of your mesh, this tutorial will be pretty quick and fun to learn we will be using the Maya 2018 hardware render 2.0

Using Maya hardware render will give you incredibly fast rendering results that will help you render nice wireframes for your models quickly and easily.

I hope that you will benefit from this tutorial, if you have any questions please feel free to ask us in the comments below and we will be happy to answer them.

Orion – ZBrush Fantasy Character Design – Sculpting Tutorial

Tutorial on Orion: The Knight of the Abyss

Hello guys! we would like to introduce to you (Alessio Colabianchi  3D Artist) he is a very talented artist and he created this very cool workflow tutorial for designing and sculpting fantasy characters in ZBrush, feel free to check his website at the end of this tutorial, hope you guys will benefit from his workflow and find a way to incorporated in your own work as well.

Introduction

Hello to everyone, I will use an informal style for this tutorial in order to explain each step of the creation of this character for game design in the cleanest and easiest way possible.

I am Alessio Colabianchi, I am a 3D artist and a student in 3D Game Design master course at Staffordshire University. I am going to explain you how to create one of my best work, Orion The Knight of the Abyss. It is a completely hand sculpted 3d model and it requires lots of time and patience, but I can ensure you that the result will be great.

Following this tutorial you can’t only reproduce my work, but you can use it to improve your skills in ZBrush and in 3d modeling in general and use these new knowledges to create your own character. Let’s start!

1. The idea and concept art

You can not start any project without a clear idea of what you want to achieve. The best thing is to write a list of the characteristics that we want to give to our character, or even better, to draw him.

The concept art is basically the drawing of our idea, and you don’t have to be a super artist or drawer to make it, you can just look online for what you want to create, maybe the boot of a viking warrior and the chest of a medieval armor for example.

However, it is always better to make some sketches of the character and of its features.

Here are some examples of those made for this character.

2. Start in ZBrush

If you already know the program starting with sculpting a basic anatomical figure should not be difficult, but if someone wants to start using ZBrush from this tutorial, it is my job to inform him about the basic tools and the interface we’re going to use.

2.1 Interface and navigation

In general, ZBrush’s interface is quite different from others, but different does not mean better or worse. I find it very fast to work with, once you get used to it. But, let’s try it out so that you can judge for yourself.

If you start ZBrush for the first time, your screen should look similar to the next screenshot:

You’ll probably notice that the biggest part of your screen is the work area, called the canvas, where you sculpt or paint your models. By default, the canvas is empty.

It is surrounded by the shelf where the most important functions are located to access them more quickly.

At the top of your window, you’ll find the Palette List, where every function of ZBrush can be found. Also notice that the palette list is sorted alphabetically, which is not the common way of sorting menus, but is still very effective.

To better learn the controls, let’s try to navigate in 3D space. If you’re using a pen tablet, a left-click means touching the tablet with the tip of the pen.

1. Before we start, we have to load a model to navigate around. Open the Lightbox by clicking its button, which is also labeled Lightbox, as shown in the next screenshot:

2. In the Lightbox that opens, choose the DefaultCube.ZPR by double-clicking on it.

3. If prompted, choose not to save any changes. Left-click anywhere on the cube to start sculpting by pushing the surface outwards.

4. When holding Alt while left-clicking, it will inverse the direction and push the surface inwards.

5. Left-click and drag on one of the three buttons Move, Scale, and Rotate to navigate in your 3D Scene. They are located on the lower right side of the shelf, as shown in the next screenshot.

6. If something goes wrong, just reload the default Cube from Lightbox.

7. Because we’ll navigate all the time when modeling in ZBrush, let’s see how we can use some hotkeys to speed things up a bit:

To Rotate your model, left-click anywhere on an unoccupied area of the canvas and drag the mouse.
To Move your model, hold Alt while left-clicking anywhere on an unoccupied area of the canvas and drag the mouse.

To Scale your model, Press Alt while left-clicking anywhere on an unoccupied area of the canvas, which is moving.

Now release the Alt key while keeping the mouse button pressed and drag.

More on the interface – The Tray

You’ve probably noticed that we haven’t talked about the rows on the left-hand side and right-hand side of the screen, The Tray. By default, only the tray on the right-hand side is open and shows the tool palette. The point about the trays is that you can decide which palette they hold and also hide them to have a bigger canvas area to work with. Let’s try that out, as shown in the next screenshot:

Time for action – using the Trays

1. Open and close the right tray by clicking on the small arrow symbol on its left border, as shown in the next screenshot:

2. Open the hidden tray on the left-hand side of the screen, so that both trays are open.

3. Now let’s move the tool palette from the right tray to the left. To do so, click-and-drag the tool palette handle from the right to the left tray.

4. Let’s put another palette into our right tray, which is now empty. Open the Document Palette from the Palette List at the very top of your screen and drag its palette handle to the right tray, as you did in the previous step.

5. Your screen should now look similar to the next screenshot with the tool palette docked in the left tray and the document palette in the right:

Palettes

If you click on a palettes icon, instead of dragging, the palette will either be thrown out of the tray, or be put into the right tray by default. If you drag a palette from the palette list into a tray, it will still be there in the palette list, only a copy is put into the tray. So you don’t have to worry about “losing” palettes.

Trays

Trays can also have multiple palettes in them. If a palette has more menu entries than your screen can display, or if you have multiple palettes in one tray, you can scroll through them. Scrolling in a tray can be done by left-clicking in an unoccupied area in the tray, as shown in the following screenshot. This is the same principle as for rotating models by clicking in an unoccupied area:

Try exploring the interface more. There’s much to be found. These tips will help you on your tour.

1. In the top-right corner of your window, there are two pairs of buttons with layout presets and color presets. Simply change them to your liking. Different layouts can also be useful for different tasks. The interface “Sculpt01” for example, is designed to efficiently handle sculpting tasks.

2. ZBrush will display the name of the chosen layout in the Note Bar. In the following screenshot, the layout “Sculpt01” was chosen.

3. If you want to save your screen layout, navigate to Preferences | Config | Store Config in the palette list at the top of your window, which will store a configuration file. This will save all your presets, to be loaded on every startup. In the Preferences, you can also find many useful options, such as for using ZBrush with a tablet or to take full advantage of multiple cores for displaying your models. Just remember that your changes will be lost the next time you restart ZBrush if you haven’t saved a configuration file.

4. The Note Bar is very helpful if you’re not sure about the function of any button. Simply place your cursor over it and ZBrush will display a short info about it in the Note Bar at the top left-hand corner of your screen. If there’s a hotkey for this function, it will also be shown. No need to read boring hotkey lists anywhere, it’s right there under your cursor.

2.2.Sculpting the anatomical character

Now we can start sculpting the mesh we are going to use as base for the armor. We need to sculpt an anatomical model, male or female, it doesn’t mind. In my case, I sculpted as a personal exercise and work an accurate anatomical male mesh.

I started from a 3D Sphere, clicked on Make Polymesh 3D in the Tool Palette, and used the Dynamesh option under the Geometry Palette. Doing so, you will maintain the basic topology of the sphere, made by small quads. This is really important during the sculpting process because the Dynamesh allow us to be free of sculpt really great details without a huge polycount.

My advice is to use a 3D Sphere for each main body pieces, which are basically the head, the torso, the arms and the legs, even if you can also use only two spheres and extrude the arms and legs from the torso mesh. You just have to remember to turn on the Dynamesh every time you extrude too many polygons in order to no create hard edges or holes in the mesh. Do not mind about the resolution, keep it as default at the beginning as we are going to rise them only when adding details.

Now we should try to give to the mesh the basic shape of a body and we will start from the head. With a left click on the Brush button we can open the pre-set brushes palette, we will not use all the brush even if it is always great playing with them to understand what each of them can do. In the palette you have to select the hPolish, a brush which allows to easily create hard surfaces.

With this brush is really easy to sculpt the basic form of an head, but before starting sculpting, you have to be sure that your Symmetry is on, in order to not to do the double of the work. The option is set under Transform or you can just press X on the keyboard.

Then, pressing the Alpha button, select the white quad that will improve the action of the brush. Try to sculpt the sphere with left clicking and dragging the mouse. It would be better with a pen and a graphic tablet, but you can also do it with a mouse. This brush just subtract material by default, so if you want to add material you have also to hold the Alt key, and the Shift if you want to smooth the surface. Try to give to sphere the aspect of a stylized face like in the next screenshot.

It doesn’t mind if the edges are not perfect because in the next step we are going to smooth them trying to give to this face a more realistic shape. You can work with the Smooth option seen before, holding Shift and you can also decide to move some part of the meshes up or down to improve its aspect. The Move brush allows us in fact to move around only the selection inside the cursor.

If you want to add more details just use the Standard brush for softer shapes and the DamStandard brush to create grooves or reliefs, holding down the inverse, that is Alt.

As you can see, by performing the work done on the head on every other part of the body you can define a male figure that can be used as a base. It is possible to move the material of the head or crate other subtools and give them the right shape following a right reference.

If you use the Clay Building brush it will be very easy to add material to your mesh, and by following the muscle fibers it will be possible to compose a limb in a short time. But we must always remember to reactivate the Dynamesh every time the polygons become too large to prevent strong angles.

Here an example of how the Clay Building works, it will be very useful also in future to create the armor.

As you can see at the bottom, the polygons started colliding with each other, in that case you need to reactivate the Dynamesh and smooth the hard edges to avoid future problems.

Working in this way you should be able to complete all the body and the result should be similar the next screenshots. However, sculpting is a matter of experience, so do not be discouraged at the beginning, if it proves to be more difficult than expected continue to try or even follow some specific tutorials for the anatomical parts and then return to this one which is more focused on character design at armor level.

Once the bust is completed, you can extrude

other material for the legs, using the Dynamesh combined with the Inflat brush. On the other hand, you can also append a second Zsphere to your project and use it for your leg. My advice is to work only on the right leg as you can mirror it later on the other side using the option Mirror and Weld. Try to copy your reference about the leg muscles and lines in order to have a good shape that can be used as base for the armor, as for the rest of the body.

The same method can be used for the arm, the hands and the feet, but for the hands and the feet I suggest you to give them a basic shape like a winter glove or similar as you will work more on them later making the armor gloves.

The following image shows you my final result even if yours does not necessarily have to be so detailed. When you will have reached this point, you can start the video tutorial for each armor piece.


Thank you for following this tutorial that was created for “3DModelsWorld.com“.

Alessio Colabianchi 

Website: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/DnybR

Maya Bullet Physics Chimney Destruction Simulation Tutorial

In this tutorial we will use the power of Bullet Physics to create a pretty cool destruction simulation in Maya 2018 – this method can be applied to older generations of Maya as well.

We will go in details on how to shatter the chimney using the awesome script that we created for you guys, then once we are done shattering the chimney we will start dividing it into multiple groups and section so this way we can have control over the behaviour of each section and we can apply different settings for each as well.

Download Polygon Shattering Generator Here: https://3dmodelsworld.com/downloads/poly-shattering-generator-maya-shattering-tool/

Using Maya Bullet Physics Engine is a great and fun way to create amazing and pretty cool dynamic simulations in Maya, the bullet physics can handle thousands of objects and can generate pretty stable results very fast, please grab some coffee or tea and enjoy watching the tutorial until the end to get the full value of the tutorial. Enjoy watching and see you soon!

Here is more of an introduction tutorial for using Bullet Physics in Maya, Click here to watch: Maya Bullet Physics Simulation Tutorial Wrecking Ball Animation Active and Passive Rigid Body

Rendering Animation Curves Rig Controls in Arnold and Maya

In this tutorial we will use the power of Arnold rendering engine to quickly render out our curve controls of our animation inside Maya, this will be a great tutorial for anyone who is looking to render animation curves in Arnold and Maya and also to render curves shapes in general using Arnold and Maya 2018.

We will cover how to match the curve render to the actual curve inside Maya viewport as well how to adjust the colour of the curves to match the rig colours or if you want to create new colour variations you can do that as well. Also we will cover the rendering curve options and settings so you guys can understand how to use them correctly to match the desired rendering results. There is lots of tips in this tutorial for curve rendering, please make sure to watch the full tutorial so you don’t miss any important tip!

Tutorial Assets:
Brontosaurus rig: https://3dmodelsworld.com/downloads/brontosaurus-rig-animation-ready/
Conifer tree: https://3dmodelsworld.com/downloads/conifer-pine-tree-3d-model/

We hope that you will benefit from this tutorial, if you have any questions please feel free to ask us in the comments below and we will be happy to answer them.

House Tower Tutorial – Workflow – Modeling – Texturing and Rendering

Hello guys! we would like to introduce to you (Rivollier Alexandre 3D/2D Artist) he is a very talented artist and he created this very cool workflow tutorial for modeling texturing and rendering 3d assets in Maya and Photoshop, feel free to check his website at the end of this tutorial, hope you guys will benefit from his workflow and find a way to incorporated in your own work as well.

In this tutorial I will explain how I realized “House tower”, I cut this tutorial into several parts that I will describe to you as best as I can.

Step 01 : Reference

One of the most important elements from my point of view will be the references used. Do a maximum of research on the Internet ( ArtStation, Google image, Pinterest…). It will be better for you to start your project. Once I find the references I sort the one I like then I c then I create an image with all my references.

Like this:

We now have a good base to start the next step which will be to create the basic concept.

Step 02 : Block out

To create my concept I did several block-outs. I used primitive forms to get the global concept, this makes it possible to see if the general shape of your creation is correct and pleasant to look at. Once I have found something that suits me I start the details of the modeling. (Nothing prevents you from adding elements in the middle of the modeling)

Step 03 : Modeling

For this modeling phase I first tried to visualize what I wanted to do in texture. It helps me to know which is worth modelling further or not, I’ll gain time. Then free to your imagination do not hesitate to add more elements if you think it is necessary.

Step 04 : Rendering

When the modeling is finished you will have to render your 3d scene. You can use the rendering software that suits the best ( 3dsmax, RenderMan on maya and other…), the objective is to create a image with shadows and lights. Personally I have used RenderMan. (Downloadable here in a free version:  https://renderman.pixar.com/intro_logged_in

So I used 3 WHITE lights to be able to use the colors that suit me for the texture. In regard of the software you will find complete tutorials of their operation on youtube. Rendering is not my domain so you will be better informed by someone else who masters it.

That’s what it looks like for me:

• -3 white lights –
• 1 PrxDomeLight
• -House Tower
• -1 plane

 

Once the rendering is done, here you find yourself with an image.

Like this one:

With this base, I started texturing the house tower. You can see the shadows and lights created by the rendering this will be one less job to do on the texturing. All that remains is to move on to the texturing stage.

Step 05: Texturing

1. Base Color

The first step of the texture is the color base. By searching for references at the beginning of the project I already had some idea of color. If you are not sure of your choice of color do not hesitate to pip the colors on a real image you like or even a composition of an artist, you’ll be sure that the colors match well with each other. Use layer types such as Overlay, Color, brightness….

2. Texturing

This is the longest step in the texture. It consists to create your textures like wood, stone, metal etc…. You will have to texture over your color base. Personally I put my layers together in a group and I makes a copy that I combine to have only one layer and then I hides the base color group :

When this is finished, only the details remain. I repeat this step every time or when I judge necessary to organize my layers for a better visibility.

3. Detail and render

This step consists in finishing your image to put it in value. It is necessary to think about the desired atmosphere of your illustration, in my case I chose that my illustration would be at night, so I created a dark blue background with a dot of light at the top left of the illustration with a shadow, low on the house tower. I also added lights to the level of the windows to make you think that the house is inhabited which reinforces the night effect. It’s important to thinks about this kind of thing all along the illustration it gives a lot of inspiration.

Thank you for following this tutorial that was created for “3DModelsWorld.com“. I really hope it was useful to you.

Rivollier Alexandre 3D/2D Artist

https://isuko.artstation.com/

Maya Camera Projection Breakdown: Star Wars A New Hope 3D Animation

In this Maya camera projection 3d animation breakdown we will show you the process that we used to create the animated poster for Star Wars a New Hope, this video will be a quick overview of the whole steps from using Photoshop to Maya we will also show you the projection shaders and supplemental shaders as well that we used to achieve the desired 3d projection effect.

Using Maya for creating camera projection is a very powerful way to achieve very cool and realistic results really fast and the render time will be very short as well cause there will be no light or complicated shaders to calculate.

We hope that you will benefit from this tutorial, if you have any questions please feel free to ask us in the comments below and we will be happy to answer them.

Resources:

How to Create Camera Projection in Maya and Arnold Tutorial

Maya Tutorial: Create Realistic Space Animation Quickly

Star Wars A New Hope Classic Poster 3D Animation in Maya

How to Shatter Glass in Maya and Bullet Physics Simulation – Bottle Shattering Animation

In this Maya – we will be creating a shattering animation of a wine bottle using Maya 2018 and the powerful bullet physics engine, first we will start by creating the pieces of the bottle so this way we ca use them for the simulation, we will use the Maya effects shatter to help us achieve that so we don’t have to do manual modelling work.

Once the pieces are separated we will start working with bullet engine to create the shattering simulation and animate the shattering to behave like expected including to adjust the timing of the simulation to start when the bottle hot the ground, once completed we will do the final tweaks on the simulation to stabilize it. its gonna be a quick tutorial filled with great tips and tricks to work with the bullet physics eying in Maya.

Click on the link to download: Wine Bottle Green 3D Model

We hope that you will benefit from this tutorial, if you have any questions please feel free to ask us in the comments below and we will be happy to answer them.

How to Render Arnold Zdepth AOV Pass in Maya and Composite in After Effects Tutorial

In this Maya – Arnold tutorial we will be creating a Zdepth AOV pass in Arnold for Maya 2018 we will go through the steps of creating a Zdepth pass and then render image sequence using .exr extension.

Once the Maya part is over we will go to After Effects and import the image sequence and then extract the Zdepth information from our image sequence and then apply the Zdepth pass back to our comp for creating depth of field effect. this tutorial is full of valuable information for anyone want to create Zdepth in Arnold and struggling to do it, we will cover all the important topics in Maya and in After Effects as well.

Click on the link to download: USS Oliver Hazard Perry 3D Model FFG7

We hope that you will benefit from this tutorial, if you have any questions please feel free to ask us in the comments below and we will be happy to answer them.

Maya Bullet Physics Simulation Tutorial Wrecking Ball Animation Active and Passive Rigid Body

In this Maya bullet simulation tutorial we will be creating a wrecking ball simulation animation from start to finish using the Bullet Physics Simulation for Maya 2018, this tutorial will also apply to the previous generations of Maya that have bullet as well.

We will start by activating the plugin form the Maya plugin manager then we will start modelling the chains and the wrecking ball, once the modelling part is done we will create the active rigid body for the chains and the wrecking ball and adjust the settings so the colliders will work without any unexpected results.

Finally we will create a simple wall made of polygon cubes and start adjusting the simulation to create the destruction from the wrecking ball animation. this tutorial will be fun one with lots of tips and tricks for have a nice and stable Bullet Simulation in Maya.

Here is more advanced tutorial of how to use Bullet Physics in Maya for Destruction and Shattering:
Maya Bullet Physics Chimney Destruction Simulation Tutorial

We hope that you will benefit from this tutorial, if you have any questions please feel free to ask us in the comments below and we will be happy to answer them.

How To Create Light Flickering In Maya and Arnold – Neon Flicker Animation

In this Maya and Arnold tutorial we will be creating light flickering animation like what you see in fluorescent lights that gone bad, the light flickering animation will be driving by Maya procedural 3d textures to simulate this effect.

We will be using Volume noise to create the animation and then apply the volume noise 3d texture to the mesh light intensity so this way all the animation of the light will be generated dynamically without using any keyframes.

The methods that will be taught in this tutorial will apply to multiple situations like what we did in the pervious tutorial for creating camera shake in Maya. its just a matter of adjusting the settings of the noise to behave correctly and simulate the desired effect in 3D. 

Assets used in this tutorial:
Click on the link to download the Cern Large Hadron Collider 3d Model

We hope that you will benefit from this tutorial, if you have any questions please feel free to ask us in the comments below and we will be happy to answer them.

Creating a Hologram Animation In Maya and Arnold – Holographic Projection

In this Maya tutorial I will show you a step by step on how to create a hologram animation in Maya and Arnold from start to finish this tutorial is really fun and packed with tips and tricks on creating such cool effect in Maya we will be using Maya 2018 and Arnold to create the holographic projection/ interface.

Click on the link to download Hologram Rig Maya 3D Model

First we will start by the creating the geometry of the hologram that will include the hologram cone in the centre and then we will move into the shader creation for the cone, once that is completed we will start working on the hologram rays modelling and placement and finalize the shader for the rays as well.

Once we are happy with the result lastly we will create the shader for the object that will be in the centre of the hologram and customize it to looks unique and cool. at the end of the tutorial I will be showing a rigged version of this hologram with a really cool control to automate the process and speed up the workflow and the result that you are looking after.

We hope that you will benefit from this tutorial, if you have any questions please feel free to ask us in the comments below and we will be happy to answer them.