Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
At the core of every new character is a design sculpt, the product of translating the 2-D designs and other
inspirational references into a 3-D asset. It represents and communicates all the design intentions of your
character. “It's important for us to block in the entire design in a low-resolution form to see how all the in-
dividual pieces relate,” says Zack. “We don't want to get caught up in any details until we know the overall
shape and design language is working” ( Figure 3-78 ) .
At this stage, quick poses are often done using Transpose Master and other tools in ZBrush to gain a feel-
ing of how the character might act, as well as to test movement constraints due to the design or costume. If
the story calls for your character to hold a sword over his head in several scenes, now is time to make sure
your costume won't prohibit that from happening ( Figure 3-79 ) .
Once the design is finalized, an organized and animatable mesh can be created to allow for better deform-
ations and overall consumption in any animation pipeline ( Figure 3-80 ) . It is not always necessary and was
not used for the images highlighted in this tutorial. It's an option that can be executed at any stage in devel-
opment or when deemed necessary to allow the asset to be translated to any other media. For example, the
same design sculpt is used to create a mesh suitable for feature film animation and a next-generation game.
The requirements of these two different model types are extremely different, but both leverage the design
sculpt to dramatically cut down on their individual creation times.
Figure 3-78: The character design sculpt
 
 
 
 
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