3D Creative December 2015

3DCREATIVE MAGAZINE | Designing a fantasy character
Creating a stitch using a torus
Creating a cloth with stitch detailing
With the help of this technique, I create all the
armor pieces.
Making a stitch: First we need to create
12 a Curve Insert brush with stitch mesh.
Start with a poly converted torus and shape it
into the letter ‘C’. Align it in a way that looks like
the letter ‘I’, or based on your needs. If it’s lying on
a surface, then align it that way. From the Brush
menu, select ‘Create InsertMesh’. From the Stroke
menu, choose Curve Mode. Now we have a stitch
that can be applied to the character’s clothes.
Creating cloth: Now I’ll create some
13 fabric. First I do the ‘Group by normals’ to
separate the facing surface by polygroup. I divide
it and hide the other groups, then shrink the
visibility. I use the Curve function’s ‘Frame Mesh
by Border’.
This way I get the guide curve a little inside the
surface, which is the perfect area to place the
stitches. Later it will be used to create stitches
with the Curve Insert brush. With the Insert brush,
click on the guide curve. Under the Brush menu,
use the ‘Imbed’ slider to set the height of the
Insert Mesh placement. Use the ‘CurveStep’ slider
to set the distance in between each stitch.
Now with more work we can bring out a nice
stitch detail. Under Curve Function, you can use
Smooth to remove distortion on the guide curve.
If any weird result appears after changing the
CurveStep value, try pressing Smooth once and
then click on the guide curve using the Insert
brush. You have to be careful because it also
changes the placement of the guide curve just a
little bit.
Final accessories: The belts are created
14 using the CurveStrapSnap brush, and
the chain accessories are created with the help of
various Insert brushes. The hood and clothes are
created using Maya’s nCloth, then brought back
into ZBrush for detailing. I use the Surface Noise
function with a custom alpha image. To UV map
all the belts, strips, armors and cloth, I follow the
same procedure I used for the body.
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