The last level of subdivision is not that heavy (170K polys). As long as we are making a still image, in order to make my life easier I decided to export this level. The lowest level is exported as well for the UV unfold task. I take in consideration the size of UV shell depending of their exposition from the camera and details. Even if some painter 3d give the opportunity to work out the seams, I prefer to avoid them as much as possible or hide the at least. It’s very meticulous to refine the pores and other finest details with UV border edges.



As I’m using the highest level of subdivision for my render, I have to input the new UV contains in the lowest mesh into the high-res one. To do this, I re-import the base mesh with the unfold UV within my ZBrush tool. I make sure that « Suv » option is selected while creating the subdivisions. Now, I have my higher resolution with the proper UV’s. Although I try to keep the UV layout clean, it does not really matter as long as I plan to use camera projections. However I take in consideration the scale ratios of each UV shell. In certain cases it could be annoying to unfold UV with automatic process. As far as I’m concerned, I prefer to have a good visualization when grooming the texture with Photoshop.



The parametric properties of the nurbs are pretty useful to obtain accuracy with elements such as the eyelashes. The geometry of the eyelash is an extruded polygon shape along a path which is a nurbs curve. However it could be boring to tweak these elements one by one. For this reason I recommend to write a script to have much more flexibility with it. I can go back at this step at any moment of the production. I noticed that small groups of eyelashes tend to be clamped together at their tips. I generate them keeping in mind the idea to path of each item has to be perturbed to give a more natural look. Tweaking each nurbs CV’s for this case is just fine. Anything that could break the perfect world of 3d is a good approach.

The ribbon around the head uses almost the same method. The extruded shape has been exported to Zbrush. The brush snakehook allow me to add some fraying at some specifics areas especially where the degrees of curvature weaken the ribbon. Generally, details are not always evident at the first sight. I find more interesting to play with several different degrees of subtleties that can be catch if we really pay attention. The brush flattern and magnify help me to create imperfection to the surface.



Mapping and Hair - It is important to start the texture task with a good base of reference. I recommend the website www.3d.sk which provides some good texture resolution and a large data base. I prefer to pick up the references that have a constant light so less effort to remove shadows and hard light when refining the texture with your favorite 2d painter such as Photoshop. I know that my illustration at the final stage will be black and white; it will make the job easier for the color map and shaders.

It seems that I’m able to recover much more details with the tanned skins and a little wet. So I tend to focus with this kind of reference for our case.

There is several different ways to project a texture on a surface. The ZBrush way of doing it is quite intuitive due to the Zproject brush which allows us to paint on the mesh from a canvas. This process is also possible to do with miscellaneous 3d packages. There is not only one way to achieve a result, I believe that everyone has to choose the solution that fit his philosophy and production’s constraints.

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