Managed to put in some solid time over the past couple weeks to finish this one off. I'm actually really happy with how this one turned out. I definitely feel I've improved a lot in a few areas. Always learning though, never 100% satisfied, but great to call another image done.

Workflow
Sculpting and poly-painting in Zbrush, modelling, shaders in 3dsmax and rendered in Vray. Post production in Photoshop

Things I like
I think the number one thing I like most about this project is the rendering and lighting. I went for a brighter image and used HDRI image based lighting. Definitely helped add some life to the character. My Zbrush to 3ds Max workflow is much smoother now, especially in the areas of normal maps and displacement.

Things I Dislike
Some of the smaller objects shaders and textures are not very polished, I also don't particularly like the glass shader used on the windows, I think that could have been improved. I also had issues with 3ds max hair and fur and had to resort to straight fibermesh export for the beard, but I actually think it looks ok.

Things I Learnt
Lighting would be the number one area I feel I improved. Also the SSS skin shader is also the best one I have done yet!.

Next i'm going to do some more low-poly art and work on a Unity project for a while. No doubt another character render will be on the cards at some stage.

Heres the final image.

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Slowly found some time to work for on my Gnome character. I had some instability issues with Zbrush when I was trying to apply various surface noise on the hat, so I ended up going with texture based bump and displacement.

I'm now about 1/4 the way through the texturing and shaders so hopefully another update really soon.

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I've been working on and off on this character for quite a number of months. I've called it done on 31st December 2014.

I feel like i'm always saying i've 'learnt a lot' doing this project. But I really have learnt a lot! From sharping up the displacement workflow, to experimenting a lot more with shaders and Vray render settings. So ultimately I think I've improved in a number of areas, but still so much more to learn and try.

I'm going to try something new to accompany my completed images, a small summary of things I've points I like, points I dislike and things I have learnt.

I'm next project will be something a little less intense and hopefully a bit more 'fun loving'. Keen to spend some time sculpting in Zbrush again!

Things I like

I'm happy with my displacement workflow this time around and I feel I can now get decent quality displacement maps out of Zbrush and rendered in 3DS Max Vray

I'm also happy with some of the shader work in the this project. Especially spent a lot of time working with the SSS2 shader for the skin.

Things I Dislike

Hair! Hair was definitely a challenge and I spent a lot of time testing different work flows for hair. In this project I settled with a mix of 3ds Max Hair & Fur modifier and also exported Zbrush Fibermesh.

The character also has very little hair because I was not happy with any other hair styles I came up with.

I also had trouble with post production again and still couldn't get multiple render elements to work as layers in Photoshop or After Effects. I also find that by that stage of a project i'm usually ready to move on. I'll need to do some more research in this area.

Things I Learnt

I learnt a lot about Vray in this project and many different render settings and parameters and how they effect the final look. I also spent a lot more time playing with shaders and textures.

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I've called this post 'Cheap Hair & Fur' for the simple fact that creating decent hair systems in various cgi packages generally involves purchasing some pricey addon. E.g. HairFarm.

While i'm sure these addons make life easier I wanted to experiment with some workflows that used some of the inbuilt tools available in the software packages I use already. That being Zbrush and 3ds Max.

In the past I have experimented with Zbrushes fibermesh. This can get some pretty cool results and I love that you can polypaint straight onto the fiber.

Basically the Fibermesh workflow involves masking areas of your mesh from where you would like the fiber/hair to grow and then using the various 'grooming' brushes to style the hair. This is the area in which is lacking, the styling. The grooming brushes seem to be a brute force styling process which doesn't allow to much control. You are also stuck to rendering your Fibermesh in Zbrush.

One tip i'd like to share for fiber mesh is to split your desired hairline into multiple polygroups to help with the styling process, much how real hair grows.

Here is an example of grouping the mesh in preparation for growing Fibermesh.

Now the next hair workflow I have been experimenting with is the native Hair and Fur modifier in 3ds Max. I must say I've never explored this in detail because I had read, more than once, that it is not worth any time. But I must say its actually a fairly robust system.

For one, you can render it in either Mental Ray or Vray my renderer of choice. The styling tools are very handy and have lots of options to tweak your hair to get the style and look you want. And you can also apply specialized Vray materials to the hair. The speed of the renders during my testing were also quite decent.

If you are rendering a hi-poly model in 3ds max I recommend creating a low poly proxy as the mesh to which you will 'grow' the hair. I found using the free form poly tools and drawing a low poly mesh over the hi-poly model a good way to work. This makes it easy to adjust the hairline as well.

Once the hairline base has been created we can apply the Hair and Fur modifier. Using the styling tools i found it relatively easy to get a hair style I was happy with. Its not perfect but with a bit of playing around you can get some cool styles. Parameters such as Hair Tip and Root thickness and Hair Count will play a big part in how the rendered hair looks. You can also use the extra features such as Flyaway to get a more realistic look. I suggest playing with them all. See my settings below.

Here is what the hairline mesh looks like with the styled Hair and Fur modifier applied in the view port.

Finally, as I am rendering in Vray I applied a Vray material to the Hair and Fur modifier. This greatly helps speed up the render time. I used the VRayHairMtl as the base shader and I applied the VrayHairInfoTex map to the transmission_texture slot to give some variance in the hair shader, otherwise all the hairs would look the same.

Here are the settings I used for the VrayHairInfoTex. Basically this will blend between two colours along the strand of each hair. Adjusting the bias parameter will affect the distance before the blend. Again experimenting with various settings can produce vastly different results.

And here is a test render of the Hair and Fur on my model.

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Been jumping around on a few projects lately and dam Elder Scrolls Online as also drawn my attention a bit too much!

But I'm working on a project that will involve many different scenes. I just wanted to make a quick post if even for my own benefit of a couple lighting only indoor shots rendered in Vray.

I'm in the process of texturing now and I also have a character from Zbrush I will be putting in the scene as well.

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I finally completed my goblin prison warden scene. This final render was constructed with Zbrush, 3DS Max, rendered with Vray and post processing in After Effects and Photoshop. The last few stages were a little bit rushed but I'm pretty happy with the final image. Full sized image here

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Things are coming along quite nicely on this project, I've learnt SO much!! This test render actually marks quite a turning point in my creative development.
I have now ironed out my Zbrush to 3DS Max workflow. Displacement with Vray works really well if the settings are perfect!
I'll be sure to added some detailed information under the Learning section of this blog relating to displacement once i've finished this project.
So the scene and all the modelling is done! (minus) the eyes for my character.
From here i'll be experimenting further with rendering in Vray and moving onto textures and materials!

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