I've spent the last week messing around with some ideas for figures in 3DC, ZBrush and Photoshop.This is a screengrab of the model in ZBrush...loaded into Photoshop to try out some texture ideas berfore I do it for real in ZBrush.
What I wanted was to create a very basic figure model in 3DC that I could use over and over again, just changing and adding features as required to create a different figure, so very few features where built into the basic model. Just basic head, torso. arms legs etc.
I then wanted to find out how much I could deviate from the original model to create a different character. I wanted to use ZBrush for this as the number of sub divisions required was going to bump up the poly/face count to quite a high number...it ended up at 1,335296 polys...Yes thats over one million polys. The base figure has just 1304 faces.
The good news is that in ZBrush you can create a displacement, normal and bump map which when applied to the low poly model makes it look like the high poly model. You then export the low poly model from ZBrush together with the maps. Still trying to fully understand this part.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Bazza,

The base figure was first created in 3DC, starting with a basic cube, I built the head, then, using the extrude operation, the torso, arms, legs etc. (The top two images).
Next I used the basic 3dc skeleton and posed the figure ( The bottom two images)
One of the problems I had building the figure was that ZBrush only works with quads ( no triangulated faces allowed). If you want to have a go at building something like this and you don't want to export to ZBrush you should be able to create a better base model by triangulating some of the faces and actually end up with a lower face count..(Many of the faces I had to include wouldn't be needed)
I'll keep messing with these base figures...when I get a few together I'll send them to Richard and see if he will include them in the Download section...don't hold your breath for this, it could take a while.

Next a screengrab fron ZBrush...the figure on the left is the base figure. I moved some of the points around, made the ears bigger and extruded the horns. The figure on the right is how it looks after 6 divisions, with each division extra detail is added and sculpted as reuired. It's still very WIP and my first attempt in ZBrush...I must study anatomy more.

Next I added some skin texture using an alpha texture..this actually deforms the surface of the mesh, So you paint on an alpha texture and the mesh deforms depending on the texture...a very nice feature, I also added the veins. I took a screengrab and loaded it into Photoshop to see what I could come up with. (See first pic) I can add all this detail to the uv map in ZBrush, it has some excellent painting tools but messing in Photoshop first gives me some ideas on what will work best.
So I recone this is quite a good deviation from a very basic figure model...I'll stick at it.

looking good Baz !

You might want to look at edge loops/flow a bit ?

Zbrush will import tris but not ngons - it will convert any ngons to quads and tris.

Now that you have zbrush you can kiss any spare time you had goodbye add to that the new canvas beta ....

Just thought - do you UV map inside canvas before taking into zbrush ?

Thanks Alan...I've been following these video tuts, don't know if you've seen them.
http://www.jasonwelsh.com/trainvideos/
I'm sure this guy said only quads, maybe I got it wrong...what the hell is an ngon.
I seem to be having problems building stuff with ZSpheres, can't quite grasp the relationship between the ZSpheres and the final 3D mesh. I have more control in 3DC to create the base mesh but I'll stick at it with the spheres.
I built a test head with ZSpheres and exported the mesh into UU3D for an unwrap then back into ZBrush...that worked fine but for this figure I used the AUV Tiles in ZBrush just to see how they work...I think I'll give it another try though with a normal UV map in UU3D.
I realy like the Edge Loops in ZBrush...would love to have this in 3DC...I know we have the
insert operation in 3DC but those Edge Loops in ZBrush are fantastic.
I built the figure with 6.6.5.11 but ran into major slow down problems when the figure was finished and I was selecting and adjusting large amounts of points so had to go back to my trusty 6.5...not sure about V7...it's going to cost me another $40 to check it out.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Bazza,

Same boat here - just downloaded the beta but the upgrade will have to wait for a few weeks - well untill Mr Barclays say it OK anyway

by the way - "ngon a face with more than 4 sides" (or at least I think that is what it is )

good work man, i like the head.
pirate