Creating a Warrior Character: Part 6

In the sixth part of the Warrior series, I'll give you an overview of how to add a few more accessories to the character and we'll look at how these can be textured using Polypainting in Zbrush. We'll also generate a Normal map and apply it to the character back in Maya.

Step 1

This is where left off at the end of the last part of the tutorial. At this point, I want to add few more accessories to the character.

Step 2

Here I’m gonna use "Transpose Master" to export the whole mesh with the current accessories at the lowest mesh level. So go to the Zplugin menu, and click on the TposeMesh button highlighted below.

Tutorial Warrior Character in Autodesk Maya and Pixologic ZBrush

Step 3

Pressing this button will bring down all the subtools as one and at their lowest mesh level, as shown in the image below.

Step 4

Export the model as .OBJ from ZBrush.

Step 5

Import the whole mesh into Maya, this model is gonna work as reference as we add and place more accessories.

Step 6

Here I've created a few more accessories and added them to the character. Once you've added your accessories, select the model you created and export it as an .OBJ from Maya.

Step 7

Back in ZBrush, Import the .OBJ of the new accessories.

Step 8

Select the Warrior mesh from the Tool menu and append the accessories you imported.

Step 9

This is what I have after importing mine.

Step 10

In the next few steps I’m going to ‘Polypaint’ the boot. So select the Boot subtool from the Subtools menu under Tools.

Step 11

Make sure you have the BasicMaterial selected, not the default ‘Matcap Red Wax’ material. Otherwise you won't get an exact idea of the final output.

Step 12

Now go to the Polypaint option in the Tools menu and click on the "Colorize" button.

Step 13

Make sure ‘Rgb’ is turned On also.

Step 14

Go to the Color menu, select the color you wish to use and click on FillObject.

Step 15

The entire boot will be filled with the currently selected color.

Step 16

Now select the 'Spray’ stroke from the Stroke menu, and lower the value of the Color variation, highlighted in the image below.

Step 17

From the Alpha Palette, Select "Alpha 23".

Step 18

Make a stroke on the surface. As you can see this is going to add grain to the boot's surface.

Step 19

When done, the boots should look something like this.

Step 20

Using the same technique, I’ve polypainted the holster, belts and other leather elements.

Step 21

Now in the next few steps I’m going to texture the gun.

Step 22

This gun already has the UV layout done. To see this, click on the ‘Morph UV’ button in the ‘UV Map’ options of the Tools menu.

Step 23

It will show the UV layout of the selected subtool on the canvas.

Step 24

This is the image I’m going to use to texture the gun.

Step 25

I opened the image in Photoshop and changed the color using ‘Hue/Saturation’ (Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation.)

Step 26

Since I wanted a square image for texturing, I’ve also resized the image to 1024x1024 (Image > Image Size...)

Step 27

From the Texture menu back in ZBrush, Import this image.

Step 28

Go to the Texture Map options in the Tool menu, click on the square button and select the image we imported in the last step.

Step 29

Click on the Projection Master button or Press G on the keyboard. And then click on the Drop Now button.

Step 30

Before starting work, make sure the Zadd & Zsub buttons are Off.

Step 31

Select the Single Layer Brush from the brushes menu.

Step 32

Select Alpha 04 from the Alpha menu

Step 33

Start painting on the edges of the gun as to give it a chipped off effect, using the same technique add some scratches on the surface as well. Once you’re done painting, press G on the keyboard and select Pickup Now.

Step 34

Use the same techniques to texture the other parts of the gun. This is what mine looks like when finished.

Step 35

Once you’re done, click on the Clone Txtr button found in the Texture Map palette.

Step 36

Clicking the ‘Clone Txtr’ button will copy the texture map into the Texture menu. From there, first select it, then Flip it Vertical and finally export it by clicking on the Export button.

Step 37

Follow the same steps to texture the second gun.

Step 38

Here’s what mine looks like after painting.

Step 39

Using the same process, I’ve textured the other accessories which already have their UVLayouts. Here Zapplink can also be used, as I discussed in an earlier part of the tutorial.

Step 40

This is what I have after texturing the remaining accessories and parts.

Step 41

For the subtools that don’t yet have UVs, we need to create UV coordinates so we can generate a texture map from the Polypainting we've already done.

Step 42

Bring the Boot Subtool down to it’s lowest subdivision level.

Step 43

And Export it as .OBJ.

Step 44

Back in Maya, Import the Boot .OBJ and get create a UV layout for it. Once done, Export it out of Maya as an .OBJ once more.

Step 45

Back in ZBrush, Import the new UV mapped boot model at the same subdivision level.

Step 46

Now try hitting the Morph UV button to see the UV Layout.

Step 47

Now to convert the Polypaint to a Texture map. Select the subtool, then specify the Resolution of the Texture and click on the New from Polypaint button.

Step 48

This is the Texture map we get of the boot, which I’ve already Cloned, Flipped and Exported.

Step 49

And here's the Texture map for the second boot.

Step 50

Since the boots and cloth on the hands were on the same UV space, I’ve brought all three images into Photoshop and combined them into a single texture.

Step 51

Now in the next few steps I’m going to generate a Normal map for the body, and apply it to the model in Maya.

Step 52

Select the body from the subtools menu and go to the ‘Normal Map’ option in the Tools menu. Make sure the settings are the same as shown below and then click on the Create NormalMap button.

Step 53

Zbrush may take some time to generate the Normal map. Once it’s finished, it should look similar to the image shown below.

Step 54

Now Clone the Normal map using the ‘Clone NM’ button, and then from the Texture menu, Flip the image vertically and Export it.

Step 55

Now Import the model back into Maya, assign a shader to the body and from the shader’s attributes, click on the Channel button next to Bump Mapping.

Step 56

And select File, as shown in the image below.

Step 57

Under the 2d Bump Attributes of the Bump, select ‘Tangent Space Normals’ in the pull-down menu.

Step 58

And from the File Attributes menu, select the Normal map we generated in Step 56.

Step 59

Next turn on the High quality setting for the viewport. And this is how the model should look with the Normal Map applied.

This is the result I ended up with at the end of this part of tutorial. In the next and final part of this series, I'm going to explain how to generate the Displacement map, and Apply it in Maya for rendering using Mentalray.