Hi Cindy!
Well, I think that you are trying to get too much out of the displacement… Rages and me talked about this very issue in Wyatt’s thread here. Read our replies, it explains the workflow to get the most out of ZBrush.
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=208&t=735944&page=3
I don’t recommend using ZB uv tools becasue as you said, it becomes a nightmare to troubleshoot plus if you want to tweak your textures in photoshop then you are out of luck.
I found out what the problem on the foot was - inverted normals on my base model! :surprised
Anyway, I decided to lay out UVs in Lightwave and try again. I may try ZBrush again, or just paint maps in Photoshop. In any case, I’m glad I figured it out.
Sorry I haven’t been back in a while. I`m glad you figured out what the issue was, though.
Troubleshooting is so frustrating, but getting results is a great feeling after pulling your hair for a few hours or a few days, and the next time you model, you know that much more about the process.
Now let’s see that Bicycle!
-Rage
I’ve made more progress on the bike…
I’ve also been working on Bert some more, but I’ll add images later.
After reading some of the crits, I decided Bert needed a little makeover. So, I added geometry for the eyes and hair, repainted him in ZBrush (with touch-ups of the map in Photoshop), and generated new normal and displacement maps.
I also turned down the displacement settings in Lightwave Layout. I think it turned out better.
Next, I’ll redo the sweater and work on posing him on the bike.
I spent most of the day getting the bike finished. Whew! I think I’ll have to work on the chrome parts - they seem a little too bright. I’d appreciate any suggestions on how to tone that down…
The chain running across the top is actual geometry. I thought about using a clip map, but that wouldn’t be hardcore modeling!
Hey a couple of things I would mention is at the point where the snout meets the actual nose it looks like you have some artifacts there. Also his knuckles are very ridged looking.
Its looking nice!
Hey, that’s a big improvement! I agree that the knuckles can be softened a little and that bike is cool!
You may not remember the show because it’s Canadian. I remember seeing it here in the Philadelphia area, but nobody I’ve asked knows what I’m talking about when I mention it. Here’s the opening sequence:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r29ih2hsAes
Nice work Cindy!
Yes, and it also aired on the Disney Channel in the U.S. It’s been on a few other channels in various countries, including Boomerang UK.
mnartgirl and SnoWs: I’ll see what I can do about the knuckles.
As for the area where the nose meets the snout - I did that on purpose. On the reference screenshots at the beginning of the thread, you can see where the peach-colored “fur” of the snout hangs down in places over the black tip of the nose. I tried to replicate that on the displacement map. However, I could change the displacement map to reduce the displacement in that area if it’s distracting.
Thanks for the compliment on the bike!
looking good so far …
i think the chrome will probably look ok if you give it something to reflect, an environment map of something. at the moment its reflecting white so … it looks white
…keep it up
Well, I finally got Bert on his bike! It was difficult because I didn’t model Bert and his bike in the same model file, and I had to adjust the bike so Bert’s head didn’t hit the top of the plane. Also, his feet didn’t quite reach the pedals, so I had to move them up.
I also altered the bike a bit - parts of it were going through the wheels.
The toughest part was the posing. I tried a couple different approaches. Posing in Modeler didn’t work that well, so I used bones in Layout. No fancy rig, just a straight bone hierarchy. Then I had to use weight maps because Bert wasn’t deforming correctly with bones alone, and that still wasn’t great.
Finally, I used a Lightwave trick - I saved a transformed model, which saves out a model posed in the position Bert was on the bike. Then, in Modeler, I tweaked the posed model so the deformations looked better.
I then replaced the rigged model with the corrected posed model in Layout, and it looks pretty good, IMO.
Anyway, I think the toughest part is over. Now, I’ll have to see about an environment - maybe some ground and a tree or two, so the chrome will have something to reflect.
Looking good
Couple of Crits don’t forget to bend his toes at the peddles right now he kinda looks like he is floating on them. Also his tail looks like it could use just a bit of tweaking. It’s kind of in a odd position right now.
Keep up the good work
I’m finally getting into the home stretch! 
I modeled a pine tree and a ground plane in Lightwave and detailed them in ZBrush, and worked on the lighting and arrangement of the scene. I also used Skytracer in LW to generate the sky and clouds. I also fixed Bert’s feet on the pedals as best as I could.
Here are two renders - the first with radiosity on, and the other one with it off. (I personally like the one with radiosity better).
Also, here’s a screenshot of how the pine tree looks in ZBrush. Too bad I can’t get all that detail in my LW render because of all the geometry. :sad:
I just posted on the final entry thread. Getting all those images on there was a lot of work - I had to break up my post into three parts because I had too many pictures. But they were required for the contest.
Man, I’m glad I’m done!!
Congrats on getting finished up, great job on the final image, you must have learnt a fair bit with the XB - LW pipeline.
If I may be so bold, the grass is a little washed out on the radiosity image.
Good luck
Yep, I sure did! Some posts over on the NewTek forums and on ZBrush Central helped a lot with learning the LW-ZB workflow.
Also, the radiosity image above is an earlier version, and it isn’t my final render - I posted an update on the first page of my thread.
It seems the first grass texture map I painted in ZBrush was way too low-res, even when I made a 4096 x 4096 version. So, I scrapped that and made a grass texture in Genetica Pro, which looks a lot better, IMO.
Thanks for the comments, and good luck with your Dangermouse entry! It’s looking great!
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