3D Week 05 (Personal Cannon Study Cont'd - ZBrush)

/

**NOTE: For this week, I planned to do ZBrush and Substance Designer work. Unfortunately, I only went into ZBrush this week and plan on moving onto a new project. While it would be nice to go though the complete 3D pipeline, I think it would be better to focus on the skills that would enhance my work as a level designer. After working in ZBrush this week, I realize how much of a learning curve it has and would require a lot more than just a week to learn the ins and outs of both ZBrush and, on top of that, Substance Designer. So, from this point on, I will be solely focusing on prototype/grey box modeling in order to grow in my skills as a level designer.

So, I went into ZBrush this past week… AND BOY WAS IT A DOOZY. I’m pretty sure I had to restart the project several times until a friend of mine showed me the beauty of masks (which made drawing the intricate designs SO MUCH easier).

Just to refresh any memories of what the Bertha Cannon looks like (just for the designs):

Front - Bertha Cannon
Back Bertha Cannon

I started off by making a high resolution version of the Bertha Cannon in Maya.

High resolution model of the Bertha Cannon

I went in and tried to remove/combine any unnecessary vertices and faces before making the high poly version and importing it over into ZBrush.

After many a tries and discovering the beauty of the masking, mirroring, and Dynamesh tools, I was able to draw the designs on Big Bertha. Here are the results! I had to take some artistic liberties for the cannon barrel designs since I didn’t have a high enough resolution image to see the full patterns.

And here are some close ups of each individual part of Big Bertha!

I am pretty satisfied on how the patterns turned out! After restarting several times, each time being faster at recreating the patterns, I think I’m alright with ending this project and starting up a new one for next week’s post! I learned a lot about ZBrush, and I plan on learning it on the side for sculpting.