Hi, I’m in progress on a critter sculpt and I’ve been wanted to add some accessories that could be sculpted seperately. Things like straps and belts and pieces of armor. I’ve managed to create the armor pieces without too much trouble by modelling them in 3ds Max, however I’m having a real hard time with the belts/straps. Since I want the belts to be pressed against the character tightly, I’m not sure how to get the geometry to line up. Is there a way to extract some of the surface to build upon?

Thanks!

Oh, here’s a WIP of the specific model, a shark-man…

	Attachment

go to lowest res mesh, duplicate the polygons you want as belts(in max or something)...then model these as you want in your modeller.

Import them, subdivide them as needed...and use grab brush to move into place, then sculpt the skin bulging around the belts where appropriate.

If they’re going to fitting tightly to the model then why not just model them directly onto the mesh in mudbox. Just use the freeze brush to select the belt ring, invert the freeze, and you can model out the the belt and then use flatten and pinch etc to shape it..

http://www.pixelwerks.be

Thanks guys. I’m attempting the first method, extracting the low poly mesh in 3ds. It seems to be working alright.

As for modelling it direclty, I tried that but I can’t seem to get a nice smooth edge due to poly constraints. I get a really nasty ribbed effect which just doesn’t work.

Thanks for everything. If there are any more suggestions I’d love to hear them!

It depends what poly flow you have on the mesh around the areas you want to sculpt the belts etc. If you can get a nice edge loop around the waist it should be fine. Trying to go diagonally across polygons is going to give you that stepped effect, but even that can de dealt with using the pinch and smooth tools, and also the higher resolution your mesh is the less obvious the stepping will be.
If you haven’t got the correct poly flow for belts and straps on the low res mesh you’re going to have a hard time using the first method anyway.

http://www.pixelwerks.be

oDDity 10 November 2008 07:55 PM

If you haven’t got the correct poly flow for belts and straps on the low res mesh you’re going to have a hard time using the first method anyway.

Very true.

Also to save time be sure to use the 32 bit stamps with imprint brush to quickly create the belt extras if you already have them modeled in another package.

another issue with sculpting belts with the freeze/mask method is that because you are basically extruding the surface....at increasing depths the edge where the belt meets the skin will get unwieldy because the polygons will get stretched.  But, it works great for things that are only slightly off the surface.

An edge loop tool would be very useful for those cases.

http://www.pixelwerks.be

oh, one suggestion....actually what i prefer to do...is use retopology tools on the mesh to create the accessories.  3d Brush and Topogun can do this on hiRes meshes…