"Study of Anne" was a personal project that took almost a year to complete working after hours and on weekends. The main reason for creating Anne was to recreate the feel of a real model posing for artists in a studio. There were many new tools and techniques I had to learn to successfully complete Anne including skin shaders, and hair systems. I am happy with the end result but see the "Study of Anne" as just the beginning of my personal work. Software used to create "Study of Anne" was Maya (www.autodesk.com), zbrush (www.pixologic.com), 3DS Max (www.autodesk.com) and photoshop (www.adobe.com).
The most important step in any project is finding reference! "Study of Anne" was created using 2 seperate female models both found on the fabulous websites http://www.3d.sk/ and http://www.female-anatomy-for-artist.com/. I also keep an external hard drive full of different references of humans, animals, textures, locations, wireframes, anatomy, etc. You never know when you will need these images so keep them organised for easy retrieval later. On top of all the images on my computer, I enjoy collecting as many books and sculptures as I can find. My favourites references for this project were the Cyclopedia Anatomicae by Gyorgy Feher, Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist by Stephen Rogers Peck, Anatomy for the Artist by Sarah Simblet and finally any of the Anatomical Resin Figure from freedom-of-teach, an online resource for artists www.freedom-of-teach.com.
BASE MESH
I first modelled Anne in the standard "T-pose" using over 150 high resolution photographs of one model from http://www.3d.sk/ to make sure proportions and anatomy were correct on my base mesh. The model was constructed in Maya 6.5 using common box modelling/ edgeloop modelling methods. I created edge loops that followed muscles and keep my mesh fairly organised and low in resolution. I unwrapped the basemesh using a fantastic plugin called "Pelting Tools" by Sunit K. Parekh (http://sunitparekh.com/pelting/). The base mesh was more dense than I ended up needing in zbrush but did help with the posing of the model.
SCULPTED BASE MESH
After the base mesh was completed, I sculpted a high resolution version in zbrush using the same reference images I used for modelling in Maya.I sculpted the T Posed model not only to get a nice mesh to pose, but also for practicing modelling realistic characters using Zbrush's fantastic set of sculpting tools. The most commong tools used were the move tool, with the standard and smooth brushes. If you have yet to try Zbrush, there is a 30 day trial on their website, www.pixologic.com as well as documentation, videos and pipeline guides for implementing zbrush into already existing pipelines. One great thing about the way zbrush saves out OBJ files, is that if you do not change the vertex order of your mesh when importing/exporting into another package, all of your high resolution detail gets stored in the OBJ file. This is a fantastic way to jump back and forth from Zbrush to a 3D animation package such as Maya, 3DS Max, XSI etc... To learn how to do this with your favourite 3d package I suggest downloading the appropriate ZPipeline Guide found on the pixologic website.
POSED MESH
With the high resolution scupture from zbrush finished, I switched my main 3d application to 3DS Max for posing and rendering purposes because 3DS Max ships with mental ray, cloth and hair. At this point, I used my second set of reference pictures found on http://www.female-anatomy-for-artist.com/ of a model relaxing on a model stand. The image set included 6 images of the model on a rotating platform which gave me a view of the model from all angles. After importing the OBJ from zbrush into max, I used max's Character Studio plugin to rig and pose my low resolution mesh into the final pose. I created a model stand for my model to rest on and interact with. I used 3DS Max's cloth plugin to make drapes as a background to add something visually interesting behind the character. At this stage I also added a camera and lights into my scene so I could begin testing how the model would look in the final image. The lighting set up was fairly simple, I used 2 Mental Ray Area lights to light "Study of Anne". One light acted as Key light, the other as Fill light, the reason I used Area lights was to get soft shadows across my model.
SCULPTED POSED MESH
I exported my posed version of my model out of 3DS Max as an OBJ file, making sure not to change the vertex order of the mesh by adding or deleting any geometry. From this stage I was able to bring my model back into zbrush with the new pose but keeping all of the high resolution detail I had sculpted before posing. Again, using my second reference set, I sculpted my model in the new pose. This second round in Zbrush took even longer than the first to make sure the pose and weight of the model looked believable. Carefull study of anatomy, creases, bulges and tension is what will make your model look realistic. At this stage I would import my mesh back into 3DS Max several times to make sure it looked good from my camera and worked well my my lights.
CG HAIR
I created the hair after several different hairstyles and failled attemps at creating realistic hair. The final hair did remind me of how models usually tie up their hair loosely while posing during a lifedrawing session. I found that by creating several layers of hair and combing them so that they blended together helped sell the illusion of hair. I tried to make the hair as small as possible and render as many as my computer could in a seperate rendering pass because I knew my final image would be a very high resolution and you would see all the individual hairs if you looked close enough. Each hair needed quite a few divisions so that at a high resolution you did not notice any hard edges. Another trick that helped integrate the hair in the final composite was projecting hair textures onto the head mesh using zbrush's projection master and rendering the head with hair maps as a seperate render pass. With the cg hair as one layer and a head with textured hair as another layer, it was pretty simple to blend the two layers seamlessly in photoshop.
TEXTURES
Texturing "Study of Anne" took a long time to do. Using my original reference photographs, I projected these onto my original sculpted model using Zbrush's Projection master. I also used the ZAppLink plugin that allows you to edit what you see in your zbrush viewport directly in photoshop. I then applied the texture onto my posed high resolution mesh and began adding details based off of the final pose. Once I had a perfect diffuse texture on my mesh, I started painting depth maps to be used with 3DS Max's Mental Ray SSS Fast Skin Material. Working my way from the back scatter layer towards the epidermal layer, I painted depth maps where I thought a lot or little scatter would happen. In my diagram for the textures of "Study of Anne's" face, I first painted the back surface scatter radius map H. The idea being that they grey area is where the skull on my model would be and would not allow backscattering to happen. The light grey areas are the neck and ears of my model where I did want a lot of backscatter to happening. Map G, was for the subdermal layer, a lot of subdermal scattering would happen in the ears so I painted these white, the rest I painted shades of grey where I wanted more or less subdermal scattering to happen. Map E controls how much epidermal scattering happens on my model. I wanted most of the skin on the face to scatter light in the epidermal layer except for a few selected areas around the eyes, nostrils, mouth and ear. Once I was happy with how the scattering worked with my shader, I desaturated my diffuse texture and used it as a strating poing for my epidermal Map D and subdermal Map F color maps. I used the subdermal map to emphasise cartillage, blood, veins and fat on my model. The epidermal map contained all of the surface details of the skin such as freckles, blemishes and pigmentation. I found I could work with the two maps at the same time in photoshop by layering the epidermal map ontop of the subdermal map and setting the epidermal layers blending mode to screen. A lot of back and forth between photoshop and 3DS Max was done to make sure that all of the skin maps worked properly together. Map A is the bump map created from the original diffuse texture created in photoshop. Map B is the Overall diffuse coloration map I used for the models makup on her lips and around her eyes. Map C, the Unscattered Diffuse weight is to add an extra layer of deadskin to break up the SSS some more. I reused Map I for both specular weight maps. I did not want to use displacement maps with this project, so I used the high resolution mesh generated from Zbrush as my final model.
RENDERING AND COMPOSITING
I decided to render "Study of Anne" using multiple render passes and for the Key light, the Fill light, Ambient light (turning off all lights in my scene and rendering with ambient turned to 100 in each material), Ambient Occlusion and Volume light. I rendered multiple passes for the background, the body, the head with a special hair map applied over the skin shader, the eyes and finally a seperate hair pass. There were also several extra renders done for masks, zdepth etc... Once Each pass was rendered I created a new Photoshop document with layer sets for each Key, Fill, Ambient and Volume light pass. I treated each layer Set as an idividual mini composite, making sure the background, character, eyes and hair worked together as seperate image. Once each Photoshop layer set was composited by itself I adjusted the blend mode, opacity and fill to control the amount of light contributed from each layer in the final image. A suggestion for when you composite your final images is to name each layer. In "Study of Anne", I had over 30 seperate layers, by naming and colour coding each layer set, I could easily find and edit any layer easily.
About myself
My name is Joel Mongeon, I am currently a freelance character artist in Toronto Ontario Canada. I have worked on several televsion series for Universal, Nickelodeon and Disney as well as many commercials. I am also a traditionally trained artist who enjoys drawing, sculpting and painting. The human figure is the most challenging and beautiful subject I can think of and will always strive to learn more about it.