Full 3D Character Workflow Explained - Sculpting, Retopo & Textures

[@ohheyvoid]

I really appreciate how you guys talk about realistic approaches to the process in actual production. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us. It's super helpful and appreciated.

[@kaneforster8539]

I am watching from the future and.... you can paint across Udims in Substance Painter!!!! :D :D :D

[@Neilien]

what is Udims?

[@kaneforster8539]

@@Neilien Udims are like layers for UV's, except they are next to each other instead of stacked. usually, you are only able to texture within one UV block right? with Udims you can spread it over multiple blocks, which was always fine for separate meshes and materials but now you can smoothly paint from one Udim to the next in the viewport like some mad digital painting genie

[@cgbrkstudio4888]

Me too brada

[@hydroweapon]

In which version?

[@1DaytoDay-089]

I am from even further in the future and Adobe has decided that users should be so complacent, so removed painting across UDIMs... also AI rules over the world, Elon Musk has gone bonkers and 99% of 3D artist only do furry stuff

[@jonynader99]

Thank you guys for all the work you put into these vids! Honestly you guys are the only solid source on KZbin that answers all of these really specific questions for us beginners! Just bought a bunch of your premium tutorials, keep up the great work!

[@edwinter4816]

My Monday are much better with every flipped normals video on my morning. Thank you for the job your are putting into. #BackToTheGrass

[@olexanderburyak6613]

that is the best intro i have ever seen, thank you.

[@FlippedNormals]

Thank you Alexander!

[@TheAlkesh007]

Incredible! This helps connect the dots to appreciate what people go through in the actual flow to bring out beautiful images on the big screen! It also gives a view into the characters' life cycle before it matures to act out in a scene!!!!

[@FlippedNormals]

Thanks a lot! Really appreciate it Alkesh :)

[@ilovebeingood]

Needed something like this. Cheers guys.

[@richmo5d]

You guys are great to watch and hear. I bought 2 tutorials a couple days ago. I feel like I grasp more knowledge from you two then I did in school 🤦🏾‍♂️🤙🏾

[@FlippedNormals]

Fantastic! That makes us very happy

[@lilitbeglarian7942]

Thank you so much for this series, it's so helpful and clear! The discussions are hilarious and it makes everything much less daunting!

[@FlippedNormals]

Helpful Exclusive Tutorials How to Retop a Full Character flippednormals.com/downloads/how-to-retopologize-a-full-character/ UV Mapping Characters flippednormals.com/downloads/uv-mapping-characters-25-off/ Concept Sculpting for Film & Games flippednormals.com/downloads/concept-sculpting-for-film-and-games/

[@abrahamwondafrash7549]

I am so glad that you guys mentioned blender as a great tool for modelling and retopology!... I have learned a lot in this video especially the blocking of retopology!

[@FlippedNormals]

Its really a fantastic tool!

[@pakman4600]

Hi my teachers i just want to say i love you

[@improvementTime10.3.17]

17:15 retopo

[@rickthedude8483]

This is the video I've been trying to find I can look up how to do any individual part, I wan't to know the process.

[@Harrison_JW]

this porjection step is what I nearly missed so i am really greatfull for you guys explaining the process. I am still pretty new to sculpting in zbrush but after doing the manual retoplogisng in maya for this current project im doing (which has some interesting anatomy). then I was about to go into zbrush and try and match the detailing I already did, but i had this red warning in my head as I was thinking that it was surely not the way to approach it. so I am glad to know that you just need to project the sculpt onto the low top mesh and that I didn't waste any extra time on this :)

[@gamebreakers6437]

Every tutorial on this channel are awesome.

[@FlippedNormals]

Thank you!

[@MrParanoia]

Found you guys channel recently, love it btw and really enjoy listening to your podcasts when sculpting, etc. Thanks for all the advice and work you guys do!

[@FlippedNormals]

Thanks a lot! Really appreciate it :)

[@ganagz]

I have been looking for this kind of video for a long time. Very big help for beginners like me!

[@kidehoward93]

definitely interested in hearing more about the problems with smoothed uvs and the others mentioned in the displacement map section

[@temptor7585]

Thank you for your videos, its good to hear it from people who know what they're talking about.

[@Ankhaunt]

Thank you so much for this video. There is so much to learn here. 😄

[@ismaelmachado4537]

Já vou dar like antes de assistir só pela iniciativa de compartilhar esse assunto conosco!!!

[@ref3athamed386]

I just found a golden channel

[@feralmode]

love your content. great channel. typo in the thumbnail for this video: "Charcter". Thanks for all the amazing free content.

[@makentoarts986]

Awesome as always! Big thanks guys!!!! ❤️💜♥️

[@jefferson6983]

Thank you for making this video. You help me a lot of understanding the workflow of a character .

[@jackyll]

Thank you for such an in depth process video. I'm always curious about pipelines, since it seems like everyone has their own variation of the same thing.

[@rohitshaw4213]

Hi, I saw few of your tutorials since last couple of weeks and I must say that you guys are savior, learned a lot from you guys, specially the way you guys discuss that give loads of knowledge , Thank you so much sir.

[@brandonjacksoon]

Cool! Thank you for tutorial ;) really professional!

[@blankslateanimationllc9800]

Thank you guys this really clarified some things about character workflow, especially the retopo part.I just picked up your Vray Tutorial, but now I need to get these premium character tutorials so Merry Christmas. Oh please post the Substance Tutorial asap that is a much needed tool as they have us using Mudbox in class...death to Mudbox

[@3drstudio807]

Nice overview, thanks for sharing guys. Regarding Maya's performance when doing retop, it's worth coming out of quad draw every once in a while and clearing your history - it really speeds things up.

[@FlippedNormals]

Thanks! And yes - that's essential. Otherwise it slows down a lot and makes Maya unstable.

[@acejustin3438]

Thanks for that retopo landmark loops tip, I more or less do that as I go or do it part by part on broken up models, but doing a pass on all major feature loops before filling anything else in is something I should try on my next full body character.

[@anarcorojo]

I want to know the folder arrangement/organization system for big projects. Great video by the way.

[@OscarTorresWork]

3 Years into the future Substance painter supports UDIMS, great video guys keep em coming.

[@KellenChase]

You guys are awesome. Thanks for making this video

[@MrGSmith2k11]

Hi guys, could you potentially cover smaller details like texturing the eyes and teeth and switching between them and the main mesh on painter? It's just a small part of the process I'd like to understand better. Thanks.

[@AirboundPenguin]

Thank you for another great video :) I'd be very interested to see how you guys go about detailing human characters! With Creatures you have so much creative freedom when working on details but humans (especially young people) have very smooth skin. I really struggle with that aspect once i am done getting the proportions and muscles right. I would love a video elaborating how to properly add pores, wrinkles, veines and the like.

[@jeremyanderson2374]

Very informative, you guys are awesome!

[@islamben9607]

Thanks for sharing this bro it's very explanatory

[@AL4RC0NR4MO5]

Bless this channel

[@FlippedNormals]

Bless you

[@KRGraphicsCG]

I am looking forward to seeing this Painter tutorial... I still need to figure out how to view displacement maps.

[@juans-fo1gk]

Thank you so much, this is exactly the kind of info I was looking for. Love ur videos.

[@LateRush]

Guys, love you so much! Just switched from 2d to 3d and your videos are so fcking usefull. Big thanks to you!

[@FlippedNormals]

Thank you so much Paul!

[@CJE15]

Thanks for your help and i have to tell us, you are very nice people and very clear !! I hope you continue ever an ever.. Super Kanal !!!!

[@canhedotricks6078]

thank you! i'm just starting out and this video was super helpful!

[@IGarrettI]

Actually wrap is out for zbrush, and the annual license is 50% off just today ! Go get it guys :D

[@ApeTacos]

Where is the wrap feature in zbrush? Is there a tutorial out?

[@UglyHouseStudios]

Thank you.I did'nt know why I didn't think to just project the displacement map in ZBrush

[@ily2739]

i um was not aware - i retoppod after I finished the final model but it worked out fine thankfully 😅

[@ritad7986]

That's exactly what I was looking for to learn the pipeline. I'm a 2D artist who just started learning 3D and I have troubles with understanding the workflow.

[@arthurdayne8029]

36:11 that’s me face when I first see the light after a 12h game of thrones marathon

[@iBot.]

That was my face after season 8

[@Gabriel-kl6bt]

Fantastic. Every video I get more inspired. My main goal is modeling/sculpting, but everything looks great to be done makes me want to inject knowledge with a syringe. A question, could one start the modeling in Maya/Max and then export to ZBrush?

[@shanonmckenzie715]

Yes, absolutely! You could say for example, model your base mesh in Maya and then export it as an OBJ into ZBrush so you can start sculpting on it. The reason many artists prefer to start with Zbrush is because it allows for a more organic creativity right at the start as the character is being designed - Then worry about the technicalities/retopo later.

[@EvilKetem]

Thank you so much guys! This video answered many questions for me. One thing I'm not sure about yet is breaking symmetry on the character - like when moving facial features around a bit and all that... Where would that step happen in the pipeline?

[@iland4129]

Very helpful. Hope to see a full character pipeline from scratches to final render shot just like Hollywood movies

[@wojt3d415]

thanks for this video, good and neccesary informations to know!

[@FlippedNormals]

Glad it was helpful!

[@Kaylx3]

I just spend the day retopologizing at work a sculpt I also did xD Displace and normals from zbrush work great so time for some substance painter!!! So kind of good timing x)

[@zeljkostanisavljevic4665]

Fantastic info, Thank you.

[@zigfaust]

Hey, I noticed if you do it right, zremeshing at half a few times gives you clean topo. Just a thought.

[@ritatran5598]

Really helpful! Thank you!

[@alkeshvnanavaty2952]

Hello! At time mark 37:39, you start to talk about production discussion to cover what comes before and after, lighting etc. have you done that yet? I recently began looking at some videos on peach fuzz creation and rendering. Would be good to hear from you where that comes in the pipeline for modeling and animation. Thanks!

[@MrBaumTV]

Is it common to mirror for example the hands on the uv map to save space and give the face for example more uv space? Im talking about game design.

[@naumanakrambarcha6604]

Helped a lot thanks :)

[@utkuturan1729]

Cheers! Great video guys. explaining whole process beautifully. At one point I'm lost though. You said and I know that Substance Painter doesn't support multiple UV maps on single model. That's why I always use a single UV map or multiple parts for single model. But in this video you guys create multiple UV maps and import it on Painter and Painter behaves like it's a single UV map. So is there an additional step I'm not aware of or what?

[@vladimirivanov2790]

What is the software guys are talking about at 17:22?

[@rorypullman]

Amazing video. Ive been looking for a more structured workflow. Do you have any suggestions for a more cost effective alternative to sub paint?

[@pepsiq210200]

how do you subdivide the head separately from the body here?

[@navegandollegueaqui1258]

Good video,, the world of 3d is fascinating, sorry for my english ,,, greetings

[@Farrukh3D]

Great video. Thanks for sharing :)

[@FlippedNormals]

Cheers!

[@Locomotror]

Great videos guys! a question i have about the high poly, so you don't need to have things like the eyes, teeth, gums, tounge, maybe even eyesbrows modeled, those can be done in the lower poly. But in that case there wouldn't be any details that are tramsfered to them when baking right? just the rest of the body would have that?

[@AdrianoFerreira-nb8cd]

just one question, if im working on hardsurface model with some smaller surface details , can the displacement project those details onto a low poly version accurately? or do i need to retopo those small details roughly?

[@rangerraad5379]

can we animate the projected mesh

[@miagifodder5599]

cool retopo is my nemesis

[@Gaz_Game]

Do you have a text version of the workflow available? For example Concept sculpt > retopologise etc and whether to do high res or low res sculpt first?

[@TheAlkesh007]

I watched the video a few times! Really enjoyed the flow! I have some basic questions: If I understood the process - 1. sculpt to your heart's content (almost, as I learned in your projection video!); 2. export to, say Maya and re-topo; 3. make UV Udims; 4. Export re-topo'ed geo in zBrush; 5. sub-divide to ...say...a couple of millions of poly to do projection; 6. generate maps to be used in, say substance painter (I hear you on Udims). Now my questions: (a) although UVs where done in Maya at the lowest sub division level, right after retopo was done, artist doesn't need to do UVs again after subdivision/re-projection in zBrush, right? (b) If I heard it correctly, retopo'ed version will be used by riggers and animators to deform. Is that re-topo'ed lowest level, or retopo'ed after subdividing in zBrush and projecting all details back on it? I am guessing the former...but would love to hear the confirmation from the pros! If that is the case, does sub-divided /re-projected geo play any role in animation, or its life ends after maps were generated? I wonder though, when the camera is close to the face, and animator wants to use the clusters to move vertices to create expressions, will rigging on low poly geo transfer well on the detailed character? Would love to see some demo of such character acting someday! Anyways...thanks a lot for all your work!

[@FlippedNormals]

Hi Alkesh! A: Correct - the UVs will follow the ZBrush model and remain when you subdivide. If the reprojection is too big of a shape change, you might want to do a quick unfold after reproj though. B: Yes - the retopoed version is the one used by riggers and animation. The riggers sometimes make their own version which is *even* lower, though. Sometimes you'd use a render mesh which is level 2 subd from ZBrush.

[@CharizardFan_og]

How do you do displacement maps on blender?

[@tanujchauhan6388]

How detailed should the character be before you bring the retopo character into the substance painter? I ask because it looks pretty hi-res in painter in terms of the details. Btw, thank you for this helpful and informative tutorial.

[@myburghroux]

at 15:51 how do they add those mehes/polyhons/rectangles so easy what are the keyboard shortcuts,

[@FlippedNormals]

We have many tutorials on this :) Check out our retopo tutorials for maya on our channel

[@Udhoi]

Bless you guys!

[@nicolas8741]

I don’t understand how you put together the high and low poly model…. How that whorks? Any help, thanks

[@jmccann96]

If you delete history when re-topoing with quad draw it will fix the lag temporarily until you need to delete history again.

[@giancarlopenton6779]

Great video! Was wondering if you guys will ever do a grooming video for hair. Maybe an intro video to something like X-Gen

[@FlippedNormals]

We will do exactly that! :) Very much on our list.

[@sarahdowner4806]

@@FlippedNormals I second this request. And teeth/mouth insides for animating would be fantastic

[@Massusa12]

I don't really understand much of the differences between painter and mari. What I got from it is that if painter added udim support and supported bigger maps, it would be pretty much interchangeable with mari, with the added benefit of having smart materials (which you can make yourself using substance designer) and some other features that make your life easier when texturing. Is that a good explanation or is this an oversimplification? I've wanted to try a film pipeline for some time because you can get much more detail and realism out of it, but I don't really get the difference to a gaming pipeline after the retopo and uv stage of things and I was afraid I couldn't get good results using painter for this kind of work.

[@shamanik1320]

Painter is only for texturing whereas Mari is a full 3d suite like Autodesk stuff, Blender, etc. I believe it also has PTEX which is a texturing that doesnt need uv's that Disney created to speed up character creation. Probably has some more stuff as well. I only have experience with Blender when it comes to 3d suites but I read into Mari a little.

[@MadeupUniverse]

Can you do one on how to create characters for meta verse and if there are any differences in the approach?

[@Ihopeyoureokay]

Thank you so much

[@clydesupot]

is concept sculpting better than sketching/drawing vice versa? just wondering

[@SuperDeano1000]

This video is worth its weight in gold! Thanks a lot for sharing this info. I’ve been wanting to know this process since I started 3D art in 2017... When you are working on the low poly retopo, do you subdivide/smooth to get the more refined, higher poly version, or is that just adding more polys manually?

[@bukchoiii]

Does zbrush support udim? I thought only mari supported it.

[@TheFozze]

For texturing, what are your opinion on Quixel? yay or nay?

[@jenn6471]

This is Jenn. Where do I order ur tutorials? You guys are absolutely just amazing!!

[@FlippedNormals]

Hi Jenn! You can find them here :) flippednormals.com/creator/flippednormals/

[@asismaharjan7431]

Definitely from future here!

[@baconesbass]

It would be nice digging deeper and learn how to deal with different parts of the face, like eyes or inside mouth. And maybe tips or advise dealing with blendshapes? They should be treated all as different objects cooked separatedly, but is there any proper way of not making the work many times for small changes?

[@JackTheRocky]

21:22 what software is he referring to? Can't make it out.

[@FirstLast-mf5fj]

Mari

[@zethFPV]

guys I love your videos, I have a question is really difficult to find a proper workflow for fur and hair, I mean you can find a lot of tutorials of how to make fur and Hair and that's not the real problem BUT there's almost no information about the proper placement in a production for fur and hair, for exmaple in maya if you make the fur in the hero character file, when you reference such character it looses the fur... the workflow I am doing right now is making the fur and hair in the render scene and export the ptex and groom information in case I need fur or hair in other render scenes, I find this wrong but is the only way I have found. thank you.

[@matthieuschneider4947]

The performance issue in maya is related to the history, script delete history and switch back to retopo tool and bob is your uncle . You can try to disable the history but I ran into some issues doing that.

[@jacobst-pierre2849]

Funny, my rig teacher in school prefer bent fingers for rigging, he says that it makes it easier to get the rig orientation for the bones

[@vladyslavsvyryd5315]

Wow nice i was looking right something similar

[@nourghafarji]

why you can't use the low res from the base mesh you started working on, like in mudbox, is it cuz zbrush uses triangles? and does mudbox offer a better solution to this ? or is it just dead and this is a good thing lol

[@IvanReel]

For RETOPO, why can't we just use REMESH in Zbrush and then export anObj to MAYA for rigging? I just did a REMESH and exported an .Obj of a head that I was doing for Zbrush practice and the precision of the loops was far better than anything I could do with QUADDRAW in MAYA. At last for now until I get better at LOOP definitions in MAYA QUADDRAW. Great KZbin channel!

[@BirdsAndWhales]

Do the UVs get created BY the re-topology? And then you just have to arrange them?

[@oriCG]

nop, you create the uvs after retopology is done. and yeah after marking seams and unwrapping, you proceed with packing the UV islands.

[@ganagz]

Hey guys, i know that the eyes are on a different subtool on zbrush. Is it a separate export to other softwares? Then when we render, how do we join the body and eyes? Thanks!

[@AnotherGirl2]

The projection step - is there a difference between importing the hi-rez into 3DSmax and then exporting it for baking in painter vs importing the lorez into Zbrush for projection and then exporting it to painter? Thank you