Rectro

Your welcome. It is very expensive, and it took me a while to purchase it as it was hard to hand over so much money, but in the end I felt that I just could not put up with the way MODO was 4 years ago, im thinking that C4D is not even to MODO standards by the feedback I hear about C4D UV tools. Its such alot of work to model something, and seems a shame to give it less that ideal Uvs in which countless hours can be spent on texturing. Dan

Im not fully knowledgeable of everything in C4D regarding Uv mapping so I could only tell you what I find about Unfold3d in how easy and fast for me, maybe you could make a comparison off that. First off seam selection is very easy, not just loops, but automatic path between two edges is quite intelligent in picking the best path. I can work in full symmetry as you would expect with options to increase tolerance, and working of different planes. Once iv cut the seams, and press unfold, its about 90% done, and with a host of relax methods its easy to get the distortions out while viewing a heat map that indicates distortion. It has automatic pinning by which I can select polys, edges, or verts individually looped selected or individual. Within a few seconds iv pinned say between the fingers, and have moved them to get any overlaps dealt with. The new version of unfold which I dont have automatically sorts overlapping Uvs. The Islands can be selected with a dedicated gizmo to scale, move, rotate which will also work on the symmetrically opposite at the same time. I can paint areas that can be used to give more priority to for Uv space such as the face. I can select a strip such as in this project the gums, and can flatten out the U and V rows in one single click. I can also do mapping which stretch the head for instance to the shape of the Uv square space to get every bit of uv space used. I can select one single nail, and have any duplicates also selected and stacked on top of each other. It supports UDIMS space and can automatically fit all parts across as many Udims as you choose. These are the main things that come to mind, but there are plenty more things that I may take for granted. The new version which is v9 has tons more features, im 4 years behind. Dan

I have tried, but no email back. I need to get on with this project, and this may be part of what I use to finish it. Dan

Thanks, but I need to be sure, otherwise its of no use to me as I wont ever make my own rigs from scratch. Dan

Hi there. Quick question, does the NitroPose pluging work with the Character tool made rigs, if so Id assume you view all controlers and drag them in? Iv not purchased the pluging yet, and there is no demo so cant try it? Thanks, Dan

Tool farm is also doing the MSA at 20% off. Dan

Done the fun and easy part, Uv Mapping. I didnt do this in C4D and there is no point when Unfold3D will do a much better job of it, cant compromise on UVs. I put together the final video just to complete the other timelapse videos. These videos where not required but I wanted to capture my first ever project in C4D, something to look back on in years to come. Thanks for watching this thread, and the videos. Any questions about the process, how it compares to using MODO, Zbrush, Hexagon, and the issues I had to overcome are welcome.

Initially it's to pose the asset for the final image, no intention to animate during g the challenge time limit, not a chance of that. I will continue on the rigging animation thing after the challenge is over, as I'm neither a rigger or animator, new skills to learn over a long period of time. Dan

Been doing some rigging today, ohh boy what a nightmare. MAXON needs to sort their symmetry out both in modeling and weighting. Anyways, am getting there, but at this rate it wil take longer to rig it than the make the whole thing. lol

Yes, with its new view port enhancements. Dan

Here is a quick paint over to see how he is looking with colour. There is no sculpting, or displacements on this, so am happy with the way he has turned out. This is just a C4D viewport grab.

Update: Today I cleaned up the scene, made sure it was symmetrical, at zero world space, and the axis for all parts set up correct. I added the needed loops for animation around all articulation points, and spent some time last night adding the final look to his face and body. I still as of yet have not done any sculpting, at least not in the way I referring to, so will go in there and add the straights and curves. With the body, eyes, teeth/gums, tongue Im at 10512 polys. No videos for the tweaking bits, would be boring to watch. Next is clothes, accessories, then Uv mapping. Once iv done that on to texturing, and set up shaders, then rigging for the final pose. Dan

The tests where done on CPU, the question you replied to was referring to GPU comparisons. I saw that link last year, it was very informative, id like to see a update to this as one of the cons againts the renderer im using Vray was complexity, since then setting up has become way more easy with the quick setup quality sliders, the manual hasnt changed however still bad. Im looking forward to trying our cycles when the demo is out, thats when we can each evaluate the differences for ourselfs. Dan

Nice start. Even just 1 hour a day with some planning ahead, your do it in 2 weeks for sure. If you can settle on a idea, or look before modelling, your have less work to do later on, then it will be minor tweaks later on. Look forward to your progress. Dan

You should put a diffuse colour map in overall colour for fast sss, this gets the tones of the face such as lips, general tones. . The yellow and red layers offer the other tones that give off the soft translucent feel, and back scatter colour such as the ears. . The radius settings that are there are set according to real world papers, I m sure these figures are online. . Generally speaking each layer has more radius that the last from top dermal, epidermis to sub dermis as the deepest radius because the light must penetrate deeper to the blood layer. Dan

Yea, its my first project modelling in C4D, so am glad I got through the trials and tribulations, workarounds for future projects. This challenge gave me reason and purpose to take on C4D methods. Your right, I think an environment would take the attention away, maybe a back drop colour gradient of some kind, or objects in background blurred out. Dan

My character its coming along great thanks. I didnt spend much time yesterday on it, just toying with cartoonizing him, make him look a bit more compelling, think I have found the look now. Monday will start making clothing, accessories which will be fun, then do the Uv work. Still plenty to do, but got the core asset made now. Looks like your at the stage of fine tuing his overall look now, very rewarding stage to be in when a slight change can make all the difference. Dan

Your right about the image compression, thats why I never use the forums own uploader if im showing any work, I use http://imgur.com/, and copy the embed link directly into the post, works a treat. Dan

Il find the Infinite realities file, and give you that later on, your see how iv set that up. The different colour maps depending on what SSS method you use willl have different outcome according to the overall skin tone. Referring to the Fast SSS2 which is a simple set up, the overal colour bears the most importance, the other two layers dont override this overall colour which is your standard pink skin colour map. The other two layers are for the colour of the SSS effect and hardly change the colour tone, where as the Skin material is totaly different. The Skin materials layers are all fighting againts each other and you have to fine tune the amount, and radius/depth of each layer, and the only way to do that is with alpha control maps. The case of the Skin material it takes ages to get something half decent, where as the Fast SSS2 not even close to the same time. The diffuse colour stops light penetrating so yes it holds back the SSS effect which can be nice to give a bit of contrast back. To note if your model is not real world scale, you should use the scale parameter, not try to adjust all the other settings as your have a battle on your hands. Skin as you know is not easy to set up as there are too many factors to take into account, its a ballancing act, but that can be easier if you eliminate some things right at the beginning which is proper lighting, proper scale, high quality model, and very high quality maps. Use the Vray Powershader or advbitmap loader to your texture maps into, this let you tweak the values. If Vray had a reliable IPR for skin, then it would make the world of difference getting instant feedback. Dan

As of yet of yet I havent used C4D for that kind of sculpting, I use default brush in Zbrush, and a alpha that has slight blurred spots with a spray stroke, Im not sure C4D has the ability to use a alpha and a spray type nozzle? For the ultimate best skin detail it should come from the colour maps but bringing it into photoshop and using methods to enhance, and bring the details out saved into a bump map. For creases, again Zbrush has some ideal brushes that cut and pinch at the same time. Dan

3k render looks awesome mate. Dan

Sorry, I thought you had seen it, I didnt leave it up as it dont represent the same standard of my other videos. Its live again to watch. Dan

Thanks mate, its coming along now. Im glad I did this as this is my first ever modelling session in C4D, cant learn a app faster than getting stuck into a project. Thanks, Dan

Hi. Its no bother at all, im glad to help. Bump maps are for high details, so you can use a displacement map if it contains the high details, as they are both grey scale maps. To map the maps your best off to sculpt the detail, this can be done in C4D then bake a displacement map, use that in the bump channel. If your using vray 3.x beta, make sure you plut all maps into the AdvBitmap vray loader. If you dont want to sculpt the details then you can use a procedural noise, but your need to bake that into a map. I use normal maps for high end detail, and bump for secondary information on top if im not using a 32 displacement map. Now days I just use a 8k 32bit displacement map and dont bother with neither bump or normal maps. Zbrush is my tool for sculpting details, and producing maps. Dan