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3D Printing and Character Posing with ZBrush and Character Creator 4

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ÓSCAR FERNÁNDEZ / DIGITAL SCULPTOR

Hello, colleagues! My name is Óscar Fernández, and I am a digital sculptor specialized in figures for printing. I would love to show you a workflow that literally changes the game when it comes to producing figures for board games. I’m talking about a new Reallusion plugin called Character Creator Pose Tools, which allows us to connect ZBrush with Character Creator 4 (CC4) to rig our character and pose it with unprecedented ease. What’s more, it preserves all our subtools, subdivision levels, and the ability to continue modifying the character even after posing, making it easy to adjust the anatomy, add details, or incorporate variations.

This will be our complete workflow:

initial Idea / quick 2D sketch

Let’s start the project with a super basic concept of the character. Before we begin sculpting, I have created a quick 2D sketch to bring to life what was once just an idea in my head. This is only an initial concept to get started with, and it will probably evolve as I begin working in 3D.  

There are some elements that I am sure will be present in the character’s design, such as:

  • Horns or a helmet that integrates with the shape of the head.
  • Armor for the torso with sharp elements to make the character more menacing.
  • A powerful anatomy that showcases the strength of our character.
  • Some fabrics to test how dynamics work in CC4.
  • Three fingers instead of five to test AccuRIG’s auto rigging.
  • Lastly, bull-like hooves or something similar to give our character a hybrid appearance without being exactly a minotaur.

MODELING IN ZBRUSH / THE HEAD

When starting a new character, I always like to begin by defining how the head and face will look. I usually don’t proceed with the complete development until I am satisfied with the shapes. So, gradually, we will structure the facial anatomy by adding a couple of spheres for the eyes and incorporating other elements such as ears or a beard, which will greatly define our character.

Once all the elements are in place, I begin refining the shapes after performing a ZRemesher and applying subdivision levels. Afterwards, I can add the fangs, beard details, and, finally, the horns.

In the end, I opted for a more organic structure for this part, creating horns instead of a helmet. Once we are satisfied with the head’s shape, we can continue moving forward.

BASE MESH / CHARACTER CREATOR 4

To speed up the process, we will use a CC4 avatar as the base mesh for the body. We put it in A Pose and use the sliders to modify the proportions. Since our character will have 3 fingers, I take the opportunity to create a similar structure that I will later modify in ZBrush. With a simple click, we bring it into ZBrush.

In ZBrush, let’s make further modifications to the proportions and attach the previously created head. By adjusting the size of the head to match the body we brought in from CC4, we ensure that the model’s measurements are optimized for later use in CC4. However, this is something we could easily fix later on if needed.

SCULPTING THE HORNS / ZBRUSH

Indeed, the communication between ZBrush and Character Creator has been available before, but in version 3, we couldn’t modify the topology of the base mesh, which was quite restrictive for character creation. With the arrival of CC4, we can now use all the typical ZBrush sculpting techniques to make any necessary modifications. So, let’s start by applying DynaMesh to create those bull-like hooves and define our character’s anatomy. Having the fingers placed together earlier will also speed up the process of creating the hand.

After achieving anatomical shapes that we are satisfied with, we will merge the head with the body using DynaMesh. Then, we will perform ZRemesher to have a more organized mesh, and we will project the details onto the different subdivision levels. This process will help us create a more refined and cohesive model, combining the head and body seamlessly while preserving the intricate details.

MODELLING THE ACCESSORIES / ZBRUSH

It’s time to create the accessories for our character. We’ll primarily use ZModeler with a low polygon count to achieve cleaner and more polished shapes. Our goal is to design pieces of armor with the intention of 3D printing, so we’ll aim for fully solid pieces whenever possible or with a slightly thicker thickness than they would be in reality to avoid issues with printing and to ensure the piece is not too fragile.

In this case, creating the fabrics is not very complex, as they are just a pair of flaps that cover part of the legs. Using the belt as a base, we apply an extrusion, keep the part we are interested in, and then adjust the shape until we achieve what we are looking for. We will use dynamic subdivision to work with a plane but get an idea of the thickness the final piece will have.

Once the fabrics are made, we have the complete blockout, so if we are satisfied, we can move on to the details. Since we already have a correct topology, it is enough to subdivide where necessary to add imperfections, dents, scratches, etc., and thus give a little more realism to our pieces.

We would only need to add a couple of weapons to our friend, so using the same techniques as for the armor, we will create a battle axe and a shield that are simply… enormous!

UVs AND MAPS / ZBRUSH

Let’s prepare the model to take it to CC4. Although this step is not necessary, it will enhance its appearance in CC4. We’ll start by creating UVs for the different pieces and generating normal maps.

For the UVs, we will utilize the new feature in ZBrush 2023 that allows us to use creases to define cutting lines and create our UVs quickly without needing to leave the program. We will adjust them within the grid and ensure everything is fine by applying a test texture. Once the UVs are set, we can also generate the normal maps.

Auto rigging / accurig

Now we have everything ready to take our character to CC4. Although we can send everything at once, I’m going to go slowly and, for now, I’m going to isolate only the body to send it to CC4 using the “Visible” option. Once the character is transferred to CC4, we see that we have the whole character in a single element, but keeping each of our subtools inside it, so I’m going to load the normal maps to make everything look a little better.

I was looking forward to this moment! Now is when we’ll witness the magic of AccuRIG, the automatic rigging tool in CC4. I must confess that I have no idea about rigging, and this tool seems like pure wizardry to me! We press the AccuRIG button, and the tool starts analyzing the mesh, automatically placing the joint points in a fairly approximate manner… Now, all we have to do is adjust the placement of those points by clicking on each one of them and following the diagrams we have at the top. We can use the symmetry function to work faster or deactivate it if our character isn’t symmetrical. We define the number of digits for our character, in this case, three, and hit “Generate Skeleton,” and voilà! The skeleton is generated in literally 2 minutes.

The next step is to configure the finger layout. We adjust the position of the little dots on each joint and also define the direction of a special point on the thumb that indicates its rotation. We make sure everything is set correctly and then press the “Bind Skin” button. The program will automatically calculate the skin weight around each joint so that all deformations occur smoothly. Once the complete skeleton is generated, we will check it with an animation to see how it behaves. The anatomy of this character is a bit unique, and I think I didn’t place the point of that joint in the most correct position, causing the shoulders to be too forward-heavy, but that’s not a problem; we will accept it.

Using “Pose Offset,” we can further fine-tune those particularities that depend a bit more on the morphology of our specific character. So, I adjust the position of the shoulders, the tilt of the torso, or the separation of the legs manually. Once everything is prepared, we can save our CC4 project.

For someone like me, who is used to working with static figures, seeing your character come to life is truly amazing!

DYNAMICS / BEHAVIOUR OF FABRICS

Let’s continue bringing accessories into CC4 as if we were dressing our character from the inside out, so now it’s time for fabrics. Once again, working with this type of element is super simple. First, we need to work with planes and define the parts that will deform and those that won’t, simply using polypaint. It’s similar to using a mask in Photoshop or Substance. We’ll paint the entire piece in white and protect the parts we don’t want to deform by painting them in black when applying dynamics. Since we are working with a high polygon count, we can achieve smooth gradients by just softening the paint a little. We’ll unwrap the UVs for each piece and create a texture map from the polypaint.

We launch the flaps again using the “Visible” button. In CC4, we can import them as individual accessories and adjust them to the body. We delete the color map, link all the pieces to the hip, and test that everything works correctly. Perfect! Now, we only need to activate the physics for each piece and load the weight maps we just generated with polypaint.

Our pieces now behave like fabrics, but we need to define which parts of the character they will collide with. So, we select the body and define the collision volumes for the hip and legs in this case, deforming the “capsule” with the gizmo.

For now, it’s enough… let’s go for the armor

armor / hard surface accessories

To bring the armor pieces to Character Creator 4, we follow the same process: isolate the pieces we want and press ‘Visible’ again. We import each subtool as a new accessory and then head to the texture panel to load the normal maps for each of them. I must say that this step isn’t really necessary, but it makes everything look a bit better.

Since I’m importing the elements in different phases, I have to position them manually and link them to their corresponding joint, which wouldn’t be necessary if we imported everything together, as the program would calculate it automatically. In any case, it’s super quick… just select each element, press the ‘Pick Parent’ button, and click on the joint to which it should be linked.

We activate the fabrics again to have all the accessories visible and check how they behave with the walking test animation we’ve been using so far. I can’t help but admit that I feel like Dr. Frankenstein: ‘It’s alive!’

To add the weapons, we follow the same process: isolate the axe in ZBrush, make it visible, and then import it into CC4 as a Prop. In this case, we’ll have a single element but with all the subtools inside.

Next, we set the pivot point to the center of the axe, position it in the hand, and check how it behaves during the animation.

Completing the character’s equipment, we follow the same steps for the shield, and now we’ve finished the whole process… everything is ready for playing with poses.

Posing in CHARACTER CREATOR 4 / Freedom has arrived

We all know that posing a character in ZBrush is perfectly possible but can be quite time-consuming and effort-intensive, making it a tedious task to create a set of multiple poses for the same character.

Thanks to CC4, AccuRig, and the Character Creator Pose Tools plugin, we now have seamless communication with ZBrush. Making small changes or creating completely new poses becomes not only incredibly fast but also enjoyable.

In addition to manually posing our figure, we can utilize ActorCore, an extensive library of pre-made movements ready to use in CC4. In our case, we’ll use some animations from this library, and the best part is that we can capture specific frames from the animation to create unique and dynamic poses. We can save those exact frames and create our own library of poses within CC4.

We’re going to use the animation as a general base for our pose, selecting that exact moment we want to immortalize. Then, we make adjustments using the pose editor. I believe it’s worth highlighting how easy it is to pose the hands, moving each phalanx in a quick and super intuitive way. We can even save hand gestures to use them in future poses or directly use any of the ones available in the library to streamline the process.

RETURN TO zbrush

First of all, let’s create a quick base to place the character on. I always try to make the bases tell a story that goes beyond what the character itself conveys, but in this case, we’ll keep it simple just for playing around.

Once we’ve finished the poses, it’s time to bring them all into our ZBrush project—yes, you heard it right, all of them in the same project. We apply the pose, select all the elements, go to plugins, and within ZBrush Pose Link, we choose to send the current pose. Automatically, the plugin starts analyzing the correspondence between the elements in CC4 and the subtools. It’s crucial that none of the subtool names have been changed and that they are exactly the same as in CC4.

All the subtools deform and move to the correct position automatically, allowing us to proceed with the next poses. What’s actually happening behind the scenes is that each pose corresponds to a ZBrush layer created for each subtool, where all the changes are stored. The different poses are displayed in this layer rack, and we can rename them. Clicking on each pose activates its respective layer, showing the changes.

We can individually edit each pose, not only to position it correctly but also to make adjustments to the anatomy or minor changes in the position of accessories. Each of these changes is stored individually for each pose.

Once we save the file as a project, when we open it in a subsequent session, it might seem like we’ve lost the poses. However, we can see that the layer information remains active, and by clicking the refresh button for the pose list, we can have all the poses available again. In the layers panel, we can observe that each subtool has a layer with a name corresponding to the pose, and it will automatically activate when we select the linked pose.    

This is the result of our work… Once the figure was posed in Pose A, I think the process of generating the 4 poses and trying out at least ten more that I eventually discarded didn’t take me more than an hour. Additionally, I also created a bust based on one of the figures I already had. Next step: Printing.

PRINTING

Now, we only need to prepare the figures for printing. First, we’ll add thickness to the flaps since, as we mentioned before, physics in CC4 requires us to apply them as flat accessories. Once we add the thickness, we apply the texture, and it’s ready.

Next, I’ll ensure that the entire figure is a solid mesh and that there are no gaps between the different subtools. I’ll convert each subtool into a single polygroup, merge all the subtools into a single mesh using “Remesh by Union,” and then separate the pieces using polygroups. I’ll close any holes that may have remained, and now we can create the joints. Once the joints are created, we’ll slightly inflate the subtools with the male joint and create the final pieces using Boolean operations. We’ll perform decimation to reduce the polygon count and facilitate the transfer to the slicer without any issues. We’ll add a solid defining the scale for all the figures and export them as STL files.

We are going to use Chitubox to add supports and slice the pieces for printing. Whenever possible, I try to add the supports manually. It’s a super boring job, but it ensures that the pieces have fewer marks when removing the supports and that they are only where they are really needed. In case I’m not concerned about marks when removing the supports from the piece, I add automatic supports. Once the printing is finished, we remove the pieces from the printing plate, glue them together with cyanoacrylate, and that’s it!!

This is the final result of the pieces already printed. I have printed the figures at what would be the standard 75 mm size, which is considerably larger than the figures for tabletop games, but it’s a size that many painters demand.

conclusions

That’s all from me. As I mentioned at the beginning, this workflow can completely change the game when it comes to creating sets or even armies for board games or wargames. One of the things that held me back as an artist was that in previous versions of Character Creator, we were dependent on the topology of the base mesh. But now, with ZBrush+AccuRIG+CC4, we have all the freedom in the world to create our creatures, pose them, and continue creating variations.

Undoubtedly, ZBrush+AccuRIG+CC4 is a fantastic formula for increasing productivity while maintaining complete freedom and creativity.

Download English PDF:
https://bit.ly/4731hNH

Download Español PDF:
https://bit.ly/3KjVr0t

—————————————

Follow Óscar Fernández:

ArtStation:
https://www.artstation.com/oscargrafias

YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@Oscargrafias/videos

Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/oscarfernandez_3dart/

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/oscargrafias/

Learning

3D Scans Spring to Life as Animated Action Figures with AccuRIG and ActorCore

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Introduction

Hello everyone! I am an action figure collector and 3D animator based in the US. 

For over a decade, I have been honing my skills in the mesmerizing art of 3D scanning and animation. Since 2011, I have been pushing the boundaries of creativity and technology, capturing the essence of action figures and bringing them to life in captivating animations.

In 2021 I embarked on a thrilling new chapter, focusing specifically on action figures that have enthralled generations. From the classic heroes like Spiderman, Green Goblin, Wolverine, Batman, and Joker to the ever-beloved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and their arch-nemesis Shredder, I have been meticulously scanning and animating these iconic characters, channeling the magic and excitement of the comic books and animated series.

Make It Move Media

Make It Move Media is a channel I created to showcase action figures and iconic superheroes and villains from comic books and movies. I wanted to do it in a way that leaned into my 3D scanning and animation hobby, bringing a sense of wonder and excitement to our action figure culture.

Ultimately, I want to grow my followers and create content that they want to share and comment on, plus I love hearing reactions from comic book and action figure collectors. The best comments are how the videos I create remind them of their childhood and how they played with their action figures in their head, with their imagination — I want to bring that to life!

I’ve been going at this for over a decade, but have over the last 8 months seen my channels really start to gain a following. I am self taught; Everything from 3D scanning and animation has been learned through YouTube tutorials, long nights grinding on scenes and a passion to make things move (hence the name). I am mesmerized by 3D animation and always have been. I learn a new technique with almost every 10-12 second scene I create. That is part of the fun — finding ways to do what I have yet to learn.

Today, I want to show you how fast and easy it is to bring 3D character scans to life with AccuRIG, a rigging tool by Reallusion. A lot of people have asked me how I animate my action figures. This is one of the tools I go to almost every time I create an animation. Watch my workflow:

Turn Toys into 3D Action Heros

First, I did a 3D scan of the Spiderman toy and loaded it into AccuRIG. This free auto-rigging program is great since it offers many features with a very straightforward interface to navigate the process. Just a few clicks and some minor adjustments, I have got my Spiderman fully rigged – body and hands. This would take hours without this awesome rigging tool. I can then use the preset animations in AccuRIG to quickly test the rigging, and the results are impressive.

Auto-rig body and hands with AccuRIG.

Hundreds of Action Animations

I wanted to give my Spiderman some thrilling moves; so I uploaded the character to ActorCore 3D store, with just one click. Over 2,000 motion captures, professionally-made, well-organized by category, are there for me to pick and choose from. I can preview everything right inside my web browser, which is pretty slick because there is no guessing.

Under the category “Action & Adventure”, I can find tons of motions to use on Spiderman. There are also themed packs specifically designed for action adventure movies and games, such as “Packour”, “Run for Your Life”, and “Hand-to-Hand Combat”. After several testings, I can grab all the motions that I want to animate Spiderman with. Download and export the FBX files to Blender. It is that simple.

Upload rigged characters from AccuRIG to ActoreCore 3D store.

Test over 2,000 mocaps and find the suitable moves for the character.

Animation and Rendering inside Blender

I use Blender for all of my 3D animations. It is an open source 3D software suite with which you can animate and render. Simply locate my Spiderman FBX file inside Blender. I find it ready rigged and with a full mesh. With the imported motion, my Spiderman is animated and ready to roll! And I can continue animating inside Blender to create my next 3D action short.

Export a rigged character with a full mesh to Blender. 

It’s Pretty Phenomenal

A few years ago — I am talking probably five years ago — this workflow would have been impossible. Three years ago, this would have been hard. Now this thing is ready to rock, fast and easy — thanks to AccuRIG. So I highly recommend it.

Download AccuRIG auto-rigging tool for free: https://actorcore.reallusion.com/auto-rig

Visit ActorCore 3D animation store: https://actorcore.reallusion.com/motion

Learn More

Make It Move Media: https://www.instagram.com/makeitmovemedia/

Featured Story

Wool Cat Sequence Animation: A Step-by-Step Guide Using Blender and Cartoon Animator

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Deb Ethier – animator, graphic designer, writer, and musician

About Deb Ethier

I’m Deb Ethier, animator, graphic designer, writer, and musician for Rusty Bolt Theatre and Seat of the Pants Film Lab (which is basically just me!). I started making short and micro-short animations back in 2016 and my films (from comedies to full dramatic narratives) have been honored with awards at film festivals around the world.


I’d like to share a bit of what went into making “Madcap Catnap” featuring Louie the Cat (one of my favorite characters), and how I used several software resources to achieve the finished film.

Turning Realistic 3D Dolls into 2D Characters

The idea of a cat’s dream world allowed me to play with fun concepts. I had used Louie as an animated 2D character before, but never with this many pose variations. The original Louie is a 2.5 inch tall needle-felted character! I often make my characters as real 3D “dolls” so I can photograph them from every angle to process into animated 2D characters.

Using GIMP and png-enhancing software I decide what angles I need and transform those. Louie’s size offered a bit of a challenge, but I finally got the wool texture right so he looked like the tiny, blocky felted creature that he is.

There were eventually several “Louies”; mostly free bone, a couple more traditionally rigged in CTA5. 

Creating Facial Animation

His face animation is really important as it needs to show emotion. I prefer morph heads in Cartoon Animator for various reasons, one being that the eyeballs actually sit in the eye sockets giving lots of expression to facial animation. 

Morph heads can be tricky at first, but taking the time to do a lot of careful tweaking back and forth between previews and adjustments really pays off. 


The dream world had to be surreal. I often get my inspiration from paintings, and partially went with the look of the Post-Impressionists this time, adding my own graphic touch. Layering these in CTA5 with flat color-field landscape elements throws the world further off-kilter. 

Animating 2D Characters with Spring Bones

The new features in CTA5 (like Spring Bones) make it a very versatile 2D animation software. Before, I would rig tails as a spine and either keyframe manually or use one of the premade spine animations. However, by rigging the tail with Spring Bones, a lovely, smooth movement was achieved. A banner was also rigged this way. But I think the most fun application of this new feature was in the final chase scenes through the dream tunnel. I rigged the entire front and rear views of Louie with Spring Bones to give that comical frantic wiggly walk-run that cats often do. It gave a great cartoon feel, and I could still add facial animation easily.

Adding Free-Form Deformation Effects on Props

The Free-Form Deformation (FFD) editor was also extremely useful as I was able to make the “crop” of underwear dance in the wind by applying FFD to each pair of shorts (after capturing images of the underwear from various angles in Blender). 

Creating Animated 2D Scenes with 3D Depth

Layering and moving the camera along the z-axis (as in Louie’s run down the road) remains one of my favorite original abilities in CTA as I love to push the dimensional boundaries in 2D animation software. For that scene, I simply animated the back of Louie running separately and layered it with the rendered scene so it appears as if we’re seeing it from Louie’s POV.

Rendering Props and Making Effects in Blender

CTA5 was at the forefront in this project, but I also have other tools that work really well with it. Blender is one of these. I’m just a beginner in this 3D software but it wasn’t that hard to get the basics for this project. Manipulating characters and props (either original or from premade models) in Blender allows you to save images at any angle for importation into CTA5 for rigging. 


One of the most pivotal things that I found Blender really useful for when it comes to CTA5 is creating rotating or turning characters or props. In this film, I used a propeller and windup key (but there are lots of other possibilities). Animate and render as an image sequence in Blender for input to CTA5. (I use popVideo for input because my image sequences were quite long, but the new version of CTA allows for short APNG sequence import). 

You can reverse that workflow too. For the cat food can I animated the label in CTA5, rendered it as an image sequence, and imported this into Blender to be attached to the can. I then keyframed the camera position and rendered out for import back to CTA5 via popVideo. I think there could be a lot of use for this technique.


The dream tunnel at the end is an effect made entirely in Blender, following a tutorial. Load it as a video into CTA and you have a wormhole! I think there is a lot of scope for expanding the play between Blender and CTA5, something I intend to explore further. 

Video Compositing

When it comes to a video editor, I look for versatility and available plugins. I have used HitFilm Express (with all the add-ons) for a long time, but their business model changed when the company was taken over by Artlist. In searching for a viable alternative I came across Vegas Pro and it seems to be a very good fit. I am just learning its ins and outs, but have found it to be user-friendly with a lot of support available. I particularly liked the fact that it is an excellent host for some of my favorite third-party effect plugins — but Vegas Pro also has a lot of native plugins. 

To test its user interface, I created the title sequence for the film with it and applied effects to sets, props, characters, and scenes. I then tested it with some of my favorite effects combinations from Hitfilm. It performed remarkably well. To test it further against Hitfilm, I created an easy blur effect for fast movement without using motion blur (which can really bog down the render). I duplicated the video and applied a long-angle blur to the bottom copy. Stretched it out, angled it correctly, and positioned it against the original, while playing with opacity. It works well in both pieces of software and is a very useful, easy smooth effect to use. Vegas Pro will likely be phased-in as my main video editor.

Although I love integrating other software into my animation workflow, CTA still remains my main tool. It’s very versatile, well-supported, and quite adaptable to my many styles of animation. It just keeps getting better with the addition of new features on every update!

Deb Ethier:

https://rustybolttheatre.zyrosite.com/
https://vimeo.com/rustybolttheatre
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm13922319/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC40TOoWqezFZ5BNTRcoshSg?

Know more:

2D Animation Software for Cartoon Maker | Cartoon Animator


FREE for 30 days plus over 1,700 ready-made assets:

2D Animation Software Download | Cartoon Animator

Learning

Swing Across the Spider-Verse with a ZBrush Pose Spin-Through

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Give Amazing Poses to ZBrush Characters with ZBrushGuides

Hello, my name is Pablo Munoz Gomez, and I’m an enthusiastic 3D concept and character artist who is deeply committed to the spread of knowledge. My expertise lies in 3D sculpting, visual development, and engaging in mixed-media projects. I take immense pride in being the creator of the ZBrushGuides website, the 3DConceptArtist academy, and the 3DSnippets project. These platforms serve as outlets for showcasing my work, sharing my workflows, and assisting fellow artists in honing their skills across a wide range of subjects.

The basics

Before we begin, let’s address some preliminary details. This tutorial will demonstrate the process using ZBrush 2022.0.5 version, but the plugin is compatible with newer versions of ZBrush as well. Additionally, I’ll be utilizing the latest version of Character Creator 4 (version 4.3), with which I have already created a Spider-Man stylized character for this demonstration.

The character mentioned here is composed of three separate subtools: one for the body, one for the clothing, and an additional subtool for the zippers.

Typically, I prefer to work with a character in a relaxed symmetrical pose or an “A-Pose”. I utilize sculpting layers to introduce variations to the mesh, including different poses. For example, I can save a “swinging” pose for this character on its own layer. By enabling that specific layer, I can view the pose. However, since sculpting layers are specific to the selected subtool, I need to create a new layer for each subtool and manually toggle them on or off to reveal the corresponding pose for each subtool.

To achieve the complete pose for this character, you’ll need to activate the “swinging” sculpting layer for the body subtool, as well as for the clothing and zippers. While it may not seem too challenging initially, this task can become quite tedious when you have over 10 subtools to manage.

Thankfully, ZBrush Pose Tools can greatly assist you with this task by simplifying the process of storing, editing, and managing multiple poses that involve multiple subtools. It provides a streamlined solution for handling and organizing poses, making your workflow much more efficient.

Pose Tools workflow

After installing the ZBrush Pose Tools plugin, you can locate it in the ZPlugin palette, specifically under the name “ZBrush Pose Tools”. Initially, you might notice that some options appear grayed out since no poses have been created within the plugin yet.

1) Bringing in existing poses

If you have a character with various layers already posed, you can effortlessly transfer all those layers to the ZBrush Pose Tools plugin by utilizing the “Convert Layers to Pose” button. However, it’s crucial to ensure that you have correctly named each layer for every subtool. This naming convention ensures that the entire pose can be conveniently saved within a single “switch” or pose.

By simply clicking a button, the plugin seamlessly transfers all your poses into individual switches. These switches allow you to easily toggle poses on and off, enabling effortless switching between different poses. It’s important to note that the versatility of this plugin extends beyond humanoid characters. You can utilize it to manage poses for any object or entity since it leverages the layer system in ZBrush. Thus, the plugin offers flexibility in managing poses for a wide range of subjects.

2) Refining select poses

Another awesome capability of this plugin is the ability to edit each relevant layer within a pose, allowing you to make precise adjustments and refine the mesh’s appearance. To do this, simply select the desired pose and click on the “Edit current Pose” button. This action activates recording on the layer corresponding to the selected “switch,” allowing you to begin sculpting and make necessary modifications to achieve the desired results.

3) Creating new poses

Certainly, you have the freedom to utilize any tool within ZBrush to fine-tune your poses or even generate new poses directly from the plugin. The procedure for creating a new pose, or a new “switch”, is just as straightforward as editing or converting existing poses. Simply click on the “Record New Pose” button, provide it with a name, and the plugin will automatically create a new sculpting layer for each subtool while initiating the recording of subsequent modifications. This allows you to seamlessly capture and refine changes for the newly created pose.

In the standard workflow, you would begin by selecting or masking the areas of the mesh that you wish to protect. Then, you can employ the Transpose line or the Gizmo 3D to manipulate and rotate the relevant parts of the mesh, creating the desired pose. Once you have completed the pose, simply click on the “Save New Record” button to preserve the newly created pose.

This process can become a bit tedious when dealing with multiple subtools. However, you can simplify it by using the Transpose Master plugin. This plugin, included in ZBrush, enables you to temporarily merge all your subtools, making it easier to manipulate them collectively. The great advantage is that once you’ve finished tweaking the pose, you can save your changes into layers. The procedure is straightforward. Simply open the Transpose Master plugin in ZBrush and click on the prominent “TPoseMesh” button. This will create a new layer with the pose, which you can then transfer back to the Pose Tools plugin.

Now, you can create the pose for your character. When you’re prepared, enable the “Layer” switch and click on the “TPose \ SubT” button. This action will transfer your modifications to the working file, including all subtools and the new pose, onto a layer. Next, simply utilize the “Convert layers to pose” button in the ZBrush Pose Tools plugin to incorporate your new pose into the switches.

4) Saving ZBrush projects

In ZBrush, there are various ways to save your progress. Personally, I find it beneficial to save multiple versions of my tools as I work on developing a concept. It’s worth mentioning that when you save your ZTool and load it again on another day, you might not immediately see your saved poses in the ZBrush Pose Tools plugin. However, there’s no need to worry because your poses are not lost. Simply click on the “Refresh Pose list” button located at the top of the ZBrush Pose Tools plugin. This action will scan the layers of your subtools and reconnect them to the switches in the plugin.

ZBrush to CC4 roundtrip

The ZBrush Pose Tool plugin is an excellent tool for managing poses and it significantly reduces the time required for the process. However, the most time-consuming aspect is actually creating the poses. Luckily, you can leverage Character Creator 4 with AccuRig to swiftly generate a rig for your characters, pose them, and subsequently transfer them back to ZBrush. This integration streamlines the workflow and expedites the posing process.

1) Auto-rigging ZBrush characters

For my Spiderman character, I utilized AccuRig to generate the rig, enabling me to create a series of dynamic poses. These poses were then seamlessly transferred to ZBrush for further editing and fine-tuning. This combination of AccuRig and ZBrush allowed me to efficiently refine the character’s poses and enhance their overall appearance.

I have an extensive video series on my Youtube channel and the Reallusion website that delves into the process of rigging a character using CC4. For now, let’s focus on the steps involved in creating a pose in CC4 and transferring it back to ZBrush. 

To begin, in ZBrush, position your character in an A-Pose and click on the “Visible” button located at the top of the Tool palette. This action will send all the visible subtools to CC4, allowing you to commence the rigging process.

In CC4, I already have the rig set up for the character, and this is how it appears:

2) Posing ZBrush characters

To pose the character, select it from the scene tab. Then, open the modify window and navigate to the posing section. Finally, click on the “Edit Pose” option, keeping in mind that this feature is only available once the character has been rigged.

You can use the pop-up window to choose the controllers for the rig and manipulate the limbs to create your desired pose. This aspect of the process is really fun, and you also have the option to utilize Reallusion’s extensive library of premade poses and animations.

Once you are satisfied with your pose, you can take advantage of the convenient ZBrush Pose Link plugin from Reallusion. This free plugin is specifically designed for CC4 and simplifies the process of transferring your pose to ZBrush, automatically saving it into your ZBrush Pose Tools plugin.

To access the ZBrush Pose Link plugin in CC4, navigate to the top menu and locate the Plugins section. From there, you can select the ZBrush Pose Link option and choose “Send current pose to ZBrush Pose Tools”.

The plugin will transmit your pose to ZBrush, generating a separate sculpting layer for each of your subtools and seamlessly converting those layers into a new pose switch within the ZBrush Pose Tools plugin.

That covers the main steps. Now, you can proceed to rename this newly created pose and organize it alongside your other poses within the same ZTool in ZBrush.To conclude the process, select a pose that you prefer among the different alternatives you generated in CC4. Then, employ vibrant and colorful lighting in Marmoset Toolbag 4 to render the chosen pose.

The render is actually something else you can do directly from CC4 and is just a matter of playing with the lights a bit.

I aimed to create a concept that resembled an illustration inspired by the movie “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.” To achieve this, I imported the rendered image into Procreate and proceeded to refine the concept further by applying paint over techniques.

That concludes this article, hope you find this breakdown of the process useful!

Free Download & Webinar

• ZBrush Pose Tools

• Character Creator

• Posing Characters in ZBrush The Easy Way (Lecturer: Pablo Munoz Gomez)

Learn more :

• Pablo Munoz Gomez : ArtStation. ZBrushGuides. 3DSnippets. 3DConceptArtist (online academy)

• Posing ZBrush Character Effortlessly: CC & ZBrush workflow. ZBrush-only workflow

• CC AccuRIG: Auto Rig Tool (embedded in Character Creator 4)

Learning

Dynamic Character Poses in ZBrush: Evoking Motion and Grace in Fine Art Sculptures

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Deryck Pelegrini

Hello! My name is Deryck Pelegrini, and I’m a 3D artist from Brazil. I reside on a small island near Sao Paolo, where I find joy in both creating 3D art and indulging in my passion for surfing the waves.

Professionally, my focus lies in developing 3D characters for games. However, in my personal projects, I enjoy sketching and exploring dynamic poses for moving characters. It brings me great satisfaction to see some of my work featured on ZBrushCentral, and I have had the opportunity to discuss these pieces on ZBrush LIVE a couple of times. I am truly passionate about sculpting and using shape and color to narrate stories through my art. Consequently, I love experimenting with “digital clay” in ZBrush, where I can explore fluid shapes and incorporate new techniques into my projects.

Lately, I have been dedicating a lot of time to practicing with new tools. In this article, I would like to share my latest creation, “The Three Dancers,” and discuss how I utilized the new Pose Tool Plugin for ZBrush, developed by Reallusion, the creators of Character Creator (CC). With this plugin, I was able to create a series of unique poses using a single mesh, and I am excited to share my process with you.

Design Concept

The concept behind my latest piece was to create a visually striking artwork that embodies the essence of a museum exhibit. As a sculptor, I thoroughly enjoy experimenting and pushing the boundaries of my craft by exploring new sculpting and painting techniques. One aspect I particularly love to explore is the pose of the character, as it brings the artwork to life and allows me to envision the character in a pivotal moment of action. I strive to create sculptures that possess a sense of freedom and fluidity, leaving room for the viewer’s imagination to fill in the gaps as they observe the piece. This approach enables a more interactive and engaging experience for the audience.

Pose Tools for ZBrush

The plugin’s name is CC Pose Tools for ZBrush. It is a free plugin that enables you to easily create and switch between various poses for your character with a single click. With Pose Tools, you can seamlessly send your model from ZBrush to Character Creator for rigging and posing through Pose Link.

Additionally, you can take full advantage of the extensive library of motions and poses, effortlessly sending them to ZBrush with just a few simple clicks.

My Sculpting Process

Step 1 – References

When I envision dynamic poses and movement, dance is among the first things that come to mind. The graceful and fluid motions of the human body can make it appear as light as a feather and as flexible as bamboo. Here are a few references that have served as inspiration for this project:

Step 2 – Selecting the Base Mesh

To maximize the potential of your sculpture, it is highly recommended to ensure that the mesh has a well-balanced distribution of polygons. This allows for uniform levels of detail when subdividing the geometry in ZBrush. For this particular project, I will be utilizing the “Male Neutral” base from Character Creator, which features a commendable human topology. The mesh consists entirely of quads, making it ideal for subdivision and achieving high levels of sculpting detail. As a result, the base mesh is already prepared for subdivision, providing an excellent starting point for this project.

Step 3 – Sculpting the Base Mesh

Prior to embarking on our initial pose creation, I will begin with a sculpting pass to establish the bone structures and muscles of my character. This initial layer of sculpting will be fairly rough, serving as the foundation for all subsequent poses to be developed.

Step 4 – Creating the First Pose

To commence, we will utilize the Pose Tools Plugin. In order to create a new pose, we will employ the “Record a New Pose” option.

After clicking on the button, we will be asked to name this new pose.

There are various methods available to store your poses using Pose Tools. For this particular project, I utilized Pose Tools in conjunction with the Transpose tool and the Mask Brush to achieve the desired pose.

Once you have moved, rotated, and pulled on the character to achieve the desired pose, it is time to save the pose within Pose Tools. The process is incredibly straightforward, requiring just a simple button press and your pose will be promptly saved in the plugin under the previously chosen name.

To revert back to your base pose, simply deselect the Pose Tools pose slot. By doing so, you will seamlessly return to the original base pose, allowing you to proceed to the next pose with ease.

Step 5 – Editing the Poses

However, my pose was not yet complete. As a result of the movements I made on the character, there were several artifacts present in “Pose01”. Fortunately, Pose Tools offers a straightforward solution to address this issue. By clicking the “Edit Current Pose” button, we gain the ability to re-sculpt and modify our mesh, allowing us to rectify any undesired artifacts.

Now comes the phase of sculpting and refining the sculpture. My objective here was to imbue the model with a unique essence, accentuating the bony landmarks to add a certain allure and ensure a clear definition of the character’s shapes. To achieve a clay-like finish, I employed one of my preferred brushes known as “Clay Layer Strong”, crafted by the talented artist Pablo Munoz Gomez.

Step 6 – Creating the Second Pose

To create “pose 02”, I followed the same steps as before:

1. Begin from the base pose.
2. Choose the “Record New Pose” option.
3. Assign a name to the new pose.
4. Utilize the Transpose and Mask Brush to position the character in the desired pose.
5. Save the new pose.

Once the pose was blocked out, I proceeded to sculpt the model once again using the “Edit Current Pose” feature. This allowed me to rectify any distortions that may have occurred due to the initial pose the character was placed in. By employing this function, I was able to correct these distortions and finalize the sculpture with the same level of quality achieved in “pose 01”.

Step 7 – Creating the Third Pose

Following the previous steps, I employed Pose Tools once again to create “Pose 03”. I began by establishing a rough initial blockout for the pose.

Afterward, utilizing the “Edit Current Pose” feature, I addressed any imperfections and completed the sculpture in a manner consistent with my approach mentioned before.

Step 8 – Colors

Lately, I’ve developed a strong interest in incorporating color into my sculptures, and this project was no exception. Another exciting capability provided by Pose Tools is the ability to apply different color schemes to the same mesh using PolyPaint for each pose slot in your file. To achieve this, simply select the desired slot with the corresponding pose, enter “Edit Current Pose” mode, and begin painting the geometry using ZBrush’s PolyPaint feature. By employing this method, I successfully created a series of three poses, each adorned with its unique color scheme, while utilizing the same underlying geometry.

Conclusion

The Pose Tools plugin offers the flexibility to easily manipulate both the pose and color of your model using a shared mesh, allowing for swift changes with just a single click. This highly optimized plugin seamlessly integrates with the ZBrush layer system, delivering exceptional speed, while boasting an intuitive and functional interface. It serves as an excellent tool for generating diverse pose variations of a character and exploring different possibilities within a single piece, all while maintaining editing control. Keep in mind that there are multiple ways to utilize this plugin; the aforementioned approach is just one example. I encourage you to enjoy the creative possibilities it presents!

For a CC-to-ZB Roundtrip Solution

The Character Creator Pose Link is a specialized plugin designed to facilitate the creation of various poses for your characters. With this powerful tool, you can effortlessly switch between different poses with just a single click, streamlining your workflow and saving valuable time.

Pose Tools even offers seamless integration between ZBrush and Character Creator 4 (CC4), allowing you to easily transfer your models back and forth. Furthermore, you can leverage the extensive library of poses available in the CC Pose Library, providing a wealth of options and serving as an excellent foundation for your projects. Transferring these poses from CC4 to ZBrush is a breeze using ZBrush Pose Link. With just a simple click, your selected poses will be stored and easily accessible within Pose Tools.

Learn More

Free Download ZBrush Pose Tools
Pose Link Plugin: Character Creator and ZBrush Roundtrip Workflow
Character Creator Base Mesh
Character Creator

Follow More of Deryck’s Work

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Learning

Using Mobile Scanning apps with Character Creator’s Headshot 2.0

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Mobile scanning provides a convenient and cost-effective method for creating 3D models. However, unwieldy scanning conditions may result in compromised quality. By selecting the effective surfaces, Character Creator Headshot 2.0 plugin AI can overcome these challenges by seamlessly filling in the missing areas, such as the ears, skull, and neck, ensuring high-quality results.

In the latest Character Creator Headshot 2.0 plugin release, many people have been curious about how Reallusion managed to create the face scan from an iPhone. Here, we would like to share our own experience with a powerful iPhone 3D scanning app we used in this demo.

While there are numerous 3D mobile scanning apps and AI solutions for converting videos to 3D models available in the market, our production process has been made remarkably easier and the results have been highly satisfactory, thanks to the following key features from SCANDY PRO app:

  • Accessibility for iPhone Users: This app is specifically designed for iPhone users, utilizing the iPhone’s depth camera for enhanced model precision. Users can easily access the app as it is standalone. Additionally, the app captures color texture simultaneously with the scanning process, ensuring a comprehensive and accurate result. The affordable pricing makes it accessible to a wide range of users, allowing them to own the app , similar to other Reallusion products.

  • No Cloud Computing Required: Scandy app performs all the necessary calculations solely on the iPhone itself. Users can see the scan mesh progressively being built up in real-time during the capturing process. This eliminates the need to send data to the cloud for computing and wait for results. The real-time feedback provided by the app allows users to confirm the scan results and make necessary corrections with ease. The main challenge lies in ensuring that the subject remains still during the scanning process to obtain an accurate mesh.

  • Seamless File Transfer: After completing the scan, users can easily send the scan file to their PC via email or use Mac Airdrop if they have a Mac device. No additional registration is required, and users can immediately access the 3D model (OBJ) and texture files (around 1.5k * 1.5k) directly from their iPhone. The polygon count/file size is approximately 50K triangles, and while the mesh quality may not be perfect compared to photogrammetry, it is well-suited for Headshot 2.0 purposes. An important benefit is that users have the option to keep their works private without the need for public display, resulting in a fast turnaround time.

  • Mesh and Texture Quality: The app also supports multiple file formats, including OBJ and USDZ. The mesh density and vertex color are optimized to ensure high-quality results. While some limitations may exist, such as potential color banding, the overall mesh and texture quality is satisfactory for most applications.

Download Scandy app:
https://www.scandy.co/

Limited-Time Scandy PRO DISCOUNT CODE – US$25 (normally US$40) for the first year:  
https://apps.apple.com/redeem?ctx=offercodes&id=1388028223&code=HEADSHOT

Learn how to use Headshot 2.0:

More Character Creator Headshot tutorials:
https://courses.reallusion.com/home/character-creator/pipelines-and-render/headshot

Featured Story

AI-Enhanced Dynamic Wrinkles in Disney and Anime Style

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José Antonio Tijerín

José Tijerín is a digital illustrator, 3D sculptor, and creator of video games such as “Dear Althea”  available on Steam. His content pack “We’re Besties” and “We’re Homies” are currently for sale in the Reallusion content store.

Hi, I’m José Tijerín, a digital illustrator, 3D sculptor, and videogame developer. You can check out my latest game, “From the Streets to the Script: A Carabanchel Story,” available on Steam. In this article, I will share my method for creating cartoonish wrinkles. >> Download hi-res anatomical textures used in this video

Creating cartoonish wrinkles for 3D characters is a breakthrough that helps bring them to life — and Character Creator’s (CC) Dynamic Wrinkle system enhances this process for both cartoon and realistic characters. Before we begin, read my article ‘Disney 2D Animation Style Remade with Character Creator 4’ (Part1. Part 2) for essential concepts in creating a solid 3D base model that looks professional without technical issues.

To add dynamic wrinkles, ensure your character is based on the CC base topology. Activate the dynamic wrinkles and select an empty layer in the “Texture Settings” section. Clicking “Individualize” generates a texture combining the base and wrinkle textures. Customizing wrinkles is a simple, fast, and visual process that involves replacing images.

Generating Realistic Wrinkles from AI Tools

Creating hyper-realistic dynamic wrinkles can be challenging if drawn by hand. Fortunately, Reallusion provides professional dynamic wrinkle packages — and now enhanced by AI. By capturing the front face of our character and leveraging AI image generation, we can achieve fabulous results.

Left: Original wrinkle in Character Creator . Right: AI-enhanced wrinkle.

Simply download and edit the desired image (using an image editor, like Clip Studio) to cut out the wrinkle area and paste it into our character’s base texture. We can convert the texture to a normal texture using specialized software, then replace the image in the dynamic wrinkles menu of CC. This straightforward process yields custom-tailored results.

CC provides sculpting tools for adding wrinkles directly onto the facial model. With brushes, we can precisely add wrinkles, adjust intensity and softness, and combine them with dynamic wrinkles for unique outcomes.

It’s crucial to remember that facial wrinkles go beyond expressing emotions, they can also convey moods like optimism and anxiety. By experimenting with various wrinkle-expression combinations, we can create expressive and captivating characters.

Simulating Dynamic Wrinkles for 4 Major Character Types

In this video, we will explore four different types of expression wrinkles for cartoon characters, transitioning from 3D to 2D. The four types include unlit 3D, 3D classic, cel shading, and anime styles.

Style 1 : Cartoon Unlit

Let’s create a 3D cartoon style without lights using brushstrokes to add details, resembling a painted look commonly seen in video games. First, create a “model sheets” schematic to define unique wrinkles and expressions for each character, ensuring uniqueness. Export the custom character from CC and import it into a texture creation program like Substance Painter.

In Substance Painter (SP), apply the base texture to the character’s face and paint the wrinkles while considering the lighting. This method is preferable for painting wrinkles directly on the texture, as mesh deformation can make it challenging to predict their appearance when the rest of the face is deformed.

After customizing the wrinkles in SP, load the image into the texture set in CC and activate the Dynamic Wrinkle system. Adjusting the speed at which the wrinkle texture appears with facial deformation enables pronounced and clear expressions for cartoon characters. Utilize CC’s facial profile editing system to fine-tune wrinkle details.

Style 2 : Classic 3D Cartoon

Since cartoon wrinkles have distinct hard lines resembling strokes, it’s important to convey skin elasticity while avoiding excessively large grooves. Reallusion’s “Wrinkle Essentials” package offers high-quality textures for realistic wrinkle and crease visuals. This package is valuable not only for realistic characters but also provides diverse facial wrinkle variations that enhance the unique features of cartoon characters.

For customizing wrinkles, extract the dynamic wrinkle textures and modify them in an image editor. This ensures a professional finish tailored to our character, as we’ve previously discussed with Reallusion’s offerings.

Style 3 : Cel-shaded look

To achieve dynamic facial expressions, lines are commonly used to simulate wrinkles and enhance specific facial cues. However, it’s important to avoid excessive lines that overwhelm the face. Manga provides a good example, where lines on the forehead emphasize anger alongside wrinkles on the nose.

For this style, begin by applying the desired cartoon effect provided by CC. Then, take the diffuse textures from different sets of dynamic wrinkles and draw expression lines on top of them. Drawing inspiration from comic and manga techniques can help create impactful facial expressions.

Style 4 : Anime

In manga, “manpu” symbols are used to express characters’ feelings in a clear and comical manner. These symbols, like sweat drops, striped lines on the face, or anger-induced swollen veins, can be incorporated by modeling the characters’ unused teeth and transforming them into symbols. The intriguing part is that these teeth deformations can be added as custom facial expressions in CC.

By utilizing morphs or facial deformations, lines can be added to enhance existing expressions. This technique enables the adjustment of wrinkle intensity and other facial elements like blushing. When combined with the dynamic wrinkle system, this approach is amplified.

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this article. For more information, feel free to check out the related video.

Free Download :

• Four hi-res Anatomy Textures used in this video

• Character Creator

• iClone

Learn more :

• Tijerín Art Studio (José Antonio Tijerín): ArtStation. Sketchfab. Instagram

• To delve into the inner workings of José’s manpus, visit the “Tijerín Art Studio” marketplace site to access his anime character, featured in this article.

• Wrinkle Essentials – Expansion for Dynamic Wrinkle Patterns (5 Real, 5 Toon, 48 Morph)

Featured Story

Animating Dialogue-Intensive Asian Characters in Unreal Engine using Character Creator and iClone

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Peter Haynes

Peter Haynes is a filmmaker based in Auckland, New Zealand. Last year, he and his team were the recipients of an Epic Games film‐making grant, which gave them the budget to create a fully animated short film called “Cheng Beng”, featuring a captivating story with set dressing and characters infused with classic Chinese culture.
There are a couple of unique aspects in the making of this film. Firstly, despite his ample experience in live action filmmaking, Peter had limited experience in the realm of 3D animation. Secondly, the film had a tight deadline imposed by the small budget provided by the fund, necessitating quick turnaround times for the shots. The following content is presented in his own words.

Why choose Reallusion tools?

I highly value Reallusion’s software, particularly Character Creator (CC) and iClone. These tools have been indispensable in our production process. The streamlined and intuitive approach of building our actors using Character Creator allowed me to have our entire cast prepared within just a few days, a task that would have been previously impossible given my limited 3D skills.

Quick Start with Character Creator’s Content Ecosystem

With a total of five characters in the story, it was impractical to create each one from scratch. This was particularly challenging as we aimed to incorporate cultural elements and specific designs, making it difficult to find ready-made CG resources that fit the bill. In particular, during the character-building process, we had a specific vision for our little girl to wear a cheongsam. To our surprise, the Reallusion Content Store offered an extensive selection from various artists, allowing us to find one that suited our needs perfectly. With just a few adjustments in Photoshop to enhance the colors, the dress seamlessly applied to the character with minimal editing required.

Unreal Groom System vs iClone’s Card-Based Hair

To give my little girl character hair in CC, I initially attempted to create separate groom hair for her in Unreal Engine. While grooms can offer visually stunning and dynamically simulated hair, they can be resource-intensive and occasionally yield unpredictable lighting results. I may also have gotten carried away with hair physics, as I had just discovered their exciting capabilities.

However, if I were to approach the process again, I would consider leveraging CC hair cards to a greater extent. These hair cards can yield similar results while significantly reducing the processor load. Interestingly, all of the characters with short hair in this film utilized hair cards from Smart Hair Systems, and they performed exceptionally well. I have also recently experimented with the new hair builder pack, and I am delighted with the outcomes it has produced.

Finally, the CC Auto Setup Plugin allowed me to import these characters into Unreal with all their textures and costumes intact, the realistic shader look is ready for close-ups.

Creating Authentic Character Animations

In this short film, extensive dialogue and character interactions play a significant role. The animation requirements to support the storyline were daunting, but the following is his account of how he and his team managed to accomplish it within 90 days.

Animating Dialogs in Multiple Languages

But as brilliant as CC was, the real lifesaver for this dialogue‐heavy short film was the AccuLips feature in iClone. Not only did our film have a lot of dialogue, but it was also spoken in four separate languages, and the AccuLips tool worked brilliantly for all of them.

Because of the way it works, non‐Chinese speakers could simply type in what the words phonetically sounded like, and the results speak for themselves. Once again, the Reallusionsoftware made the impossible possible.

Additional lip sync animation tweaks can be made by the intuitive user interface. 

Making realistic facial performances 

Extra add‐ons tools and content, such as the Digital Soul collection of motion-captured expressions served as excellent base animations, which could then be enhanced through the easy-to-use and very fun face puppet tool. I have also since started capturing facial performances through the iPhone, which also works extremely well.

There is a bunch of stuff that I would do differently on this film now, due to both Reallusioncoming out with cool new features that weren’t available at the time, or me simply not knowing about a feature and only discovering it afterwards. The coolest of the cool new features is the Dynamic Wrinkle pack, which adds so much more subtle expression to characters than was available before. 

Handling Challenging Cases – Walking hand in hand

An example of me only discovering a solution to a problem after the film was finished was this shot of our characters holding hands while walking. I spent ages keyframing pretty much every hand position in Unreal, and I still wasn’t happy with the finished product. Only afterwards did I discover the reach target tool. This allowed me to lock one character’s hand onto another and made that entire sequence a breeze. This, combined with the look at features that I also discovered later, are invaluable tools for streamlining and enriching the animation process, and I will certainly be making more use of them moving forward.

As a person who fully admits to being stronger creatively than technically, I’ve found theReallusion software packages really suit my way of working. They are simple to get your head around, intuitive in the way they work, and most importantly, fun. I look forward to using them again with all their newest features for our next short film.


Learn More
Visit Peter Haynes
https://www.youtube.com/@EpicallyCasual/featured

iClone Lip-sync Animation:
https://www.reallusion.com/iclone/lipsync-animation.html

Get 36 FREE iClone tutorials for optimized animation editing:
https://www.reallusion.com/iclone/maya-motionbuilder-alternative/mocap-animation-courses.html

Enhance your character’s realism with Dynamic Wrinkle System in Character Creator:
https://www.reallusion.com/character-creator/dynamic-wrinkle.html

Learning

Demystifying ZBrush Posing using Character Creator: Insights from Director of Character Art for Certain Affinity

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Michael Pavlovich earned a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Animation from RSAD in 2005. Initially, he contributed to the development of environment and character art for popular video games such as Madden and NCAA Football. Later, he relocated to Austin to join Daybreak Games, where he worked on the creation of art assets for DC Universe Online.

Presently, Michael holds the position of Director of Character, Weapon, and Vehicle Art at Certain Affinity. His expertise lies in implementing iterative pipelines for Certain Affinity artists helping develop renowned video game franchises, including Halo, Call of Duty, and DOOM. To stay updated on his latest tutorial projects, you can visit Michael’s YouTube or ArtStation page.

PART 1 : Using Character Creator with ZBrush Pose Tools Plugin to Create & Organize Poses

ZBrush has been known for its powerful asset creation capabilities, but posing complex high-poly characters has always been a challenge. However, with the introduction of GoZ and the Pose Tools plugin, rigging, animating, and storing poses can now be accomplished in just minutes. The easy-to-use, single-button interface simplifies the process of applying poses to ZBrush characters, opening up a world of possibilities for making your creations come alive. By integrating Character Creator (CC) into their pipelines, artists can further harness the capabilities of this plugin and unlock new possibilities for introducing fresh poses.

Installation

To begin, it is essential to have all the necessary components installed.

Follow these steps:

  1. Open the Reallusion Hub and ensure you have the latest version of CC installed.
  2. In the “Add-ons for CC” section, install ZBrush Pose Link.
  3. Next, click on the “Product Home” button for ZBrush Pose Tools. This action will redirect you to a Reallusion download/install page.
  4. On the Reallusion Download & Install page, click the Free Download Button for ZBrush Pose Tools.
  5. After downloading, unzip the files.
  6. Locate and copy the “Data” folder and “PoseTools.zsc” files.
  7. Paste them into the “ZStartup\ZPlugs64” folder, or wherever you have ZBrush installed.

By following these steps, you will have successfully installed ZBrush Pose Tools for CC.

Demo Soldier Setup

Let’s work with the demo soldier character as it is accessible to everyone. Our goal is to cover both rigid binding (accessories or objects bound to a single joint) and soft binding (objects bound to multiple joints in a hierarchy).

Follow these steps:

  1. Separate the “kneeGuard” subtool into right and left subtools. This division will allow us to bind these as accessories inside CC later on.
  2. Ensure that each subtool has a unique and meaningful name. This will facilitate easy selection from a list and minimize errors that may arise from identical names or special characters that could cause issues.

By following these steps, we can effectively work with the demo soldier character, organizing subtools and preparing them for binding as accessories in CC.

Resizing

To facilitate easy access, dock the Pose Tools ZPlugin on the left side of your screen. You can either select a preset or manually enter a size in centimeters or feet. Ensure that the main body of your character subtool is selected, and then click the “Resize” button. This will ensure that your character is scaled to real-world units. This is not only beneficial for compatibility with CC but also for any application that requires your asset to be accurately scaled to a specific unit of measure.

GoZ

Click the “GoZ All” button in ZBrush to launch CC (if it is not already open) and initiate the rigging process by sending over the lowest subdivision versions of your asset.

If you need to configure GoZ, click the “R” button next to it. Additionally, you can access more options by going to “Preferences > GoZ”.

AccuRIG – Skeleton Creation

Within CC, click the “Update” button in the GoZ dialog box. This action will import all your subtools as grouped props. To initiate the rigging process, click the AccuRIG button located in the Modify panel. Upon entering AccuRIG mode, you will notice that your model automatically adjusts to position its feet on the ground plane.

To focus on the body, hide all objects except for the body itself. With the “Selected Meshes” option enabled, create guides by clicking the corresponding button. Utilize the placement diagrams to accurately position the guides. Once you have positioned the guides, press the “Generate Skeleton” button.

This step will convert the guides into joints and provide additional guides for the fingers. To position the finger guides, follow the same process as you did for the body guides. You can conveniently navigate to the hand area by clicking the frame buttons, which will swiftly move your camera accordingly.

AccuRig – Bind Skin

Now, make your objects visible again, but this time only select the parts of your character that should deform along with the skeleton. Leave any objects that shouldn’t bend during animation unselected, such as hats, armor, glasses, and similar items. Proceed to click the Bind Skin button.

This action will bind the selected bendable parts to the skeleton, grouping them together. The non-bendable objects will be placed in a separate group above as accessories. To ensure everything is working properly, you can click the “Check Animation” button to test your asset before exiting the AccuRIG mode. Once you are satisfied with the results, click the AccuRIG button again to exit AccuRIG mode.

Relink Your ZBrush File

It’s important to remember that when we entered AccuRIG mode, our character was automatically positioned to stand on the ground plane. Therefore, we need to update our ZBrush model to match this alignment. To do so, select the topmost group object for your character and click the GoZ button located at the top of the interface. In the dialogue box, ensure that “Relink” is automatically chosen for all your objects. Additionally, select “Current Pose” and then click the “GoZ” button. This action will send the vertex positions of your newly bound objects from CC back to ZBrush, updating the character’s location accordingly.

You will also notice that the subdivision history for your subtools in ZBrush remains intact, preserving any high-resolution details you have sculpted. It is recommended to save both your Character Creator and your ZBrush file. You can do this by navigating to “File > Save As” in both applications.

Adding Poses and Animations to Your Character

Back in CC, go to the “Content” tab and include an animation for your character. Explore the timeline to locate the ideal pose, and utilize the “Edit Pose” button in the “Modify > Motion Pose” tab to make precise adjustments. You can also drag a pose onto your character or select an animation from the “Motion” menu in the “Animation Playback” section.

Sending Poses Back to ZBrush

Once you have chosen a pose you like, go to the “Plugins > ZBrush Pose Link” menu. There, you will find options for sending the T/A poses to ZBrush, as well as the option to send the current character pose. Select the option to send your current pose back to ZBrush, which will save the pose data as a layer for each subtool.

Moreover, it will organize the pose into a conveniently selectable button. You can rename a pose by selecting it, and you can easily switch between poses using these buttons.

In subsequent articles, we will explore the remaining features of the Pose Tools plugin. However, what we have covered so far should encompass the majority of what you will need.

PART 2 : Posing a Custom ZBrush Character in CC with custom & library accessories

Now that we are familiar with the fundamental procedure, let’s discuss how you can bring your custom accessories into CC for posing, as well as how to import pre-existing assets from the CC library back into ZBrush. If you’re interested in creating a character of this nature, I have a 12-part series available on ArtStation Learning that you can follow along with. It provides detailed guidance and instructions for the entire process.

Polycount & ZRemesh

One important consideration is the polygon count when sending your model to CC. While you can create highly detailed models with millions of polygons in ZBrush, attempting to pose such a dense mesh would be extremely challenging. Instead, you can utilize ZRemesher and Project functions in ZBrush to generate a lower-density subdivision mesh that can be easily rigged and animated. By projecting your details onto higher-density subdivisions, you can preserve the intricate details without sacrificing performance. The step-by-step process for achieving this is thoroughly explained in the accompanying video.

Transferring Polypaint to Textures

One drawback of transferring a low-resolution mesh is that the quality of your polypaint may appear blurry without the high-resolution vertices to support it. However, this issue can be addressed by transferring the polypaint data (vertex color) from the high- to low-poly geometry. By doing this, your character will maintain its visual appeal during animation in CC. If you don’t mind animating with only the low-poly geometry, you can skip this step as it doesn’t affect functionality but rather just enhances the visuals.

GoZ

The process for transferring the model is similar to the previous setup. Just resize your character using the Pose Tools plugin (be sure to select your body mesh during resizing), and then send it to CC using GoZ. You will observe that the subtools with transferred polypaint as textures will appear as intended. However, objects without textures may lose their color. To address this, you have two options.

First, you can change the geometry display from “Normal” to “Smooth” to visualize the vertex color (polypaint) transferred from ZBrush. Alternatively, you can navigate to the “Modify > Material” tab and select a diffuse color for that specific object to restore its original color.

AccuRIG & Animation

Once again, the process is identical to the one demonstrated with the soldier. Begin by selecting all the objects that will undergo deformation and click on “Bind Skin” in AccuRIG. Make sure to choose “Selected Meshes” to bind only the selected objects.

Objects that should remain rigid, such as glasses, headphones, and the Walkman, should be left unselected. After binding the skin, you can exit AccuRIG and proceed to apply animations or poses to your character without any issues.

Custom Accessories

In ZBrush, append any custom accessories that you wish to pose your character with. Afterward, use the “GoZ All” function to send the entire scene back to CC. The newly appended subtools will automatically be added as accessories. Select them and adjust their pivot points to ensure they align properly with the character’s interaction, such as placing them in the character’s right hand in this case.

Remember to modify the “Attach to” section to the appropriate bone for your character, such as “CC_Base_R_Hand”. Once the accessory positions are adjusted, use the “GoZ” button within CC to relay the updated positions of the accessories back to ZBrush.

Adding CC Accessories

In the “Content” tab of CC, locate the “Accessory” section. From there, you can either drag and drop the desired accessories onto your character or obtain accessories from the Reallusion Content Store. By default, accessories are assigned to joints based on the best guess. For instance, sunglasses and hats are typically attached to the “CC_Base_Head” joint. However, you have the freedom to update the pivot, reposition the objects, and modify their attachments as per your requirements.

Once you have made the necessary adjustments, ensure that all objects in your scene are visible and selected. Then, use the GoZ feature in CC to transfer the updated scene, including the new accessories, back to ZBrush. This way, your ZBrush scene will be seamlessly updated with the newly added accessories.

Posing & Visibility Sets

Similar to the previous article, you can create multiple poses in CC and then send them back to ZBrush for convenient storage and access. To accomplish this, use the option “Send Current Pose to ZBrush Pose Tools” located in the “Plugins > ZBrush Pose Link” menu. This will store your poses and make them easily accessible within ZBrush. Additionally, for each pose, you can assign a “Subtool Visibility Set”, enabling you to show or hide specific subtools associated with that pose.

PART 3 : CC Cloth Simulation, Weight Paint, & ZBrush Cloth Sculpting

In addition to binding objects to a skeleton, we can enhance the CC by incorporating cloth simulation. This means that as our character animates, cloth objects will move and behave realistically, flowing naturally with their movements. If you’re intrigued by the idea of designing such dynamic characters, I invite you to join a series of livestreams where I demonstrate the entire creation process.

UVs for Cloth Objects

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is C_02.png

The initial steps for setting up your character will remain the same as demonstrated in the previous tutorial (naming your subtools, ensuring lower subdivisions for GoZ transfer, etc.). However, for the objects intended to be simulated in CC, it’s important to have UVs in place for generating a weight map later on. To expedite the UV creation process, we will employ the UV Master plugin in ZBrush.

Adjusting Weights

Once you have rigged and bound your character, you may encounter a few problematic areas. In our case, the cloth around the character’s neck may exhibit unnatural bending when the head moves, and the cloth cloak might appear as if it’s stuck to the limbs. To address both of these issues, follow these steps:

  1. Select the problematic cloth objects and navigate to the “Modify” panel.
  2. Click on the “Skin Weights” button.
  3. For the neck cloth, use the paint operation to ensure that it stays connected to the “CC_Base_Spine02” bone.
  4. As for the cloak, employ the Selection mode and perform a “Quick Replace” operation on all vertices associated with the cloth. Assign them to the “Spine02” bone.

By executing these steps, you should be able to rectify the bending of the neck cloth and ensure that the cloak follows the movements of the “Spine02” bone without appearing stuck to the character’s limbs.

Collision Shapes

To create the illusion of the cloth coming in contact with the character’s body without incurring the performance cost of using the body geometry itself, we can employ collision shapes. By pressing the “Collision Shape” button, we can add shapes to specific areas of the body where the cloak will interact, such as the chest, shoulders, and arms.

Weight Map

To activate physics for the selected character group, follow these steps:

  1. With the top character group selected, navigate to the “Modify” section.
  2. Click on the “Physics” tab within the “Modify” section.
  3. Check the box labeled “Activate Physics” to enable physics simulations for the character.

Once you activate physics, CC will prompt you to assign a weight map to the materials. In this case, we want to associate the weight map with the “Cloth Cloak” material. However, since we don’t have an image for the weight map yet, we can create one using ZBrush. Here’s how:

  1. Return to ZBrush and polypaint the desired areas of the character where the cloth will be bound, in this case, “Spine02”. This will serve as our weight map.
  2. Transfer the polypaint information to a texture, similar to how we did it with the socks earlier.
  3. Export the texture as our weight map.

Finally, in CC, we can plug the exported weight map into the material assigned to the cloth. The black parts of the weight map will be bound to the “Spine02” object, while the white parts will move freely like cloth, colliding with the collision shapes as the character animates.

Rigid Body, Soft Cloth, & Animation

To achieve the desired effect, follow these steps:

  1. Enable the Rigid Body and Soft Cloth simulation options. You can find them at the top of your menu or by checking the respective boxes in the “Edit > Project Settings” menu.
  2. Additionally, consider turning on the “Bake Animation” option while you’re in the settings menu. This allows you to scrub the timeline smoothly after the cloth simulation is completed.
  3. Now, proceed to add an animation from the “Content” tab. Choose the desired animation that you want to apply to the cloth.
  4. Finally, click the “Play” button in the animation player to start the playback.

Tip: To ensure the cloth reacts appropriately throughout each frame of the animation, change the playback setting from “Realtime” to “ByFrame”.

This will provide a frame-by-frame playback, allowing the cloth to respond accurately.

Pose Tools and Editing

As always, follow these steps to utilize the Pose Tools in ZBrush using the “Plugins > ZBrush Pose Link > Send Active Pose” option. This will transmit all the available pose options to ZBrush. After completing this step, click the “Edit Current Pose” button within the ZBrush Pose Tools plugin. This action will activate the REC button for each layer in the pose, enabling you to make sculptural modifications to any subtool.

Once you have finished editing, click the “Save Current Record” button. You can then proceed to edit your next pose or import a new pose from CC into ZBrush Pose Tools.

PART 4 : Pose Tools ZBrush Plugin: Layer & Pose Management with CC

Transpose Master

We’ve discussed using CC to create poses, but what about utilizing ZBrush for posing? Have you ever used ZBrush to pose before, perhaps using layers, but now you want to convert them into Pose Tools poses? The process is straightforward.

Here’s what you need to do:

  1. Open ZBrush and navigate to “ZPlugin > Transpose Master”.
  2. Make the desired pose changes using masking and gizmo/transpose lines.
  3. With the Layer activated, press the “TPose | SubT” button. This action will send your Transpose Master changes back to your subtools, storing each change as a generic layer.
  4. To make these layers recognized by Pose Tools, click the “Convert Layers to Pose” button.

By following these steps, you can seamlessly transition your ZBrush layers into Pose Tools poses, making it super easy to work with your desired poses.

Dynamic Cloth Simulation in ZBrush

Notice how we opted not to sculpt our cloak using Transpose Master. Instead, we can achieve the desired effect by following these steps: First, click on “Edit Current Pose” to position the cloth over the character. Then, utilize ZBrush’s dynamic cloth functionality to simulate the cloak over the body.

This feature allows you to apply cloth simulation to your sculpting brushes. For more details and guidance on ZBrush’s dynamic cloth functionality, including using cloth simulation with sculpting brushes, refer to the What’s New – ZBrush 2021 playlist.

Delete vs Remove

If you have a pose selected in the Pose Tools plugin, there are two options to remove it:

  1. Press the “Remove” button: This will remove the pose from the Pose Tools library while keeping the edited layers in the subtools intact.
  2. Use the “Delete” button: This option deletes the layers from the subtools, effectively removing the pose data from both the subtools and the Pose Tools plugin.

Detail Layers

You also have the ability to create new layers for each individual subtool. These layers can be modified independently, allowing you to make specific changes such as applying a weave surface noise. The great thing is that these layers can be toggled on and off for the other posed meshes as well, providing flexibility and control over the modifications across multiple meshes.

In Conclusion

Posing your ZBrush creations in CC is not only easy but also faster, with results that are easily organized using the Pose Tools pose library. With minimal preparation, your creations can achieve more, faster, and with higher quality compared to traditional manual methods. While we’re only beginning to explore the potential of Character Creator in enhancing character pipelines, this is undoubtedly a promising start!

Free Download :

• ZBrush Pose Tools

• Character Creator

Learn more :

• Michael Pavlovich: ArtStation. YouTube. LinkedIn

• Posing ZBrush Character Effortlessly: CC & ZBrush workflow. ZBrush-only workflow

• CC AccuRIG: Auto Rig Tool (embedded in Character Creator 4)

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