About to cry

I am about to cry. I think my "free" version of zbrush is dying on me. I don't know if anyone else is having this problem with zbrush but whenever I preview the skin while making an object out of zspheres my whole skin is distorted. This is the first time this has happened. Here are some screenshots of what I am encountering. Please help! What am I doing wrong??

Lazy Brush

Hey Gavin - How did you get those nice clean lines & grooves with the lazy brush setting? I tried it with a few different types of brushes on freehand, but all the marks were jagged & disconnected..

Alien Plant (Trying to catch up)

Here's my alien plant. Now on to making the low poly.

-David Woo

YAY! LOW POLY ROCKS!!

I don't want anybody to take this the wrong way, but I was baking all weekend. (heh, heh... "baking." ) These are my rendered images of my game models with 3-point lighting.

-David Woo

expectations for the next stage

hey guys, just wanted to update you on what im going to be expecting for our creatures. this link monster is what im expecting this semester...only colored and low poly. but a creature of this level is very obtainable. next week we start modeling our creatures so make sure your concept is down solid. if after seeing that link you want to switch around your design just make sure you run it by me.

this week, i know we went over a lot in class, but most of you have had me before or had don's class so baking maps shouldnt be anything new. if you contact me this week with questions i will gladly answer them, but if i get people that dont have their bakes and textures ready next week, who dont ask questions well ahead of time, im just counting it as you didnt do the homework. next week nobody should ask about a baking issue, this week is cool, next week is NOT cool.

im meeting up with dave thursday night to go over some stuff, so if anyone wants in on that it is open to all. ill put my number at the bottom again for anyone who hasnt grabbed it yet.

remember, anytime there are any questions throughout the week, call me, email me, post here, whatever. i have met up with a couple of you a couple times already, others should take that as a good example.

contacts:
707 616 2485
gavinrich(at)gmail

plant 2

Sorry Gavin,
I waited to the last minute to do these plants (spent all last week trying to paint. I know no excuses!) >.< Anyway, I can't get the color to work. Like always, if you do something at the last minute something will always go wrong. :(

I promise to do better!

Sorry for the image. Dark colors = very bad for the gradient background.

Grandpa??

Rough concept of what happened to Grandpa when he went missing. The little buggers inside attach to friendly survivors and temporarily gain control of nerves to cause friendly fire.

Confused @.@ Plant 1

I know this is a last minute post >.< This is my first plant. I think I need to redo them this week. I am having difficulties joining them together. I keep getting a distortion and i hit something by accident apparently and now I'm drawing with my plant bottom. @.@ Help!

cherry

YES

finally, getting some posts on here...this makes me happy...a little late in the game though. now to get crackin on some comments

Alien Gladiator Concept (no weapons)

Beast concept

Here is my beast concept.

rarrrrrrr

Beast Concept - will upload gladiator in a bit.

Hi Gavin, just want to know if there's anything we are suppose to turn in next week since the class was canceled for president's day.

Plants!

An Alien head...not plants

Here is an alien head I created. I know it's not plants and I will be posting those soon. Just thought this alien head looked kinda cool and wanted to share it :3

Week 3 Stuff

Sorry for the late post Gavin! But here are the three busts for last week. Two colored one one just an ideation. Will post the two plants once I finish it, more punctual too.

Orchids

Hola peeps.

    There's currently an orchid show going on in the Westminster mall until Tomorrow.  It's a good place for alien-y plant reference, as some of the orchids have some bizarre forms and colors.  I took photos on my iPhone, so sorry for the lack of quality in these shots.  I may be revisiting with an actual camera and can update if I do.  Otherwise I would suggest checking it out, it was a really nice show :)

I have over 80 shots from the show, if you guys want my folder, come find me at school!

no posts??

hey guys, its thursday and im still not seeing any posts on here. its hard for me to help out and give critiques when im not seeing anything

homework week 4

make 2 ALIEN plants using zspheres as your start. must be colored. next week we will take one of the plants and retopologize it in zbrush to create our low poly. then bake the normals and diffuse from there.

also, concepts MUST be shown next week. we are going to start our creatures soon and you cant start without an approved concept.

steps for zsphere conversion to poly mesh:
if you are using zsketch (the little zspheres you put on after for muscles and smaller details) hit "bind" in the zsketch panel.

in adaptive skin, click preview so you can make sure your mesh looks clean

under preview hit "make adaptive skin"

this will create a new model up in your tools tab. go to it and start sculpting. i would recommend sketching your plant roughly on paper first so you can see what pieces are repeated. make those separate and bring them together as different sub tools.

when painting on different subtools you will need to paint each one separate then we can bake them all together as one. any questions on that part feel free to ask.

Animal Inspiration

This website has some funny lookin' animals:

http://lumq.com/10/weirdest-animals-and-creatures-in-the-world/

-David

brush set

awesomeness to ye who clicketh
http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=5152

Zbrush Head - Color 2

After a few crashes and a really immature temper tantrum, I finally finished Head number 2. Strange... This creature's expression looks familiar...

-David Woo

hup!

no color yet but has some alphas.

Zbrush Head - Color 1

I'm using my old desk top until I get my Macbook back. It's a much slower computer and can't render a division much higher than 5. This particular piece took forever because I had to stroke once, then wait for the computer to catch up, then repeat. Very annoying!

-David Woo

First set of heads, some kinda alien bird chick -_-


Second set of heads, no idea what it is, don't particularly like it -.-

week 2...kinda

ok, so today we went over alphas, subtools, and coloring. so for homework this week you will need to do 3 busts using my basemesh, 2 of which should be colored, all should have alpha work on them.

also, from now on posting on the blog is part of class participation. post one and comment one. thats 5 minutes out of your week, easy peasy

next week we start our actual projects. in the begining we will be making rocks, then plants, and the actual stand. this week if you havnt shown me any concepts (most of you) then please email them to me or post them on the blog.

hotkeys for this week

ctrl+N=open new document (good for when you accidentally drop your tool on the canvas)
T=edit mode. this is what drops your tool on the canvas...DONT HIT IT
ctrl while painting=mask
ctrl+alt=subtract mask
drag color swatch to your model=color sample (highly recommend making a hotkey)

if there were any others, please email and remind me