Hello and welcome to this Citizen Exclusive tutorial series on modeling a small hippo in Blender 2.6!
This Blender tutorial series for our Citizen Members, by Jonathan Williamson takes you through the process of creating a cute little hippo character from scratch. The model is based on an original concept art by Tim Von Rueden.
What you’ll learn:
Through this series for Blender 2.6 you will learn how to create a clean, optimized basemesh for sculpting and you will learn how to add in all the details with sculpting on the basemesh. You will learn how to retopologize the sculpted model to create a clean, animation-friendly model with good topology by making extensive use of the BSurfaces add-on. Finally, you will learn how to quickly unwrap the UVs for the retopologized model and how to bake out a normal map of all the high-resolution details on the sculpted model.
Become a Citizen Subscriber today to unlock the full series
Sculpting pass 1
Download HD Video
(34:34)
Sculpting pass 2
Download HD Video
(12:20)
Retopologizing the Model
Download HD Video
(28:02)
UV Unwrapping and Normal Map Baking
Download HD Video
(25:16)
Okay, so I finally finished this series. Should I do the step as you suggested in the “Creating a Low Poly Game Asset in Blender – Addendum” tutorial inorder to get a better Normal Map Bake?
The addendum has some extra great info on getting better normal maps so I would definitely recommend it!
Hey, Great tutorial but I was wondering where you get the reference images from? I can’t seem to find a place for a bunch of free reference images to practice
thanks!
Hi there,
I had Tim from Concept Cookie draw these for me. We’ve got a few free ones you can use for practice here: http://cgcookie.com/concept/2012/10/17/concept-cookie-resources-turnarounds/
Hello, I am trying to get my model to have the transparency when editing like in the tutorial, but I can’t work out how to achieve this. Please can someone give me some pointers?
Hi there,
You can switch into wireframe mode by pressing Z. If that’s not what you’re asking can you tell me what time in the video you’re looking at?
Hi Jonathan, thanks for getting back to me so quickly!
When you aren’t in wireframe mode, throughout the whole first video (I think; I haven’t finished the first one yet) I can see your background image through the model. If you go to 2:20 in the first video this is demonstrated really clearly because the top half of the rudimentary model is transparent, so you can see the background image through it, and the bottom half appears to be opaque (although there is no background image to see at the bottom, so I might be mistake about the bottom half’s opacity).
Sorry if I missed your direction on this in your narrative. It will really help me now that I am about to model the shape of the eyes.
Thanks again for your quick reply, and for all your tutorials!
Colin.
I just took another look, and I am at around 7:20 of the first tutorial in this series, and that shows that you seem to be able to see through the faces – they look transparent to me… I don’t think the faces are visible at all in wireframe mode, are they?
Sorry if I am missing something obvious.
Ah got it! In the Background Images you can switch from “Back” to “Front” to make the image show in front of your models. So long as you set the image to be partially transparent then you’ll see your model through the image.
I hope that helps!
Ah! Got it – I was coming at it from the wrong way round! Many, many thanks. Really enjoying Blender; probably because your guidance is so clear.
Glad to help! Let me know if you find any topics that you really want covered.
Cheers,
Jonathan
For retopologizing your model where is the best place to start? I’m making a turtle and trying to do it but there really isn’t a body to start at the way it’s made like the hippo. Does it matter where I start it at?
Hi, you can start wherever you like, personally i like to start at the most complex part such as the face and work my way down the model, where as Jonathan likes to jump around the model when retopologizing.
It’s mostly about what works best for you.
I can’t seem to download the 5 video.
it seems to have resolved itself
Jonathan, I get theses stranges shapes after placing my normal map… I don’t know what it is, but if you look on the back, near the neck bump, it looks like there are some parts that are “flat” :/
Well… When I do render it in cycle, the problem’s gone…
Love this little tut. Thanks, Gerald
I’m glad you like it Gerald
Is there a book or DVD, teaching how to make/plan a animation film after we have the story ready.
Basically a complete guide to production?
Thanx in advance.
There is a number of resources you can find through google, here is one
http://www.zygomaticstudios.com/assets/AGuidetoYour3DProduction.pdf
-ALex
This one might help you out
http://www.blender3d.org/e-shop/product_info_n.php?products_id=126
Another great tutorial Jonathan.
Could you possibly do a follow up tutorial on rigging and animating a quadruped with this model. Tutorials are generally lacking in this area. What makes good topology for a quad, pitfalls during animating, blender limitations with particle hair etc. Maybe use the character interacting with the environment, using the particle system to highlight early morning breathing for example. Finally how to incorporate these in a final scene.
Cheers and keep up the good work.
Is the add-on described here still available? The website seems to have gone defunct and the last mention I can find of it applies to 2.65a. Am I missing something? ^_^;
NVM, I see what I missed…that it’s included in Blender now! ^_^;
Hello Jonathan,
I tried to figure this out myself, but I’m just not seeing how you’ve opened up the front/side background image in the 3D Model window. How do I do this too?
Thanks *^_^*
Okay, I just found it in earlier comments here…
“First off press N to bring up the side menu (if it isn’t already there) scroll to Background Images, check it to enable.
‘Add Image’ and browse for the front reference image, you might want to change the size to 2.000 as it is in this tutorial. Then for the axis choose ‘Front’. Do the same with the side reference, but instead choose ‘Right’ for the axis.”
I love how helpful our community is here. *^_^*
The Blender community is wonderful
Jonathan, I got totally lost in the part of this tutorial where the eye was first added. When I added a Mirror Modifier and the Sub-Surf, The sphere smoothed out fine, but did not mirror on the other half of the model.
Whats more, the sculpting I did on the right side of the model was reflected as very sharp chisels on the left, barely giving detail, just looking like deep scratches on the left side of the hippo’s face. I have no idea where I went wrong.
Hi aurura,
For your sculpting problem can you post a screenshot?
The mirror problem is easy to fix. The mirror modifier, by default, uses the object origin as the center point of the mirror. So this means your object origin is likely at the center of your object, rather than along the center line of the scene. You can move the object origin by selecting the object and pressing CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+C.
Cheers,
Jonathan
Thanks for much for you reply. The mirror mod solution seem simple enough, thanks! *^_^*
I’m sorry, I’m not sure how to post a screenshot of the sculpting issue here on this comments thread. Is there a way?
You can upload your screenshot to http://pasteall.org/pic and then paste a link here.