Hi Folks,
I'm a relative blender newbie, looking to get my feet wet in trying to create realistic human characters.
I say human, my first project is actually an elf but yeah, as realistic as It can be given it's a fictional character.
I purchased the sub to this site to make sure that I was following the correct methods and not shooting myself in the foot too much, ensuring correct topology and such because I do eventually want to animate the character, and I'm also fuzzy on how exactly to rig properly, but that's for another time.
It's actually a bit of a two part question, I'm now at a point where I have a base mesh which is where I want it to be, with beautifully smooth skin, too smooth, which is the problem.
And because I'm a total newbie, I'm not really sure what the best option is to move forward from here to get the texture of the skin in there, the pores, the little wrinkles, all those little details, Do I sculpt them, or can I texture them in?
It seems that the grand majority of workflows nowadays seem to heavily rely on sculpting, but honestly, I don't like sculpting, I don't think I ever will, I'm not adverse to trying to learn it but to me it just doesn't work as logically as grid based geometry, in my mind, maybe it's a practice thing, or maybe I'm just not that artistically minded, but the only thing I know for definite is I've managed to create more convincing art and detailed objects using grids then I think I ever had with my literal knightmare of a sculpting brush.
So, basically, can I achieve a good level of detail in my model without having to sculpt or am I doomed to have to pick up a tablet?
And if I can avoid sculpting, where do I take my work from here?
Well you can create anything with edge modelling but building wrinkles and whatnot is going to be a real pain and cost you a lot more time than sculpting.
The pores should be specular, normal or bump maps, you don't model those.
It is possible to create highly detailed characters without sculpting but the reason people prefer sculpting over edge modelling is the time-saving factor as well as the accuracy you can achieve with it.
If you really want to avoid sculpting, I guess all you can do is slowly work towards your final character by edge modelling until it satisfies you.
There is also the option of using displacement maps, but then again you have to paint those and if you do that, you might as well just sculpt it.
Tbh, I'm kind of afraid of sculpting too, because the few times I have tried it nothing worked out the way I wanted it to, but it is something I feel like I won't get around. I will tackle that a later point, I have to.
@elensanima I see. That makes sense re the pores via a map. I figured as much. Actually accomplishing that is something I find hard to get the material for.
I tried duplicating my mesh. Going into sculpt and adding detail that way. But the second I enable dynotopo it completely trashes my mesh. And all the work I've put in so far to get good edge flow goes down the drain.
I guess at this stage it would be best to texture it. Be done with it and start a new one from scratch and learn how to sculpt. As much as it pains my being.
Any tips or tutorials to recomend for that stage at all?
I'm pretty bad at sculpting too, but I've decided to go ahead and learn it.
eexcypher I believe in this case the shrink wrap modifier will be your friend. Duplicate your mesh like you did and sculpt your details in. Then shrink wrap your mesh with good topology around your sculpted mesh. This should preserve your nice edge flow and take on the detail you are looking for. Kent has a video detailing this workflow, I'll link to it as soon as I find it.
phoenix4690 That's a good idea! I hadn't thought of that, I figured that since the edges didn't exist on my original model it's not going to inherit detail where there wouldn't normally be edges to support it, I suppose that's likely to still be the case, but I see where you're coming from.
I thought making the sculpt would be a good way to just bake a normal map from it, but it becomes so rough just enabling dynotopo it just feels like throwing work away.
phoenix4690 Oh sweet, haven't though of that yet.
I was always wondering how you can keep a clean topology when you sculpt. Now I know. :D