In this sculpting tutorial we are going to take a look at how to create reptilian scales with alpha maps as a custom brush. The tutorial makes use of both Blender 2.5 and Photoshop.
Support the site – Download includes:
- High resolution .mov Video
- .blend file at the state of the tutorial
- Alpha map
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30 Comments
Great, appears to be exactly what I was looking for! What could be a nice followup: how to create a normal map from this and how to apply it (did that on mavenseed already)!
Awesome, thanks
Here’s a link to some free brushes to use this way.
They’re created for Zbrush but obviously work in Blender’s sculpt as well.
http://texturearchive.com/ZBrush.aspx
and yes .psd files do work in Blender 2.5
thanks,
Jonathon
Is it possible to make scales in v2.49b? If so is there a way to do it without subdividing it so many times that it will slow down the computer?
Yes and maybe. To use less polygons try blurring the brush image.
Wow, thanks for this great tutorial. I love seeing the relationship between Blender and other apps because I think that really unlocks the potentials of the program. Your instructional style is perfect as well. Not too fast, not skipping steps, but still showing a detailed technique. I love this site and learning Blender as a new user.
Thanks for this nice sculpting tutorial for 2.5 Jonathan
@Jahovagis – Yes it’s possible in 2.49b, but I think there is no other way to sculpt with such details without subdividing it… unless you make a bump/normal map.
I think if the mesh had set smooth on it would require less divisions.
Jonathan Williamson, you are the dream boat of blender tutorials!!! Never did I think that seeing your name would get me swooning over a video tutorial. Thanks a million for all you do!
Hey, every one, what’s a good alpha for skin pores?
@Will- You really mean pores ?? not cells ??
For pores, you can try a simple black image with small white dot on it.
If you want to be accurate you could find some references images of skin’s pores on google maybe, and
try to recreate it in alpha.
Btw I’m not used to the sculpt mode, I can be wrong.
The “anchored” option is really good to have. I saw how powerful that type of brush was in ZBrush, so I’m really glad I can try it out in Blender. Great tutorial as always, keep up the good work.
A very interesting tutorial, thanks for the that. A few questions though. Did you set up the brush to work as an alpha or does it work like that automatically? Also, what graphics card would you recommend for sculpting? I started using blender with a basic gaming card, it gets up to around 6 subdivisions then craps out.
Once again, an excellent tutorial and it answers questions I’ve been having about the use of a feature in blender. Great work!
I have one small criticism if I may, of a technical nature. The audio track is a little thin or washed out. I just ran the tutorial and to make sure, I compared it to an older one (modelling a lightbulb) and the audio sounds better on the older tut. I first noticed this on your sculpting tip video, I believe.
Just thought you’d like to know.
Again, excellent tutorial, though, and I appreciate the work you and this site provide for the blender community.
hmm, not really clever tutorial.
Did u ever realise it’s much faster to model/sculpt the alphas in blender? also, if you do so, you have precise control over the depth and shape and don’t end up with what you ended with. I have always a ready material which renders a linear black-white blend texture in camera direction with orco mapping.
One thing Jonathan has forgotten in his tutorial. You can change the resolution of the brush too. You subdivided the Mesh, but in some cases the resolution of the brush is still very low. If you use the scale Technic Jonathan has described, here scale the brushsize to “MAXIMUM”. So it uses the maximum of the Resolution the image gives!!
@comeinandburn- In my previous post, I forgot to say thank you for sharing this link of Alpha Textures.
@Andreas(ndee)- I don’t think so… If you don’t have enough vertices to work with,
the resolution of the brush doesn’t really matter. But I agree with you in some points, that if you
increase the brush resolution and the subdivisions, you could get more definition in your scales (patterns).
@Jonathan Williamson- In this exemple, you used (create) a 72 ppi resolution image (texture). What could be
the difference in term of quality if you use a higher resolution texture instead, like 300 or 720 ppi ??
Btw, I noticed that Blender’s rendered images are 72 ppi (96dpi), so is it possible to increase this value
in Blender itself, or I have to deal with it in Photoshop. (exemple for a print)
@Solineoz
I don’t mean, that the Brush can increase the Resolution of your mesh. Of course when your mesh is relativly low you won’t see this. But if you have a very high Polycount you will definitly see this. Here you can see what I mean. On the left side the Brush is scaled down! On the right side I’ve scaled it to the maximum. You see that the the left Brush does not have the information anymore, that you can see every single “pixel”. I hope this will be clearer for everyone
http://misc.artbyndee.de/tmp/brush.jpg
I understand now. Thanks for pointing this out, I was getting pretty frustrated when the alpha map I made looked all pixelated, regardless of subdivision levels. Thanks a lot!
solineoz,
ppi value is only usefull for printing. what matters is the actual resolution. Of course, if you want to render something for print, you have to compute the values or get the numbers from Photoshop or Gimp.
@ah- I’ve learned to use mostly ppi, regardless of the use. So it’s not usefull only for printing. The ppi resolution matters for me, in term of final quality. I’m used to the adobe’s CS, and it use the ppi resolution instead of the dpi whatever I use it for web or not.
Btw thanks for your answers.
Solineoz is the wrong measurement to use for screen resolution values. If you use ppi you will constantly be fighting against tutorials and settings.
Should read like this
Solineoz,
ppi is the wrong measurement to use for screen resolution values. If you use ppi you will constantly be fighting against tutorials and settings.
PPI is of course pixels per inch, there are no inches inside a computer so ppi will not have any effect unless you choose your image size in inches as opposed to resolution like the rest of us, the only thing that really matter to your computer is resolution. PPI is irrelevent
hi there! great tut, kudos for Jonathan for posting; definitely useful technique, but I’ve got a problem with that brush, don’t know what’s going on. If anybody could help me with this one I’d be really grateful. The problem is when I open the texture (I went through all of the previous steps, I created a similar image like the one in the tut), that texture appears not in the centre of the brush area but in the ‘corner’, I tried to play around with texture panel adjustments but can’t figure out how to make this texture appear in the middle of the brush. Do you know what might be a problem? Thanks in advance.
greg,
It is a noted bug in current svn. I am sure ti will be fixed soon.
oh I see, that makes it clear for now as far as I’m concerned, I shall wait then patiently for fixed release:)
thanks a lot ccherrett
Your tutorials are excellent! Thank you
As David is just giving us a great Dragon series, this tutorial is definitely what I was looking for !
Thanks !!
I know in Mudbox you can really get crazy effects with this kind of stuff like ears and teeth do you think that you can do it in blender?