CAGD 329 - Blog Post 1

 CAGD 329 - Rock Assignment

This assignment took many iterations for me to fully understand what I was doing. ZBrush was new to me as a program because I had no prior experience with it, and I hadn't had the opportunity to experiment with it before starting this assignment, where our class modeled rocks. It was a great learning experience, however, because there are not many constraints around modeling rocks, and it allowed me to experiment with different tools and brushes that ZBrush offers.

I modeled five rocks in total, but only textured and rendered out the last three. Due to the simple nature of the project, I was able to complete many rocks very quickly, which allowed me to learn from my previous mistakes in each successive model. Of the three rocks that I textured and rendered, two of them were more on the realistic end, while one of them was fairly stylized.

I followed a very linear process each time. I would begin with either a sphere or cube mesh, then use DynaMesh to increase the resolution of the model. Afterwards, I would roughly block out the shape which I wanted for the rock, primarily using the Clay Buildup brush at a very large size, or the Move brush. From there, I duplicated the subtool and used the Remesher tool in order to create better topology. I subdivided the subtool once again and sculpted detail onto the models, and then duplicated the model so that I could create a low-poly version. I used Decimation Master to reduce the polys, and then used UV Master alongside polygroups to create simple UVs for each rock.

Afterwards, I took the rocks into Marmoset Toolbag, where I textured and rendered each rock. Although Toolbag was initially mystifying to me, I was able to pick it up fairly quickly once I figured out the similarities between it and Substance Painter.