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Blender VDM Brushes for Genesis Charachters

mechw8mechw8 Posts: 42
in Technical Help (nuts n bolts)

Hi all, I wanted to create custom VDM brushes, in Blender, to use on my Genesis 8 charaters. I wnt to add realistic wounds, cuts, welts, whip lashes, bullet holes, etc... You know, all the things people use vdm brushes for. Is it practical to do this? I'm well aware of the L.I.E and packages of the like; that's not what I'm looking for. I'm not going to purchase Z-Brush either because I don't make any money with my art; I'm just a hobbiest. I'm thinking I would have to import the Genesis character into Blender, and duplicate the geometry on the part of the body I want to apply the vdm brush to, say the chest or back, makeing a geo shell I guess? Would this be the way to do it? Once the new geomertry is applied to the geoshell with the vdm, does it need to be retopologized, or would it work as is, like in all the VDM tutorial Videos I've seen? Is it even posssible to use VDM Brushes on Genesis models sucessfully?

Comments

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 100,784

    A Geometry Shell is the same emsh as the base - it is regenerated from that every t9me there is a change. If the goal is to add new detail to the mesh thena GeoGraft would probably be the way to go, but you would need to ensure that the ring of vertices around the edge of the graft did not chnage in any way while adding detail to the inner areas.

  • mechw8mechw8 Posts: 42

    Richard Haseltine said:

    A Geometry Shell is the same emsh as the base - it is regenerated from that every t9me there is a change. If the goal is to add new detail to the mesh thena GeoGraft would probably be the way to go, but you would need to ensure that the ring of vertices around the edge of the graft did not chnage in any way while adding detail to the inner areas.

    I wrote geoshell, but I did mean geograft. For example, I would highlight all the faces on the back of the character, duplicate them, and then separate them from the character. This would be the geograft correct? Then I could use a VDM brush to create, say,  claw slashes form a tiger. When I need the that effect in the scene, I would just attatch the geograft to the character? Does this geograft effect how it moves or how the base character moves when posing?

  • crosswindcrosswind Posts: 6,928
    edited June 27

    No... it'll be not that easy to make a geograft, especially in your case that you want more HD details on whatever wound, bruise, welt...

    Generically, you have to cut and export partial body geometry to OBJ with Base resolution, import OBJ into Blender, mark the edge of it, remesh or retop the area on which you want to sculpt so as to have denser mesh there before sculpting. Then no matter what type of brushes you use, just sculpt what you want ot have. Unwrap and optimize UV. Export to OBJ and import to DS. Rig it on the figure with Transfer Utility. Then make corrective morphs on it and make textures as needed.

    However, personally, I would suggest you not go for this way, especially when you just want to make the wond effects or something rather than a rigged attachemt like genitals, wings, tentacle arms etc. For a typical instance, if you want to make multiple wounds, bruises and scars on differt body parts, how many geo-grafts are you going to make ? or make a very big one to cover them all ? Frankly speaking, if you just want to make one or two wounds for experimenting HD sculpts, you can just do it as you wish, but if for multiple wonuds etc.... using geo-grafts in your case would not be a wise choice...

    Instead, you just need to sculp on the figure directly, make and bake necessary texture maps (diffuse, spec, normal, bump, displacement, etc.) to get these results. Like the one in the attached ss... The point is that good VE comes from both sculpted morphs as well as hight quality texture maps.

    SNAG-2024-6-26-060.png
    1471 x 1294 - 2M
    Post edited by crosswind on
  • mechw8mechw8 Posts: 42

    crosswind said:

    No... it'll be not that easy to make a geograft, especially in your case that you want more HD details on whatever wound, bruise, welt...

    Generically, you have to cut and export partial body geometry to OBJ with Base resolution, import OBJ into Blender, mark the edge of it, remesh or retop the area on which you want to sculpt so as to have denser mesh there before sculpting. Then no matter what type of brushes you use, just sculpt what you want ot have. Unwrap and optimize UV. Export to OBJ and import to DS. Rig it on the figure with Transfer Utility. Then make corrective morphs on it and make textures as needed.

    However, personally, I would suggest you not go for this way, especially when you just want to make the wond effects or something rather than a rigged attachemt like genitals, wings, tentacle arms etc. For a typical instance, if you want to make multiple wounds, bruises and scars on differt body parts, how many geo-grafts are you going to make ? or make a very big one to cover them all ? Frankly speaking, if you just want to make one or two wounds for experimenting HD sculpts, you can just do it as you wish, but if for multiple wonuds etc.... using geo-grafts in your case would not be a wise choice...

    Instead, you just need to sculp on the figure directly, make and bake necessary texture maps (diffuse, spec, normal, bump, displacement, etc.) to get these results. Like the one in the attached ss... The point is that good VE comes from both sculpted morphs as well as hight quality texture maps.

    Thanks Crosswind; I thought, maybe, I was getting in over my head on this one; that;s probably why there are no tutorials on the subject. Thanks for clearing that up for me. I guess it's back to the good old L.I.E editor for me.cheeky

  • mechw8mechw8 Posts: 42

    Dose anyone here know of any good tutorials on making realistic looking cuts and skin welts?

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