Digital sculpting gives you the ability to create anything you can imagine. You can model, paint, and present characters, props, sets and environments in ways never before possible. After learning ZBrush, the leading digital sculpting software in the industry, I was curious to see what Mudbox had to offer. Upon using the software, I discovered that it provided greater accessibility to artists who were too intimidated by ZBrush's interface, or who wanted to transfer their skills and familiarity with leading 3D software packages, such as Maya, to this medium. However, I found limited resources in my search to learn about the software, and even though I find the help in Mudbox to be top-notch, discovered that there were no books on the topic. I decided to write this book to fill the gap.
The aim of this book is to be a companion that teaches you the concepts of digital sculpting and 3D painting via Mudbox, to produce results that can stand on their own or that are part of a workflow. The book is organized to teach you the concepts in waves. Chapter 1 takes you through the pipeline and gives you an idea of the workflow, and subsequent chapters give you more detail on specific stages of that workflow and expand on the requirements, concepts and capabilities of Mudbox.
I recommend going through Chapter 1 and using what you learn there to experiment further. When you run into situations where you need to ratchet up the complexity of what you are working on, jump to the specific chapter on that topic to get more information and exercises. You can also go through the book sequentially to learn the topics, because the chapters build on each other. Chapter 2 provides an in-depth tour of the software to help you understand the details of the user interface.
This is a pivotal and exciting time in the entertainment industry, as software such as Mudbox and ZBrush can contribute exponential advances to the production pipeline of special effects. Revolutionary capabilities continue to be added with every release, and the possibilities of what can be visualized with this art form are soon becoming limitless.
I hope this book will fuel your interest in learning about digital sculpting and 3D painting with Mudbox and will help you learn the intricacies of how to use it to achieve your potential in creating your own visions.
This book is for digital artists who want to use Mudbox to sculpt and paint high-definition digital models, such as characters, vehicles, props, or sets for film, television, advertising, video games, and both 2D and 3D print. Chapter 1 uses a simple exercise to run through the Mudbox production pipeline. The subsequent chapters delve deeper into these stages and produce results that would be required at different stages of the pipeline.
This book is intended for readers with a background in art, and an understanding of the basics of 3D space and the basic workings of 3D software. It assumes you to be a sophisticated beginner or intermediate user of Mudbox. The book is mostly focused on Mudbox, but also covers other tools such as Maya, Photoshop, UVLayout, and KeyShot. Although a basic knowledge of the workings of those tools is assumed, I have also included the results from those programs for the various exercise steps if you do not have them available to you.
Mudbox is an artist's tool, and I cover the topics from an artistic as well as a technical perspective. My hope is that upon reading this book, you will have all the answers to your questions about the technology and workings of Mudbox to maximize your workflow and to focus on creating your art.
This book introduces you to the tools and capabilities of Autodesk Mudbox 2011. You will learn the different stages of a production pipeline in which Mudbox is applicable, and the workflow of those stages.
You will learn how to start your model from a basic primitive shape, develop it into a sophisticated, realistic-looking digital sculpture, and render it using Mudbox, mental ray in Maya, and Luxion KeyShot.
You will learn how to import models into Mudbox and to sculpt high-frequency detail to give the surface a weathered and realistic look.
You will also learn how to tune surface materials and paint your model in 3D as well as how to use paint layers to create composite surface results to further your model's realistic representation.
You will learn about planning your sculpture and taking it through the various stages such as posing, laying out UVs, and sculpting on various subdivision levels while customizing the Mudbox sculpting tools to get the results you want. I also cover the basics of 3D meshes and UVs and how to troubleshoot and optimize their use in your Mudbox workflow. You will learn how to import 3D scan data and how to use Mudbox to extract the details of the scan and place them on geometry you can sculpt and paint.
All the content on the DVD was specifically created for the purpose of demonstrating the concepts in the chapters. I greatly enjoyed creating this content and hope you get the same enjoyment in sculpting and painting your own creations.
To complete the exercises in this book, you will need Mudbox 2011 and a computer that meets the systems requirements listed for Mudbox on the Autodesk website.
I highly recommend that you pay close attention to the requirements for the video card, making sure you that you are using a certified video card for Mudbox. Mudbox uses OpenGL as its rendering engine, and you need a video card that will accelerate OpenGL. Certified Nvidia Quadro or AMD FireGL cards are your best bet.
The next most important hardware requirement is memory. As you subdivide your models, the memory requirement to store and process them also grows. Even though the system requirements mention 2GB, I highly recommend you have at least 4GB, if not 8GB or 16GB of RAM if you can accommodate for it.
The next important requirement is the operating systems, which are linked to the preceding memory requirement. You can use Mudbox in Windows XP, Vista, or 7, or on Mac OS X 10.6.2. The Mudbox interface is mostly identical in all of these; however, you probably want to use Mudbox on the 64-bit version of these operating systems because 32-bit operating systems can only access 4GB of RAM. With the 2011 version, Mudbox exclusively works in 64 bits on the Mac, so if you are on version 10.6.2 and above, you probably have the required Core 2 Duo or newer processor to support Mudbox. In Windows, you need the 64-bit version of Windows XP, Vista, or 7 and an Intel EM64T processor or an AMD Athlon 64 or AMD Opteron processor.
Make sure you also have plenty of hard disk space because, in addition to taking up a lot of memory, Mudbox models, which could easily be made up of multimillion polygons, also take up hard disk space when you save them.
Finally, you need a digital tablet, such as a Wacom Intuos or Cintiq, based on your preference of having the tablet functionality detached or superimposed on the screen you are working on. Although you can follow the exercises in this book by using a three-button mouse, I have yet to see someone who is a proficient digital sculptor and 3D painter use just a mouse to achieve good results.
The chapters in the book are organized in a sequential manner; the content of latter chapters builds on the concepts introduced in earlier ones to help you delve deeper into the topic. The chapters are also broken up by topic, so you may jump to any chapter that pertains to the topic with which you need immediate help. Much thought was given to which chapter exercises would be best accompanied with videos to help you watch the sequence of the exercise steps as a movie clip.
All of the topics are augmented and supported with artistic concepts such as form, gesture, proportion, rhythm, balance, and composition.
The book also has a full chapter dedicated to lighting and rendering your model in Mudbox, as well as in mental ray in Maya and in a top-notch rendering software called KeyShot.
Chapter 1, "Getting Your Feet in the Mud: The Basics of the Mudbox Production Pipeline," runs you through the pipeline by creating a model of an egg and giving it the surface texture of an eggshell. Then you will paint it to have the material and texture of an egg. Finally, you will view your output in Mudbox, or export your work to Maya and render it in mental ray.
Chapter 2, "The Mudbox User Interface," gives you an in-depth tour of the interface of Mudbox with explanations of regions, panels, icons, tools, dialog boxes, and options.
Chapter 3, "Detail-Sculpting an Imported Model," goes through an example of importing an intricate model and using Mudbox to sculpt real-world wear and tear in fine detail on the surface of the model.
Chapter 4, "Painting and Texturing an Imported Model," takes the work you did in Chapter 3 and allows you to apply paint to the surface features to push the realism of the model further.
Chapter 5, "Digital Sculpting, Part I," goes deeper into digital sculpting concepts, such as the foundation of 3D models, and the stages they would need to go through in Mudbox. The chapter also covers advanced sculpting techniques and delves deeper into the sculpting tools and their properties.
Chapter 6, "Digital Sculpting, Part II," builds on the previous chapter with the inception of a base mesh model in Maya, for which you will then create UVs in UVLayout, and pose it and sculpt it in Mudbox.
Chapter 7, "Working with 3D Scan Data," is the final sculpting chapter. Here you will learn how to import a 3D scan of a human head into the software and run through the workflow of further sculpting it.
Chapter 8, "3D Painting," focuses on the second core capability of Mudbox: painting. You will learn more about the paint tools in Mudbox while painting the model you created in Chapter 6.
Chapter 9, "Lighting and Rendering," provides you with in-depth information on how to use the lights in Mudbox in addition to the viewport filters, which enhance the presentation of the model you are working on. The chapter also covers how to export images of your work and composite them in Photoshop, and how to export your model and textures to render it with mental ray in Maya and in KeyShot.
The companion DVD includes all the files in the lessons saved at several stages along the process. It is organized by folders for the nine chapters, in addition to a Stamps folder, a Stencils folder, and a 3D Primitives folder that contain 2D images and objects you can use for the lessons or future projects. Some chapters include a Videos folder that has movies of some of the lessons and some bonus movies related to the topic of the chapter. All the video files were recorded using TechSmith Camtasia using the H.264 codec. Because Mudbox scene files tend to get big when you subdivide a model into multimillion polygons, we have compressed the chapters as zip files. You can use tools such as WinZip or 7-Zip to uncompress these files. Please copy and uncompress the contents of the chapter you are working on from the DVD onto your hard drive before proceeding with the exercises. The head scan model on the DVD is provided by Icon Imaging. The Bertie robot model on the DVD is based on paintings and comic books by Ashley Wood. Both models are to be used for education purposes only. Commercial use is not allowed.
The most essential resource of all is the community website built right into the software under the Mudbox Community tab. There you will find tutorial videos to take you beyond the offerings of this book, and demonstrate the work styles and tips and tricks of talented artists.
Another useful resource is the Autodesk AREA website (http://area.autodesk.com), which is a superset of what is included within the Community tab in Mudbox covering some of the other Autodesk products such as Maya, 3ds Max, and Softimage.
It is impossible to talk about Mudbox without mentioning Wayne Robson and his community website, Mudbox Hub (mudboxhub.com). Here you can find additional tutorials, a forum dedicated to Mudbox, and some useful plug-ins.
It is also impossible to talk about Mudbox without mentioning PixelCG and Ashraf Aiad's blog (www.pixelcg.com/blog). Here you can find some indispensible tutorials on Mudbox, as well as the extremely useful process of adding the environment variable to disable LZW compression on .tif files saved out of Mudbox to be used in mental ray.
Another thriving and excellent community for digital sculptors is ZBrush Central (www.zbrushentral.com). Although it is mainly aimed at ZBrush users, you can find some excellent techniques and inspiration from expert and seasoned digital sculptors.
As for resources on art and sculpting, there are too many to mention in this section, but I will list a few that I have within arm's reach at all times for reference and inspiration.
Modeling and Sculpting the Human Figure by Edouard Lanteri (Dover Publications, 1985)
Female and male anatomy reference figures from
www.AnatomyTools.com
Digital Lighting & Rendering, Second Edition by Jeremy Birn (New Riders, 2006)
Lighting & Rendering in Maya: Lights and Shadows DVD by Jeremy Birn
I would love feedback from you regarding the content in this book, or future titles and topics you would like to see. Please feel free to contact me at [email protected]. For more information about me or my work, visit www.kermaco.com.
Sybex strives to keep you supplied with the latest tools and information you need for your work. Please check their website at www.sybex.com or the website for this book at www.sybex.com/go/intromudbox, where we'll post additional content and updates that supplement this book should the need arise.
Thank you for your support in purchasing this book. It has been a great adventure writing it and figuring out relevant exercises for you to understand the foundation concepts and the workings of Mudbox 2011. When I set out to learn Mudbox, there were no books on it. I hope that I have bridged that gap for you in a way that is helpful, and that the content builds a good foundation for you to create your artwork by using the amazing capabilities that the developers of Mudbox have put in our hands.