DC - Digital Sculpting Tools
Digital Sculpting Tools is a course I created specifically for the Digital Creature Program, and it focuses heavily on ZBrush. Throughout the term, students are tasked with designing and building two creatures that will be used in other digital creature courses. By the end of the course, students will have honed their digital sculpting skills and will be well on their way to becoming proficient in creature design and creation.
In addition to my work in Computer Animation, I have also been deeply involved with the Digital Creature program since its inception in 2017. Working alongside Dennis Turner, I have been responsible for leading the Digital Creature Methodology 1 and 2 courses, as well as teaching Digital Sculpting Tools. These courses have been both challenging and rewarding due to the advanced level of the students and the high standards for realism in this field.
One of the most exciting aspects of the Digital Sculpting Tools course is how it complements the more technical aspects of the Digital Creature program. Working in tandem with traditional life drawing courses, students learn to create detailed digital models of creatures that they will later rig and animate for their capstone projects. This interdisciplinary approach helps students develop a well-rounded skill set and prepares them for success in the ever-evolving field of digital creature design and animation.
The Chimera
This assignment goes through the stages of creature creation from concept to a ready to rig model. The final model will be fully retopologized, UV mapped, textured with proper materials, and rendered in Maya.
The Chimera
The Digital Sculpting Tools course is an integral part of the Digital Creature program, and I have had the privilege of overseeing the Chimera and Capstone Creature projects since its inception. The Chimera sculpt is a challenging but exciting project that spans over seven weeks and involves creating a unique creature by combining different existing ones. During this time, students learn the ins and outs of Zbrush, retopologizing models, Substance Painter, and final shader set up in Maya. This project provides a solid foundation for the students to build on for their capstone creature project in the second half of the semester.
As a testament to the effectiveness of this project, I've included a few examples of my Chimera from the previous year's class development. You can scroll through the slides with the left and right arrows at the bottom of the page and see the level of creativity and expertise that goes into each Chimera.
Chimera Workflow
Guided Experience
Like most courses, helping students through this process is extremely important. There is structured studio time within the classes of one on one help. However, a lot of the more detailed responses happen outside of the classroom. I’ve developed a process of posting recorded feedback to an unlisted Youtube Channel (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdN54ubFazWQEqnQ0Dui-_zGPj4HCXKFT ). This gives students access to comments, critiques and workflows from anywhere on any device. I’m finding that we’re creating more impromptu chat sessions.
Through the development process, I’ll help conceptualize and direct students to look beyond primary forms. And once we get into sculpting, I’ll create additional workups with notes to push their sculptures further. Below are a few examples of some of the crits I would give the students.
ZbrushCentral Top Shelf
Alice Hong, one of my students, created an outstanding Chimera project that was selected for inclusion in ZbrushCentral's Top Shelf. I was immensely proud to see Alice's hard work and dedication recognized in such a prestigious curated section of the site. It's gratifying to know that my students are achieving such high levels of success and recognition within the industry. I've included some of the development stills below, along with my initial suggestions, to showcase Alice's impressive achievement and inspire future students to strive for excellence.
