“洛克角色”的制作過程

介紹

Introduction

你好，我是Jean-Michel Bihorel，一位來自土耳其伊斯坦布爾的法國計(jì)算機(jī)圖形藝術(shù)家。在商業(yè)廣告和廣告公司工作，但這并不是世界上最有趣的事情，我傾向于在業(yè)余時(shí)間做一些個(gè)人項(xiàng)目來保持我對計(jì)算機(jī)圖形的興趣。這幅圖是其中的一個(gè)項(xiàng)目。

Hi, I'm Jean-Michel Bihorel, a French computer graphic artist based in Istanbul, Turkey. As working for commercials and agencies is not the most fun thing in the world, I tend to make personal projects in my free time to keep up my interest in computer graphics. This picture is the result of one of these projects.

設(shè)計(jì)

Design

這個(gè)角色是為一部短片設(shè)計(jì)的，我正在和一群朋友一起工作。我們開始這個(gè)項(xiàng)目是因?yàn)槲覀兊膱F(tuán)隊(duì)有可能很快就會分開。

This character was designed for a short film that I am working on with a team of friends. We started this project because there was a chance that our team would get separated soon and we wanted to make a project together before each of us continued on our own roads.

我們都不再是小孩了，每個(gè)人都有自己的觀點(diǎn)，關(guān)于在場景和視覺上應(yīng)該做些什么。有一段時(shí)間，我們努力尋找適合我們所有人的東西。這就是為什么這個(gè)角色不是從一個(gè)原創(chuàng)的想法中誕生出來的，而是因?yàn)槲覀兿胍獮槲覀兊膱F(tuán)隊(duì)找到一個(gè)共同感興趣的領(lǐng)域。這不是我的設(shè)計(jì)性格，但我對結(jié)果很滿意。

None of us were junior anymore and everybody had his own point of view on what should be done in terms of scenario and visual look. For a time we struggled to find something that would suit all of us. It's why this character was not born so much from an original idea, but more from a desire to find a common area of interest for our team. It is not the kind of character I would usually design, but I'm pretty satisfied with the result.

在第一階段，我使用了一款名為Alchemy的軟件，輸出了很多相同的角色，以測試各種可能性。洛克最初的形象是更高的，我們可以在第一個(gè)版本的草圖中看到(圖01)，但是在塑造角色的過程中，我改變了我的想法，決定讓這個(gè)故事更適合一個(gè)小的、胖乎乎的角色。

During the very first stage I used a little piece of software called Alchemy to output a lot of variations of the same idea to test out the possibilities. Lumok was initially taller as we can see in the sketches of the first version (Fig.01), but during the process of modelling the character I changed my mind and decided that it would fit the story better to have a small, chubby character.

這就誕生了一個(gè)更可愛和更友好的角色(圖02 - 03)。

It resulted in a much cuter and friendlier character (Fig.02 - 03).

圖 02

圖 03

由于這個(gè)角色必須融入現(xiàn)實(shí)感，我必須要包含足夠多的對真實(shí)事物的參考，才能使他可信。因此，除了建模，我還做了大量的研究，為人物的每一個(gè)部分提供參考(圖04)。

As the character had to be integrated into the real world, I had to include enough references to real things to make him believable. So, alongside the modeling, I was doing a lot of research into references for every single part of the character (Fig.04).

圖04

模型

Model

對于這個(gè)模型，我在ZBrush中做了一個(gè)粗略的雕刻，用一個(gè)ZSphere的草圖，我把它細(xì)化到我對這個(gè)比例滿意的程度。然后我將Topogun的所有片段重新進(jìn)行了分析(圖05)

For the model, I started everything as a rough sculpt in ZBrush with a ZSphere sketch that I refined to a point where I was satisfied with the proportions. Then I retopologised all the pieces in Topogun (Fig.05)

圖05

只有當(dāng)模型的所有元素都完成了，重新拓?fù)�，我甚至打開了UV，我決定做一個(gè)大的改變。我對頭部的滿意程度遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)超過身體的其他部分。由于身體的比例相當(dāng)高，所以頭部的重要性就不那么高了。我以為做一個(gè)小的身體和一個(gè)大腦袋會使他的臉變得更重要。在一個(gè)非常基本的草圖之后，我在ZBrush做了一些測試，并確信這是一個(gè)不錯的選擇。這意味著要重新設(shè)計(jì)身體和配飾，但我認(rèn)為這是很自然的，因?yàn)槲也⒉煌耆珴M足于舊的。當(dāng)我現(xiàn)在回頭看的時(shí)候，我肯定這不是浪費(fèi)時(shí)間!

It was only once all the elements of the model were finished, retopologised and I'd even opened the UV that I decided to make a big change. I was satisfied with the head much more than the rest of the body. As the body was pretty tall in proportion, the head had less importance overall. I thought that making a small body and a big head would give much more importance to his face. After a very basic sketch I made a few tests in ZBrush and became convinced that it was the good choice. It meant redesigning the body and accessories, but I think it was natural as I was not completely satisfied by the old ones. When I look back on them now, I'm sure it was not lost time!

紋理

Textures

我從ZBrush中生成了正常的和位移的貼圖，并用它們同時(shí)在動畫中得到更快的渲染時(shí)間。我從ZBrush的0級生成了一個(gè)位移映射，我用它來置換模型，這個(gè)模型被一個(gè)subdiv近似在mental ray中分割了三到四次。然后，我從ZBrush的對應(yīng)級別生成了一個(gè)正常的映射，因此它只考慮了從第4到8級的細(xì)節(jié)。

I generated Normal and Displacement maps out of ZBrush and used them both in combination to get faster render times in animation. I generated a displacement map from the 0 level in ZBrush and I used it to displace the model, which was divided three or four times by a subdiv approximation in mental ray. Then I generated a normal map from the corresponding level in ZBrush so it took into consideration only the details from the fourth to the eight level, for example.

第一列顯示高分辨率模型的樣子。第二列顯示了如果我使用的是0級的普通貼圖。正如你所看到的，它看起來不太對，因?yàn)槲灰瀑N圖變成了幾何圖形，而正常的貼圖是假的變形，這導(dǎo)致了一個(gè)雙重的變形，并且表面沒有對光線做出正確的反應(yīng)。第三列顯示正確的解決方案。你可以注意到普通貼圖的不同之處。當(dāng)位移結(jié)束時(shí)，法線圖接管(圖06)。

The first column shows what the high-res model looked like. The second column shows how it would be if I was using the Normal map from the 0 level. As you can see, it doesn't look right because the displacement map deforms the geometry and the normal map fakes the deformation, which results in a double transformation and the surface not reacting properly to the light. The correct solution is shown in the third column. You can notice the differences in the Normal maps. Where the displacement finishes, the normal map takes over (Fig.06).

圖 06

由于人物的眼睛如此之大，一個(gè)置換貼圖不足以支撐眼瞼區(qū)域的伸展。為此，我為了眼睛重新雕刻了這部分臉。它給了我兩種不同的置換貼圖，當(dāng)blend-shape控制器從關(guān)閉到打開時(shí)，我會將它們混合在一起。問題是有四個(gè)滑動器分別控制上下兩眼。我沒有使用8個(gè)置換貼圖(每個(gè)控制器2個(gè))，而是選擇了另一個(gè)解決方案。我在眼瞼區(qū)域畫了四個(gè)不同的面具，我只是用我的兩個(gè)原始的位移貼圖，用局部控制它們，然后再把它們重新組合起來，一個(gè)在另一個(gè)上面(圖07)。

As the eyes of the character are so big, one displacement map was not enough to support so much stretching in the area of the eyelids. For this reason I re-sculpted this portion of the face with the eyes open. It gave me two different displacement maps that I would blend between when the blend-shape controller went from closed to opened. The problem was that there are four sliders to control both eyes up and down separately. Instead of having eight displacement map (two for each controller), I went for another solution. I painted four different masks for the eyelids area, and I just used my two original displacement maps and masked them by area to locally control each eyelid before recombining them, one on top of the other (Fig.07).

圖 07

我花了相當(dāng)多的時(shí)間來編織。由于角色被設(shè)計(jì)成動畫短片的主角，我想確保他有足夠的分辨率來滿足所有鏡頭角度的需要，甚至是特寫鏡頭。我的臉的分辨率高達(dá)8k。然后我把所有的紋理都轉(zhuǎn)換成a。映射格式讓mental ray選擇在呈現(xiàn)時(shí)在大量數(shù)據(jù)中需要使用的內(nèi)容。我在Mudbox工作，因?yàn)閆Brush的層系統(tǒng)有點(diǎn)差，因?yàn)槲耶?dāng)時(shí)無法在我的電腦上運(yùn)行Mari。

The texturing took me quite a lot of time. As the character was designed to be the main character of an animated short film, I wanted to make sure that he had enough resolution to match every need for all the camera angles, even the close-ups. I worked with textures up to 8k in resolution for the face. Then I converted all the textures to a .map format to let mental ray choose what it needed to use in this huge amount of data at render time. I worked in Mudbox for the texturing because the layer system in ZBrush is a bit poor and because I was not able to run Mari on my computer at the time.

由于我的電腦不是很強(qiáng)大，當(dāng)我處理大的決議時(shí)，我不得不把我的工作分成小組。首先，我為皮膚做了基礎(chǔ)——將第一層導(dǎo)出到PSD文件中，在那里我將它們分開并保持干凈。然后我將結(jié)果結(jié)合起來，將它導(dǎo)出為一個(gè)JPG格式的文件，以創(chuàng)建一個(gè)新的圖層，在Photoshop中添加其他圖層。這不是一個(gè)非常平滑的方法，但它對我很有效，讓我在大的分辨率下使用很多層。我很期待將來用Mari工作!

As my computer was not very powerful and as I was working with large resolutions, I had to split my work into small groups. First I did the base for the skin - exporting the first layers to a PSD file where I was keeping them separated and clean. Then I combined the result and exported it as a JPG back to Mudbox to create a new set of layers to add on top of the other ones in Photoshop. It's not a very smooth method, but it worked for me and let me use a lot of layers at large resolutions. I'm definitively looking forward to working with Mari in the future!

我認(rèn)為用不同的尺度來考慮細(xì)節(jié)是很重要的。如果你深入到微觀細(xì)節(jié)，當(dāng)你從一個(gè)非宏觀角度看時(shí)，它看起來是平的，因?yàn)樗�有的�?xì)節(jié)融合在一起。同樣，僅代表廣泛的細(xì)節(jié)可能會在很遠(yuǎn)的地方看起來很好，但會受到特寫鏡頭的影響。它意味著每一層都需要它的變化量，從任何距離觀察細(xì)節(jié)。
I think that it is important to think the details over in terms of different scales. If you go too deep into micro details, when you look from a non-macro angle it just looks flat as all the details melt together. Equally, representing only broad details may look good from far away, but will suffer in close-ups. It means that every level need its amount of variation to look detailed from any distance.

陰影

Shading

為了遮陽，我專門研究了米婭的材料和精神射線的快速皮膚。它滿足了我所有的需要。這種類型的著色器唯一的問題是它們在viewport中沒有正確顯示。例如，角膜不會顯示它的透明度，瞳孔在動畫中看不到。為了解決這個(gè)問題，我將一些Maya著色器連接到被操縱的字符上，以便從viewport的透明度中獲益，讓動畫師看到角色的朝向。然后，我將渲染著色器連接到陰影組。只有在渲染時(shí)才能得到mr著色器，同時(shí)保持一個(gè)很好的動畫viewport(圖08)。

For the shading, I worked exclusively with the mia material and the misss-fast-skin of mental ray. It matched all of my needs. The only problem with this type of shader is that they don't display properly in the viewport. For example, the cornea wouldn't show its transparency and the pupil was not visible in the viewport while animating. To solve that, I connected some Maya shaders to the rigged character to benefit from the transparency in the viewport to let the animators see where the character is looking toward. I then connected the render shader to the shading group in orderto get the mr shader only at render time, while keeping an animator-friendly viewport (Fig.08).

圖 08

姿勢

The Pose

我認(rèn)為在呈現(xiàn)一個(gè)角色的時(shí)候，一個(gè)重要的要點(diǎn)是讓他們看起來栩栩如生。擺出這種姿勢的最好方法是建立一個(gè)小的場景，證明為什么這個(gè)角色站在那里，擺出姿勢和表情。如果你知道這個(gè)角色為什么在那里，他們的行為是什么，你就可以開始思考所有的細(xì)節(jié)，讓觀眾看出來。它給你一個(gè)基礎(chǔ)，讓你知道去哪里指導(dǎo)，如何塑造嘴巴，如何定位手臂等等。

One important point while presenting a character, I think, is to make them look alive. The best way to make a pose that convey this impression is to build up a small scenario that justifies why the character is standing there with that pose and expression. If you know why the character is there and what their behaviour is, you can start to think about all the details that would show it to the spectator. It gives you a base to know where to direct the look, how to shape the mouth, how to position the arms etc.

在我的例子中，我想展示這個(gè)角色的好奇和好玩的天性。所以我決定描述一下他很高興的時(shí)刻，因?yàn)樗�能找到他一直在尋找的東西。如果你已經(jīng)決定了你的角色會如何對一種情況做出反應(yīng)，給他一個(gè)行為理由，它將幫助你在所有的元素之間保持一個(gè)連貫的平衡，并給你的畫面帶來生命。

In my case I wanted to show the curious and playful nature of the character. So I decided to depict a moment where he is so pleased because he's been able to find something he's been searching for for a long time. If you've decided how your character would react to a situation by giving him a past and a reason for his behaviour, it will help you to keep a coherent balance between all the elements of the scene and bring life to your picture.

我先做了一些粗糙的姿勢。然后我選擇了我最喜歡的那一個(gè)，并將它修改為still frame(圖09)。

I first made some rough poses. Then I chose the one I liked the most and refined it for the still frame (Fig.09).

圖 09

為了他的臉，我想要一個(gè)驚奇的表情。參考資料很重要。!

For his face, I wanted to get a marvelling expression. References often come from unexpected sources!

渲染

Rendering

渲染沒有什么特別的;我只是用非常常用的技術(shù)來渲染這幅圖(圖10)。

There's nothing special about the render; I just used very common techniques to render this picture (Fig.10).

圖10

由于這個(gè)角色將會被融入到短片中，我決定用同樣的技術(shù)來拍攝這個(gè)靜止的畫面。這個(gè)靜止框架的目標(biāo)是在影片上映前渲染角色。這也是一個(gè)很好的測試來檢查所有的著色器是否正常。在渲染這張圖片的時(shí)候，我需要做一些改動，我把它們應(yīng)用到基本設(shè)置上。這是一種很好的方式來看看這個(gè)角色在電影上映之前是否受到了好評。到目前為止，反饋已經(jīng)非常積極，并激勵我們繼續(xù)推進(jìn)這個(gè)項(xiàng)目(圖11)。

As the character is going to be integrated into live action footage in the short film, I decided to use the same technique for this still frame. The goal of this still frame was to present the character before the film gets released and to create interest around him. It was also a good test to check if all the shaders were okay. I actually had to make a few changes while rendering this picture and I applied them on the base setup. It was a good way to see if the character was well received before the release of the actual movie. The feedback has been pretty positive so far and has motivated us to keep on moving forward with this project (Fig.11).

圖11