Hey, I am a 3D Environment Artists with 6 years pro experience under my belt I can say that this video, young fellas, is GOLD. Especially for those starting you can see many of the steps necessary in the 3D world. This video and the quality of information is giving it is just amazing it is for free. What a beautiful era we are living. Thanks J HIll. Keep it up!!
Looks great dude! Theres a few things you mentioned in the groom section that I could give some tips on :) . - "Xgen doesn't support udims" is quite a common misconception. Xgen actually doesn't care about udims since it uses ptex for its maps (Guides use UVs, but udims are fine). The actual issue is the maya paint tool not supporting udims, if you are happy to leave maya a commonly recommended workflow is to just paint ptex data directly in mudbox! . - when your region map was not parting properly for the ear it could be a few things. The region mask looked like it was set to 1 so what I recommend is to have your guides visible while painting regions maps with the solid brush alpha and pen pressure turned off in the tool settings. The reason to have guides visible is just so you know for sure that you have correctly painted every guide in the region. Missing just one guide that is on a different side of the parting makes the region map basically useless. . - "I think they split grooms like this in production" We do split grooms all the time in production. primarily grooms are split if the hair properties are completely different or if there are specific requirements in simulation or shading :) (my personal record for one digi double in a film was around 28 grooms on just the head) . When you're showing the eyelashes I notice that the mask looks very low res in the maya paint tool. Something you can do to help control this is go to the tool settings and find "assign/edit textures", in there you can bump up the resolution of the map you are painting and later convert to ptex in xgen. If you don't want to do that I personally like to UV the eyelids as their own shell and give them a larger texel density than the rest of the head. For the sake of groom maps this is perfectly fine to do :) . Last thing, when doing large characters you may notice that the cut modifier is not very sensitive or has very little effect. Thats because the cut modifier works based in real world units (cm) and does not factor in the length of the hair. Something I really like to do is: "rand(0,0.4) * $cLength" Adding the multiply by cLength makes it so that the cut modifier adjusts to the length of the hairs it is cutting. So the numbers in the rand become the percentage of the hair you want to cut off. with 0 being cut nothing and 1 being cut all the way to the root. . Hope this helps mate, the results were looking great!
Holy Balls, I love when a piece makes me stop, take a deep breath and prepare myself to experience the art. Great job! This has been a massive help when understanding workflow thanks!
I was not expecting this thorough of a video about every part of the process. This is immensely insightful and will help me mimic an effective workflow. Thank you!
I live in the middle of nowhere in Russia, and this type of content is just true inspiration for me bc I want to start a career in game industry as 3d artist. Great work man!
@@artofjhill I am deeply impressed with your work! It's just fantastic! I wish you creative success in your work! You do amazing things. I'm also from Russia.
@@artofjhill A lot of Russians flock around J Hill. So do I. Lol. J, you are a Rock Star! it's weird, when you said that you are a nerd. Lol. You should teach people. You are very good at explaining, with perfect English. Which is good for us, whose English is a second language. There is a bunch of barely mumbling 3D jockers out there on TH-cam. Your videos are Gold!
Doing the work I'm doing is the result of years of practice and experience but there's always something more to do and nothing is ever perfect so you try and focus on the journey. Looking back and seeing you've progressed is satisfying though for sure
Pogalm! Thank you man. I gotta keep moving, doing an depth course on this project would take up the next few months. Am looking into sharing all the video though
One of the Lurtz reference images (the one where he's looking to the left with a green background) is super nostalgic for me because I used to use it as a forum avatar pretty much everywhere when I was a teenager. Great video!
Fantastic work! I entered the world of 3D since 1 year and half and still studing know in academy. I know how difficult it is, but at some point when u see results it all becomes so good! Thanks for the video and for all the high experience tips u Share with us!!!
5:09 - Interesting you talk about starting center and then radiating visuals outward with some clumps happening. This is very similar to Mind Maps, which are diagrams used to organize info and current thoughts. The similarity between the two is interesting.
Polgam! Dude, I always find so many little things I can use whenever you show your full workflow! It's so damn helpful to see how you give yourself as much breathing room as possible while still moving forward. I always have trouble locking things in and moving on. I can't tell you how many times I've re-imported highres meshes into substance. Excellent job!
@@artofjhill I'll put more emphasis into moving forward. Setting goals and reaching milestones. Sometimes I just find my self noodling a detail for hours. I think part of it is I'm afraid of failing.
Dude, really awesome work! I’ve been working on a personal project whilst juggling art school work, and you’ve just saved me about a week of working on xgen guides with your tips. Also, you’re a very clear and precise teacher so thanks, learnt a lot! Don’t know if you did it already but I’d love to see you review/give pointers on showreels!
This video is so sick man! I keep saying that the way u give info is amazing bro! Not heavy headed at all, time pass so fast i didn’t even noticed! Always big fan of how u explain things, iam an athlete , who went in different world , world of 3d and thanks to you , i can learn and have fun my man! Very easy ,light, everything on point! Hey since the first time when i watched ur video i keep saying this dude is baddest in the game!!! I wish u all best J and keep killing it my dawg !
Awesome video. I'm an environment artist but still found this video fun to watch and very informative. Character pipelines looks super fun, although more tedious haha. The quality is so good. Props to you for making art videos like this enjoyable to watch, that's hard in itself. The knowledge to learn from this is gold too. Any aspiring character artist is lucky to have people like you releasing videos like this for free :)
Really enjoyed this video! Well made and well explained. I work in animation, and I'm not expected to ever texture, but I do on my personal work, and trying to find a nice workflow, this video was very helpful. Thanks alot!
I cannot stop wondering every time I watch your videos!!!!!! Incredibly grateful for all this you are sharing with us!!!!! I hope one day I could be at least half as good as you!!!!
Awesome breakdown! You make the best character breakdowns on youtube hands down! Good to see you are getting into Nuke too. By the way check out ACES color space in Arnold and in Nuke also and it will make your highlights and color look even better. Will let you blast more light into the Arnold scene which will give better GI also. POLGOM! :)
I have no words as to how beautiful this work was. Nice job J! I really loved the video other than the part which is that I get demotivated when I see such spectacular work as this level of skill probably took several years of skill. Nonetheless, keep up the good work, I can only wish to be this good.
Pogalm!!! This came out badass af. Very inspiring stuff. It was cool to finally see someone do stuff in nuke outside of movie breakdown. I just want to ask, have you ever tried Mari? Any way keep up the good work. Some things I would like to see in the future are anatomy stuff or even a video on brush economy in zbrush. I'm a noob finally taking a leap into 3d from 2d so this kind of stuff is always fun to see.
POGALM! Glad you liked it. Nuke is awesome. I've tried Mari a few times but it's made for a different workflow. Substance allows you to paint multiple channels all with one layer and look at your work with PBR materials, lighting, and shadows. Maybe Mari is similar now since it's been a while since I used it but since I use Substance Painter professionally too, it's work out as more practice. Plus I enjoy using Substance Painter
I wish you didn't use a background as bright as you did it takes the focus from the main character. BUT OVER ALL YOU ARE AWSOME DUDE !!!!! KEEP DOING WHAT YOU ARE DOING.
'POGALM' I'm a student learning 3d since 2 years. And your work is quite overwhelming for me. And I'm thinking that. There are many things that I have to learn yet.
I would love to see your work on the "The Rings of Power"! This sculpt/paint/render is incredible (like all of your work)! As a seasoned ZBrush user myself, I still learn a TON from your videos, and this one is no exception. Thank you for all you do, homie. 🤘🤘🤘
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 85 | คู่เอก "ยอดเหล็กเพชร vs ผึ้งหลวง"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Qq_19bnnxEo/mqdefault.jpg)
Hey, I am a 3D Environment Artists with 6 years pro experience under my belt I can say that this video, young fellas, is GOLD. Especially for those starting you can see many of the steps necessary in the 3D world. This video and the quality of information is giving it is just amazing it is for free. What a beautiful era we are living. Thanks J HIll. Keep it up!!
Thank you man appreciate the comment
@@artofjhill Can you send me a link to this site?
@@artofjhill a can you make videogames on there?
Hi i am a beginner 3D Artist environment, i am interest to learn more about 3D environment where i can see your artwork
What about the old fellas?
Looks great dude!
Theres a few things you mentioned in the groom section that I could give some tips on :)
.
- "Xgen doesn't support udims" is quite a common misconception. Xgen actually doesn't care about udims since it uses ptex for its maps (Guides use UVs, but udims are fine).
The actual issue is the maya paint tool not supporting udims, if you are happy to leave maya a commonly recommended workflow is to just paint ptex data directly in mudbox!
.
- when your region map was not parting properly for the ear it could be a few things. The region mask looked like it was set to 1 so what I recommend is to have your guides visible while painting regions maps with the solid brush alpha and pen pressure turned off in the tool settings. The reason to have guides visible is just so you know for sure that you have correctly painted every guide in the region. Missing just one guide that is on a different side of the parting makes the region map basically useless.
.
- "I think they split grooms like this in production"
We do split grooms all the time in production. primarily grooms are split if the hair properties are completely different or if there are specific requirements in simulation or shading :)
(my personal record for one digi double in a film was around 28 grooms on just the head)
.
When you're showing the eyelashes I notice that the mask looks very low res in the maya paint tool. Something you can do to help control this is go to the tool settings and find "assign/edit textures", in there you can bump up the resolution of the map you are painting and later convert to ptex in xgen. If you don't want to do that I personally like to UV the eyelids as their own shell and give them a larger texel density than the rest of the head. For the sake of groom maps this is perfectly fine to do :)
.
Last thing, when doing large characters you may notice that the cut modifier is not very sensitive or has very little effect. Thats because the cut modifier works based in real world units (cm) and does not factor in the length of the hair. Something I really like to do is:
"rand(0,0.4) * $cLength"
Adding the multiply by cLength makes it so that the cut modifier adjusts to the length of the hairs it is cutting. So the numbers in the rand become the percentage of the hair you want to cut off. with 0 being cut nothing and 1 being cut all the way to the root.
.
Hope this helps mate, the results were looking great!
Thank you so much for all the info! Love these pro tips. 28 grooms for a character!? Baller
Dude this info is solid GOLD! Thanks for the writeup.
great info!
Holy Balls, I love when a piece makes me stop, take a deep breath and prepare myself to experience the art. Great job! This has been a massive help when understanding workflow thanks!
I was not expecting this thorough of a video about every part of the process. This is immensely insightful and will help me mimic an effective workflow. Thank you!
I live in the middle of nowhere in Russia, and this type of content is just true inspiration for me bc I want to start a career in game industry as 3d artist. Great work man!
Glad to hear it. Keep grinding and keep dreaming!
@@artofjhill I am deeply impressed with your work! It's just fantastic! I wish you creative success in your work! You do amazing things.
I'm also from Russia.
@@artofjhill A lot of Russians flock around J Hill. So do I. Lol. J, you are a Rock Star! it's weird, when you said that you are a nerd. Lol. You should teach people. You are very good at explaining, with perfect English. Which is good for us, whose English is a second language. There is a bunch of barely mumbling 3D jockers out there on TH-cam. Your videos are Gold!
Must be satisfying seeing your years of hard work come to together into such a beast of a piece
Doing the work I'm doing is the result of years of practice and experience but there's always something more to do and nothing is ever perfect so you try and focus on the journey. Looking back and seeing you've progressed is satisfying though for sure
@@artofjhillWhen did you graduate college, in other words how long have you been in the industry for to have this level of experience?
and that's how Blizzard found their newest artist
Blizzard hire new people?
you must be joking
Pogalm. Would pay for a slowed down, in depth, tutorial series based off this. Amazing skill and work man!
Pogalm! Thank you man. I gotta keep moving, doing an depth course on this project would take up the next few months. Am looking into sharing all the video though
Polgalm! This is inspiring to see and makes me want to take another crack at 3D. Fantastic work.
You are the best bro, showing how you do it really helps out people. Thank you
One of the Lurtz reference images (the one where he's looking to the left with a green background) is super nostalgic for me because I used to use it as a forum avatar pretty much everywhere when I was a teenager. Great video!
Awesome. LOTR and forums are both nostalgic for me. Glad you liked it
Pogalm! It's been a while since I've seen a whole video this long in one sitting, really cool work! got many tips from watching this.
Appreciate you watching it all and glad you liked it dude. POGALM!
Pogalm! Absolutely incredibly. Hugely inspirational (and more than a little intimidating...heh)! Thanks for taking the time to share your process.
Glad you liked the video. Go make some cool shit! POGALM
Amazing sculpture work, super cool! Thank you for sharing.
Fantastic work! I entered the world of 3D since 1 year and half and still studing know in academy. I know how difficult it is, but at some point when u see results it all becomes so good! Thanks for the video and for all the high experience tips u Share with us!!!
awesome, keep it up! Glad you like the video. Keep making stuff!
the hair step with blendshape is a treasure especially since Xgen is so finnicky. Thanks for inspiring everyday!
Glad you find it helpful
Thank you for doing a longer version! This Video was so helpful and at the same time entertaining for me :) The result is looking perfect
Glad it was helpful!
We are all lucky we get to watch this art work for free
POGALM!!! now im going to sleep. but man you have to really love what you do to spend this much time learning/doing this kind of art.
I do. POGALM!
omg so detailed and awesome!
Thank you!
increible
a fibermesh to Xgen hair with the curves tutorial would be so amazing for character designers I think, I know it would help me a lot :D
Pogalm !
I've been wanting to see this video for a while but haven't had a chance until now.
Thank you for the video J ♥
POGALM! Thank you for watching
amazing man
Have no words to describe my gratitude.
I'm glad you liked it
5:09 - Interesting you talk about starting center and then radiating visuals outward with some clumps happening. This is very similar to Mind Maps, which are diagrams used to organize info and current thoughts. The similarity between the two is interesting.
I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS ONE!!!
🙏
These breakdowns are really great thanks for this cant wait to see more.
Beautiful work mate
thanks man, glad you like it
Awesome video bro! Thx for sharing the details
love this guy videos
39:31
Assassins Creed Unity Memory Backing up !
Thank you for the video so inspiring !
haha glad you like it!
POLGOM! loving the workflow!
Thanks man POGALM 🤘
You are Amazing.
🙏
My guy.... holy damn. I learned so much in just an hour! I might need a nap after all that lol. Can’t wait to try all these techniques!
haha glad you liked it and watched the whole thing!
Thanks, for making video of this artwork.... I really loved it and its very informative. Thanks alot
Glad you liked it
Polgam! Dude, I always find so many little things I can use whenever you show your full workflow! It's so damn helpful to see how you give yourself as much breathing room as possible while still moving forward. I always have trouble locking things in and moving on. I can't tell you how many times I've re-imported highres meshes into substance. Excellent job!
Glad you found some helpful things. I also do a lot of importing. Creativity can be chaotic but as long as you're moving forward, who cares. POGALM!
@@artofjhill I'll put more emphasis into moving forward. Setting goals and reaching milestones. Sometimes I just find my self noodling a detail for hours. I think part of it is I'm afraid of failing.
Dude, really awesome work! I’ve been working on a personal project whilst juggling art school work, and you’ve just saved me about a week of working on xgen guides with your tips. Also, you’re a very clear and precise teacher so thanks, learnt a lot! Don’t know if you did it already but I’d love to see you review/give pointers on showreels!
What an amazing hour and 43 seconds! Will definitely be using a lot of these amazing techniques in my next project! Thank you!
Thank you! Would love to see what you make
Thank you very much for this❤❤ We can never thank you enough, now I'm gonna go use these techniques in my char.
awesome, would love to see what you do!
This video is so sick man! I keep saying that the way u give info is amazing bro! Not heavy headed at all, time pass so fast i didn’t even noticed! Always big fan of how u explain things, iam an athlete , who went in different world , world of 3d and thanks to you , i can learn and have fun my man! Very easy ,light, everything on point! Hey since the first time when i watched ur video i keep saying this dude is baddest in the game!!! I wish u all best J and keep killing it my dawg !
Thanks for the comment my dude and glad you're liking the channel!
Woooooaa, nice! Another video to watch over the weekend. Your tutorials are amazing btw! Thank you so muuuuch!
Thanks. Hope you enjoy it
First glance at the final render I knew I saw avengers hulk in there, which was confirmed by your reference sheet, Nicely done j.
Thanks man :)
Awesome video. I'm an environment artist but still found this video fun to watch and very informative. Character pipelines looks super fun, although more tedious haha. The quality is so good. Props to you for making art videos like this enjoyable to watch, that's hard in itself.
The knowledge to learn from this is gold too. Any aspiring character artist is lucky to have people like you releasing videos like this for free :)
Thanks man, appreciate the comment and glad you liked the video
I am blessed for knowing you J #love #respect #peace
🙏
Really cool that you gave a shot to the substance workflow! Would like to see you playing around with Mari later on 😎🤙
Don’t think Mari is for me. Love what people have done using it though
Polgam! For an entry level like me, this is sweet stuff you are sharing with us!
Pogalm!
Pogalm! Amazing work and such detail, thank you so much for this!
POGALM! Thank you :)
I've been waiting for this one! Some of the content you've been dropping lately are top notch, keep up the good work!
thank you man, hope you dig the video and I appreciate the comment
Pogalm!
Hella cool video also,love the calm narration!
thank you. POGALM
thanks for sharing
Thanks for watching!
I've always loved the aesthetics of the Lord of the Rings armor. Incredible work done!
me too! All the costumes, design, and craftsmanship on those films is amazing
I was literally watching this before bed and fell asleep right before you mentioned to comment polgam. Only realised after re-watching the next day.
lol
thanks my dude, this was really helpful
Glad it helped
These techniques I got to try; never used noise maker for instance.
Very Inspiring! ^^
Glad it was helpful!
Really enjoyed this video! Well made and well explained. I work in animation, and I'm not expected to ever texture, but I do on my personal work, and trying to find a nice workflow, this video was very helpful. Thanks alot!
Awesome, glad you liked it!
I was one of the question askers in the last video lol. This is great info, thanks!
sweet, hope I got you an answer! Glad you liked it :)
Another absolute banger. Thanks a ton for this!
🙏
Damn thats awesome! great work
my god you are a great teacher.... amazing video!
Wow! this is so cool man
Proud of your progress dude.. keep it up.. and keep inspiring the community.. Great efforts... really appreciated
Thank you dude! Appreciate the comment and glad you're liking the videos and work
Great inspiration, thank you, mate!
nice breakdown, thanks for sharing man :) the final piece looks sick!
Appreciate it. Thanks for watching!
this was really great, and at a very comfortable pace! Thank you
Glad you liked it
man you are a monster congratulations, your work inspires me a lot!
Happy to hear it!
I cannot stop wondering every time I watch your videos!!!!!! Incredibly grateful for all this you are sharing with us!!!!! I hope one day I could be at least half as good as you!!!!
glad you like the vids. Keep making stuff and you can be better than me
this was spectacular
🙏
So professional!!!!
J Hill, you are A Hill of Knowledge
thank you soooooo much for this video
haha you're welcome
love the funny parts like you going to that black speech of mordor translator "yeah i just said that"
Chat kramp it too mir snag mab uruk
Jay thanks so much for sharing your workflow! You keep leveling up non stop! This baddy turned out so awesome man.
Thank you man!
You are a phenomenal artist! Nice work)
Polgalm! haha that's AWESOME! I'd love to be able to create game characters like this... Too busy working though to learn this stuff... Some day.
you can do it. Pogalm!
Awesome breakdown! You make the best character breakdowns on youtube hands down! Good to see you are getting into Nuke too. By the way check out ACES color space in Arnold and in Nuke also and it will make your highlights and color look even better. Will let you blast more light into the Arnold scene which will give better GI also.
POLGOM! :)
ooo pro tips. I'll have to look into that. POGALM!
I have no words as to how beautiful this work was. Nice job J! I really loved the video other than the part which is that I get demotivated when I see such spectacular work as this level of skill probably took several years of skill. Nonetheless, keep up the good work, I can only wish to be this good.
Thank you. Keep making stuff and working towards what you want and you can be better
Nice work man! Also...JJ OBJ Toolkit...will save your life with this whole back and forth of OBJ's.
oo interesting, haven't heard of it. FBX exporter been treating me well though
Awesome as always man!
Thanks homie! Got your mech video up now :p
awesome work man !!
Thank you! Cheers!
Pogalm!!! This came out badass af. Very inspiring stuff. It was cool to finally see someone do stuff in nuke outside of movie breakdown. I just want to ask, have you ever tried Mari? Any way keep up the good work. Some things I would like to see in the future are anatomy stuff or even a video on brush economy in zbrush. I'm a noob finally taking a leap into 3d from 2d so this kind of stuff is always fun to see.
POGALM! Glad you liked it. Nuke is awesome. I've tried Mari a few times but it's made for a different workflow. Substance allows you to paint multiple channels all with one layer and look at your work with PBR materials, lighting, and shadows. Maybe Mari is similar now since it's been a while since I used it but since I use Substance Painter professionally too, it's work out as more practice. Plus I enjoy using Substance Painter
Impressive
thanks for all your videos man! always a pleasure to watch and learn a ton of new things from you! much love!
Thank you man!
37:15 "so I don't have to do it all again" repeated idk if that was intentional but it was perfect😂
I wish you didn't use a background as bright as you did it takes the focus from the main character. BUT OVER ALL YOU ARE AWSOME DUDE !!!!! KEEP DOING WHAT YOU ARE DOING.
thanks! good note
Pogalm! You rock dude 🤘🖤
thanks dude POGALM
Legend
You are real master!I really want to learn from you!!!
🙏
It's awesome work!!! A lot of thank to your incredible content!!
🙏
Polgam! Great video man, learnt a lot !
Glad to hear it. POGALM
Amazing and thank you from the bottom for this share. You're god tier and humble enough to share your amazing skills, really appreciate that.
NP, glad you liked it and thanks for the long time sub :)
Pogalm! Thanks for the awesome content J, it's really helping me stay motivated and is super educational. Cheers!
Glad to hear it. Keep it going. POGALM!
this is so pro, my mind is blowing...
Sir you are doing awesome work... Best of luck ❤️👍👍
appreciate it!
pogalm! nice breakdown J!
Glad you liked it. Pogalm!
oooooo man do i feel you about the chainmail, the tweaking to get it right can chew at your sanity xD
also i gotchu with that pogalm
haha for suuure. Pogalm
'POGALM'
I'm a student learning 3d since 2 years. And your work is quite overwhelming for me. And I'm thinking that. There are many things that I have to learn yet.
POGALM 🤘keep going and keep making stuff
thanks for these videos! they are super informative and give an amazing insight into the workflow keep up the good work! :)
Glad you like it, will do!
Polgam
Pogalm
Something tells me that I will love this episode :3
I would love to see your work on the "The Rings of Power"! This sculpt/paint/render is incredible (like all of your work)! As a seasoned ZBrush user myself, I still learn a TON from your videos, and this one is no exception. Thank you for all you do, homie. 🤘🤘🤘
Thank you and I can’t wait for the show