Week 3: Mudbox Mayhem

I have finished modelling the majority of my guitar!

I decided to model most of the little knobs and buttons on my guitar, because I suspect the depth of them cannot be faked effectively with normal maps. I went over it a few times and cleaned it up as much as I could, but before taking it into Mudbox, I got Angie to check it in case there was anything that I missed.

As you can see below, I tested animation the guitar strings using a wave non-linear deformer. The mesh was dense enough for the strings to deform effectively.

Unwrapping was quick and easy. I created a second copy of the guitar and deleted all extra parts that can be repeated (e.g. nobs, strings). This way I could unwrap less and fit more on the map.

I spread out each part so it could be easily painted in MudBox. It took me a little while to get the hang of MudBox but I found a course on Lynda for beginners that I found extremely helpful.

I had trouble with subdividing: every time I subdivided my mesh, it would round the sharp edges and I'd get for texture quality. Through this short course I found out there was a way to keep sharp edges creased whilst subdividing. I also had trouble painting clean edges between the separation of the blade & body of the guitar despite how small I made the brush or how hard I made the falloff, or even if I painted in the UV viewport to get a flat, clean canvas.

Painting sharp edges in Mudbox alone:

Through this short course I found out their was a way to make a live bridge between Photoshop and MudBox. This way I could paint straight, clean lines over the UV map using the pen tool in Photoshop and it would update automatically in MudBox! Super handy for hard-edge models.

Painting sharp edges through live bridge between Photoshop an Mudbox:

As you can see these are much better results.

I also had a successful response to my 'Animation Reference' posters! Through the power of networking, I have organised with some audio/film students to have a recording session in a few weeks so get the audio for my animation! Since I've had a quick response, I thought we could step it up form a single guitar recording of 20-30 seconds, to adding a second supporting guitar and drums! I found an amazing musician who can do all three and use the sound studio.

Check out her Instagram:

At the start of the week I was getting overwhelmed and frustrated that I didn't know how to apply the tools in MudBox to get the effects that I wanted. But with patience and perseverance I became savvy and confident in my skills. I am happy with my progress so far.

See you next week!