Why Creating A 3D Hair Sketch Is So Important -- With Andreea Scubli

Show us results, oh my god, so crazy! Oh, it's so good! I made a blonde version for it as well, but it's a lot easier to hide things on dark, hair way easier. That'S so crazy! Just get away with yeah yeah just make it black yeah. It must have taken you a long time or maybe not - i mean okay, fine, yeah yeah. I mean you're like no, though right i've done this so many times. What are you talking about this took me i'll? Show you i'll show you please do so. We got the references and then um i made some zebra sketches just to get an idea of what about where it's going and i started with a scanned head. So this was the start of it. I knew i wanted to have some patterns there, but you see now they were different and just a blob of hair to get an idea about the volume yeah. Would you say it's good advice to always start with a sketch by the way like i know that once you're, an expert and you know like you - can cut that corner if you want but like if you're talking to someone who's a junior, would you say always Do a zbrush sketch! First of all, i think it's a good idea, because it gives you an idea about the overall volume and then you can take this into whatever program you're using and use it as a guide for the cards, so that you don't struggle with the cards. Because if you place the cards and you're working on it, you're working for a day and then you realize, ah, the volume is not right. I need to move stuff in. I need to make adjustments, but that creates cards intersections and then you need to fix that. But if you have this as a guide, then that cuts down the room for error yeah, i think you hit the nail on the head there. For me, one of the biggest issues i had creating here was that issue of volume. It'S very easy to add too much volume to hair when you're creating here. It'S like you just make hair that just looks like a like someone's got. A 1980s uh like hairspray filled like character there and they're like oh. I need to reduce that. You know, like it's so easy to get the volume wrong when you're, placing and you're you have that a tunnel vision you're placing one plane at a time, you're not really thinking too much about the volume, especially if you don't have the like volume that you define At a time, it's very easy to get that wrong. You know, but when you do a sketch like you're saying it's like volume, you can figure out the volume that your haircut is supposed to fill ahead of time. Yup yup yup, and this can can be more detailed as well. It doesn't have to be exactly like this, but in this case, for me a rough one was enough. I added a bit of detail in it just to to get an idea that there's some clumps of hair overlapping and maybe put some stuff on the dreadlocks. In the end, i changed a bit the position of the dreadlocks. I don't think i have this one here anymore, um yeah, so this was the next one and then i got the awesome head that you sent me. This is the best head ever and yeah. This is gon na. Let you take the full credit for that, but sure thanks. No, it's not mine, but yeah. It was awesome. It'S awesome. It'S awesome, so yeah um the hair. This is the stage that i left it at the hair and then i thought put some accessories on it and i just i blocked them out so that there's some, i don't know techy whatever and then for for the patterns. Let'S see if i still have uh layers for it, because i wasn't sure about the patterns either. I don't think i saved them. How much time do you spend on sketch? Not much really, i think it was. Maybe i don't know. I think it was a few hours. It was more for the cap to figure out this because at first i had that other pattern that was um here and then i made another one which it was basically just lines just putting lines there to see what it looks like um. So that was mo. That was more, but for this sketch um it's not too much it's not it's not a tricky one. To do i just i made the sphere, then i pulled it and i just made some lines in it. But if you go more into detail and put like start adding, flyaways and stuff, it can easily be be a day or two days depending on how complex it is and how polished it is. So it can easily take some time yeah, but that still is pretty fast one or two days um. I mean i think there too. That speaks to your own experience, but oh no zebra expert um. I know there's some people who do it a lot um. Do it fast, but yeah and there's al there's all of these um insert mesh brushes, which um help speed up the process? I don't have one loaded here, but there's plenty of them on um gum, road, for example, and they just there's just a bunch of chil cylinders. Basically, and they have different poly groups to them. So then you can move them individually and create these clumps of hair. So those are really really useful for hair. That'S how you create those dreadlocks, i assume uh or not. The braid was different, definitely an imm brush, and these these, i think it was that or either that or i use the snake brush and just pull it out and fix it. Oh right, right, yeah, but that could have been created using an iron brush. That already has that kind of texture on there. If you're, looking for yeah yeah, you know like the thing about sketch right is that you know it's within the name of it. It'S a sketch. You know like the idea, isn't to do a final version of it. It'S just to get the idea down so that you kind of know where you're going afterward and people think that it's like, oh, but that you know it's gon na. Take me a full day or two days or three days to to do this. You know it's like: yes, it will, but it will probably save you even more time down the line because you're going to be doing less figuring out uh when it will actually be a lot harder to do those iterations there, because, when you're placing the lower as Polygons and stuff right, it becomes very complicated to do changes, whereas in this case here you can actually, if you know - and i love that you have different versions of this haircut too, at the sketching stage, you know, like you've, shown us a few different versions. A few very slightly different designs and stuff, you know so you're you're, really thinking through everything related to your own personal design and really making sure. I feel like that. You'Ve really figured out the the actual design before you really move on to creating the actual actual uh lowercase that will be used in the game um. I think yeah yeah, like you're, saying it's it's about the efficiency of it, because it's there's not really much pointing spending a lot of time doing something tedious to then need to redo it, because something is because it was wrong, and it's just you can solve that By doing this quickly, yeah yeah, so those imm brushes um - i guess you know like i have seen do you know where people could could get that braid by the way. I think i got this from gumroad braid, braid, brush i'll, find them and i'll. I find some links if i google never mind my tabs, but oh wow, that is uh yeah interesting, i'm kind of awesome. Oh yeah, oh it's possible! This is the one they're not loaded here and i need to uh clean up my computer. So i don't want to keep you waiting. Okay, there's also something like uh, i'm sure you know about this, but uh people may not necessarily know about this. There'S such a thing, i mean i assume that thread still exists, but on zbrush central there was something called the imm repository like thread or like super thread. If you type in like zbrush central imm repository like it, there was like this thread on zebra central. That was like pages and pages and pages long just have so many yeah yeah that one so many different imm different styles of different flavors for different things. It just keeps on going forever and there's so much stuff in there. That'S interesting. You know oh wow, and there are braids, there's so much stuff in here. There'S such a crazy amount of stuff and like it's all free so like people should go and just snag everything. That'S there because you know, like forums they're about to like they're, probably going to disappear at some point, so people should just like yeah just grab everything that's there. While it still exists - because this is a gold mine - that a lot of people may not necessarily know about - i didn't know about this - is so cool there's so much in there. There are a bunch of braids in there too. I'M pretty sure at some point. If you're just yeah wow - oh look at that, i know they may have gotten rid of the concept of pages there. But yeah you can see there's at least like 600 different posts in there there's so much in there. Wow, i'm definitely going to scroll through this you're welcome. Ah yeah. Thank you very much. Oh there's shoelaces in there too. Oh, my god like like these things, have been there forever right like. If you look at the time stamps right like i can't quite see clearly, but i think that says september 12th uh yeah yeah, it's been there for like almost 10 years, yeah, damn there's so much in there. Ah yeah. This is great, so yeah find some um yeah. You don't have to pay for them. Yeah. You can find something this one. I see this one is zero plus as well. Yeah, that's cool yeah, this one and there's there's other like like this one as well. So all these segments they have different, polygroups and they're, actually like separate cylinders, and you can move them separately. If you make the big clump like this, using the big one and then um with topological on for the brush uh, you can move the poly groups and that then you break the flow of that clamp and put some detail into it. Yeah cool all right! So that's the sketching stage pretty much yeah, so we get here so we do a sketch and so we move on from the sketch. When we say okay, i have my design down. I have my volumes down, i kind of know where i'm going right. That'S that's! The basic gist of it yeah all right. So what comes after that um? This is all a dynamesh 2 by the way right like not too sorry to cut you off there, but that's all dynamesh stuff too right like there's. No crazy, topology, there's! No nothing! It'S all very dirty geometry. No, it's just yeah! Okay, all right yeah! Not no carefulness happened here. She was result, oh my god, so crazy. Ah, it's so good! I made a blonde version for it as well, but yeah yeah yeah. You can appreciate more. I think the hair right when it's lighter yeah, it's a lot easier to hide things on dark, hair way easier. That'S so crazy, just get away with yeah yeah just make it black yeah, that's crazy, so yeah and you got the braids in there and like the braids, you really feel that there's a very um. I don't use the word uncampedness because i mean you could say technically that's what sorry, not brace the uh the dreadlocks yeah like there's such a crazy kind of variation in there like it, doesn't feel like your dreadlocks there's a repeating pattern. There you know, like you, can really tell there's all these wispy hairs on them and they all look very unique. There must have taken you a long time or maybe not. I mean okay, fine, yeah yeah. I mean you like no right. I'Ve done this so many times. What are you talking about? This took me like i'll. Show you i'll show you please do it. It'S basically cylinders wrapped in cards. That'S right! Okay, yeah! So you start with a cylinder which is like a very basic, i suppose repeating texture, maybe not maybe not repeating, and then you add little wispy stuff. Can we see the wireframe? That'S like what everyone wants to? Usually, that's like the standard question that everyone has can yeah. Could you please show the wireframe? Yes, let me assign some materials and i will show you so that i have so many questions for you. I swear. I didn't take cocaine. I don't actually do that, but i kind of feel almost as if i did right now like there's so many things. I wanted to ask you about. Okay for the wireframe, i'm not an unreal expert, so if i enable it in the uh material, it shows the triangles and all - and i didn't like that, so i actually converted the edges on the cards into meshes and i imported it in so. That'S okay, cool yeah, so i'm kind of particularly interested right now in that dreadlock, oh yeah yeah, you can see all the cards yeah, yeah and they're all inter-penetrating right. It'S like i used to work with someone who was like no. Your cards cannot interpenetrate at all, because it's going to create like normal problems and stuff. It'S like what are you talking about? It'S like as long as the alpha looks like as long as the end result looks good. I mean you can't make a haircut without having stuff inter penetrating left and right right, yeah, it's very, very, very, very, very difficult. They are intersecting a lot, but it's all noise anyway, so yeah yeah never ever have. I had someone complain about this. So do you like for a dreadlock like that, like i know, we have a set program that we said that we were going to go through and we're going to go through these steps in a very logical way - and here i am just throwing everything out - i'm Like no andrew, i want to talk about this um. It'S just that. I have so many questions and they all seem interesting to me um so for that dreadlock. If i'm particularly focused on that right now, do you create that dreadlock in isolation as a sausage, and then you kind of use curve tools to place it overhead, or do you use a different approach for that yeah? It started as a straight cylinder, okay and then i think most people use um curves. I use bones, so i actually rigged it to a few bones and then i put it on the head. Um curves are nice as well, but i found it can be a bit slow. So i just use bones because i don't know i just found that that works for me and that's how i placed it there and then i just duplicated it all over. Maintaining the connection between the geometry and the bones: you