Mudbox Tutorials

These days it's common practice to create extremely high resolution and highly detailed models in sculpting applications like ZBrush or Mudbox. These models can give us a great idea of what a character, set, or prop will look like but they're usually not optimized for rigging, animation, or use in a real-time game engine. Or the underlying topology we are using to sculpt may not be optimal for the detail we're creating. TopoGun remedies these issues by allowing us to very intuitively draw new geometry right on top of our existing models. This new topology can be used as a new base mesh when sculpting, or we can use it in a game engine along with all of the texture and normal maps that TopoGun also creates. We'll start out the course by talking about the importance of good topology and why TopoGun can be such a a useful tool. We'll go over the interface and the basics of getting around the application. We'll talk about the tools you'll be using in TopoGun to create and modify topology. We'll cover the generation of different types of texture maps and cover a symmetrical workflow. Once we're done with the tutorial, you'll be able to start using TopoGun to really speed up your workflow and create more optimal topology for your projects. We will also be jumping around a little to different applications, to see how well TopoGun integrates, so it will be helpful if you have some experience with Maya, ZBrush, or Mudbox.

We will start by referencing our game document, which will be our guide through the process of creating our Unity game. We can find information on the look of our models but also on the desired resolutions of the models and textures. We will concentrate on creating game topology for our two characters and two weapon models. We will also cover map generation and texture painting as part of the process. In the end we will have models ready to be rigged and animated or plugged directly into the game engine. We will use a variety of software packages from Maya, to TopoGun, to ZBrush and Mudbox in order to prepare our assets so there will be a lot of back and forth. This course references some pre-made assets and covers methods for modifying and prepping those assets for this particular game. In most of these cases, if you'd like to learn to build these assets from start to finish, there is a tutorial that will fill your need. For instance, in this course we look at the steps we went through to modify the biker character from Creating High Resolution Characters in ZBrush 4 and Creating Game Characters with Maya 2011 and ZBrush 4. So if you'd like to build the character from scratch, those two courses will take you through the process. The same goes for the enemy tick creature, which is from the Introduction the Mudbox 2011, and the assault rifle from Creating Next-Gen Game Assets in Maya.

We will start the training by taking a look at our game development document as well as the artwork that we have. These will give us a better idea of the technical aspects of our models and their look. We'll talk about building the geometry and creating texture maps for pieces of our level like old oil drums, boards and lights. We'll also cover workflows between Maya and Mudbox for modeling, sculpting, and painting bits of organic debris to illustrate the enemy infestation. We'll finish up by talking about dressing the set temporarily in Maya as a guide for the final dressing in Unity. This course goes over the process for creating props and set dressing and the thoughts behind the decisions but it is not a step-by-step tutorial. If you'd like to get up to speed on modeling in Maya, I'd recommend Introduction to Modeling in Maya which goes over the tools we use here in greater detail. If you want a more step-by-step look at creating assets in Mudbox, we have a variety of training available, including Introduction to Mudbox 2012 which will get you started very quickly. So over the next hour and a half or so, we'll talk about creating the pieces necessary to dress our set and give it a realistic, aged and worn look.

Mudbox is a great tool for 3d artists that provides a really robust sculpting and texture painting solution. It's available for windows, Mac, and Linux and it integrates seamlessly with many of the other applications you may be using. For these tutorials, we’ve had the privilege of working with the Mudbox team at Autodesk in developing this training and we really do appreciate their feedback and support. For these lessons, we’ll use a project based approach to cover the tools in Mudbox and different ways of using them to get the best results. Throughout the course of this project, we’ll cover the basics of getting started working in Mudbox, from sculpting to painting to extracting maps. We’ll also cover the new features in Mudbox 2012, including the uv-less PTEX painting process, new paint layer functionality, stencil editing, and more. Every artist is different. As you go through the training, don’t get too caught up in getting results that match exactly, but have some fun experimenting with the tools and really try to understand how you can fit them into your particular workflow. If you’re just starting out using the software, you might go through the training once to get a good overall picture before you try to follow along. For those artists who just want to check out some of the newer features, feel free to jump around to the various topics as you like.

Mudbox is a great tool for 3d artists that provides a really robust sculpting and texture painting solution. It's available for windows, Mac, and Linux and it integrates seamlessly with many of the other applications you may be using. As a partner with Autodesk, we’ve had the privilege of working with the Mudbox team in developing this training and we really do appreciate their feedback and support. We’ll use a project based approach to cover the tools in Mudbox and different ways of using them to get the best results. Throughout the course of this project, we’ll cover the basics of getting started working in Mudbox, from sculpting to painting to extracting maps. We’ll also cover many of the newer features in Mudbox, including the pose tools, the new image adjustment brushes, and Vector Displacement Maps. Every artist is different. As you go through the training, don’t get too caught up in getting results that match exactly, but have some fun experimenting with the tools that we’ll look at and really try to understand how you can fit them into your particular workflow. If you’re just starting out using the software, you might go through the training once to get a good overall picture before you try to follow along. For those artists who just want to check out some of the newer features, feel free to jump around to the various topics as you like.

Mudbox and Maya are very complementary packages. Maya gives us the ability to build up our models, rig and animate them, and render them. But Mudbox allows us to use a much more artistic approach to shaping and sculpting our models. It also allows us to paint textures very quickly and with a lot of power. By leveraging these two applications together, we can really create a solid workflow. In this tutorial we'll look at ways to get geometry and textures back and forth between Maya and Mudbox. We'll talk about new "Send to" features that make this process even easier. We'll also cover some of the practical scenarios you may encounter when working with these two applications. In the end, you'll have a good understanding of the great advantages you can get by using Maya and Mudbox in tandem.

Caricature, as an art form has been around for many years. Typically they are 2d drawings that really capture the essence of a real person through exaggeration and emphasis on specific features. With Mudbox, we can easily take this process into the 3d realm and create fun 3d caricatures complete with textures. We'll start by building up some base geometry in Maya and then begin shaping and sculpting our character bust. We'll use a variety of sculpting tools to create some exaggerated features for our character. We'll make use of the close integration between Mudbox and Maya to build accessories for our bust and assemble everything in Mudbox. We'll then talk about preparing the meshes for texturing and we'll paint maps for all of the different pieces. In the end, you'll have a finished caricature bust, but you'll also have the skills you need to start creating your own custom caricatures.

Within Mudbox, there is a wide range of sculpting tools that allows artists to create many different effects. Some of these tools are more commonly used so they are well covered in many of our Mudbox courses, but all of them serve a purpose and can be an important part of your artist's toolbox. In this course we will cover all of the sculpt tools, one by one, talking about how they can be used and what some of the unique properties are for each one. We'll cover the more commonly used tools like the Sculpt Tool and Grab Tool and lesser used tools like Flatten and Scrape. We'll look at the reasons for using each one and talk about how to add our own custom tools to the tool tray. We'll finish up by talking about a couple of different sculpting workflows you can take advantage of. In the end, you'll have enough knowledge of all of the Sculpt Tools in Mudbox to begin integrating them into your workflow..

In this series of lessons you will get a ground up look at the powerful sculpting and texture painting application, Mudbox. We will begin by taking a look at the Mudbox interface and talking about the basics of working with geometry in Mudbox. We will cover methods for getting geometry into Mudbox, how to transform it around the scene, and subdivide it in preparation for sculpting. We will proceed from there by using a project based approach to cover the sculpting and painting tools. We will also create our own Vector Displacement Maps that we can use to sculpt. We will talk about changing our tool properties to get different results and using stamps and stencils to create various looks. We will go over some on-target presentation features in Mudbox and move on to painting textures. We will cover the Mudbox paint layer functionality and talk about new features in 2012 like uv-less PTEX painting and layer masks. We will talk about the Pose tools and painting opacity maps for our meshes. We'll finish up by talking about how Mudbox integrates with other applications like Photoshop, Maya, 3ds Max, and Softimage. This course will give you the chance to learn the ins and outs of Mudbox by going through the process with a project based approach. Once you have completed these lessons, you will be able to take what you have learned and apply it to your own work.

The goal of this tutorial is to demonstrate the use of color projections in Mudbox to make photorealistic textures. Also we will set up shaders for hard surface, organic objects, and render it all out in mental ray.

Introducing the Beginner Guide to Mudbox a fundamental learning series brought to you by Digital-Tutors, the largest online CG training library in the world and Autodesk Authorized Publisher. We will start off by covering some of the uses for Mudbox and take a tour of the interface. We will then explore sculpting and painting in Mudbox so you can learn how to begin creating your own Mudbox projects. After that, you will learn to extract and export your geometry and maps. And to wrap up this course, we will look at how easy it is to work between Mudbox and other applications in your pipeline. This series of step-by-step videos was developed with artists new to Mudbox in mind so we will be moving at a steady, easy-to-follow pace making sure you understand terms and basic techniques. To view more Beginner Guide courses; visit our library where you will find the largest collection of free, high-quality CG training videos.

Mudbox is a powerful creation tool for 3D artists. It allows us to sculpt very high resolution models, paint elaborate textures for them and output the meshes in a useable state. Using a project-based approach, we'll go over the basics of working in Mudbox, such as the user interface and working with geometry. We'll look at sculpting and painting topics, such as working with stamps, setting brush properties, working with Paint Layers, using Mudbox with Adobe® Photoshop® and painting multiple channels. We'll also cover methods for the creation of Vector Displacement Maps to reproduce complex detail, and we'll learn to use the Pose tools to quickly deform or pose our models. By the end of this course, you'll have the understanding you need to integrate Mudbox into your own workflow and get started sculpting and painting your own custom projects.

Creating characters with expressive faces is often a very important part of our 3D projects. Depending on the type of character, you may need to communicate a great deal through the expression on its face. Facial expressions relay a lot of non-verbal information about our characters and Mudbox can make creating those expressions really easy and a lot of fun. In this course, we'll talk about several concepts to keep in mind when building facial expressions, such as the muscles of the face, how the skin reacts when the muscles move it into an expression and some important tips to keep in mind when working. We'll cover methods in Mudbox for sculpting different expressions and how to use sculpt layers to create an extremely flexible workflow. Finally, we'll look at a couple of ways that we can get our expressions into Maya in order to set up animatable blendshapes. Once done, you'll have a better understanding of how you can use Mudbox and Maya to create appealing facial expressions for your own characters.

Hands are one of the most expressive parts of many of the characters we create. Because of this, a lot of time should often be spent focusing on the hands. There are, of course, a nearly infinite number of styles in which to build a hand. In this course, we will concentrate on a hand that can go with a more realistic character. We'll start by talking a little about the proportions and anatomy of hands. Then we'll go over tools and methods for creating base geometry with topology that will help in sculpting and animating. Then we'll take the mesh into Mudbox and begin sculpting high-resolution details such as skin wrinkles, knuckles, and skin textures. Finally, we'll take our geometry and maps out of Mudbox and back into Maya. Once you've completed this course, you'll have a much better idea of how to go about building hands for your characters and how to create the detail you need in a useable state.

In the initial portion of the course, we'll turn a sketch into 3d geometry using a variety of modeling tools and techniques in Maya. We'll then take our geometry from Maya to Mudbox where we'll begin sculpting a wide range of high resolution details into the different parts of our scene. Then we'll stay in Mudbox to quickly paint color texture maps, specular maps, and bump maps. With all of our detailing and painting done, we'll export our result as an FBX, allowing us to quickly and easily get all of our geometry and maps out to Maya where we then render the scene.

When sculpting geometry in Mudbox, there may come a time when you'd like to add new geometry to the model but you don't want to lose the work you have done. In this course we're going to look at the process of adding geometry to sculpted meshes in Mudbox while retaining previously created detail. We'll talk about UV considerations, exporting geometry and displacement maps, and adding geometry in external applications. This course is a practical example of ways to solve a common issue. Upon completion, you'll have the knowledge to minimize this potential roadblock when you inevitably encounter it.

When creating assets in Mudbox, there are a number of things we can do to add realism to the models. Using a chair as an example, we'll learn how to use sculpting tools to add important details to the cushions like seams, wrinkles, folds, and buttons. We will also explore different ways of adding age and patterns of use into the chair. Then we will paint aged and worn textures and look at ways we can add wear and age to existing texture maps. Upon completion, you'll have a better understanding of some the things that you can do to add realism to your models in Mudbox.

While 3ds Max is great at creating models very quickly and efficiently, Mudbox excels at interactively sculpting complex detail. By using these two packages in conjunction, we can leverage their respective strengths to quickly create a cohesive digital asset. After building our base geometry of our sample project, a bladed weapon, and adding UVs in 3ds Max, we'll take the geometry into Mudbox to begin sculpting. We'll add a variety of detail, as well as using Channel painting to create textures for the color and specularity of the models. We'll also output normal maps and ambient occlusion maps. Finally, we'll put everything back together in 3ds Max. Upon completion, you be able to create your own weapons or props using these two powerful programs.

This course will take you through the workflow of using Mudbox and Maya to create props or set pieces that appear highly detailed, but are a low enough resolution that they can be easily manipulated in real-time environments. Mudbox is a great package for sculpting high resolution detail but there is a process of getting all of that data out of Mudbox in a usable state. Using an ancient dagger, we'll cover the modeling of the base geometry and UV layout in Maya. We will also go over the sculpting and detailing in Mudbox, as well as painting textures using multiple channels. We'll finish up by bringing all of that detail back into Maya in the form of normal maps.

Although Mudbox is a powerful sculpting tool, one of the features that make it stand apart is the ability to paint multiple texture channels. When creating textures for your models, painting interactively in the 3d view is a really fast and effective way to work. In Mudbox, we can paint color as well as create channels like bump, specular, and reflection and see all of that detail as we paint. In this course we'll learn to create and modify multiple texture channels like those mentioned above. We'll blend together multiple paint layers to achieve specific effects, cover the use of stamps, and learn to use the projection brush with a stencil to add decals. For our example we'll use a retro ray gun toy, but the techniques you'll learn will apply to anything you'd like to paint in Mudbox.

Popular highlights include: Digital Sculpting Workflow; Texture Painting Workflow; Navigating Image Browser; Texture Painting in Layers; Custom Stamps and Stencils; Sculpt Layers; Customizing Brush Settings; On-Target Sculpting; On-Target Painting; Sculpt Brush; Steady Stroke for Straight Lines; Constraining Strokes to Curves; Painting Layer Masks; Changing Brush Falloffs; Customizing Lighting; Depth of Field; Ambient Occlusion; Image-based Lighting; Sub-dividing Meshes; Adding and Editing Materials; Viewing Mesh UVs; Meshes with Multiple UV Tiles; Importing Geometry; Exporting Maps; Interface and Work Area Overview.

Popular highlights include: Digital Sculpting Techniques; Asymmetrical Modeling; Texture Baking; Generating Normal Maps; Generating Displacement Maps; Working with 3D Layers; Maya and Mudbox Workflow; Maya Surface Preparation; Utilizing Local Subdivision Features; Multi-resolution Editing; Using Stamps and Stencils; Painting Masks; Layer Management; Scene Optimization; Rendering in mental ray; Real-time Normal Map Preview; Sculpting Brushes Overview; Interface and Tools Overview.

Topics covered in this tutorial: Creating images within the same channel; Learning to blend together multiple levels; Importing existing images and textures; Increasing and decreasing opacity; Bringing in multiple maps. To learn more about Mudbox check out Introduction to Mudbox 2009, an essential guide to sculpting and painting.

Topics covered in this tutorial: Defining and implementing topological symmetry; Adding sculpt layers ; Creating details; Learning how to use the Tangent Mirror; Utilizing the Mask Tool. For a complete overview of Mudbox check out Introduction to Mudbox 2009, an essential guide to sculpting and painting.

Topics covered in this tutorial: Creating sculpt layers; Learning to correctly subdivide a sphere; Bringing in displacement maps; Increasing and decreasing opacity; Masking out areas of the displacement maps; Flattening layers. Discover a comprehensive resource to learning Mudbox with Introduction to Mudbox, a complete guide to digital sculpting.

Topics covered in this tutorial: Drawing out curves; Applying stamp images; Utilizing brush options . To learn more about Mudbox check out Introduction to Mudbox 2009, an essential guide to sculpting and painting.

Topics covered in this tutorial: Adding reference images; Importing a file; Changing the background with visibility; Utilizing depth and transformation values; Creating a Camera Bookmark. To learn more about Mudbox check out Introduction to Mudbox, a complete guide to digital sculpting.

Topics covered in this tutorial: Creating and working with new layers; Learning how to efficiently use the Smooth Brush; Adding details to our object. For a complete overview of Mudbox check out Introduction to Mudbox 2009, an essential guide to sculpting and painting.

Topics covered in this tutorial: Learning how to move around the scene quickly; Creating efficient models by adding resolution; Utilizing Maya's powerful UV tools. For an in-depth guide to learning Mudbox check out Introduction to Mudbox, a project-based training to gaining a complete understanding of digital sculpting.

Topics covered in this tutorial: Storing every level of the model in memory; Ability to move between levels faster; Freeing up memory; Writing levels to the hard drive. Gain a complete understanding of Mudbox with Introduction to Mudbox 2009, an essential guide to sculpting and painting.

Topics covered in this tutorial: Using Layers to mirror details; Defining the Topological Axis; Working with posed models. For a complete overview of Mudbox check out Introduction to Mudbox 2009, an essential guide to sculpting and painting.

Selection Sets are a useful tool to use while modeling. With them you can quickly move between different parts of your model. Selection Sets also allow you to subdivide parts of a model, instead of subdividing the entire model. Try using Selection Sets to break your models into easily manageable pieces! Topics covered in this tutorial: Selecting faces ; Creating a new Selection Set ; Moving between Selection Sets ; Subdividing a Selection Set . Discover a complete guide to learning Mudbox with Introduction to Mudbox, a comprehensive resource to digital sculpting.

Topics covered in this tutorial: Inactive Levels display modes ; Sticky keyboard shortcuts ; Selection tools ; Marquee selection . For a complete overview of Mudbox check out Introduction to Mudbox 2009, an essential guide to sculpting and painting.

Topics covered in this tutorial: Sculpting with a Stencil ; Masking a layer ; Showing a Mask ; Changing the Layer Mask coloring ; Modifying a layer's transparency . Gain a complete understanding of Mudbox with Introduction to Mudbox 2009, an essential guide to sculpting and painting.

It's easy to loose sense of the last time you saved when we're having fun sculpting in Mudbox. Fortunately, Mudbox has a Save Reminder that starts to blink red if we have not recently saved our work. Topics covered in this tutorial: Writing out the file; Setting new reminder intervals; Learning how to fully utilize Save Reminders. To learn more about Mudbox check out Introduction to Mudbox, a comprehensive resource to digital sculpting.

Sculpting with a model's texture applied is very useful for seeing how any changes affect the texture. Along these same lines, moving lights around lets you view the model under various lighting set-ups. Test your models using these two techniques for a better final result. Topics covered in this tutorial: Creating a new material ; Using the Image Browser to plug a texture into a material ; Creating a new light ; Changing a light's various properties ; Moving lights around the scene . Discover a comprehensive resource to learning Mudbox with Introduction to Mudbox, a complete guide to digital sculpting.