Building Creatures in ZBrush

Continuing his Tethered Islands series, Aaron Sims shares his techniques for building a creature in ZBrush. Using ZSpheres to design the initial body structure, Aaron develops the character from scratch. He then demonstrates how to skin the ZSpheres and add details, color and lighting. In XSI, Aaron discusses the basics of rigging, weighting, and animating the imported creature from ZBrush. Finally he covers how to pose, light, and render the creature in an XSI scene.

• ZSpheres
• Building a Creature Using ZSpheres
• Skinning ZSpheres and Adding Details
• Adding Alpha Textures and Color
• Basic Materials and Rendering
• Making Displacement Maps for XSI
• Basic Rigging, Weighting and Animating in XSI
• Rendering a Scene Using XSI

1. ZSpheres Basics
2. Modeling a Creature Using ZSpheres
3. Skinning ZSpheres and Blocking out Large Forms
4. Adding Smaller Forms
5. Adding Details
6. Adding Texture
7. Adding Color Materials and Rendering
8. Making Displacement Maps for XSI
9. Basic Rigging, Weighting and Animating in XSI
10. Posing, Lighting and Rendering the Creature in XSI

• Product Code: ASI04
• ISBN: 1-59762-934-0
• UPC: 805366016302
• Duration: 355 minutes
• Formats: DVD-ROM, Mac or PC only

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Aaron Sims

Concept Designer

Aaron Sims began designing, sculpting and painting creatures for the movie makeup effects industry in the mid 1980s. In 1988, he joined Rick Baker’s Academy Award® winning Cinovation Studios Inc. In the late 1990s, Aaron began exploring the medium of computer animation and joined Stan Winston Studio in 2000, where he began building a CG department within the Academy Award® winning effects house. As Art Director he designed for such films as AI, Terminator 3, Constantine, Doom and Fantastic 4. With the same adventurous spirit that fueled his willingness to embrace digital technology, Sims created The Aaron Sims Company and began work on 30 Days of Night, The Golden Compass, I Am Legend, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, The Incredible Hulk and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. In 2007, he co-founded White Rock Lake Productions with business partner and long-time friend John Norris where they have created award winning films.