Mudbox 2013 Cookbook

Over 60 recipes to sculpt digital masterpieces like a modern Michelangelo

• Create amazing, high detail sculpts for games, movies, and more
• Extract high resolution texture maps to use on your low poly 3d models
• Create terrain that you can walk on in a virtual world
• Learn professional tricks that will improve your workflow
• Whether you are opening Mudbox for the first time or the thousandth time, the techniques in this book will enable you to take your skills to a new level

In Detail

“Mudbox 2013 Cookbook” covers a variety of techniques that can be used to bring your imagination to life. You will be able to create detailed characters and environments like the ones found in games, movies, and on television. Each recipe is one more building block towards digitally sculpting your ideas into reality.

“Mudbox 2013 Cookbook” is written in recipes so that you can refer back to it whenever you seek help. The advanced techniques described in this book cover the whole spectrum of Mudbox’s capabilities. With this book you will learn the foundational techniques in using Mudbox as well as more advanced ones

“Mudbox 2013 Cookbook” will guide the reader step by step through the process of creating brushes, sculpting, 3d painting, lighting assets, extracting normal maps, and many other techniques. If a recipe is too advanced for you then you can visit the suggested recipes listed at the end of the recipe to learn supporting techniques. Supporting images are used for readers who understand things more visually. Each recipe is rated for difficulty so that you can find techniques that line up with your skill level. Once you complete the beginner and intermediate recipes you will be able to move on to the more advanced recipes.

What will you learn from this book

• Set up different lighting schemes to bring your characters to life
• Record videos within Mudbox that can be used to enhance your portfolio, create your own tutorials, or to share your process with others
• Create custom brushes that will enable you to replicate the look of any real world texture you choose
• Various ways you can use stencils to quickly bring photo real qualities into your 3D sculpts and textures
• Learn how to bring your 3D models in and out of Mudbox from Maya, 3D Studio Max, or any other 3D modeling package you use
• Use a displacement map to sculpt depth into your models
• Create tiling sculpts so that your extracted texture maps are seamless
• Create a gold bar by recreating the properties of the real world material
• Extract Ambient Occlusion maps to replicate the shadowing of the concave surfaces of your sculpt
• Work seamlessly between Mudbox and Photoshop with layers intact
• Enhance your scene with depth of field by using either viewport filters or the screen distance filter for use in Photoshop

Approach

Written in cookbook style, this book offers many recipes to learn digital sculpting with Mudbox. Each recipe contains step-by-step instructions followed by analysis of what was done in each task and other useful information. The book is designed so that you can read it chapter by chapter, or you can look at the list of recipes and refer to them in no particular order

Who this book is written for

This book is for 3D modelers and texture artists who are, or would like to be, working in the games, movies, product design, television, medical imaging, or advertising industries. By learning the techniques in this book you will be able to create “next gen” assets for the game industry, create realistic creatures and sets for movies, and add the fine details needed for medical images and animations. Whether you are an Environment Artist or a Character Artist there is much to learn from this book.