Videogame Character Development - Mudbox Tools

Through my introduction to mudbox in this unit I have been tasked with detailing 5 tools I have used and how I used them.

Sculpt Tool.

The Sculpt tool is quite possibly the most widely used tool in Mudbox as it is a sculpting software, either sculpting onto or taking away from the current mesh, allowing me to gain more definition in a feature on my character.

I used the Sculpt tool on every piece of geometry my character was to be made up of, for example to build shape and definition in the ears of my character, or to define the bionic arm belonging to my character.

Smooth tool.

I used the smooth tool a lot in the high poly sculpting process also, being used to smooth an area out which has been sculpted inward or outward. A specific example of this tool which I have used in this project is the stencilling in of the scar placed on the right of my character's face, running around the eye and down the cheek.

Due to the quality of the stencil detail surrounding the scar particularly, I needed to smooth the area either side of the scar tissue, not only so as to correct the mesh, but to give the scar itself more definition, to make it pop a little more.

Grab tool.

The grab tool does exactly what it says on the tin, grabbing a portion of the mesh, determined by the brush size. The grab allows the user to not only push and pull the mesh, but to more finely reshape certain features, within the head of my character I flared the nostrils a little as I felt they were too slim, and thinned the bridge of the nose slightly also, this allowed me to gain a facial shape I was more happy with on my character.

Projection tool.

Within the painting tools, is the projection tool, this allows the user to take a reference image and under the right file type, physically project it onto a surface using a brush, this is useful for gaining a realistic diffuse base for a detailed element, such as a pair of jeans or boots, this may have worked quite well for my boots, though my model varied from most reference photos and as such didn't fit well, I hand painted the boot and used projection techniques elsewhere within my model.

Pinch Tool.

The Pinch tool is very useful for adding definition to edges, as it is largely used for sharpening corners in a mesh, I used this, though it didn't have a huge effect on the mesh, on my Bionic Arm. I was looking to sharpen up the plated design, but the tool didn't do a very good job of the tightening.

This could be down to the sculpt I wished to sharpen being too large a job, I will almost certainly use this tool again somewhere further down the line.