Making a Cute Rat Cook in ZBrush, Maya & Substance

Anna Cavasos talks about creating an adorable cooking rat using ZBrush, Maya, Substance Painter, Marvelous Designer, and Nuke and discusses the importance of keeping the right balance between stylized and realistic elements.

Introduction

My name is Anna Cavasos, I'm a 3D artist from Sacramento, California. I got an Associate's degree in 3D Art at a community college before going to Gnomon in Los Angeles, and I am currently in my last term before graduating with my BFA.

The Rat Cook was inspired by a 2D concept by Chris Kintner. His piece was a great candidate for a stylized 3D scene with realistic textures, and it really drew me in with its cuteness and appeal. I also chose it with the goal of learning how to groom fur; this was my first project learning XGen. 

Concept art by Chris Kintner

Creating the Rat Cook

I sculpted the body in ZBrush and retopologized it in Maya. When sculpting and posing in ZBrush, I kept in mind that he would have a very fluffy layer of fur, so I needed to make sure I did not make the body itself too thick. The silhouette needed to look good with the fur, so there was a lot of lookdev and going back and forth on the sculpt. I also created a displacement in ZBrush where I sculpted the high surface details like the nose bumpiness and the ear notches.

I had him in an a-pose for sculpting the XGen guides, so that I could take advantage of symmetry, and then I used a blend shape to put him in the pose. In XGen, I used Legacy. I started out with a small number of guides and worked my way up as needed. I also painted maps for things like density, fur color, and clumps.

I spend a lot of time doing look dev. I got very primitive meshes in the scene as early as possible, even using placeholder cubes, in order to set up the camera and lighting. This way, as I continue to work on the fur, texturing, and sculpting, I can see closer to what the final product will look like. This is much better for me than bringing each asset to finish before putting it in the scene. 

Cooking Pies in 3D

I decided to photoscan a real pie because while I could have sculpted a pie, a real pie looks so delicious and appetizing that it would be worth it to scan. I took a few rows of pictures of the pie in overcast lighting and loaded up the pictures into Metashape. It generates points and calculates an object based on where it thinks it is in 3D space. Sometimes it has difficulty aligning the photos, so I had to place some manual trackers to help it align better.

Then, I deleted the extra points and generated a mesh for the pie. It also generates a texture based on the photos. I exported the mesh and brought it into ZBrush. From there, I retopologized and created a displacement from the high-poly mesh to keep all of the high-resolution details. Once in Maya, I created the cheese using a V-Ray Metaball, which generates proxy geo using nParticles. It does not have actual geometry, so it did not require any retopology or texturing. 

Other works by Anna Cavasos

Texturing

The rat was textured in Substance Painter. I paid special attention to the ears, nose, and paws since they were visible. The veins were painted in the Albedo Map, and I used human skin as the base. I mostly wanted a breakup, since I knew I would be using a subsurface material.

The outfit was a bit of a challenge. I originally wanted to make the vest in Marvelous Designer, but when I did I realized it was too realistic. Part of the appeal of the original concept was the striking shapes of the vest and the collar, so I ended up sculpting the shape to match the concept. I textured the vest using Substance Painter as well, using a flannel material and painting in some wear and tear. The oven mitts were sculpted in ZBrush, a displacement was created, and I textured them in Substance Painter.

The hat I did create in Marvelous Designer. I initially tried to sculpt it to match the concept, but it was obvious that it was not working. I created a pattern using pleats sewing, brought it into ZBrush to perfect the silhouette, and textured it in Substance Painter.

The pie had textures from the scan, so all I had to do was dial a subsurface material to my liking. 

Other works by Anna Cavasos

Lighting Setup 

When lighting, I use an HDRI from HDRI Haven for a base. I look for something that will give me good colors in my shadows and believable reflections. In this project, I lit most objects separately. The background, the pies, the fireplace, and the rat all had a different series of lights. I make use of light selects so that in compositing I have the ability to adjust the lighting without re-rendering. The rat specifically had a Rim light, a Fill light, and a Key light.

In Nuke, I put together the lighting passes and adjusted each light's exposure and color. The steam, particles, fire, and color grading were all done in Nuke by taking the elements and multiplying them over the composition. I used the Z-depth pass rendered from Maya in order to place the element where I wanted to in the scene.

Other works by Anna Cavasos

Conclusion

The main challenges for me here were learning fur and working from home. Fortunately, I had the help of two of my teachers at Gnomon: Tran Ma and Miguel Ortega. Tran is an amazing character artist and Miguel is a great generalist and compositor. With both of their help and critique, I was able to create a piece that I was really proud of. 

Advice that I would give beginners is the following: 3D really is so intimidating when you are starting out. There are millions of disciplines, and the more you learn, the more you see what you do not know. I would advise beginners to always ask questions. On forums, on Instagram, ask a teacher, ask another student. Other people can offer so much knowledge, and it will be beneficial for you to see how other artists work. And remember to always be creating. 

Anna Cavasos, 3D Artist

Interview conducted by Arti Sergeev

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