That is all for Mudbox. All we have to do now is export the map, but before that, here is a little trick I used. As you might know, we have 5 fingers, and using the same map for all would result in something that looks like a bad copy and paste. To avoid that I painted a second alpha map but still using the same objects’ UVs. Back in Max, I detached all parts again so that every object could be moved, linked and rigged again. Although I now broke up the model, the UVs are still intact. Now we can freely choose which object gets which alpha map simply by drag and drop from the material editor. This way, we can make variations to the finger parts by using two different blend materials only varying it by the different alpha maps. If you want to be very sure to avoid any copy and paste look, you could even draw a third alpha map and create a third blend material.

Here are all five fingers showing the alpha maps. The dark brown parts are also a blend material I created, but using the same alpha map for blending between different metal textures. You can make as many blend materials as you want, it plays no role; the UVs are always the same and we have our alpha maps created in an hour. So now you can play around with it and create all sorts of different materials; the alpha map in the blending slot will always make it look quite convincing.

That’s the workflow used for all parts. Each object received its own material using the same maps and values except the alpha map, which is the only thing that changes.
Afterwards, I created the other parts of the hand and rigged all fingers using reaction manager.

Over each finger, I placed a ring that controls the bending of the down pointing finger. In its default position, the finger is in a straight line, but as soon as you move the ring in the Y-axis, the finger keeps bending until it is completely curled onto the palm. Using this method, you can animate the hand very quickly. For more information, check out Reaction Manager tutorials. Learning these functions can be handy quite often. Here is what the Hand looks life after all maps are finished.

 

Special Case: Details

As you might notice, on some parts of the armour there are lots of details, for example the shoulder armour or the knuckle protector on the hand. Here is how I created those:

1) Model your object without any details and ornaments.
2) Create the UVs as written above using automatic UVs from Max.
3) Export the model (again, not in the lowest subdivision - better UV result) to your favourite sculpting   software.
4) Subdivide the model many times and sculpt in all details and ornaments.

5) Paint your dirt/alpha blending map as written above.

Ok now your model has a really high poly count. Now you can either export a displacement map and plug that map in the displace slot in the accordant material (by using the two materials in the blend material as a copy, not instance), or create a normal map and plug it into the bump slot. For this project, I did not like either way and exported the ultra high mesh directly into Max and reduced it with ProOptimizer (creativity extension, or Max 2010).

That modifier can kick out up to 80 - 85% of the mesh by retaining its main shape. Of course, the result looks bad in close ups, but all other shots are perfect and delivers the best and fastest results in rendering. If you are using Zbrush, I highly recommend the free plug-in Decimation master, it does the very same, but I think even a bit better.

 

 

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