After spending much time trying to fine tune the qualities that make a bird, an eagle, I then start to make note of the feathering of these types of birds. The next section will go into time spent preparing the alphas and figuring out the layering process.
Creating the Feathers
When I started looking into the feather options, I didn’t know if I would go with a stencil technique or use the sculpting brushes. This time I decided to go with the sculpting brushes for nothing else but the fact that the DragRect stroke enables me to put down feathers quickly at any angle and size like the directional brush.
Creating Feathers :
When I started looking into the feather options, I didn’t know if I would go with a stencil technique or use the sculpting brushes. This time I decided to go with the sculpting brushes for nothing else but the fact that the DragRect stroke enables me to put down feathers quickly at any angle and size like the directional brush.
The first alpha I tried, I noticed that there was an auto fade that caused a loss of definition at the tips of the feathers. I didn’t mind the top of the feather fading but I needed the bottom tip to be as crisp as I could get it. I decided to increase the size of the alpha, made sure the feather was aligned to the top and the essential details were kept in the center.
After trying the first test alpha feather, I then made a few more feather alphas for added variety so as not to have any major discernible repetition. Pressing Alpha:Flip H on any given alpha can also buy you one more alpha variant to break things up even more.
Return to the bird tool in Zbrush, and subdivide to level 6 or 7. In this case, 7 was the highest used. Now clone the Birdhead subtool and Append it twice to the subtool list. I renamed one clone FeatherSet.01 and the other FeatherSet.02. We’ll save the BirdHead subtool as a backup and move it down the list using the arrow keys which are located at the bottom of the subtool list.
As a little safety precaution for the FeatherSet subtools, we’ll click Tool:Layer:New for both subtools. Now if anything should go astray, we can always slide the layer slider back to 0 and start over. A morph target is also a good alternative if it’s not already being used.
Now set:
Alpha = the feather alpha.
Brush:Std .
Stroke:DragRect .
Z Intensity = 25, with Zadd.
Click and drag feathers in the direction they would flow on the actual bird. Space them so that there is minimal overlap or at least little to no noticeable overlap of the feather details.
Cycle through your feather alpha collection finding the best alpha with a curve in the feather that compliments the form of the bird.
Don’t forget to horizontally flip your alphas if the bow of the feather needs to run the other way. You may find you can get away with applying these feathers with Transform:>x< on to activate x axis symmetry. However, when feathering the front, top, and back views, it will become apparent when to turn off the symmetry and go freestyle.
When you have given the FeatherSet.01 subtool a good first pass, select and turn on the visibilty of FeatherSet.02 while FeatherSet.01 remains visible. Adjust the Z intensity of the standard brush to 28 now and draw a new set of feathers through the FeatherSet.01 subtool until they appear to overlap (or underlap) the feathers of FeatherSet.01.
Due to the nature of the auto fade of the sculpting brush alphas, the displacement intensity of the outer edge is less than the center. This makes it possible to slide the top of the feathers under existing feathers.
Once the bottom feathers around the neck are placed in a fairly filled out fashion, we can begin painting a mask on the undisplaced geometry. Begin with either feather subtool while the unselected subtool is hidden. Work your way around until the bottom straight edge is masked. When masking is complete, press Tool:Masking:Inverse followed by pressing Tool:Masking:HidePT.
Left to right:Masking, Invert Mask, and HidePt.
Repeat for the remaining FeatherSet and adjust masking if necessary. You can toggle the visibilty of the two subtools to check if the masking was thorough enough.
Once both featherset subtools are completed, you can turn on the visibility of the beak and both eyes to inspect the piece as a whole. I would frequently have either the beak or one of the eyes selected in order to view the feathers in the same value.
Sorting the Feathers :
Next we need to tidy up the feather overlapping by either pushing or pulling the feathers that are not properly ‘settled’ such as the example shown here.
