Sculpt a Lifelike High-Poly Rhinoceros in ZBrush

on Nov 8th 2010 with 12 comments
Tutorial Details
  • Software: Pixologic ZBrush
  • Difficulty: Intermediate
  • Estimated Completion Time: 2 Hours

When creating an animal or character for use in a modern game engine, an essential part of the process is sculpting a high-poly mesh to be used for generating normal maps, ambient occlusion maps, and anything else that may be needed to make the final result look realistic.

Republished Tutorial

Every few weeks, we revisit some of our reader's favorite posts from throughout the history of the site. This tutorial was first published in August of 2009.

In this tutorial you will learn the key theory behind how to set up your low poly mesh appropriately, and the best way to go around sculpting to get the desired level of detail. This tutorial covers the creation of a Rhino, but when you are finished, you should be ready to start sculpting any organic model you like.

Final Effect Preview

You can get the references images Daniel used from the following links: White Rhino; Male White Rhino; Rhino Red Nose; dsc_0134_kb3c.jpg; 007N65-16605284.jpg; Black-Rhino-702131.jpg.

Full Video

Download

Note: click the ‘Monitor’ icon to view tutorial in full-screen HD.

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By

Rollover to read this author's bio or click through to see a full list of posts by this author.

I am a freelance digital artist from London, and currently studying computer science at Edinburgh University. I have been doing digital art for several years now, but my main passion is creating artwork which can be rendered in real time. The tricks and techniques used in this field fascinate me. I'm interested in all areas of art, and really love music and literature. If I don't become a professional 3d artist I'd love to be fiction writer.  

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  • Kris

    Awesome! Great tut!

  • Paul

    Wings 3d Nice! Awesome Tutorial!

  • http://www.cgtrade.net imsraaia

    awesome…

  • http://offroading.home.att.net Dj

    A nice tut… but please take the mic out of your mouth. The pops, breathing, sniffing and distortion from overmodulation is very distracting. Thanks.

  • Mr. A.

    It’s not lifelike at all, and it looks like ass.

    • James Morgan

      You must not appreciate the power of 3D.
      And yes, it is Lifelike Just not without the textures and bumpmaps.
      And the final effect preview is what looks like an orthographic view.

  • Gigith

    ZedBrush?
    What is this ZedBrush?

  • tae

    lol!!! zbrush not zedbrush

  • jj

    @ignorants: zed = be.; zee = ae.

    now figure out what these abbreviations stand for… *rolls eyes*

  • Hugo

    I really like the head but the body is kinda too wrinkeled, a little bit weird. Nice tut though :)

  • smashing

    Or CE! I’m canadian :) .. and yes, americans are quite ignorant and probably think the metric system doesn’t exist either.. psshhh lol. I do live in LA and love americans, but its kinda true that they forget the rest of the world exists too.

    Btw way.. beautiful model.. can’t wait to learn ZEDbrush when I take a class for it next semester :D

  • http://blog.ilovecode.de Kevin

    Hey guys … I really like the text tutorials on the tutsplus network, but the video tuts you guys do aren’t quite as good. especially the sound quality is really bad – some are hissing and humming continuously and sometimes the tutor has the mic directly in front of his mouth – popping and distortion included.