Brachiosaurus
Brachiosaurus is a genus of sauropod dinosaur. It is iconically known as the largest dinosaur to have ever walked the Earth. The dinosaur also appears in the well-received Jurassic Park movie.
Three things made me want to make this beast, the first reason was I wanted to vastly improve my 3D modelling skills and my texturing skills. I wanted to learn what makes a texture, a texture. Secondly, I have loved dinosaurs since I was a kid, my favourite movies are the Jurassic Parks movies 1 - 3. Thirdly, in 2013 I played a game called "Primal Carnage", although this game did not have any Brachiosaurus' in it, it did peak my interest in dinosaurs once again to such a level that this was the first time I decided to be productive when I got the strong urge too. This was the very first model that I put into ZBrush, I followed a tutorial to get me started.
The model uses normal maps, and of course a texture. Most of the time spent in ZBrush was making the dinosaur's skin look as realistic as I could get it, and then applying a colour once I had finished sculpt detail. It was as this point that I learned textures were not much a matter of complex colours, but a mix between normal mapping techniques and creating a texture using a normal map. I used masking to highlight all the sculpted areas such as wrinkles, spots and cuts; then I coloured them black so that they would stand out. This allowed me to get a texture going.
The most noticable impact as a result of the normal map, was muscle detail. If you look at the belly of the beast, you can see wrinkles from where the internal organs are putting weight strain down onto the skin beneath. You can also see muscle definition on the legs as well.
This model took me a very long time to make, about 24 hours (total time) to create the mesh, and then an extra 12 - 14 hours to create the texture. I had never modelled organically before to this extent, and I had never used ZBrush either. So at the time, I was very confused.
Fast forward to now, I can do a much better texture in a far shorter amount of time (2 hours roughly). After using ZBrush so much, my skills and work speed have vastly increased.
