In recent years, with the rapid development of science and technology and the rapid rise of the emerging industry, computer and software technology gradually become mature, digital software began to play an important role in the film and television art, all kinds of fantasy and real scenes, roles are stimulate the visual nerve of the audience, people are more excited for digital realistic film and television. The ZBrush software developed by Pixologic, it opened up a new door for artists to create realistic 3D characters. Davy Jones in the Pirates of the Caribbean, Na’vi from Avatar, the robots in Transformers, these difficult, super realism characters in film almost all made from Zbrush, the birth of it represents a revolution in the digital modeling creation.
- Development of traditional and modern realistic art
In the history of human art development, people are always constantly exploring various forms of expression for creation, such as ink painting, oil painting, printmaking, watercolor painting, gouache painting…In order to express the specific era of human customs, social environment and the artist’s own thoughts and feelings. In order to more truly express the scene in the creator’s mind, hyperrealism was born. Hyperrealistic painting art is a form of artistic expression in which the artist combines the objects depicted with People’s Daily life experience, and carries out in-depth and detailed depiction and expression of its external outline, internal texture, and detailed texture. With vivid and lifelike visual images, hyperrealistic painting makes the people believe the real existence of visual content in their subjective consciousness. Because of this kind of artistic characteristics that enables the continuous inheritance and innovative development of hyperrealistic painting. Until the 1839, the birth of the first camera, photography brought hyperrealistic art into a new stage, it can instantly records the characteristics of the real thing, even can make moving images, combined with performance elements such as sound, colour, light, let the realism reached a new peak, the audience had a more stereoscopic and intuitive perception to the roles. After the last century 50-60’s, computer technology began to formally apply to the field of painting art. Digital painting art has irreplaceable advantages over traditional painting art in terms of storage mode, spreading process and material cost. It has injected fresh blood into modern art and opened up the expression technique of realistic painting art. With its diversified, scientific and team-based modern creation environment, digital painting art and film art are mutually dependent, and find a new balance between artistry and commercialization.
2. ZBrush artwork style: a more delicate and realistic style of hyperrealism
Digital sculpture software represented by ZBrush is still influenced by traditional painting and sculpting methods in the representation of realistic characters in films. It continues to follow several realistic artistic methods including representational, exaggerated and fantasy, and adds its own strong technical expertise. It is easier to show the static and dynamic image of the role in the virtual environment, and make the character of the role more distinct. The art style has more visual tension.
(1)representational realism
The representational expression is the closest to reality in the artistic creation of realistic painting, and it is also the easiest way to make the audience have a sense of visual reality. It was the early artists’ fascination with realism that made them strive to explore a higher level of hyper-realism art form, thus giving birth to the production of camera technology. Of course, nature provides the most direct material for the representation of film characters. However, as artistic creation, but also need to use the idealized color, light, texture, atmosphere to render. It is difficult to achieve the aesthetic feeling of artistic creation like painting by imaging at one time, and most cases have to be photographed and corrected repeatedly. Film creators have to choose the best shooting time according to different time, weather and so on. They also have to consider the situations of the character actors themselves. Although with a variety of makeup and camera technology innovation, but also can not easily change some irreversible shooting obstacles. For example, when Hollywood actor Paul Walker died in an accident, the production of the film Fast and Furious 7 was stopped for a time. However, in order not to affect the release of the film, Paul Walker’s two younger brothers could only act as stand-ins to complete the unfinished parts of the film for his brother. But Walker’s temperament is difficult to reproduce in the film, so a lot of CG technology was used to recreate his looks. Therefore, to a large extent, the performance of film character types based on camera is a passive choice. ZBrush features allow traditional painting and film shooting to get rid of their limitations, realize the combination of art, leads the role of the representational realism to a new width. On the one hand, the photos and images recorded by photography become the original material, which can be used in a variety of scenes through repeated copying and comparison of computer technology. On the other hand, it fully combines the artistic creators’ requirements for artistic effects, and does not need to use tedious techniques of artificial makeup, It can be adjusted with CG technology to show colors, textures that can’t be photographed normally. In Night at the Museum, the team recreated a huge, long-lost fossil of a T-Rex. When the T-rex appeared on the screen in lifelike realist form, the audience was shocked. T-Rex has more than 400 bones, each of which was created by 3D software, especially in the close-up of the skull, which is realistic and requires more convincing details. The designer used ZBrush to complete all the details on the bones. Therefore, given that representational realism is basically base to the real prototype, Zbrush has obvious advantages in presenting popular science, historical records or other characters that reflect the existence of objective reality.
(2).exaggerative realism
I’m sure many people have seen the movie Avatar directed by James Cameron. The technology used in the movie was a remarkable achievement in that year. ZBrush software is involved in creating these exaggerated and convincing hyperrealistic character types. The exaggerated realistic method also deforms or exaggerates the characteristics of the creation objects on the basis of respecting the rules of character modeling, so as to enhance the character characteristics to achieve real visual effects. In the film Avatar, we can see the exaggerated design of Na’vi, a resident of Pandora, but it generally follows the modeling characteristics of human beings, enlarging their body size and having slender limbs. When upright, the wrist is longer than the hip, which is suitable for climbing and walking. The waist is thin, the body is thin, but the muscle is very developed, which adds a kind of beauty of power, showing the Na’vi is in a kind of primitive living condition, which is harmonious and natural. Compared with other 3D digital software, ZBrush can achieve this transformation of the character more easily, and by adding a large number of surface details, such as blue fluorescent skin with patterns, clearly visible blood vessels and nerves, realistic scars, etc., the audiences can enjoy the visual experience that traditional painting and realistic photography cannot achieve. ZBrush is close to the characteristics of painting and sculpture, so that the creator can achieve exaggerated processing on the facial expression, body, movement and other body states of the character under the free control of subjective consciousness. The high-definition material of photography can be directly used to easily achieve realistic high-precision detail performance. In view of ZBrush’s breakthrough in digital art technology, its performance in the shaping of some exaggerated characters in modern films is more and more powerful, and the application needs are more and more extensive. Such as The Hulk, King Kong and other excellent character creations are the best illustration.
(3) Fantasy realism
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction set in a fictional universe, often inspired by real world myth and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy literature and drama. From the twentieth century it has expanded further into various media, including film, television, graphic novels, manga, animated movies and video games. Therefore, compared with representational and exaggeration, Fantasy has higher aesthetic value and is more difficult to express. The artistic image of fantasy has its unique expression in painting, literature, drama and other artistic works, but in terms of technology, in the past film and television performance is in a weak situation. The main problem is that the artistic images of fantasy are invisible and non-existent in the real physical world. Traditional makeup technology and photography technology are difficult to show the visual form from human brain, while digital technology makes it a reality. ZBrush software has more unique advantages in fantasy character creation. It can arbitrarily combine the character model, simulate the material, texture, hair, cloth and other physical effects, and endow the character with more delicate details, make it come alive. In particular, audiences who are used to watching dull animated character images tend to feel boring, and the more distant the character is from reality, the more interesting it will be. Especially some monsters, robots and other roles that have even become the favorite of young people. At the same time, In the shaping of fantasy realistic characters, creators have more freedom of expression. Through the collision of the character’s characteristics and the audience’s subconscious, the audience’s perception of the character’s connotation is touched. Present deeper inner feelings and deeper thematic thinking. The future of digital characters, no matter how novel their appearance or how advanced their technology. The mainstream of its development is bound to serve the creators of more delicate, rich human nature thoughts and emotional communication. Just like the two series of Godzilla and King Kong, the film atmosphere is rendered with the fear of human beings to the huge unknown creatures, and the creator’s expectation for human beings to love nature is also expressed. Therefore, when the bizarre lifelike appearance and entertainment go to the peak, if there is a fuller human nature and emotional creation, will be more able to win the public praise.
Bibliography
En.wikipedia.org. 2021. Fantasy. [online] Available at: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy> [Accessed 16 January 2021].
HOLMES, A., 2015. The Difference Between Photorealism And Hyperrealism. [online] Plus One Gallery. Available at: <https://www.plusonegallery.com/blog/32/> [Accessed 16 January 2021].
Overmental. 2015. Furious 7: Which Shots Of Paul Walker Were CGI? – Overmental. [online] Available at: <https://overmental.com/content/furious-7-which-shots-of-paul-walker-were-cgi-41530> [Accessed 16 January 2021].