For my Zenith project, I chose to write a song, just like last year. However, this year, my focus was on learning how to use Vocaloid. I didn’t actually use the Vocaloid program, though, because it’s expensive. I found a free trial of Piapro Studio, which allowed me to program Hatsune Miku to sing a song. In this video, I explain my process in more detail.

I wish I could include screenshots of my process, but my free trial for Piapro Studio ended and I cannot open it anymore. Seriously, I tried re-installing it, getting a new license, and everything, but I really couldn’t reopen my project :’)

However, I can go more into detail about my 3D model of Hatsune Miku. There are tons of models on the internet, but sadly, not many free ones, so I decided to create my own (and I also had to fulfill the animation requirement for my project). To do this, I used ZBrush for modeling, Substance Painter for texturing, and Maya for the animation and rendering.

I hope you think that the hair is really nice, because I spent a long time making it. It would have spent more time if I hadn’t found ZBrush brushes for hair online. Here is a progress shot of just the hair, because I did that first.

During this modeling process, I learned some more ZBrush skills that seem pretty important, like how to create a low-poly shape using the Initialize function, how to use ZBrush to warp shapes, and how to create a 3D mesh from a 2D plane, which is what I was trying to make the lace with, but ultimately failed to do. In my final model, I used that technique to make the flower petals.

Second, I textured my model using Substance Painter. This wasn’t really anything new since we learned how to do this in class.

Third, I animated in Maya. I learned how to connect a camera to a 3D path and have the camera go around the path and still point at the subject. I didn’t do any additional animation because I didn’t have time lol

In the end, I think that my model is very pretty :3