Character: Young Bill Gates

[Argodin]

haha.. cool glasses. You've got your work cut out for you, start off by making his head the correct width and making his mouth less stretched.

[EricLyman]

Actually I was thinking about just doing the head geomety without hair 1st, then adding that in after as a separate object.. Anyone have a link to a hair tutoiral, by the way?

Thanks for the crit.. I'll make the mouth less wide for sure.

[Atwooki]

I'd check out the 'body topology' thread here (plenty of head topologies, also):
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=108412&page=66&pp=15
before you get too far down the road - great subject though! wish you all the best with your progress... :)

Atwooki

[Argodin]

Another good thing you should do is... since you're using a meshsmooth (who doesnt?), you're gonna want to go through and take out probably more than half of those cuts. Another thing is to make sure your cuts have continuity. Try to keep all quads... and most of all, when it pisses you off, save it and close the program.

[EricLyman]

Thanks for those tips! I didn't think before I started that having too much geometry could be a problem, but evidently it is. Now that I've done some more looking around, it seems that most mesh smoothed heads out there have about half the faces mine has. And don't worry, I'm very good at closing Maya. :)

[EricLyman]

Wow, it's already looking way better now that I'm removing those useless edges. Less is more. As long as I'm posting, does anyone know how detrimental 3 sided polygons are in a mesh like this? I'm trying to stay with all quads (per suggestion) but there are some areas where it seems impossible to keep it continuous without making extra geometry. Thanks all!

http://img126.exs.cx/img126/7057/gatesWIP-01.jpg

[Argodin]

Let's face it: Life ain't perfekt. If you can't get all quads, don't beat yourself up over it. Just do your best and as long as it turns out how you want it to look, you're golden. It's not about impressing others, it's about your self-worth. If the job you did is up to your status quo, that's all you need. Keep going with this model, I want to see how it comes out.

[EricLyman]

Thanks! I've been cleaning up the geometry qutie a bit, I think it's pretty much done. I'm going to start working on the hair tonight. After that I'm going to throw on a body of some kind, probably somewhat stylized to communicate the awkward development that the body makes at his age. Should be fun! I'll post up some screen shots as soon as I have some more progress made.

[EricLyman]

Just a quick update...

http://img62.exs.cx/img62/9891/gates_WIP_Nov10th.jpg

[wayfaerer]

It's a lot better now! I think you should look more after the brow, it shouldn't be so flat.

[EricLyman]

Thanks for the tip... I took a look at the brow, and it's actally pretty well defined, I think it probably just looks flat with that camera angle, and since there isn't an eyebrow to speak of (yet). Plus the default shader isn't the greatest for showing off topology. Here's another update. If anyone knows how to do hair.... :)

http://img34.exs.cx/img34/8678/gates_WIP_Nov10_2th.jpg

[EricLyman]

Here's some more... C&C are welcomed!

http://img45.exs.cx/img45/9564/gates_01.jpg

http://img45.exs.cx/img45/3498/gates_02.jpg

http://img45.exs.cx/img45/9642/gates_03.jpg

[EricLyman]

Here's the latest updates... Added some unwrapped jeans and made some minor modifactions to just about everything...

http://img113.exs.cx/img113/7053/gates01.jpg

http://img113.exs.cx/img113/3951/gates02.jpg

[Argodin]

excellent jeans, let me know how you did that.

His body is disproportionate to his head. Make his body smaller

[EricLyman]

Thanks! The jeans are UV unwrapped, planar projection. I got the textures with my digital camera, of some jeans that I own. My original texture map is 2048x2048, but here's one that I feel safe posting:

http://img53.exs.cx/img53/6062/BillGates_Jeans.jpg

:)

[Argodin]

Wow, and here I sat thinking that you were a novice. That's pretty advanced stuff, cool website, too.

[EricLyman]

Thanks Argodin. I'm more used to doing more mechanical and architechture based models... This is my first organic one. Definetly a pain in the ass to learn to do, but I think I've got my foot in the door now. The head took two weeks alone! But, practice makes perfect. :thumbsup:

[EricLyman]

Hi again everyone... Well, I'm getting to the point where I think I'm going to call it quits on the modelling segment of this project. Next up, Rigging! But I figured it would be a smart idea to see if I can get any more creative input before I start that. I'm still not to jazzed about his hair, but I think it's at least satisfactory for now.

Here are the shoes, which are separate objects. Most of his body parts are infact separate pieces. One of the only parts of his body that is entirely high poly, everything else is smooth proxy. I like Adidas shoes, and thought that Bill might too...
http://img108.exs.cx/img108/2153/gates_01_nov22.jpg

His crotch area is pretty much flat geometry with some degree of bump mapping around his fly. I know that the fly actually folds and buldges out in that area... but I hesitate to add it. Don't want anything too noticable in that area you know. Any input on this one?
http://img108.exs.cx/img108/6213/gates_02_nov22.jpg

The head is also smooth proxy, with seperate eyes, glasses etc. His hair is still made of NURBS planar surfaces, but shouldn't matter too much in my rig since it'll be parented to his head, I guess. Again, the hair doesn't look as good as I'd like... but useable.
http://img108.exs.cx/img108/3020/gates_03_nov22.jpg

Here's a shot of his palm, sorry about the weird lighting here. As you can see I've added some of the major 'life lines', and all the nice curves on the finger joints. Shouldn't run in to too much trouble rigging these.
http://img108.exs.cx/img108/173/gates_04_nov22.jpg

And here he is in all his glory. Please let me know if you see something that might be problematic in the rigging process, this is my 1st organic character afterall. Thanks everyone!
http://img108.exs.cx/img108/7672/gates_05_nov22.jpg

[Argodin]

not too shabby, i like it.

I didn't know what you meant by a lot of what you said, like smooth proxy

[skoby]

lmao, this is awesome. I dont know if this question has eben answered/asked already (just skimmed through post, time is limited, lol) but what made you model bill gates' mug shot? lol.

Send it to him, he might send you a non-tarded version of windows :P lol

[EricLyman]

Well, when I first found the mug I was laughing pretty hard too... :) I guess that's why I did it. Plus I'm always trying to work with subjects that aren't typical (super models or fantasy sword masters, etc)... Something to make my demo reel somewhat unique.

Maybe when he's all rigged I'll make a short animation of him stealing software from Apple back in the day. yeah!

[EricLyman]

here's the latest and greatest. The rig has blending IK and FK arms, as well as SDKs for all finger, leg, and spine movements.

http://img30.exs.cx/img30/4586/gatesRig.jpg

[Argodin]

is that to animate him like a bipedal? can you show me how to do that?

[EricLyman]

Yup, for animation... I'd love to go over rigging in depth, but it's so difficult to explain that you pretty much have to be enrolled at an institution with a really good instructor to pick it up somewhat quickly. There are lots of great tutorials out there too, but it'll take longer to learn that way I think. I'm taking a rigging course right now, otherwise I'd be way lost. And even still, I have to download some tutorials for certain aspects.

But basically, it works like this. You make a rig (or skeleton) and prepare it for animation (with predefined movements for fingers and feet (set driven keys in Maya)) Alot of the NURBS curves you see in my screen grab are controls that move the joints. Easier to animate that way. Then, after lots of foul language and gallons of coffee, you can bind the rig to a mesh (in my case, good ol' william here).

[marc001]

You should add the mug shot slate like in the reference image.

[EricLyman]

Ha! You know, I just might... :thumbsup:

[EricLyman]

Heres the last Update for this character.


http://img134.exs.cx/img134/8850/billgatesfinalmezza5506xc.jpg

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