WIP Male Head: Not Bill Murray

[Psyk0]

First, what is your target polycount? because right now, there's a lot of stuff i would change as far as edge loops go (given the current amount of polys you spent).

I'd keep the definition of the mouth and eyes to about 10 divisions, it's easier to work with fewer polys and then refine areas later. Right now all of those extra polys on the cranium are coming from the "over defined" eye region...of course it can be optimized.

Basically Focus on the face features (get the most of the details in there) first and then build the skull.

[obelisk]

Thanks Psyk0,

Appreciate your taking the time to reply. My target for the head is 1000 tris (including eyes and ears) = 4,000 for the body (including clothes) [Does that seem ok?]. So yeah, there's a lot of optimisation to be done. I'll start peeling loops out of the "over defined" eye region and see how I go. I think I'll open the mouth a touch so I can start discreetly terminating loops there too.

Can you clarify the 10 division suggestion? Does that mean the eye and mouth should have 10 segments each?

Your clone wars stuff is great, and the Sith female is coming along really well too. I'd love to see a tight shot of her head geometry ;-)

I'm going to get optimising tonight.

Cheers

-O

BTW: Big Trouble in Little China is an overlooked 20th Century masterpiece.

[obelisk]

Hey guys,

Optimised update. Now sitting at around 800 tris. I've taken a few loops out and started to terminate loops at the hairline using triangles (is this kosher? i've seen it done here quite a bit, but i always thought clean loops all the way around were the ideal) and in the eye socket and mouth. I've also tried to smooth out the poly flow generally by redirecting loops around the muzzle (as per spline god's amazing LW video tute "controlling flow" (http://www.3dtrainingonline.com/support/controlling_flow.mov), although it deals with subd's specifically).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v125/obelisk8/bill_03.gif

Any C&C would be great. I'd really like to learn as much as can at each stage of this, so please, drop some wisdom on me.

It's been a long day at work, and I haven't got as far as I'd hoped tonight but I think this is getting somewhere...

Cheers

-O

[obelisk]

the tweaking continues...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v125/obelisk8/bill_04.jpg

help?

-O

[Cronium]

nice head you've got there!

there's some anatomical issues that catches ones eye directly. you need to think much more about the bone structure underneath the skin. especially the front lobe and the cheek bones need to be tweaked a bit. look at this link: http://www.changbioscience.com/store/images/anatomical/smd006w/smd006w.jpg

:wavey:

[Psyk0]

The update looks much better, i'll suggest a few pointers:

-The skull needs to be tweaked:
Usually, the forehead is not as wide as the whole head and its angled a bit.

-The top of the nose shouldnt end on the forehead but below the "brow".

-I find the lips are too small.

-Chin could be bulked up a bit or maybe bring down the jaw down a little.

I dont know if you are using reference images, but it would help you a great deal with proportions.

Maybe some of these would help...
Higher-res version of the sith female head
(http://www3.sympatico.ca/psykopat/pics/characters/09head_female_lo.jpg)
http://www.3dzealot.com/php/index.php
I picked up a few tricks watching this video.

Head studies @ 600 tris
http://img286.imageshack.us/img286/1287/mike6qe.jpghttp://img263.imageshack.us/img263/2522/blackdude3sk.jpg (http://%5BIMG%5Dhttp://img286.imageshack.us/img286/1287/mike6qe.jpg%5B/IMG%5D)

Keep on tweakin'!

[obelisk]

Hey Guys,

Thanks for the feedback.

Cronium: Thanks for the link. I hope tonight's tweking has addressed the issues you refered to. I flattened out the frontal lobe, and pulled in the bridge of the nose, brought out the cheek bones and the front of the jaw. All up I think it's looking heaps better, but the proportions may still be a little stylised. BTW, if you like skulls check out this database (http://1kai.dokkyomed.ac.jp/mammal/en/index_eng.html) of perfectly photographed orthographic views of every animal skull you can imagine, all in high resolution. Gold.

Psycho: I am using reference shots, but his head is off ortho a touch in both views so the proportions can be a little dicey. That might explain the wide forehead thing (was that what you were talking about Cronium?) as he's leaning forward and looking up in my refs. I'm trying to allow for these perspectival shortcomings, but I'm probably a little out. I think I've fixed the bridge of the nose. The lips are thin deliberately as per the reference, but if you think they need a little collagen, I could implant some... I worked on the chin quite a bit. Is it better?

Thanks a bunch for your wireframes. Everyone has such a different approach to polyflow that I really struggle to prioritize when I'm pushing polys. We're still floating close to 1000 tris here (eyes and hair included).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v125/obelisk8/bill_05.jpg

More work tomorrow. I've got the day off, so expect progress.

Cheers,

-O

[obelisk]

Hey guys,

I'm running a parallel thread over in the Blender forum (first time user, very happy with exceptionally good, free modelling software) and the issue of elephantosis of the forehead has been quite rightly raised. I've treated the condition, built ears and further tweaked the geometry. I think it's getting there.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v125/obelisk8/bill_06.jpg

I'd like to weld up the two halves and run a few optimisation passes before unwrapping. Any further feedback or suggestions would be a great help.

Cheers,

-O

[obelisk]

BTW Psych0, have you seen Big trouble in Little Southpark (http://www.wingkong.net/southpark/index.html)? Guy seems to be remaking the whole film in Southpark style. How much spare time do people have?

-O

[Psyk0]

Hahaha, true, some people have too much free time! :D

This keeps getting better and better!, i think the eyes could use some tweaking, more pronounced eyelids and try to smooth the transition from under the eye to the brow.

Could you provide a side view?, i want to see how the jaw is connected to the head.

[obelisk]

Hey Psych0,

Thanks for getting back to me. The eye area is difficult. I don't like the idea of intersecting geometry, but there doesn't seem to be any way around it. I'll take a look at the eyelids later this weekend. Meantime, here's a side view for you. Please point out any areas where you think the geometry is wanting. I can already see a coulple of quads in the side of his hair that I might be able to optimise out...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v125/obelisk8/bill_07_s.jpg

Bring the crits

Cheers

-O

[Cronium]

Hi Ob! Good progress! The only crit i have now is that you should strengthen some lines especially around the mouth/neck. I googled som old folks (quite exaggerated pics but it's very good anatomical help to study old people):

http://www.gpc.edu/%7Eheritage/military/YoungSoldier_OldMan2.jpg

http://www.free-photographer.com/free-photographer-old-man.jpg

[doodinator]

dood! you're kind of missing out on one of the biggest advantages of polygons as opposed to nurbs... the fact that you don't need an edgeloop going around the whole head just to get detail around the eyes or mouth. the forehead and neck have way too many vertical edges in them for what you have (or need from what i can guess). You should have a take two of them at some point and V them into one line... not too familiar with blender but there might be a collapse edge tool like in maya?

Is this going to be a cartoonish surreal character for animation? that kind of affects any other crits i could give at this point.

[Psyk0]

I just noticed the nasal fold isnt quite right...you shouldnt end it at the side of the nostril, but make it loop at the nostril (the crease near the nose) if that makes sense...jaw is not clearly defined.

image shack is down, i'll post an example later.

[obelisk]

thanks for the crits guys. so nice to visit one my thread and find three people have responded! anyway, detailed responses.

cronium: thanks for the kind words. i think it's coming along pretty well too. appreciate you finding that reference for me (the first pic isn't loading for me though). I think I know where you're coming from, and i think you and psych0 are on the same tip here.

doodinator: dood! are you sure? a lot of the better game guys seem to work in loops too. lends the model greater flexibility if you want to up or down res easily, as i understand it. can anyone else chime in on this? if it's ok to do this then i can probably lose about a third of these polys. need a concensus on this one. i'm not sure what level of realism i'm going to end up with here. it's a technical excersize to try and learn blender as much as anything else. it'll probably end up as a sort of stylised realism. i'm modelling the inside of his mouth, and i'd like to rig him for expressions.

psych0: i see what you mean about the fold, and i'll look into it. the jaw is weak, yes, but is it wrong? i personally have a jaw like arnie, but so many of you pathetic humans have weak, saggy, everyguy faces. i'll take a look and see what i can do. thanks for keeping at me man. it's really helping.

guys, if you have any specific polysaving advice, or want to point out errors, please feel free to paintover my pics. sometimes it's easier than describing issues. i'm going to try and get back onto this tonight...

cheers,

-O

[obelisk]

the other reason i thought clean edgloops were important was that good tri stripping (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=112189) requires continuous rows of quads. am i misreading this?

[urgaffel]

In my opinion you need to decide how you want to show this model. Will it be subdivided or not? If you look at the profile, the lips dissapear when you smooth (subdivide) it, but it looks pretty good un-smoothed. If you are going for a game model, just use smoothing groups, not some sort of subdivision.

Second, the forehead looks as if the head is tilted forward. Look at how the forehead arch goes back over the head. Your arch is more of a bulge :)

Third, the volume of the skull is too small, the back of the head is where the hair is, and the hair would make it even bigger. I wish I could draw on your pics but I can't so... Look at profiles :)

Lastly, if you're doing it to approximate a game model, remember that if it's an npc and/or unimportant, it won't have a lot of detail. If it's a main character, it will have a lot of detail, especially where it will be animated: eyes and mouth for example. You can optimize the unimportant and the non-profile areas. Spend a lot of polygons to make the profile appear nice and round and where it needs to be animated, the rest can be optimized.

Good luck!

[obelisk]

Hey Peter,

Thanks for your comments. The model will use smoothing groups. I'm using subd because 1) they're so pretty, 2) the blender guys don't seem to get it without them (i'm running this thread parallel in 2 forums) and 3) because it helps me check where edgeloop weirdness is occuring. I hope to res this model up for a normal map, so I'm trying to keep polys flowing in a way that will lead to clean subdivision later.

Skull shape has been bothering me a little too. the reference i'm using isn't quite side on, and kind of deceptive as a result. I'll tweak this for the next post.

He would be a lead character, so I'm making him fairly detailed. Good call on the non-animating, non-profile areas. I'm looking for ways to optimise him further during this pass, so i'll try and use this comment as a guide.

I'm back on the case tonight (it's breakfast time in ol' melbourne town), so following is:

MY TO DO LIST
1. Stregthen jawline (redirect relevant edgeloops)
2. Reposition crease defining muzzle
3. Better define eyelids
4. Adjust forehead and back of skull
5. Optimise non-animating areas (terminate edgeloops where possible)
6. Finish inside of mouth
7. Experiment with smoothing groups in Blender

Updates later.

Cheers,

-O

[obelisk]

ok, got through 1-5 in the to do list. the inside of the mouth can wait until i've locked down the number of edges terminating inside the mouth, and i need to research blender's capacity to handle smoothing groups. currently i have meshes with multiple materials (skin and hair, for example, are one continuous mesh), but the smoothing seems to be common to the mesh rather than the material. suggestions appreciated.

currently sitting at around 1300 tris (inc expensive eyeballs). help with optimisation very, very welcome.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v125/obelisk8/bill_09.jpg


cheers,

-O

[urgaffel]

Er... If you're generating normal maps from this model, then fcuk optimizations. Even better, use zbrush if possible. Then make an optimized head. You can't use the same model to both things you know?

Add more loops to lips, they dissapear when you subdivide the mesh.

Lastly, smoothing groups are only relevant on lowpoly version, they don't matter when you subdivide it.

[ChimpanG]

looking good, he looks like that character Adrian Monk off this show my mum watches, might want to change it into a portrait of him?
http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/b/bb/180px-Tonyshalhoubmonk.jpg
well not really but he used to be fatter.

[Wayne Adams]

GL...you think he looks like Tony Shaloub? That's weird. I don't see the resemblence. But oh well. :) hehehehe

[obelisk]

Urgaffel: The plan is to use this as the base model, and maybe res it up with zbrush later (if i can afford to get the program) to generate a normal map. Every chance i won't get to that stage, so i'm trying to work this mesh as hard as i can now.

GL and WA: Yeah with a few tweaks it could be Monk, i'll keep it in mind.

Thanks for the comments guys.

Cheers,

-O

[obelisk]

Back at last. Spent most of today unwrapping. The UVW tools in Blender are pretty good, but it still takes a good deal of work to really maximise use of the available area, and avoid stretching. The only real stretching here will be in the hair, and that will be along it's length, so i reckon I'll get away with it. This is my first manual unwrap, so any feedback would be great. I'm still trying to work out how to get the eyeballs on the same sheet (any tips Blender peeople?), but I'm pretty happy with the layout so far.

urgaffel: I added the loop you suggested top and bottom, and finished the iside of the mouth too. it's sitting at 1480 tris, which is a little on the high side but I think i'll push on as is.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v125/obelisk8/bill_10.gif

cheers

-O

[obelisk]

bumped (because being stuck between two 4 star threads is a little rough ;-)...

[Cronium]

man, it's looking better and better!
I think you could sew the cheek toghether with the chins. You'll have some streching but you wont have to think about seams, i'd prefer that.

This guy really knows how to uv map heads, maybe you could get any tips?
http://poopinmymouth.com/tutorial/tutorial.htm

[obelisk]

Hey, thanks Cronium. Nice to hear. I think you mean that I should stitch it up under his chin? If so, I'm not too worried about that seam, and I wanted to give the inside of his mouth some room. I'll take a look at PIMM's UV tutes, and see what the he has to say. Thanks for the link.

Where there is stretching in the face it follows natural seams and creases, so I think I can make it work. The hair is a little crazy, but I really wanted to maximise the area I had to work with for the face, and I figure if his hair is quiffed and combed straight back, this stretching will be pretty managable. Any suggestions?

Here's a test image. Looks like he's wearing some very unfashionable flannel pyjamas.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v125/obelisk8/bill_10_checker.jpg

Cheers,

-O

[Cronium]

man, you'll have to do something with that hair! it does'nt matter if your're not using 100% of the UV space, what does matter is that you model is equal in quality overall. Otherwise you would have to screenshot it very carefully if you where going to show it for someone and that would give you headache.

gl!

[obelisk]

ok, i take your point cronium. i sort of imagined i'd be able to get away with the hair because the stretch went with the grain. maybe I should scale the face down, and scale the hair up to even things out a bit. unfortunately, everyone wants everything finished by the end of january, so time's getting scarce. back onto it later in the week.

cheers

-O

[obelisk]

OK,

Back in town. Work is out of control at the moment, so I'm struggling to fit Bill into my weeks, but texturing is underway. I've fixed the hair stretching [thanks cronium], and started blocking the face out photographically. The plan is to use photo montage for the base of the texture, and then paint over with washes and details. This face is built out of 4 images so far. This probably isn't a worthy update, but if I don't keep the thread alive, the project may die with it.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v125/obelisk8/bill_11.jpg

Cheers

-O

[obelisk]

oh yeah. 1024x for the whole head, at this stage. a little on the high side, but so's everything else for this project, so it'll do for a start.

-O

[obelisk]

back onto it at last. texturing continues.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v125/obelisk8/bill_12.jpg

C+C most welcome...

Cheers,

-O

[obelisk]

texturing continues. c+c welcomed...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v125/obelisk8/bill_12a.jpg

cheers

-O

[johnwoo]

Some good progress here obelisk! it certainly has come along well...just a few things I'll mention tho'...

Modelling:

In general it's good but, the forehead looks a bit too big...may I suggest scaling it back down a little and pulling that area back in...but just a little...

the edgeloops seem as tho' they handle a vast amount of expressions, but be sure to add 1 or 2 loops in the neck...

Is it possible to add a couple more loops to get a smoother silhouette?...as the face area from the screens ya showed looks relatively good

Texturing:

Overall the skin texture could do with a little desaturation..just a little..

May I suggest removing some of darkness around the eyes as it looks like mascara at present...

The ears need some more tweaking in general...imho the topology is sufficient, but my guess would be UVCoords aswell as some degree to modifying the diffuse...

The dark area under the nose...again..make it more lighter and it would enhance the overall look...

If ya have'nt mirrored ya UVCoords I would definitely add some assymmetrical details..

Other than that...progressing well...keep up the good progress...:)

[obelisk]

Hey Johnwoo, thanks for the thoughtful crits. I'll run through your list.

Forehead: Check. I'll narrow it down up top, and see how it looks.

Neck: I can do that.

Silhoette: I've spent the last few modelling passes trying really hard to optimise. it's at 1400 tris right now (with an instanced eyeball). how many more do you think i can get away with? he was always going to be kind of high spec, but i'm not sure what's reasonable, and what's just completely knaive.

Texturing: So far I'm really just blocking it out with photo montage. The plan is to run a couple of painterly passes over the top, and just keep refining the detail. That said, desaturation, mascara, ears and sub-nostril weirdness is on the list.

Assymetry is the next big thing to tackle. I've tried to remove obviously flipped details, and now i need to get back in there, and move things around, add some blotches and dimples, and really establish the texture.

Thanks for taking the time JW. Really nice to have you vist. I'm a big fan.

Cheers,

-O

[obelisk]

hey guys. finally managed to get clear of wage-slavery for a couple of hours this afternoon. so i figure if i'm not at my computer working, i might as well be at my computer working, right?

here's an update. most of your crits actioned, jw. a little more subtle vertex tweaking and ongoing texture work. any feedback would be really great.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v125/obelisk8/bill_13.jpg

cheers,

-O

[BakerCo]

looking good I want an upper lip though. great progress overall keep it up

[nicofb]

It looks good, but perhaps change a bit the colors on the texture beneath his nose, remove the grey color as I think it looks a bit odd. Its up to you tho =)

[Cronium]

hey! It's been a while..
looking good!

crits: You've heard it before.. The ear looks too streched and he needs an upper lip, looks more like he's smudged some ash under his nose.

Other than that, great! Don't know if i've asked this before, but is he going to have a normal map and specular?

[obelisk]

lostinface: thanks man. upper lip coming up.

nicofb: and thank you. grey area will soon be less grey.

cronium: try and think of something original to criticize ;-). these crits and more will be addressed in my next post. probably on the weekend. meantime, specular is definitely on the list. normal may yet happen. i don't think i can afford zbrush at the moment though. perhaps an old school bump map. see how we go.

thanks for your help guys.

cheers,

-O

[obelisk]

OK. Weekly update time. Managed to squeeze a couple of hours away, and I think I'm pretty well done with the colour map. The spec map is yet to come. I think I'll move on to expressions before I get into the spec map. Time to see what Blender can do in the facial animation department.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v125/obelisk8/bill_14b.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v125/obelisk8/bill_14a.jpg

Please keep your crits coming. They keep me moving.

Cheers,

-O

BTW: These are viewport grabs. 100% self-illuminated. No lighting in play yet.

[Psyk0]

You've come a long way :), do me a favor and fix the ears, the texture is way off...but im sure you know that.

[FaQ3D]

I like it a lot! nice details on the face, is he injured for some special reason? :D
what technique did u use to make the hair and the eyebrowns?

if its possible could you post the texture map here?

keep the good work!!

[obelisk]

thanks for the comments guys

Psych0: Cheers. Nice to have you back. Damn ears are killing me. I thought I had it with that last post, but you're right, they just don't read right. If this doesn't work, I may have to resort to headphones (not wimpy little ipod numbers, but big-ass senheissers!).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v125/obelisk8/bill_14c.jpg

FaQ3D: Thanks for the kind words. He's injured because he looked at my girfriend funny. Actually, the injuries are in a seperate layer set, and I was thinking I might do a few varying degrees of what the ER guys call "bashed-upness". Kind of like the old avatar/heath indicator from Doom2. I always loved that.

The hair is just photomontage, and a little post production and overlay painting in photoshop. Actually, that goes for the whole texture. At this stage it's made up of about a dozen photos. I'll post the texture map when I'm happy it's complete.

hope that ear is improved, and yes, that is a seam in the hairline above the ear. have to ask you though, how often have you been that close to a game character?

cheers,

-O

[obelisk]

hmmm, really should get back onto this guy...

*bump*

-O

[SHEPEIRO]

aaaww i thought yopu had already i was getting excited:sad:

[obelisk]

excitement is good. c+c is better. i feel like a grandma who never gets visits. throw me a bone here Shep. you're a posting machine...

[SHEPEIRO]

i dont know whever thats a compliment or your saying ive got tooo much time on my hands....

... definatly got tooo much time on me hands.

here goes, youve got a similar problem that i always seam to get when modelling from photo refs, the face always seams to have too much depth, ie the distance from tip of lips to corner from side, and distance from tip of jaw to jowels. kind of gives them that hollywood effect of too much plastic surgery pulling thhe skin back. they might well be correct according to the refs, but not correct to real life (could be something to do with lens distortion or that old bugger perspective.

i find it really hard to correct throw a tantrum and go model some vehicles from blueprints. so ive got no easy answer but play with it.

also theres still a little ugly seam above the nose

and the ear texure needs fixing at the bottom.

the eyes do look a little mascar'ed but looking at some more refs hes does look like that

its a really nice model, cant fault the edge flow



some one give me a job in the industry and shut me up:scream:

[obelisk]

Thanks man. That's some useful stuff. You may well have too much time on your hands, but that's a kind of dream of mine, so I wouldn't take it as a negative. Work is killing my social life, and my sea-change aspirations of moving into game dev.

Meantime: Perspective issue. I reckon it's a lens effect. Really struggling to get anything but fish-eye out of Blender, and I think that's true of a lot of 3d apps. Just spent a couple of weeks behind a real lens, and there's always something really wrong about the way these programs deal with cameras. It's one of the reasons we can almost always pick a fake.

Nose seam: Do you mean above the bridge of the nose? There's a seam/valley there in the geometry, but not in the UV mapping. Maybe the transition is just too harsh between the lights wrinkle and the dark one?

Ear texture: is indeed, still NQR. I can see what you mean, and it's on the list.

Mascara: Yeah, he's a little like that. I remember reading about models having the line tattooed on their eyelids. I don't think Bill is that way inclined, but he's definitely got a make-up artist who loves to lay on the pencil. I'll see if I can tone it down a touch.

Compliments: are very welcome. Thanks for the kind words, and thanks for taking the time to give me some feedback on this guy. I'm going to try and get some more time for it this weekend.

Cheers,

-O

[SHEPEIRO]

Thanks man. That's some useful stuff. You may well have too much time on your hands, but that's a kind of dream of mine, so I wouldn't take it as a negative. Work is killing my social life, and my sea-change aspirations of moving into game dev.


well its too much time at work (in big horrible accoutancy, hate it but it pays bills) sitting infront of a computer with nothing better to do (except what im paid for but thast doesnt count) but surf the internet. theres only so much of that that you can do in a day. then i get home and do propper work into the wee hours.

cant wait till its the other way round.

glad i could be of help, still think a little tweaking could make him look less "post chin tuck op"

[bonkanailios]

I like it.

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