Characterhead nose problems and other..

[wazzup]

and the front

[wazzup]

and a cheesy render

[wazzup]

no one has some good old advise?

[kpalazov]

hey Wazzup:)...keep on doing what your doing buddy...I think you have pretty good start. Recently I found this tut by Ambient Wisper which guides you though the whole process...loop by loop...I think you will find this highly valuable:

http://ambient-whisper.cgcommunity.com/Tutorials/facial/Page-1.html

Good luck

Kiril

[Jhonus]

have you been here?

http://coldfusion.art.msstate.edu/camenisch/thehumanhead/modelingtheory.html

I think you just need to study anatomy and topology a bit more. Sketch out the human skull a few times (or model it).... and pay attention to the flow of the muscles and how the flow of your edges relate to them.

[bigbad]

You have way to many polys. You should try to use ´Smooth proxy´ or ´Connect poly tool´. You can do much more with less polys.

A usual method to modell is box modelling from image planes. Use kpalazov advice and look inte that tutorial.

Btw what tutorial where you lookng at to do this head?

[artistx]

From the front, the top of the head needs to be smoother. The head comes to a sharp V point. It should be a smooth curve. When you join the two face halves in Maya, the border faces need to be coplanar. That way, you will not see a line running down the center of the face.

Don't fear. The nose is a really difficult feature to model. I would agree with Krugar. Look into the anatomical form of the skull and the nose cartilage. By looking at the underlying anatomical structure you can see better the same/similar underlying forms in your photo reference. You have to develop a sort of X-ray vision. Remember that the skin is basically draped over the muscle, bone, fat, vascular and cartilage forms. I would recommend taking a look at Burne Hogarth's books. You will probably find the answers you need there. I think he has a close up drawing of the nose on the cover of one of his books. His figures can get a little too edgy in contour, but his style shows the form well and is very compatible with building figures in the computer. Bridgeman's books on Constructive Anatomy are also very helpful. In the end, these texts teach you how to DESIGN the human form. This is an important concept because it allows you to pour foundational knowledge of form into any photo figure reference you use or build from scratch with little need for outside reference. You can also stretch and squash the base forms to get new human designs that you would not find in life. Comic book artists use this method a lot. I don't see why 3d artists can't use it every now and then...

[wazzup]

Thanks to all with the excellent advise!

The tutorial link is great kpalazov. I will use that also, as a guideline.

Krugar; I have collected a lot of loop-edge threads, pics, and what not. Its a shame that i didn`t look into that sooner, but at least I`m not modeling too long, so I think I havent got my own wrong style -I do actually, but thats a different story..- Tnx for the link anyways

Bigbad; I was already looking for a way to use less poly`s, it is indeed very hard to get it right this way. Are proxysmooth and polyconnect the same thing? -different programs same tool- I use Maya btw. My first head, was made following THIS (http://www.thehobbitguy.com/tutorials/polymodeling/index.html) tutorial, but it was not perfect, so I kinda understood the whole modeling thing -I thought- and decided that my next head would be better, learning from my mistakes.

ArtistX; I`m kinda reading your post with a smile...Yesterday I read about the mistakes beginners make "V" shaped head. I`m one of those idiots... :cool: I guess you`re right about the whole, skull thing, although it is weird to ""think skull" and "model head"

About the ugly line in the middle; I have not looked into that, Should I get rid of it , now? or when the model is almost finished?


Tonight I`m gonne try to model the face -thank god, i saved every step- with less poly`s, and I`m gonne use some decent edgeloops, I`ll post my progress!

[wazzup]

I`ve decided to redo the edges and have a better loop edge, what do think of this?

[Blacklion]

What's up Wazzup?

Not to sound smug or anything but along with the tutorials suggested; check out my Boxer Ranger post in the wip section. I've had some of the same issues your having now with modeling the head and had to overcome simular obstacles
I'm not claiming to be an expert or anything, but you may find some insight from the post since it seems that we stumbled through the same experience.

happy modeling.

[wazzup]

and some things extruded....:applause:

[artistx]

Wazzup- About the ugly line in the middle; I have not looked into that, Should I get rid of it , now? or when the model is almost finished?-

It's ok to initially ignore the coplanar/center edge issue. At your stage I would say it is time to start making those border faces coplanar. The reason I say that is because the more detail you add the more adjustments (more polygons to manipulate) you have to make in order for those faces to be coplanar. If the polygons are already lined up properly at the intial stages, when you chop them up in to tiny pieces there will be minimal to no adjustment required.

In 3ds max there is a way to constantly have a mirrored half of the face update as you're working on the other half. I'm sure you can do this in Maya too, but it's been a while since I worked in that program so I don't remember how it's done. I think they're called instances or references in Maya and I'm not sure how it technically works... It's basically copied geometry that is dependent on the original geometry.

There should also be a mirror function in Maya. There are some options where you can have the mirrored mesh join with the original mesh or have it mirror but not joined. I'm pretty sure there is an option to mirror the geometrywith coplanar polygons inserted inbetween the two mirrored halves.
So you can
1. Create an instanced half that updates with the half your modeling. This allows you to see if the middle polygons are coplanar as you model.

2. Create a mirrored half that generates coplanar middle polygons for you. Delete one half of the model and you have your original half back with the new inserted middle polygons. This insures (as long as you don't touch them) that the new border polygons will be coplanar once you mirror them.

I find myself using option one most of the time.

You posted up your side picture. Do you have a front picture too? You really need atleast two pictures for reference. Make sure the front and side pics are properly aligned in Photoshop so that the level of the nose is the same in front and side, the level of the eyes are the same in front and side, etc.

Let me know if you have questions.

[wazzup]

Hi,

I use a front and side ref, lined up using the Gnomon-online free video tut. So my planes (front side) are correct aligend.

About the instance thing... The model on my previous post, is an instance and the master(?) on the right. So everything I do to the right is also applied to the instance.

About proxysmooth: I have tried this and it got me quite confused.

In Maya I have to make a copy -can be done in the smoothproxy tab- then select it using the multilister. THEN I can smooth it. It feels weird cos that isn`t a quick way to do things, and moreover I have to translate the second smoothed mesh away from my origional mesh, cos else it interferes.
Isn`t smooth proxy, exactly the same as smooth normals (or was it averige normals) ?

With some models, the nose is done with say 30 faces, and it still looks better then me using 250. is there no other trick used then proxysmooth? It seem some of my curves using proxy get really hard, and some to smooth...

I`m gonne make a few adjustments to the mesh above, so that it more looks like a female head. Then ofcourse I`m gonne add edges. I see no way of getting below the faces, I have in my first head (posted on my first post) without comprimising detail.

I`m gonne get u guys an update tonight...

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