HARDCORE MODELING!: 15 Expressions ONE Model: Rowan Atkinson

[shin4]

Good choice!!

[BrettSinclair]

Great choice. Rowan is awesome:beer:

[Intervain]

yeah I love the guy [especially in Blackadder and his standups]! Gret choice!

[BertieRooster]

First WIP shot. Looking very rough so far - no plans on really going for the likeness until the whole head is there. Not liking the lips yet...
[/url][url="http://img133.imageshack.us/my.php?image=wip1.jpg"]http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/7444/wip1.th.jpg (http://img133.imageshack.us/my.php?image=wip1.jpg)

[Airflow]

Yes good choice. My first two choices were Rowan Atikinson and Jim Carrey as Count Olaf, but I decided to do somthing orighinal. Interester in seeing your edgeflow for the brow and cheeks and lips, and your gonna need alot of detail there for this guy.

[BertieRooster]

Decided to take a look at the topology, not trying to draw a full wire frame over the image - just trying to find where things flow and so forth - particularly over the cheekbone area at the moment. Rowan seems to have a lot of expression around that area, so I'm concerned about getting the topology right there.

http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/4771/rowantoponotes.jpg

And another WIP image: making progress on the likeness in profile view, front view is still not there. Still, a long way to go yet.

http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/8496/wip2ggq.jpg

[BertieRooster]

More work, haven't done anything on the brows/forehead yet. I think that ought to help a lot once that stuff goes in. He has some very defined wrinkles across his forehead that should help a lot with the likeness.

http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/1271/wip3r.jpg

[waterlilly]

I love this challenge, everyone's picking great faces- lots of my faves too!

[vincent0731]

nice choice! his facial expression can be more entertain then..

[RageOfAges]

Man what a cool face, I never thought of him. Nice progress too; you can already pick out his characteristics from even this early start on the mesh.

-RAge

[BertieRooster]

Added some work on the brow, eyes, and of course added ears! The ears dont look right just yet though.
http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/4999/wip4.jpg

[BertieRooster]

Making some more progress. The topology has gotten about as complex as I want it to get (maybe a little more, we'll see...). I think I've made some decent headway on the likeness as a result though:

http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/4747/wip5x.jpg

Current goals:
- Break symmetry (which the lazy part of me finds very scary) :argh:
- Sculpt in some of the persistent details (moles, pores, the remaining prominent wrinkles)
- Start doing expressions and see where the topology needs fixing. Like I say there are a good number of poles ATM, and that doesn't bother me greatly, and I think for the most part they serve a purpose, it would be foolish to assume some of them won't cause problems and need moving.

[TheRazorsEdge]

Great choice and very nice work on the head so far.

Cheers!

[BertieRooster]

Found some time to do a bit of sculpting, and after tearing my hair out trying to understand the zbrush -> blender pipeline for displacement maps, I seem to have worked it out:

http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/4683/wip6.jpg

[BertieRooster]

Some more progress, added hair, beard, basic textures (still needing work) and SSS shader (not my own see link (http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?p=1264919#post1264919)). Then started on expressions.

#1: Tired
http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/8359/wip8.jpg

Still plenty of things to be working on - no insides to the mouth as of yet (this will be a separate object so that I can switch it off when it isn't needed), the textures still need some work, as does the hair, and I will most likely sculpt some extra detail for each of the expressions if I can find the time.

Also, eyelashes.

[BertieRooster]

Heh, I know it isn't necessary, but I couldn't resist doing a quick little play-blast style animation. Damn thing keeps making me yawn whilst I try to work on it. I'll have to do a more awake expression ;)
http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/8/00010100avi.gif

[BertieRooster]

Some sculpting work on the two expressions I have so far, along with reference for them:

#1 Tired:
http://img79.imageshack.us/img79/420/rowanvicar3.jpg
http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/7730/wip12.jpg

#2 Prideful smirk:
http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/8481/rowanblackadder3.jpg
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/2923/wip11.jpg

Does anyone know if I can re-import obj files from zbrush as morph targets for my original mesh? The vertex order and such should be the same (okay might be...), but I can't work out if there's a nice way to do it. The trouble with displacement maps I find is that even the the lowest subdivision level gets altered a bit in ZB, so just exporting a displacement map doesnt give quite the same results as the sculpt. Am I doing something stupid?

[Intervain]

nice work on the expressions - personally I feel you could have worked the neutral face a bit more, as it lacks refined features at the moment.

as to your question I'm not quite sure I understand what you have in mind - could you perhaps give a step by step of what you're doing?

[stridiggio]

Hey, First that all Good choose!, I like it...he's coming out well, (perhaps I'm looking the chin of him a little bit flat, but nevermind maybe I'm wrong).
Love the Play-blast work, hehe. :buttrock:

[RageOfAges]

Does anyone know if I can re-import obj files from zbrush as morph targets for my original mesh? The vertex order and such should be the same (okay might be...), but I can't work out if there's a nice way to do it. The trouble with displacement maps I find is that even the the lowest subdivision level gets altered a bit in ZB, so just exporting a displacement map doesnt give quite the same results as the sculpt. Am I doing something stupid?

I'm not sure what you're getting at either, but I'll take a guess. I think what you're saying is that you forgot to store a morph target before sculpting. An alternative is to export your lowest subdiv as .obj, creating a new base mesh that is more accurately responsive to your displacement map.

Nice start on your expressions so far, but I agree with intervain about your base mesh not being refined enough. I'm sure you'll make it work, though.

Cheers.

-Rage

[BertieRooster]

Thanks for your comments!

@ Rage & Intervain: On the subject of the base mesh - I probably should work on it some more, but I wanted to makes sure that the overall topology was ok by at least doing a couple of expressions before finally settling for it. I've always struggled getting the finer details on my sculpts though - guess I'll have to stop shying away from it and put some work in.

WRT the morph target issue, I'm not having any problems in zbrush really, more in blender. What I want to be able to do is:


Pose and get the rough shape of the expression in blender.
Import that into zbrush and sculpt on it.
Export back to blender, and have the sculpted mesh as a new morph target for the head model.
It's this last part I dont seem to be able to accomplish. To be honest it isn't strictly neccessary for the purposes of the challenge - I could just export a hi-res mesh from zbrush and render that, but it would be educational/fun if I could figure out how to do the above, as that way I coud do an animation of the model morphing between the expressions.

[BertieRooster]

Woo! Got it! A bit of confusion in my question had arisen due to the differences in terminology between the two programs. What Zbrush calls morph targets, blender calls shape keys, and what I wanted to do was use a sculpted mesh from zbrush as a shape key in blender.

Worked out how to do what I wanted in the end though. I'll have to re-do the first couple of expressions probably, but seeing as the base mesh still needed work that's not a major issue. Here's an outline of the workflow.

1. Create base mesh in blender, pose and tweak shape to give the rough shape of the expression.
2. Export meshes as obj. This is the tricky part as blenders .obj exporting leaves a little to be desired. What you need is:

An obj of the basemesh, exported with the "morph target" option checked.
An obj of the mesh in the expression you are working on, again with the morph target option switched on. This is where problems arise. The "morph target" option disables applying modifiers on export, meaning that if you used an armature or any other modifier to pose your mesh you're .obj is going to look weird - shape keys will be applied, but modifiers wont.
Thus you need to create another version of the mesh with all modifiers and shapekeys already applied so it can be exported correctly. Blender wont let you apply modifiers to a mesh with shapekeys, but there is a script called "apply deformation" in the object scripts menu that will create a new mesh with the same affect, and vertex order conserved, so use this.
Export the new mesh as above.
3. Import the un-posed base mesh into ZB, and sculpt away!
4. When the time comes to work on a specific expression, import the posed obj as the new level 1 subdiv and work on that - thus conserving the nice fine detail you already put in on the basemesh. You can then refine the expression.
5. Huzzah! Because all of your sculpted meshes have the same vertex order data, you can export any level you choose back to blender as objs and know that you can use them as morph targets (shape keys) there too!
6.To do so, export the meshes back to blender as .obj's. They will be separate objects, but this can be rectified using the "Rvk1 to Rvk 2 script" found in the mesh scripts dialogue. This transfers the shape of one mesh to another as a shape key - exactly what I wanted.

I'll try and put up some video later to show the results - hopefully that ought to explain it a bit better.

Limitations: I currently cant get the system to play nice with the armature that was originally there, as the armature displacement gets baked into the mesh on export. This means that animation is done purely by interpolating between shapekeys which obviously isn't quite correct for thigs such as the jaw which moves in an arc - this really wouldnt be suitable for animating limbs for example. However it is sufficient for working on the face as the difference is only slight.

Bah, learning workflows is a pain in the arse. Back to more interesting things.

[RageOfAges]

Thanks for that detailed workflow. Even though I don't use Blender (I use Modo), I can definitely see the value of these features. It seems that it can be, as you said, a pain in the ass, and imperfect, but IMO if you find a workflow that you like, and practice it, it will be faster than if you would have racked your brain trying to figure something else out. Good luck and I can't wait to see your video/tut.

On a side note, I understand where the confusion comes from different terminology. What you are describing (shape keys) is called morphmapping in Modo. Something I avoided at all cost when I was learning the app because I didn't have a clue what it meant. Once I realized they were blendshapes, I was like "Ohhhhh". Then I realized that there was a whole load of functionality all rolled into one menu, called vertex maps. Essentially, anything that uses vertex information and point order (such as UV's, morphmaps, weightmaps, etc) falls into this category, and now I can't live without it :D

-Rage

[Kaptain Kubrick]

Hey I understand why you would use ZB instead of blenders sculpting tools - just curious if you knew you could shapekeys on highres meshes?

looking good - I'll be keep ing an eye out

just thought I'd mention it -

kk

[BertieRooster]

Decided to go back to the drawing board with the likeness. I think it's a good deal closer now, though it still needs a bit of work. I found the rasp brush very useful doing this - not used it much before, but it's highly preferable to the smooth brush for rounding out smooth forms.
http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/184/wip16.jpg

[ErikSvensson]

Hey there!

I think you got a good base mesh and over all look on this one. One of the main problems is that your seems a bit wider than him. I also think the noserils tops is a bit to bulky compared to him. I'll def. keep an eye on this thread because I really like the actor and I'm sure you can get a lot of cool expressions out of him :)

Erik

[BertieRooster]

@ ErikSvensson: Thankyou! Your comment about the head width helped a lot!
http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/5429/wip17.jpg

[mnartgirl]

hey looking really good His ear lobes look a bit boxy at the moment also he as a fleshy jaw line in your ref pic but in your model it much crisper. Like the expressions so far and you have the eyes done wonderfully.

Luck

[Intervain]

yeah looks much more like him now... I'd suggest going into the small things like the eyes and refining the edges - the face has a lot of hard edges as well as the soft ones - define the edges of the eyelids, thus giving it a visible structure and thickness :) Same goes for the mouth - it'll give him a lot of life. Also remember that the upper lid wraps around the lower one in the outer corners of the eye - look at any eye for reference. The same thing happens in the corners of the mouth - the upper one goes over the lower one.

These subtleties do add a lot of reality to a cg character! Keep going for sure :thumbsup:

[BrettSinclair]

Looking good. You can see its ol Rowan.

If thats the ref your using for front view keep in mind its not neutral. His neck could be a bit slimmer and his nose too:). His cheek bones also need to go closer towards the eye. At the moment they are near the jaw.

Good luck!

[BertieRooster]

Grr, had a fair bit of computer trouble this week, which set me back a little. Still, I've got four mostly done now and I'm getting into the swing of it, so I should still finish on time.

Tired: (had to re-do it, but it looks better now)
http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/8154/wip19.jpg

Surprised:
http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/5730/wip20.jpg

Disgusted:
http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/5470/wip21.jpg

Confused: (not sure about this one yet, tongue looks a bit lame...)
http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/1728/wip22.jpg

I also had pride re-done, but somehow the file got corrupted and lost all the subdiv data above level 3, and the mesh data no longer matches up with the other ones. Weird and annoying...

[MarkoSt]

actor is not so similar to itself, but expressions excellent!

[StevenEgan]

I agree... the likeness is off. The second to last one looks the most like him.

Really nice sculpting, and the expressions are really good.

[BertieRooster]

Happy: The refs for this one aren't quite what I'm aiming for. But I've put them up anyway.
http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/2046/vlcsnap95278.png
http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/5692/vlcsnap115103.png
http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/8089/wip23.jpg

Thanks for your comments people.

[BertieRooster]

Some more work:

Scared:
http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/8089/wip23.jpg

More work on the confused expression:
http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/5359/wip25.jpg

Flirting: Did something odd to the eyes here in aid of seeing where they were pointing better.
http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/6631/rowanjohnnye.jpg
http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/4568/wip26.jpg

And one of ym favourite Blackadder moments - Wibble.
http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/548/wip24.jpg"...Inside the dugout. Blackadder has pants on his head and a pencil up each nostril. Baldrick is in attendance.
Blackadder: Now, Baldrick, this is an old trick that I picked up in the sudan. We tell HQ that I have gone insane and I will be invalided back to Blighty before you can say "wibble", a poor gormless idiot.

Baldrick: I'm a poor gormless idiot, sir, and I've never been invalided back to blighty.

Blackadder: Yes Baldrick - but you never said 'wibble'..."
http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/3995/rowanblackadder6.jpg
Falls under the silly expression category. No pants on the head yeat, but they'll be there in the end if I have time.

[LordMcGoat]

Haha ****ing awesome idea for "silly" :) Without wanted to be seen as giving you bad advice, I would recommend sacrificing all your future expressions to get a pair of pants modelled on that head in time for the deadline.

I really like "confused" aswell. I actually read it as concentration though, but it's a fun expression either way.

I'm all for the idea of putting something in for the iris too, I think that works well. I could swear it helps with the likeness too. Should help with expressions like scared (although that one is very readable at the moment, in my opinion), as it'll show the whites of the eyes up more.

[Agigaherger]

Nice work. The silly expression is great and pants would be hilarious. i agree that the confused looks more like attentive or concentration. idk about the scared face, maybe move the brows inward a bit?

[BertieRooster]

Rage:
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/9526/wip28.jpg

Courageous:
http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/5396/rowanblackadderd.jpg
http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/1525/wip29.jpg

Worried: (Not going exactly with the ref on this one).
http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/6781/rowanjohnny0.jpg
http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/6356/wip30.jpg

Went back to adding the refs I used for those expressions that do have reference images.

[Intervain]

hahaha I love that episode with trying to avoid his duty ;) - in fact I simply adore all of Blackadder... I think the first series had a lot of very silly expressions too since he was stupid in the Middle Ages ;) Keep'em up!

[BertieRooster]

Pride: (Re-done after the file got corrupted).
http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/6356/wip30.jpg

Drunk: (another excuse to do a Mr. Bean Expression)
http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/8358/rowanbean3g.jpg
http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/8494/wip31.jpg

Envy:
http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/4349/wip32x.jpg

Sadness:
http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/2793/wip33.jpg

And that brings me up to 15! The plan now is to keep refining them as much as possible for the next couple of days, maybe put together and animation and get my renders done!

[BertieRooster]

http://img44.imageshack.us/img44/7846/rowan4s.jpg (http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/5201/rowan4.jpg)
http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/5199/rowanexpressionscomps.jpg
(http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/9707/rowanexpressionscomp.jpg)
Whelp, here's my entry. It's my first time doing the HMC, and barring the late night last night trying to get all my renders in time for the deadline (I'm going away this weekend) I've thoroughly enjoyed it.

Lessons learned:
1. Likeness is hard, and maybe not the best added complication to add to an already difficult challenge.
2. My laptop really needed replacing.

Orthographic Renders:
http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/9827/rowan1.th.jpg (http://img526.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rowan1.jpg)http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/6676/rowan2.th.jpg (http://img521.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rowan2.jpg)http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/5513/rowan3.th.jpg (http://img401.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rowan3.jpg)

[BertieRooster]

Continued from post above (restrictions on number of images in a post):

Expressions:
http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/3349/rowanex1.th.jpg (http://img301.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rowanex1.jpg)http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/4996/rowanex2.th.jpg (http://img401.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rowanex2.jpg)http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/1033/rowanex3.th.jpg (http://img265.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rowanex3.jpg)http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/5544/rowanex4.th.jpg (http://img301.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rowanex4.jpg)
http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/7200/rowanex5.th.jpg (http://img23.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rowanex5.jpg)http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/5241/rowanex6.th.jpg (http://img10.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rowanex6.jpg)http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/8494/rowanex7.th.jpg (http://img8.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rowanex7.jpg)http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/8237/rowanex8.th.jpg (http://img526.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rowanex8.jpg)

[BertieRooster]

Continued from post above (restrictions on number of images in a post):


http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/7036/rowanex9.th.jpg (http://img521.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rowanex9.jpg)http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/6550/rowanex10.th.jpg (http://img401.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rowanex10.jpg)http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/9990/rowanex11.th.jpg (http://img265.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rowanex11.jpg)http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/3220/rowanex12.th.jpg (http://img301.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rowanex12.jpg)
http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/2599/rowanex13.th.jpg (http://img8.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rowanex13.jpg)http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/9981/rowanex14.th.jpg (http://img521.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rowanex14.jpg)http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/4572/rowanex15.th.jpg (http://img401.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rowanex15.jpg)


I'm also currently rendering an animation of all the expressions. Hopefully I can put it up on vimeo soon!

[littlebangs]

Attitude of Atkinson is there. Good work.

I think, you need to post final version in new thread " Post Your Final Entry " created by R today.

[uinku]

Good work getting them all done.

[BertieRooster]

Rendered out a video of the model morphing between expressions (click for vimeo link):
http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/2595/screenshotd.png (http://vimeo.com/5185471)

[WyattHarris]

Drunk has a bit of an awkward transition in the animation but other than that excellent job. Everything blends great.

[BertieRooster]

Drunk has a bit of an awkward transition in the animation but other than that excellent job. Everything blends great.

Yeah, tongue moves a bit strangely. It would have taken more intermediate keys and so forth to get it to play nice, and that wasn't really the aim here, so I was happy to leave it as it was.

[computecknow]

Nice Choice....

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