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View Full Version : Gettin' That Darn Hand on the Arm!

Shuggs
05-27-2009, 04:14 AM
I honestly think this makes or breaks good CG Artists because I can never figure this step out. How on earth do you plan out getting a hand onto an arm? I tend to model the hand separately from the arm, but when it comes down to it, I start adding edges to add detail, and when I go to weld points the arm has 8 points around the loop but the hand has 18. :eek: Then when I go to add those extra edges onto the arm the whole thing gets sloppy and messy. I use to model the hand straight off the arm, but I found that it caused more harm than good to most of my models (always having to add extra edges and loops---this essentially made the mesh a lot denser and less cleaner than I intended).

Does anyone have a trick, tip, or tutorial?
CombineMind
05-27-2009, 11:06 PM
You can always add in edge loops through the arm after wards to match the span count on your separate wrist.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume you're ending up with so many wrist spans because of the detail in the fingers, needing to cross-divide each finger in the middle atleast once to give it some roundness.

I always model the arm and hand together, add in spans needed to get just those square block fingers; usually that leaves the geometry along the arm pretty clean and efficient. Then to add in those spans you want in the fingers to make them round, i add in triangles on the top of the hand, and bottom of the palm, these triangles will never deform and thus shouldnt cause any trouble. You can terminate them if you really want to, but i'll let you figure that out =).

I happen to have a model open right now with hands that i just now added the splits in to, ill show you my topology. You'll see the triangle spans on the tops and bottoms of the hands meet up.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

-Dan

http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/2805/handu.jpg
wesdood
05-28-2009, 04:45 PM
I do the same thing, but if there's too many extra edges I usually run them out through the forearm with the same technique.
GrogMcGee
05-29-2009, 08:44 PM
I'd try and avoid adding edges up the arm unless that edge is going to be useful - it's likely that you made the arm as dense as you initially want...

here's what I did:
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_kyuBN4GsaYo/SiA6PaIEjzI/AAAAAAAACwA/R4P8cKXwKCI/s400/hand.JPG (http://lh6.ggpht.com/_kyuBN4GsaYo/SiA6PaIEjzI/AAAAAAAACwA/R4P8cKXwKCI/hand.JPG)

I don't know that it's the best but it worked out nicely... that is, kept the arm from gain large numbers of edges...
newellteapot
06-01-2009, 05:24 PM
yep, polyreducing is a pain :)
I would put all the edgeloops I need on the hand and don't worry about it till I have to attach it.
then I would patiently polyreduce where needed.

Took me awhile to figure this out but it's true:

worry about shape and form first and make a good topology later.
If you do the two thing at the same time it'sll take longer and you'll feel constrained in the creative process.

good luck!
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