10 Minute Ear

#1

I thought I would share this here on the forum. One of my students had a question about other methods of creating ears, in this case using splines. The trick with this is to quickly layout the ears in 2D then smooth shifting to get the mythical “3rd” dimension. :slight_smile:

Heres another way to do it with splines:
In fig 1. I simply lay out the splines to follow the contours of the ears and also divide it into 3 zones.
Once the splines are laid out I make sure the inner most splines are divided into a 4 sided patch (orange arrows).
In Fig 2 I then add splines that will make sure the whole thing is divided up into 4 sided patches. The innermost 4 splines will determine where the other splines (orange arrows) radiate from
In Fig 3 I use the patch command to create polys inside each spline patch.
In Fig 4 I do a little detailing and spin quads to tweak it.
As you can see I smooth shift Zones 2 and 3 in and then smooth shift zone 3 in further.
The time on this is about 10 minutes
Im also including a ZIP file with the LW object with each stage in different layers for you to look at.

#2

Thanks for this!

#3

Sure thing!
Did the explanation make any sense? :slight_smile:

#4

Looks like an interesting way to get an ear.

Anyway, ppl. should just model one good ear and paste it on all new head models, tweak, and be finished. :slight_smile:

#5

Very true Cim. Thats what I always tell ppl at Seminars.
Everybody will tell you when the ears are bad but nobody notices them when theyre good. Typically they take the longest to model using more commonly used techniques but nobody cares.
Once you model the perfect ear reuse it over and over. :slight_smile:

#6

thanks for sharing:beer:

#7

Thats why I mentioned in the thread about “preferred modeling methods” about splines. Most people dont get how powerful they really are. In fact Lightwaves inmplementation doesnt have nearly the constraints that other programs have on their splines. Lightwaves strong point has always been as a polygon modeler.
Splines make it really easy to layout the form and flow of polys wth a small amount of effort. :slight_smile:

#8

That looks great!

I have already created many ears (poly by poly modeling), that I reuse all the time. But it is great to see other peoples methodes, especially splines.
I am well aware of them, but it is still nice to see other peoples spline cages. You can learn a lot from them. :thumbsup:

Thanks for sharing.

#9

Thanks for sharing Lee :slight_smile: this will come in very handy for me shorty … if only V. van Gogh was aware of this cut & paste method :smiley:

#10

It is interesting. :slight_smile:
The thing to keep in mind too is that the splines all lie flat in the same plane. When I first patch it the polys are still flat but are already laid out where they should be so all I have to do is smooth shift and do some tweaking.

#11

How do you know where to put the lines for step two if I was going to recreate this myself?

And how do you add the polygons in step 3? Where can I find that tool?

#12

A “patch” will have 3 or 4 splines surrounding it just like I indicated with the orange arrows in Fig 1. The rest of the splines I added in Fig 2 were to make sure everything connects together nicely AND are 4 sided patches.
To have a correct patch it must, as I said, be surrounded by 3 or 4 splines ( I used 4 because the mesh is cleaner). Where each spline intersects with another spline they must be welded.
You select each of the splines surrounding the patch counter-clockwise and then hit ctrl f (make patch) which will throw polygons into the patch.
In Fig 2 you can see that the ear consists of 9 patches.
I have a free tutorial on my site that demonstrates how to create polygons in each spline patch. The manual also explains it to a point. :slight_smile:
Basically Lightwave will create a polygon grid that is the average of the selected splines surrounding the patch. :slight_smile:

#13

Thanks a lot for sharing. :slight_smile:

i made several ear… ( toon, human, orc )…each time, i found that the poly by poly method was the best…
i used rarely spline… ( only for car body in fact ) !

#14

might have to split those polys around where the lip of the ear folds around and where that little nubbin’ sticks out above the ear canal
just a little tweaking to make it look more 3D but very cool method for sure.

#15

Thanks for this method. Hope to play with it later today.

#16

I’m going to have to agree with CIM on this one…making one ear and modifying it is much easier and less time consuming but I do like this method…I will have to try it out some time.:slight_smile:

#17

I could probably build a better one in 2 hours. :slight_smile:

#18

I just gave myself a 10 minute time limit to create an ear.
I did it poly by poly to get the basic shape, and smooth shift afterwards to add a bit more detail.
There is a lot more I’d like to tweak and change but the ten minutes are up. I’ll see if I have time later to finish it.

I used an image that I found in a google image search.

Spline modeling is really quick if you got that in 10 minutes. Great job!

#19

Kvaalen -
Newbie question … when you say poly to poly what are you saying? Draw points using + key, then make poly’s … then?

Thanks for any info.

#20

I create a quad (4 pointed polygon) select two points - apply extender - drag them to the place I want - apply extender again - drag them to the place I want… :thumbsup: