Body topology

#501

AlexandreM, yes I am aware of the smooth Node, but what I didn’t mention was that I was using Maya 4.5 which doesnt have SmoothUV included.

#502

This was asked by plenty of people, so I’m putting the question here.

When I started with my CPS setup I had my proxy upgrading in real time while I was modifying the base mesh. Now I got a button on the bottom left of my viewport to force the upgrade. No more automatic update of my proxy, I have to click this button everytime! Do we have an option somewhere to get rid of that behavior?

This option is actually pretty handy, especially when you working with a very dense mesh. I usually had the tendency to hide my proxy, do some base work and show proxy again, but this option here was what I should have been using.
In the Control window of your CPS Plugin, you will find a button in the display tab, that shows a vertex being dragged away… The info on the button shows “Toggle Dependency Graph Evaluation mode (drag, demand, release)” Drag is the option where the proxy Mesh will be rebuild as much as virtually possible, so if the mesh is getting dense, the dragging will go very slow, then we have the demand, which will only update when you ask for it, by hitting that button, and finally release that will rebuild the mesh when a drag motion is released.
There, I hope this answers your question.

#503

super asked:

And how do you combine the hand and the arm, the neck and head when animation… if you model them separately…??

i think (and i apologize if i’m wrong) that most people model the head as a whole and the body as a separate whole. well that’s the way i’ve done it.

to connect the neck and head seamlessly for animation the first step was to make sure my edges from head to body lined up in the modeling stage. i use “snap to point” to make sure the vertices along the seam are as cozy with each other as algorithmically possible - hold “v” while using the move tool. (look way further back in this thread to see where i placed my seam, i copied stahlberg’s head/neck seam placement)

later you’ll be ready to bind. you’ve got your skeleton, you’ve got your mesh. smooth bind the body to the whole skeleton, smooth bind the head to the head joint of the skeleton. This means all the vertices in the head mesh will be bound to the skeleton, but only to the head joint with a weight of 1. Move your head joint around and you’ll see that the neck/head seam doesn’t match up. This means things are going well. Now select all the vertices along the head/neck seam on the body mesh. Go to the component editor then under the smooth skins tab, all those vertices will be listed, find the “Head Joint” column. The values listed for your selected vertices will be all kinds of random numbers. Select all the values, type a 1, and hit “enter.” If you’re looking at your viewport at the same time you’ll see your neck seam pop to match your head seam perfectly. Now lock these values and continue weighting the rest of the body mesh.

This might be a slow way to do it, i’m not sure. but it works for my purposes until i learn better.

The concept to understand here is that as long as the vertices along any seam have the identical bind weight as the vertices on the other side of the seam, the seam will match up perfectly when animated. So if you decide later on that your head seam vertices shouldn’t in fact have weight of 1 in relation to the head joint, then change it, but just make sure you change both sides of the seam identically. This will work for any seam anywhere on your body.

#504

my workflow, is.

cube to basic face topology (loop edging in general muscle and face structure), along with neck. Then extrude down from neck to torso, extrude arm and leg from torso, and begin running topolgy like it needed, before detailing anything, build detailed hands and feet, connect them, and use any remaining topology from the hands, or feet, to define something like ankles, and elbows. then work on the gernal arm, shoulders, torso and legs, because you wont need to run any of more spans/edges anywhere they couldnt be closed off.

generaly i work like i paint, i work on the model as a whole and work in detail slowley in all areas and avoid paying to much attention to something more than 5 mins, move on… spinning the character until general satisfaction. then come back for a few detail sessions.

#505

Here’s an attempt to add some more “lethal female spy” personality.

I also created a new Hair Style… I might create some more, cause I’m not 100% convinced…

#506

Today I have some questions for our cgtalk expert :

derbyqsalano :

I prefer this new makeup. You right that now she look like a “lethal female spy”. Good Job.

Like always I have a question ;)… why you and Steven aren’t using PaintFX or another tool kit like Shave and Haircut? Im not sure to see the advantage of using surface for hair.

I made many tests and I finnaly decided that PaintFX was going to be my tool for the hair style in my current project.

Steven :
Im now working hard to find documentation about diferent approach for the facial animation of characters. I saw on the Spiraloid forum your post “FACS and Combination Modeling” and there was lot of interresting informations in the reply you got about professionnal setup for face animation.

  1. I though you was using simple blendshape for your facial expression, but now I see that you’re using a more complex setup. Can you explain here a little about your technical choices?

  2. My problem is that I found very few good source of informations about facial animation setup… can you share somes sources? books? web link? conference paper?

I’m eager to learn. :bowdown:

#507

I’ve tried a lot of techniques for hair, I used painteffects, controlled by cloth, I tried Shave n Haircut, I tried Maya Hair, but in the end it’s just another pile of simulations, that bring tons of work besides setting up some geo and hitting play. I hardly ever got a result I liked in animation, and nearly never in still. Besides, I think it’s more fun to learn the roots of 3D instead of setting stuff up and hitting play…

#508

hi, all =D heres some comments, and a new post.

derbyqsalano :

looking good, no doubt… only things that i wish where better, where the ears, and the texturing. besides that, it looks wonderful.

Now, about my post… the skinshader uses SSS, and griding control ramp materials to control the amount of SSS thought the body at diffrent levels. Right now i have control of the SSS in the ears, nose, and general body.

I need to fix a few UV’s in the face, her left eyebrow (your right) is off. and the eyeliner needs to be pulled in to be crisp.

Only SSS, and Diffuse map atm, will be adding bump sometime soon.

rendered and modeled in maya. the Final gather is extreamly low, hence the wierd shadows at her feet and innet thigh.

hope you like, as much as i am enjoying this character.

#509

Kryoboy

Very nice!

Just my $0.02 if you have not thought about it: in that pose the breasts should be stretched upwards. They are at their “rest position” right now (arms down).

Otherwise it is a very good model!

Cheers!
/ Daniel

#510

wow kryoboy nice skin! ofcoz it’s maya6? where did you find SSS, I
didn’t have no time to get a closer look on 6, but is there a tab with SSS or its a “fake” with connecting 10 different nodes to another 10 to achieve effect like this? what was the rendertime?

#511

Yes, very good skin, can’t wait for the other maps. v6?
Derby, also looking very good.
Ziah, don’t trust any one photo too much, try to get other photos from other angles and when they conflict try to find a ‘happy medium’ between them.
AlexandreM, I also have found PaintFX to be hard to control. Yes, even Shave&Haircut, even though it’s terrific, and does give the artist a lot of control - I guess I just want more (plus the interface is hard to learn and remember, since I don’t do hair very often). :slight_smile: I have high hopes for the new Maya Hair in 6 though.

About facial animation, well my system is basically very Blendshape-centric. I guess you have the links to Paul Ekman’s site already, other than that and Spiraloid I can’t think of anything right now.

#512

Hey derbyqsalano. Just some things I noticed about your female face… You have pronounced the ridge running down the side of the nose a little too much. Human noses blend a bit smoother into the cheek area.

And the inner part of the eyes (the part where that little squidgy thing is) Seems about 3 times bigger than normal.

Also, I’m not sure ifit’s the lighting but she seems to be missing a chunk of jawline…

I know I’ve done nothing but tell you things that I think could be fixed in your work… but I’m considering putting up a female model that I’ve been working on for a while so you can give me some crit back :slight_smile: It’s not modelled in maya, but topology is all the same I guess.

#513

Steven :
There is many ppl following this thread that seem to work on the rigging of their character now. I’d like to suggest that you start a new thread similar to this one where ppl could show their rigging setup. I learned so much from the body topology thread, thx for this contribution to our community. Now I’d like to have the same thing about animation.

BTW, someone told me that EA annouced NFS Underground 2, I guess its a good news for you!

kryoboy :
Nice skin, would be nice to see the result with bump and spec map. :slight_smile:

My topology :
Here is my first topology for a complete human body. The objective of this topology is to learn different rigging approach. So during the next 4-6 weeks Im going to torture this woman by trying to get her body moving correctly. :wink:

5200 faces base mesh; 26K faces CPS proxy; 20 cam with image plan; 3 weeks; too much coffee;

#514

kryoboy, you’ll probably get tired of hearing this, but… really, really nice skin!
Was the variation in the skin tone done using Photoshop noise, diffuse glow, or custom brushes, or none of the above?

#515

Sorry I don’t think I’m the right guy to start such a rigging thread, unless I start it by asking for help… :slight_smile:
I think it’s 100 times more difficult to make a realistic rig than it is to model a realistic body with good topology. For me anyway. The shoulder and wrist are the biggest problems, at least in Maya.
See Jason Schleifer’s site ‘Jonh and his dog’ (sic)
http://jonhandhisdog.com/forum/
look in the ‘Sessions’ and browse, especially the two threads with the most replies. There may be some help there. All the advice I can give is to try to keep it as simple as possible, or use one of the automated rigs available online. Oh, and place the joints carefully cause it makes a big difference (some people get the spine all wrong for instance).

#516

thx, everyone. I used the light engine MR SSS node, plug the node into 3 seprate mutiply/divide nodes, and plug them into U ramps with , and the U ramps into V ramps. That way you can pinpoint any area of the character you have UV maps on. Usally i start of using black an white U ramps, that are plugged into the V ramps, so i can just move the ramps and make white areas on the face i want more SSS in. Then plug in each multiply and divide node into the white U ramps. and one multiply node into the black ramps on the U & V ramps. That way U have a control of the SSS thats not in the white areas of the ramps.

connect the V ramp into the ambient of a phong/or blinn. And connect the skin into the difffuse.

here is a paintover of my skinnetwork to help you understand. I wouldnt mind if anyone wants to show me how to do stevens nice glare.

allenatl:

I created a skin pattern in photoshop with pores, it has slight variation in color, and is seamless. I lay it down as the base skin and paint over it.

Luki:

there is no SSS tab in maya6 like many where hoping, but mentalray supports SSS if you wish to write your own SSS shader.
Lightengines SSS node is the best i have worked with. its based off of jensings sss research paper, witch is a really good one.

rendertimes where around 2 or 3 minutes. rendered on an AMD64 2ghz, 1gb 400mhz DDR, and FireGL X2.

#517

You are using a blinn. It looks good in maya. Not in XSI tho. Blinn always looks good when it is static post. The specular turns funny when the object is moving. I tried so many times in XSI by starting with a blinn but it just not look right.

yours looks fantasitc. The colour can be tweak alittle more to the white tone. But the specular fall off is looking great.

#518

kryoboy

Nice Shader kryo, although I think the texture in the eyes is a little to straight forward. The corner of the eye is too strongly defined compared to the rest of the eye.
Modeling: The hands look a little odd, the way they are bend. The arms overall are too buff for a female I think, especially the shoulders and the neck, could use some relacing, I think. I would deflex the Trapezius at the neck a bit. Nice shading though.

What don’t you like about the ear on my mesh? Modeling or texturing/shading, I’d assume the last one…

3rd Dimentia

Great comments, I’ll look into it. Put on my to-do list!

#519

Here’s some update… I put the hairshaders in a layered shader, to add an extra layer of specular highlights to that. It worked fine untill I turned on Raytracing for the shadows, then it turned the hair completely gry, like the spec was stretched allover the geo. Anyone know this problem?

Here’s the update without Shadows…

#520

I guess you should always turn on cast shadow when testing your hair. Because it makes alot different.