Humanoid/Creature Modelling Techniques

#42

A technique I use for creating humanoid and creature models in Wings is to make some basic surfaces in Rhino3D first, making sure to block out the appropriate muscle groups and then bring that into WINGS. In Wings, if required, I do some streamlining of the mesh and then start connecting the surfaces using bridge. Once they’re done I just add polys and tweak where I feel I need too. Works swell.

To streamline the mesh (ie, get rid of excess polys) I select an edge and hit g or l depending on the direction I want to reduce and when the edges are selected, I switch to vertex mode and hit delete or backspace. It’s a fast and easy way of getting rid of a bunch of detail quickly. Any oddities that crop up can be fixed with a simple connect or a disolve here and there. I usually create the hands and feet entirely in WINGS and sometimes the head also. Depends on my mood and how much time I have, as I can generat a nurbs surface with good form faster than I could box model one.

The image showcases a model started in Rhino, poly reduced and surfaces connected in WINGS, and then tweaked a little. Still a ways to go with it.

#43

but isn’t Rhino a NURBS modeller? How does that work? Wings3d is a poly based and rhino is nurbs. So how do you convert that mesh? I guess Rhino does that for you.

ANother workflow that I know many people are starting to use now is the Zsphere workflow. Basically, they pose their entire character in zbrush do an adaptive skin. This saves a lot of time when building the very base mesh. Then, its a simple matter of taking it into wings3d, adding the major details in there and take it back into zbrush for those uber-high-rez details.

#44

Yes, I convert to mesh within Rhino, trying to get as low poly as possible while maintaining the details I want. Then I take it into WINGS. As soon as I lay my hands on Z2 though, I’m adding that to my flow also.

#45

Looks at Rhino’s pricetag
Looks at Zbrush’s pricetag

<<
>>
Runs

Evil expensive software! VIVA LA FREEWARE!! :stuck_out_tongue:

Cool methods though!:smiley:

#46

Y’know I only just realised this morning that XSI has something very similar to Wings tweak mode…I really should learn to read manuals…:blush:

#47

lol Speccysteeve,how did you weld vertice before or even better,Didn’t you overlook the Proportionnal Modeling???(little ‘Prop’ button lower right or alt-2)

It’s the equivalent of a soft selection in MAx but the way it handles the shapes of the geometry is just amazingly organic…You’d have to have used the Soft selection for a long time and test Xsi’s,you’d be astounded at how it preserves the loops’ shapes,pretty much like the Vector operation magnets in wings but with less adjustements to do.

You can adjust the radius in the Model module(hotkey 1),Components,Proportionnal Setup

#48

Heh, I found the proportional button about a week earlier…couldn’t they have called it, oh I dunno…maybe, “magnets” or something?

The “magic button” I hadn’t found was the move point tool…, points only, but reassuringly Wings-like…

Edit: I have a funny feeling there will be a “tweak type mode” that affects edges and polys too, and I am therefore being a noob again…:confused:

:blush:

Seriously, It was new to me, I’d been doing it all manually with the basic tools…
I’ve really only had a few hours access to XSI per week until now, I’d simply never seen that part in the manual, my lecturer is more an “all-rounder” rather than a mesh obsessed model monkey, it’d never really come up in “Lecture#3 , XSI for noobs part2”

Anyhow, I finally got a comp that can run EXP so hopefully I won’t be making so many noob oversights in the next 6 months.

-Steve

#49

It’s really at times like this that the major applications just overwhelm you about the modelling features then hide them. I have personally never used the manual for wings3d. It was purely just tinkering around that made me understand how to use it all.

So, I still suggest:
Model with wings. Export into whatever and continue on with whatever you need to do on the model.

#50

Originally posted by dpvtank
Model with wings. Export into whatever and continue on with whatever you need to do on the model.

Hear! Hear!.. of course there are alot of times I will model only in XSI… particularly when a curve or boolean is needed.

I must admit that the new, un-announced modeling tool addons and updates may decrease my wings usage a little, but not much.

#51

Na mate, XSI has sweet poly tools that I could easily live with, they’re just not always obvious and you’ll want to define a few hotkeys before you start. ( “collapse and delete” to backspace, “L” to edgeloop for instance )

There may well be all kinds of goodies in XSI 4 though, hopefully there’ll be a demo to have a poke at.

It is that little bit slower than Wings, still very nice toolset though, never tried Maya or Lightwave yet so I won’t bother with comparisons, but it’s like Wings in many ways, it won’t hold your hand, it wants you to learn the hotkeys and use them, understand how the sticky key system works etc.

Wings monkeys will no doubt appeciate the “what that button will do” summary at the bottom of the screen.

Edit: Mental note, get more ram then install Wings on tarty new pc, see how it runs…:wink:

#52

Heh Heh… hows dual AMD MP 2800+ w/ 4 GB PC2100 Ram and a Quadro 980XGL

100k poly models in Wings, no problem.

No I am in no way dissing XSI, I love it more than air. But wings is so fast that I just can’t stop using it. Just can’t stop. Just… can’t… stop!!!

#53

yo StephanD… :slight_smile:

after hearing so much, how do i get ur tutorial on modeling?? :drool:

#54

Ooooh nice system Jdex,

Just got a Athy64 today, it absolutely pimpsmacks the college P4’s ( 2.4 - 2.8’s ) with half the ram, a mid range gaming card as opposed to a Quadro / Quatro? and a windows that hasn’t had the background rubbish removed, seriously I’ve never seen a render region go that fast…

Looking forward to seeing how it runs with another 512 ram, I was a nervous pc buyer, right now I’m a happy bunny.

Mrs Steve assures me the network IRQ (? ) speeds on the mobo are splendid, I don’t even know what that means so I’ll take her word that that’s a good thing…MR goes faster than I’d expected, I’m happy.

-Steve

#55

My computer isn’t really powerfull. starts lagging at about 50’000 polys in Wings :confused:

Amd XP 2500+
256 MB DDR Ram
Nvidia Geforce Fx 5200 128 MB

If i use stippled faces on the 50k poly model, i lag even worse.

#56

Ra mate, my old one used to lag at roughly 4000 polys…

Celeron 766’s, 128mb slow sdram and 4mb onboard gfx does not bode well for 3d work…

#57

Nice upgrade there Speccy, I’m torn atm between a seat of essentials 4.0 and a new dual opteron 248… then there’s always the new frikken sweet-as-all-get-out quadros… too many toys, too little dough.

#58

athlon xp 2800
geforce fx 5600
512 ddr ram

not bad in my opinion. I should overclock it. my friends have been killing me to do so.

in z2, it sorta lags at around a million poly’s. But you only slightly notice it.
With wings…hmm…it goes to around 40-50k poly’s before it lags. Never really tried very very high resolution meshes in wings3d yet.

#59

hah the battle of low spec systems I shall win!!

p3 667eb
256MB RAM
3DLabs Oxygen

Even on that system,Wings is handled very nicely,although I haven’t gone as far as 50K or so,I do the high details in Zb2 now.

Steeve:Xsi Exp 3.0 was a bit slow,I’m on Exp for HL2 now and it is much faster in performances,also note that the application opens 40% faster for me,not to mention the 3.5 toolset

I use Zbrush2 all the time with my pc,the best investement I made on myself for years.

Sure I’d need a faster processor and RAM to run Zb2 smoothly but I get by with using partial mesh visibility and I run it on lowrez(1024) and it’s all fine.

Edit:Xenoid,you got lucky,I found the first upload I made of them…Copy paste in the adress bar.

http://www.geocities.com/nendo_tsukuri/50Minchar.zip

#60

thank you so much!!! it’ll be a great help to me… :beer:

i’m currently trying to do game characters like Unreal Tournament… and i couldn’t find a complete tutorial on it… cos there are lots of considerations like how to optimise polygon counts, how u rig it and stuff like tt… :cry:

#61

I got ya all beat.

HP Pentirum 2 450mhz 198MB RAM 20GB HD. Read 'em and Weep. Funny thing is, this computer is faster than my friend’s 1GHZ Celeron.