Hi guys! This is my first post in this forum but I’m reading it for quite a long time and i’m amazed by the amount of creativity and informations I can find around.
I’m not a professional 3d modeler, I try it a little for fun. I’m actually working as an orthopedic surgeon so I have a different point of view. I’m maybe drifting off the original topic, but it could be interesting to share my opinion. ( and btw sorry for my poor english)
When i see this topology thread and the pictures posted I can’t avoid thinking about some anatomic issues that are usually totally forgotten when modeling a 3d body.
The first is probably the effect of weight on tissues:
Try to look at your legs in front of a mirror to understand what i’m talking about. The main “layers” are the bones, the muscles, the fat tissues and the skin. Lots of people build up their 3d characters thinking mostly about the skin and bone layers. This is quite important, of course, but the muscles and fat tissues give the realistic shape of a CG body or face. 3D modeling masters have an outstanding knowledge of anatomy and it’s quite easy to see it in their 3d body topology. It can also be seen in the way they build up the volumes.
I’ll use an image posted by master Stahlberg as an example ( i hope you don’t mind, kryoboy. your work is really good :-)) :
http://www.androidblues.com/body4se.jpg
Now look at the hips of the left girl. If you look at an anatomy book, you will see that there is a muscle ( facia lata tensor) running from the iliac crest (the largest part of the pevis) to the lateral part of the leg. The major muscle (quadriceps) build the shape of the thigh .If you build your 3d model only with these informations, you’ll end up with something that looks too much CG because you forget the effect of gravity on the fat and muscle tissues and your anatomy book tells you that those 2 muscles build the outer shape of the thigh. Female bodies have a deep fat layer in front of the hip and with the effect of gravity, it will move down a lot. Then, the quadriceps builds the front shape of the thigh but not the lateral (partially, actually). Check the image i gave as a reference to see what i mean. Keep it in mind when adding volume details like that.
Now have a look at the feet. It’s quite easy to use some anatomy painting as background to build up a foot. But as every modeler knows, it’s damn hard to make a realistic 3d foot. Feet carry the weight of the body. The layer between the plantar part and the bone is made of a very “airbag-like” fat tissue. So when you walk or carry your weight on your foot, it doesn’t behave as a bone volume but more as a soft tissue volume. If you look at the image you ll see that the lateral part of the foot is more compressed than the internal part because the ankle is rotated a little toward it and because the tibia is not a pure straight bone, but is bent a little. Then, the foot can’t have the same morphology has a foot not carrying weight. Your topology has to take care of it if you are planning to animate your foot. I know it can looks like a little detail. But that kind of detail can bring lots of realism to an organic 3d body.
Let’s say your amazing 3d knight has recieved a sword hit in the knee years ago, try to imagine the dynamic effect of it on his body. The wound was probably painfull so he has used the other leg much more, building up his muscles on it.The sword has created a scar on it, so most of the skin around it will be stretched (remember that a big scar always has a contractoin effect on skin, like a seam on fabric) toward the scar and you ll probably have to change a little your topology to have the most realistic movement of the skin layer if you need a close-up shot of the knee. If the wound was too bad and the knight has had an amputation of the lower leg, he probably NEVER would us the muscles of his upper leg so you can’t just copy/paste the other leg on it. Muscles loose lots of volume if you don’t use them.
So the injured limb will be thin compare to the other.
BTW, muscles use fibers to contract, so they always deform according to them. That’s a major problematic when talking about topology. Be sure to always have anatomy studies or images as references when building your character topology. This is quite obvious when creating a human character, but keep it in mind when creating an alien…if you want some muscle on your alien, then you have to follow the fibers rules…
I could spend lines and lines of writing to explain some of those issues. I see body from the inside most of the day, so i slowly begin to understand how muscles, bones and skin interact. It’s also a major issue when talking about rigging, texturing etc… but i think anatomy has to be really integrated into topology. Not only static anatomy, but also dynamic anatomy. Rigging and animation will be much more realistic if you have understood the bio-mecanic structures of the body.
Your best reference is probably the mirror in front of you whatever you are trying to model, a 20yrs old gogo dancer, an old woman, a horse or a 100 feet monster. Watch you face when you smile, your knee when you bend it. Try not only to see the wrinkles in your skin but also what can be under it, how structures slide one on an other, where are the bones, the fat, the muscle… I’m sure it will help your topology.
And kke pup the good work 
