Body topology

#1541

Ednometry-
your model looks good, but in answer to your more attractive question. its in the eyes. in photographym, iw as taught, that to get a more attractive look out of your model, its all in the eyes. at the moment, her pupils and iris are almost fully visible. when someone is “turned on” (for lack of a better phrase) their pupils are dialated. which makes the viewer feel a little more seduced by the image, as it were.
your model at the moment, looks a little shocked, or suprised in the eyes. perhaps softening the eyes, and dialating the pupil more. i think you will find her looking more attractive when you do that. check out fashion shots of models too.
the modelling of the face, is great though.

#1542

stahlberg-
thank you for your feedback! inspiring hearing feedback from you. your section in d’artiste is really great too. love the section on shading. cheers. will keep posting until its done. still got a ways to go, and then comes his outfit!!

#1543

I love your latest animation “People”, Taron, wonderful! :slight_smile:

#1544

I agree that doing wrinkles in Zbrush works fine - but the more problematic part is the skin sliding which is IMHO one of the foundations of realistic facial animation (and body animation as well, but that’s another story). You can’t displace the surface in any directions other than its normal (yet), so the only way to do sliding is by moving the vertices with either some bones or morph targets. Now, adding more loops can help you in fading the sliding effect more precisely, and also in keeping the impression of the underlying structure of bones and tissues (particularly on the brow and cheekbone area, but also over the teeth and jaw).

A 4K map, in my experience, is not enough for a feature film character to appear in close-ups. Showing the eye area in 2K resolution would require at least two times the detail, if not more… fortunately, only a few teams have to create Hulks, Gollums and such characters at the moment, but HD resolution is quickly becoming the standard for both ingame and cinematic stuff.
But I also agree that there’s a hard limit in Zbrush’s poly counts at the moment. Even if you have 4 million polygons in a head model, that’s still well represented in a 2048*2048 texture with a 1:1 pixel to polygon ratio. For a 4K map, you’d need ten million polygons or so - hopefully the promised update will be helpful here. We’re really looking forward to put our dirty little hands on that 2.5 release :slight_smile:

Oh, and I hope Steve doesn’t mind our little hijacking of his thread… :wink:

#1545

No problem, it’s all related to character topology.

Ednometry, the face does look beautiful, but you have a bit of that problem with the lips that Taron is talking about a couple posts earlier. The corners of the lips, check those out in more closeup.

#1546

heres an update so far.
i have begun touching uo the ab area, and added a little more muscle around the pecs, as to match his abs. i havent done any work on the arms, thats why i havnt shown them. im trying to get that this guy is an exoerienced warrior, he’s not going to be like an x-men character, with huge muscles…but im looking for more hard look, quick, and very skilled.
anything i should be looking at with his abs??
(sorry bout the low res image, i should have my sight up soon.)

back to the essence
the rider
akan-zarian

#1547

Let me bounce in there right away! Nope and Yay’n’Nay…I’ve written a tool, a very simply tool, that allows you to fix a displacement map to the head, independent from facial deformations! It can’t use UVmaps, but all other types of projective mapping (planar, cylindrical…). I hadn’t employed any of the fancy messiah tools for “people”, because it wasn’t supposed to be a messiah demo, but a zbrush short. Not to mention that there wasn’t much time, but I could have easily used my toolset “TextureDeformer”. With this it is not only possible to keep bonestructures under the skin at displacement level (loads of detailed shaping!), but more so you can animate muscles underneath the skin! And it’s a total piece of cake to set up! Argh…where do I have the “Neckling” stuff…hmmm…let me see…
Messiah video Gallery
Check out Neckling…it shows a little bit of it, featuring the neckmuscles! It’s been the second test I made with it. Right after that I realized the great fun to do displacement blending and made “Neckling changing” as a test. It shows that the muscle-displacement setup is also independent from the remaining displacement maps! Very convenient! You could even swap out the geometry and it would effect the setup. I mean…obviously the outcome would change, if you replaced the creature with a car, but you know what I mean…

SOOOO, no problem with sliding over bone and muscles! But in fact I’m spending more and more time on thinking about even more ideal solutions, also contemplating about another thing I havn’t seen yet…it’ll go straight into messiah of course, where else, but it’s going to be yet another level of access to the displacement stage! :slight_smile:

That’s all…I think. I didn’t even read the rest of your post, yet, sorry. But I will later…just waking up! (3am in the morning?!? Ah well…crazy life)

Taron

PS: THANX STEVEN!!! :love:

#1548

That is some amazing tech. I can’t seem to fully grasp the idea, but my uneducated guess is the video Taron showed us is a tweening of different displacement maps. Is that all there is to it or am I missing something? And why is this not possible in any package with layered materials? Memory constraints? I know a bump map can be tweened so why not displacements? Like if you ramped up the tesselation to cover all the displacements.
Any one care to jump in and dumb it down for me is most welcomed.
I just saw this http://imaginecube.com/features.html
Is that vertex caching demo virtually the same thing as this Messiah specific demo?

#1549

I don;t know if ‘body-topolgy’ refers strictly to humans, but I’d like to ask if the topolygy used on my spaceship to transition from the low poly body into the higher poly engines is a recommend appraoch. Note that I can’t use SUbD hierarchy levels for detailing because I need to atttach multiple meshes.

#1550

I guess you mean those 3 very narrow quads over on the right side… the basic idea is okay, but you should probably make them less narrow - which can easily be done by shifting the 2 left-most verts of each quad more to the left. Or use the ‘Average’ command (a sort of ‘relax’ for geometry). Right now, unless that region isn’t perfectly flat, I think you run the risk of getting slight creases or bumps. Though who knows, you may like that look. Test render it. :slight_smile:

#1551

Hi Mr. Stahlberg, i was searchin to forum for some body modelling tutorial, then i stumbled upon this incredible thread. I was gonna post the picture in my WIP thread, but i though here is probably also a great place to seek advice.

I’m looking for some topological/anatomical feedbacks, and from what I had seen (sorry, i only read about 20 pages out of 10X pages,) this is the place to go when it comes to that sort of stuff.

Anyway, here it goes, i created her for a competition. a 3D still, further detail can be found in my WIP thread.

EDIT: Faulty image removed due to limited webspace

Feel free to ask for another view or do some paint-overs.
Thanks in advance people!

#1552

Ok friends. have been quite busy with other projects… but finally got back to this. ive put in some more hours studying photos, and even alot of steven’s work. im having some trouble getting the “Mass” right in a few places.

CosmoHorizon - from what i can tell, more life drawing practice, and the use of refrences will get you off on the right foot here. try to sketch a humanoid figure daily or atleast once or twice a week.

there are many resouces on the web for refrences of the female and male body… I recommend 3d.sk its a great library of poses… Use these to practice drawing humans if you cannot get the real thing (recommended) :thumbsup:

anyhow i cannot really suggest any draw overs or topology tips on your model.
get the refrences material… do some proportion studying online and give her another go from scratch!

never think twice to begin all over again if you are learning, you will just improve every time.

Sorry for the bombing of images here… but 4 angles is better than 1 :slight_smile:

#1553

WOW, nice model Jason. :thumbsup:

Not sure if there is anything to critique… wait I think I found something.
Her Forearm has some pretty hard shadowing, and I think the shape of the muscles is a bit off. Her biceps on her inner arm look a little too high? I think her pectoral muscle that joins to her shoulder is a bit too fleshy where it meets the shoulder.

Only small things almost not worth mentioning.

Hope this helps, cheers.

#1554

Hey kryoboy, i think i have learned something from your image…gonna fix up my model now
I know i am in-experienced and i really don’t mind starting from scratch, this is my 3rd attempt with a human body, and i do feel that i am improving every time. But right nowi have a dead line to meet, so i can’t afford to waste another 8~10 hours on the whole body…

I’ll be most grateful if you can provide me some of your reference images

mind to post a front and side view?
Cheers

#1555

Here is the updated version…i tweaked the vertices according to the images Mr. Stahlberg and kryoboy posted and this is the result.

bod_pers2.jpg600x543

Looking forward to some serious C&C =]
Cheers

#1556

CosmoHorizon, the best place in the universe for the kind of references we need for this type of work is 3d.sk It’s subscription, but it’s cheap, and you get access to literally thousands of images that are very high quality and high-res, and the library is expanding all the time.

About your model, the breasts and mid torso looks okay but the shoulders and hips look deformed - especially where the deltoid connects with the clavicle, and where the pelvic bone should be pushing forward. The surface is too simple and rounded, needs more detail, more controlled changes of direction. (But NOT higher res, the topology you show is much too high resolution, if that’s the smoothed mesh it’s probably better if you show the un-smoothed one.)
I agree with kryoboy that you probably need better reference, and/or to study the body more. But don’t be discouraged. We all have to go through this process, and there are no shortcuts… it’s a very long road (in fact it never ends), but at least it’s straight and smooth. :slight_smile:

edit:
Kryoboy, the elbow area looks a bit sturdy and muscular for a young girl like that, compared to the rest of her body. You know 3d.sk has lots of images of girls in poses like that, and Peter recently put up some new ones.

The only thing is though, I’ve recently woken up to the fact that ALL of them are twisting their arms so that the elbow is pointing more or less down, not straight back as we modelers tend to want to do for the T-pose. The fact seems to be: it’s a typically female thing to twist your arms like that, men hardly ever do that when asked to take that pose, or at least not as much. I’m not really sure if this is a problem or not, if it makes a difference in how to model the arm or shoulder… What do you guys think?
The girls also usually lock their elbows - hyper-extend them - which confuses the poor modeler even more. We have to be aware of this and try to account for it… unless we use the locked pose as our neutral pose. Sometimes I think, why not? But I haven’t had time to test that yet.

See image below, the difference of the elbow-rotation. Also note the 2 curves in her pose (caused by locking the elbow, and bending the wrist), not shared by the guy.

malefemalearm.jpg919x550

#1557

Kryoboy, the elbow area looks a bit sturdy and muscular for a young girl like that, compared to the rest of her body. You know 3d.sk has lots of images of girls in poses like that, and Peter recently put up some new ones.

agree 100% steven. I think i was able to solve alot of this with my smoothing brush, and more tweaking… (i used to hate this tool but it works for me now… mabey it has changed abit since maya 5)

The only thing is though, I’ve recently woken up to the fact that ALL of them are twisting their arms so that the elbow is pointing more or less down, not straight back as we modelers tend to want to do for the T-pose. The fact seems to be: it’s a typically female thing to twist your arms like that, men hardly ever do that when asked to take that pose, or at least not as much. I’m not really sure if this is a problem or not, if it makes a difference in how to model the arm or shoulder… What do you guys think?
The girls also usually lock their elbows - hyper-extend them - which confuses the poor modeler even more. We have to be aware of this and try to account for it… unless we use the locked pose as our neutral pose. Sometimes I think, why not? But I haven’t had time to test that yet.

your not kidding. I have been aware of this for quite sometime now… and keep rotating between 0 degree being unlocked, and the 35 degree locked positions during modeling to try and get as acurate as possible. when the arm bends from unlocked position we usally model with it rotates to the locked position before bending naturally. so why not just model the arm in the locked position with a slight bend ?

I think 3d.sk has some free refrences if im not mistaken… you may want to check it out for yourself… it has been sometime since ive been there as i have thousands of refrences localy from 3d.sk and from my own photography. The human body is a hard model to start with imho, as it is more complex and scrutinized than possibly any other artform naturally.

#1558

I’ll try my best…i have seen the photographs and i think it’s absolutely worth it…i’ll have a serious think about it.

I wish i have more time, because the submission close on 31st October, but it overlaps with my exam (year 12…the big one…decides if i get into good uni), and i’ll have to terminate my modelling work as soon as it hits october…

So i have another 3 weeks to finish the face, accessories and the tweaking, and then try to get some people who is not under exam pressure to finish the lighting and rendering for me…

Edit: Mr.S, the wire is indeed high res (2 smooth iterations) How do i render smoothed low-res wire as you did with some of your earlier images? I can’t do it the way i used to do in Max (dupe, push, assign wire material)…

#1559

ok. ive done my best for now to make coreections in the arms/shoulder i realize my hands need much work. :sad:

#1560

Elbow looks much better there! :slight_smile: