Ranger Wip

[Chrury Sanson]

OK! This will be a model of my Ranger in GW. But that's pretty far off. I've made a body mock-up and now I'm working on the head. Here's where I'm at:

[attachmentid=23207]

Lookin' kinda freaky.

[attachmentid=23208]

 

I've gotten this far with the help of the great 'Cooper' Tutorial.

 

My questions:

- Am I using too many 5 point patches?

- How to fix those creases on the side?

- Does he need more CPs?

- Should I put this on hold until I get my version 13 upgrade? (Just in time for Christmas. )

 

Suggest away! Now that I've made this thread, I should be more motivated to work on him! Updates will happen!

[nimblepix]

Good start Chrury.

 

Five point patches seem OK,

but you do have a problem with

a CP having 5 splines coming off it

as indicated in green on the attached image.

These area will usaually have a problem because one

of the splines coming into the CP

doesn't have an exit as do the others.

 

[attachmentid=23209]

 

The splinage is very dense in the front.

Try to keep the splines to a minimum

and you'll have a much smoother surface.

[Chrury Sanson]

Easier said than done! lol

I got those working better and found a few more around the nose area.

I'll get a pic up when I have them smothed to my satisfaction.

 

PS: What's that command for placing a CP in the middle of a spline?

[Paul Forwood]

"Y"

[Chrury Sanson]

Thanks Paul. As they say: If you don't use it, you lose it.

 

Got some work done. getting smoother.

I'm finding almost all my problems have to do with 5-point patches or 5-spline points.

 

here's my nose (just because I want to show my nose )

 

Any thoughts on those side creases?

[KenH]

Start with a low mesh and add splines to it. Right now, you've way too many which is causing creasing. In particular the splines running from the nose to the upper lip....some of those can be deleted. Imagine if you wanted to animate this character....all those cps would need moving round.

Also some of the spline organisation seems abit off. Look at some of the characters on the cd for a better idea of how they should go....this will cause you to be more economical with the splines and reduce some more.

[the_black_mage]

dude you need to restart....badly....looks for some tutorials, make a drawing of what you want and scan it. then use that as a rotoscope, lastly...burn that model. sorry, just telling the truth.....i do the same thing when something looks bad to point of no return.

[Caroline]

Looking at your splines, they seem a bit pointy - have you tried pressing the Page Up key for full resolution, so your splines should be fully curved.

[Chrury Sanson]

Well I'm not one to restart something if it is salvageable. And this is salvageable.

 

Looking at those CD chars was a real "Doh!" moment. Hopefully I can get to be that efficient.

 

Here's me, trying to be more efficient.

 

And the reworked nose:

Still needs a bit of tweaking.

 

I'm thinking I'll work on the eye socket next. Any tips?

 

BTW: I'm using screenshots as rotoscopes and the splines being pointy is probably a product of low resolution as they're renders not screen caps.

[C-grid]

The placement of ControlPoints should make the connected spline have a regular flow, when there's a crossroad at a middle CP between 2 splines do mind keeping the flow, with organic modelling, a spline followthrough should take every crossroad straight ahead, e.g. NOT like 2 cars that both turn left on a crossroad.

 

Places where the density of CPs on a spline is close and next to eachother, beware that they still need to line-up like an on-going flow, like unconnected points in space that are placed in an arc-like-shape which will make them look already as if they were connected.

 

Niels

[the_black_mage]

wel.. i still think you should restart...

 

but while your still going, you gotta fix that eye, its the thing i can't stand the most out of the model...the eyelids need to cuve around the eye ball.

 

also one thing you have to consider is what its gonna look like when you flip it(copy/flip/attach), I've made heads before (more animeish though) i would have the whole face seemingly perfect then flip it and it looks very weird, i kept getting that until l started using a rotoscope(my mom got a scanner).if you do restart use a drawn or computer made rotoscope of a perfectly measured front and side view, this way you'll have exactly what you want. right now no one knows what your going for, whether its a boy or girl(that would help), the age(if your going for one). this information will help determine what his face shape should be, the sises or shapes of the eyes and among other features. there are more things too, determining your vision of the character is very important even to those who are helping you....but these are my thoughts.

[Chrury Sanson]

I did say that the eye/eyesocket was next.

 

And Here's what I'm going for:

(just without the mask and with shorter hair)

 

And I said it would take a while.

[the_black_mage]

ok, your gonna need a head modeling tutorial and i think you should definaly restart I'm gonna link some tutorials...

 

http://www.colins-loft.net/tutorials.html

 

http://home9.highway.ne.jp/katakata/title.htm

 

witch you need to translate with....

 

http://www.babelfish.altavista.com/

 

these are the sites used when i made my head, thought the older one i did is gone(corrupted), heres the one i did when i use the image on the site as a rotoscope.

[rusty]

Well I'm not one to restart something if it is salvageable. And this is salvageable.

 

Dear Chrury,

 

I'm assuming you will want to animate this face... if I am wrong, please ignore the rest of this post... 'cause I hate to be Captain Bringdown especially on Christmas Eve! This looks just like my first attempts and I wish someone had told me before I textured and rigged! But perhaps it is salvageable… and I put more effort into the reply fishing up examples. 

 

IMHO your face ‘as is’ is not animate-able or, lets say... you will have a very hard time creating facial expressions that look good. Now I'm just looking at the splines and trying to image how it would work -- and I just can't see it. The splines are placed wrong. You need a few concentric circles surrounding the eyes and mouth so they can… close, open and move around a bit.. and, also splines that follow the muscles and creases of the side-nose, mouth and cheeks. My own personal lupus test for ‘are-my-face-splines-going-to-animate-well' is:

 

'Can I easily make the face do this': (I call it the face scrunch)

 

(Example from me… mostly using Bill Young’s method from CD)

 

 

(Example face from Shaun Freeman – I put the ‘scrunch’ together quickly but you get the picture)

 

 

(Examples from Bill Young – Anzovin Studios)

 

 

(Pretty cool map for spline placement to muscle/creases from “How to Model a Face” CD B. Young)

 

 

Notice in all the circular patterns around the eyes and mouth and how they come down from the nose and into the cheeks and side of mouth. Also the brows and forhead are built to animate. So maybe study your splines, plan out how to improve them then break ‘em and salvage!

 

I hope this helps! Merry Christmas!

 

Rusty

 

Edit: I see you've improved the splines a bit and there have been more posts since I started constructing this one. Take into account.

[the_black_mage]

ooooohhhh, very nice!!!

[williamgaylord]

The example references posted so far are good. Probably the best printed reference is Jason Osipa's "Stop Staring: Facial Modeling and Animation Done Right". It's not specific to A:M, but the principles apply very well. A very good investment if you are serious about character animation. The mesh design is very important in realistic facial animation.

 

Bill Gaylord

 

P.S.: Realistic ears are probably the hardest body parts to model (at least they are for me). I don't have an easy method worked out to model ears accurately, but I do have some example ears I have posted that anyone is free to use.

 

Ears

[Chrury Sanson]

A ninja bumps the thread.

 

My apologies on the long response time. I had an upgrade to work with and TAoAM to go through and holidays! Those take alot of time.

 

So here's my update:

Shaded with perspective

 

Shaded wireframe w/o perspective

 

A LOT of tweaking, eh? The top one reminds me of "I, Robot" but it's probably just the lack of texture.

 

Rusty: Now that I will have to try. This is intended to be my 'masterpiece'. So I plan on having everything animatable (is that a word?) when this guy is done. Let me get the look worked out, then I'll definitely come back to that.

 

Mr. Gaylord: WOW! The ears! Great reference!

 

Black Mage: I started with the cooper tut and I will make sure I go back to it soon. I have it on CD, in the latest TAoAM book, and under favorites. I'm covered. As for the other one, perhaps I'll wait until I understand Japanese better. Then I wouldn't need the translator. (Love his version of Chii BTW )

 

Everybody: This guy should continue to progress in between bouts with TAoAM and ABC. I'll be getting better rotoscopes so he can be more hi-rez.

 

Rock on,

Chris

[Chrury Sanson]

Ha HA! I bet you didn't expect another update to this thread! Back from the bowels of the forum, it returns!

 

I'm working on this guy so I can use him on TAoAM and get him finished in the process. First up: the EAR!

 

Two days worth of work. 1 rotoscope. (not Gaylords oddly) First attempt. Sure, things will need tweaking/fixing up, but it will be alot easier now that it's in 3D.

 

Wireframes/alternate views available on demand.

 

I think the mouth is next.

[Chrury Sanson]

Why is he scared? Could it be the lack of hair, tongue, or body? The seemingly plastic texture of his teeth and skin? Or perhaps his utter Wip-ness despairs his non-existent heart. :cough:

 

So yeah. Modeling goes on. Now it's tweak, fix, remodel, stare at other models, and repeat for a month or more.(sigh)

 

I hope things get less complicated from the neck down.

[Chrury Sanson]

Hrmm. problem here. Copy-Flip-Attach is acting up. After it does it's thing several patches are wrong and various CPs are missing. I could manually fix some of them but the inside the mouth is too complicated to replicate.

 

Besides that, sometimes a group of CPs will stay green and refuse to be selected by Ctrl+a or rectangular select. Rather annoying.

 

Any thoughts?

 

EDIT: It was a bit quick but all the splines and patches show up properly for a split second before going haywire.

[the_black_mage]

well your back on this eh? well the eyes still look messed up and the head is still rough, you can do way better than this man. stop being lazy and start over you'll find it looks much better this time around. but if you insist on going...

1. the nose needs allot of fixing

2. the eyes still look bad

3. ears need more definition

4. the mouth splining will cause problems later as whats is name said on the second to last post on page 1

5. very rough head man

6. try making the eye ball bigger to smooth out the curve

7. i'm serious though, you really should start over. i'm not saying start over every time you mess up but since you have more experience this time could be way more succesful!

[Chrury Sanson]

Mage, I had hoped you would avoid my thread. might be something with the tone I'm reading.

Anyhoo, in my slightly tired, "that stings, why should I believe him, I want to show him wrong or be wrong", 11 o'clock-esk state of mind...

 

I modeled.

 

An hours work:

 

Do you like that better? Does it have more potential? Did you notice the lack of smilies in this post?

 

Chrury Sanson was not in complete control of his faculties at the time of this posting. Any remarks or images within should be taken with a grain of salt twice daily until your computer has a healthy distribution of pac-man pellets.

[DarkLimit]

I like your new attempt......one of the things that has helped me when modeling is developing a smooth flow from the get go...this is why it's important to have reference so you get a feel for what you want before even touching the mouse..

 

Try an always keep ur splines flowing and connected right....

 

I look forward to ur progress..

[the_black_mage]

hey, it wasn't all nag, i commented you in there someware.

 

looks better sofar, and i agree with dark limit

 

but yeah i can totally relate to the pissyness of starting over, remember what i said before, i modeled a head like 5 times before i got it right, each time i did it faster and better(but one thing would throw the whole thing off), i can model an anime head pretty easily now.

 

btw heres an eye reference if it helps

 

 

eyeclosed

 

[Chrury Sanson]

Uhg. Let me put it this way. I've had more troubles with the eye than I had with the ear. I just can't visualize it.

 

That said here's my latest attempt, with perspective on:

[the_black_mage]

much better!!!

[KenH]

Look at the faces (so many!) on the cd and get an idea of how the splines are layed out. I would suggest that the spline going round the nose and up to the eye joins up with the hook coming off the eye. It would flow better.

[Chrury Sanson]

{DING!} My update is ready.

 

The mouth was next but those lips still need work.

 

I'll probably work on the inside of the mouth after the lips are worked out.

[the_black_mage]

start working in the cheeks...kinda flat faced now...

 

great, i don't have to say anything about the lips