Self Portrait

[williamgaylord]

My "real" job has kept me from getting much done in A:M for some time now, but recently the situation has improved and I'm working more normal hours. I might even get back involved in TWO.

 

This is something I did last year: Self Portrait Thread

 

I still have some tweaks left and of course eyes instead of mere spheres...and teeth and gums and a tongue and throat and texturing and hair and rigging...and maybe even a body!

 

Here is it's current state:

[robcat2075]

A fine looking head! My impulse would be to remove some splines in the cheeks, but it's your face to rig, not mine.

[williamgaylord]

Yes, probably could reduce the number of splines in a number of places. I've seen some amazingly efficient splinage, especially in some of the semi-realistic models posted. Haven't done this before so I've got a lot to learn. I'm trying to work this so it will animate well, so any suggestions for improvement along those lines will be much appreciated. I have Jason Osipa's book "Stop Staring" which is a good reference in that respect.

 

Look forward to trying out the Squetch rig, too.

[the_black_mage]

i gotta tell you man...that is the best ear i have EVER seen lol.

[jirard]

It looks good to me. I keep trying to make a realistic head mesh but they always come out kinda cartoonish. This definately gives me some ideas as far as setting up the splines goes. Keep up the good work and keep posting your progress.

[williamgaylord]

It looks good to me. I keep trying to make a realistic head mesh but they always come out kinda cartoonish. This definately gives me some ideas as far as setting up the splines goes. Keep up the good work and keep posting your progress.

 

Anzovin Studio's "Model a Face with Bill Young" is a good tutorial to start with. Anything that will help you learn art anatomy, like Berne Hogarth's "Dynamic Figure Drawing" would also help. Jason Osipa's "Stop Staring" is one of the best books on facial animation and modeling, so you might check that out, too. And practice! Check out the examples you can find on the forum as well. Ears are the hardest part, so check out how I worked them out by tracing back to the "Ear" thread through the link at the beginning of this thread.

 

i gotta tell you man...that is the best ear i have EVER seen lol.

 

Since this all started with an ear, I should do a short where a whole human grows from the ear!

 

Bill Gaylord

[the_black_mage]

lol that would be funny man

[rusty]

Bill,

 

That's good! I have to disagree with reducing the splines around the cheeks, you need it when you start animating the face in my experience. The low spline examples are real nice but there's no way to get the wrinkles you need in extreme expressions (maybe using some kind of animated bump maps but I wouldn't want to try that).

 

I adopted Bill Young's 'Modeling the Face' method a couple of years ago and also did a 'self portrait' and also one of my daughter. We're both staring in my current project LOL. Bill Young's CD is good. Its 'almost' a step by step process you can follow along with except when you get to adding the ear... he says something like 'and now I'll just connect these other splines around the ear...' but when he comes back, the splines below and behind the ear had changed on you! He skips to the neck part LOL. But with some investigation you can get around that.

 

Another thing, if you compare the splines you now have (and also the splines on my 'self portrait') to the end result he winds up with you'll find that a spline coming off the side of the mouth is different! He skips that change too. But beyond that the cd is excellent and the spline construction is awesome for animation.

 

I was going to post my own work but think I might do it in a new thread.

 

Cheers,

Rusty

[williamgaylord]

I'd love to see your portraits, Rusty. Go ahead and start a parallel thread. Have you rigged yours yet? I'm looking forward to giving the Squetch rig a try once I get all the missing pieces added. Also might try some facial rigging ideas of my own.

 

Bill Gaylord

[rusty]

I'd love to see your portraits, Rusty. Go ahead and start a parallel thread. Have you rigged yours yet? I'm looking forward to giving the Squetch rig a try once I get all the missing pieces added. Also might try some facial rigging ideas of my own.

 

Bill Gaylord

 

I'll post as soon as I have time to find or create images. Yes, there are rigged currently with the face bone rig introduced by S. Freeman on one of the SIG CD sets (note: my 'character models' are only the bald heads because, as virtual actors, they can't associated with specific hair-dos/hair color or outfits or even face maps -- these are all separate, interchangeable and I've developed a kind of 'snap on' system for all this). On one (the one of me) I've added the 3D Squetch controls over that rig. However, I too wish to change everything to the 'face rig/3D control' portion of the Squetch Rig. Older models I want to make improvements on are getting this upgrade now, my newer models rigged and tested 'might' get switched over later.

 

My 'outfits' (everything below the neck) are currently rigged using TMS2 but I also wish to switch a couple of new outfits (rigged but not yet fine tuned) to Squetch.

 

Cheers,

Rusty

[Rodney]

Bill,

I'm just now taking the time to look at your self portrait and I've gotta say that I'm impressed.

I keep looking at your splineage... and getting lost in it. It's a bit like I'm saying to myself... "Self... now why didn't you think of that"?

 

In particular I'm liking the subtle placement of hooks and curvature that hints at forms under the skin.

The brow for instance... all of it really... and of course that ear.

 

Looking forward to the eventual decaling stage!

[rusty]

Bill,

I'm just now taking the time to look at your self portrait and I've gotta say that I'm impressed.

I keep looking at your splineage... and getting lost in it. It's a bit like I'm saying to myself... "Self... now why didn't you think of that"?

 

No big deal, and certainly not to take anything away from Bill who did very good job, but if you'd read the thread closer you would have known that Bill used Bill Young's 'How to Model a Face' and the spline layout, hooks, etc. all came from that. I use it as well. So... "Self... now why didn't you think of buying Bill Young's CD". There is still a LOT of work and a LOT of things you decide on as you use Young's system and that's where Bill did a splendid job.

 

Well, I think. I don't have an image of Bill to compare to his model, LOL! But despite that he formed the face well. Many people can follow Young's CD and not do so well. My own attempt at doing this (which I'll post soon) could have been better as far as the likeness to myself goes.

 

:-)

 

Rusty

[Rodney]

No big deal, and certainly not to take anything away from Bill who did very good job, but if you'd read the thread closer you would have known that Bill used Bill Young's 'How to Model a Face' and the spline layout, hooks, etc. all came from that.

 

Own the CD.. read that part 'o the post... but thanks for the info anyway.

 

Added: I highly recommend any and all of Anzovin's training CDs.

[williamgaylord]

Indeed, Bill Young's tutorial certainly gave me a big "head" start! Seriously, most of it followed Bill Young's example very closely. I used photos of myself for rotoscopes, and large machinist calipers to take more precise measurements (a mirror also helped). The ears were mostly my own work though, with some big hints taken from the fine splinage of Mark Strohbehn and Yves Poissant.

 

By the way, if you take photos for rotoscopes of someone as your model, use as long a telephoto lens focal length as you can and take the photo from as far away as you can short of losing details. Otherwise the point of view will cause distortions (most obvious in an extreme closeup) that will make it hard to match the front view with the side view. You want to approximate an isometric view rather than a perspective view.

 

I don't have an image of Bill to compare to his model, LOL!

 

How about one of my baby pictures:

[rusty]

if you take photos for rotoscopes of someone as your model, use as long a telephoto lens focal length as you can and take the photo from as far away as you can short of losing details. Otherwise the point of view will cause distortions (most obvious in an extreme closeup) that will make it hard to match the front view with the side view. You want to approximate an isometric view rather than a perspective view.

 

Good tips. Two others; make sure the tilt of the head is the same in all photos (this is what messed me up a little on my attempt to do my face) and, find a way to also take photos at exactly 45 degrees to the left and right (or just one way then mirror it). Doing only front and back tends to create a square with unseen angles left to chance and use it by turning the model 45 degrees each way as an additional guide to the shape.

 

Cheers,

Rusty

[rusty]

I'd love to see your portraits, Rusty. Go ahead and start a parallel thread. Have you rigged yours yet? I'm looking forward to giving the Squetch rig a try once I get all the missing pieces added. Also might try some facial rigging ideas of my own.

 

Bill Gaylord

 

Bill,

 

I've been overwhelming busy the last few days -- wanted to render some new images but no time. In fact it wasn't until about 2:00 AM this morning that I found time to look for some existing images but of course the ones I wanted were not were they were supposed to be. However, remembering I'd emailed these recently I was able to find the email and attachments -- sized down for email the resolution is less then ideal but... hopefully good enough. I posted these in a new thread called "Another Self Portrait". The image of my daughter came from a green screen session we did to create the main image on site's home page (www.virtualmediastudios.com). I posted a few frames from my current project but, LOL, I just started doing the scenes with characters and, in the only decent looking shots I have right now both characters are facing away.

 

Anyway, you can take a look.

 

Cheers,

Rusty