Help on relocating some splines

[Hisako 100112]

don't laugh... but i've manged to make this partial 'face' after owning A:M for a month. but my problem is the creases and folds around the outside of the eyes and i think some around the nose. i know in order to get rid of the creases i will have to eliminate some of those three point patches, but i'm not sure where to relocate the splines and control points. maybe i should just redo the portions that are creased but i'm not sure how to rearrange it all.

 

does anybody have any suggestions?

 

hisako

[robcat2075]

Faces are tough. 3-point patches are not always bad. it depends on how they were built.

 

A CP should always have TWO splines crossing thru it like an X. Not two splines crossing plus one dead ending on it. If you see five lines heading into a CP, at least one of them is dead ending there and that will cause a crease.

 

Here's a suggestion for remedying two of such instances using hooks (the yellow dots) and a five point patch ("5")

 

 

 

Your basic strategy for the lay out of the face will cause you trouble, however. There is a face tut in TAoA:M that would do you well right now. Get to know that one. It's all about building concentric loops around the eyes and mouth. 5-pointers and hooks are used to blend those loops together as they merge into each other.

[Hisako 100112]

thanx for the suggestion. but how exactly do i access hooks? will the face tutorial help me with that? i know what hooks are but i don't know how to make them active. this help menu told me to right click and left click on single control point at the same time but it doesn't seem to work

 

how do you activate hooks?

 

thanx,

hisako

[Caroline]

The way I do hooks is:

 

1, Click and hold the left mouse on the last control point before the hook, so that it drags about.

 

2. Drag the control point to where you want the hook.

 

3. While still holding the left mouse down, do a right click.

 

4. Then let go the left mouse.

 

It will become second nature after a bit - I had to go and do it so that I could describe it. You may want to practice on a very simple mesh to start with

[jon]

any spline that's doing the same thing as it's neighbor is usually just extra baggage.

 

if that face isn't going to get much more complicated shape-wise, you should remove at least half of the splines along the cheek and chin.

 

... hooks are your friends, but so is simplicity.

 

-jon

[phatso]

I hope the following suggestions will not make you think you can skip the tutorials, you need to do them anyway, but...

 

Doing eyes and mouth as concentric ovals is the way to go. Make them as isolated units, then model the nose, then join everything up. (Some people model the nose first.) Your first try won't work because you will find that there are too many splines "here" to join up with the number of splines "there," and you'll have to use an excessive number of hooks. Print out your first try and tape it up next to the monitor so you can refer to it and see what needs to be changed on your next try.

 

There's another reason for starting with eyes and mouth as isolated units: models made this way lend themselves to natural animation.

 

When you're trying to recreate something natural, building it the way mother nature builds it is a smart move. You can't independently move the skin on the left side of your neck - try it, you'll see - but you can move your eyes and mouth in all sorts of complicated ways. Mother nature treats eyes and mouth as independent mechanisms that are stitched together with skin.

 

When you watch someone talking, you don't look at their left earlobe. You look at their eyes. Eyes, brows and mouth do 95% of the communicating. (The other 5% is cheeks, which puff up when a person smiles.) The left earlobe communicates nothing. So put your effort into modelling eyes and mouth, then just use enough splines on the rest of the face to stitch them together. That's how mother nature does it.

 

One of A:M's strengths, the ability of the user to plunge right in and do stuff straight off, is also one of its problems. People are so eager to run they don't take the time to learn to walk. Go to the book and do exercise 11.5, "Make A Face." (It's still 11.5, isn't it? I don't have my book handy.) I've done it three times and it still isn't a slam dunk for me. Once you've done that exercise, hopefully a few times, you'll be able to do a good face from scratch. You may not want to put forth the effort to slog through the exercises, but it takes a whole lot more effort to discover the techniques on your own. No need to re-invent the concentric oval.