smoothing out a face model

[bartender]

so I am brand new to using hash patches, and am getting the hang of it except, in modeling my faces in the shaded view I'm seeing alot of small bumps, and some undesireable creating. Does everyone have problems with this when they start and is it just practice ? I've been using 3 point patches sparingly and trying to smooth things out... Any tips?

[John Bigboote]

Yup---we have ALL gone thru that phase. It's frustrating, but with persistence you'll get it. 3-pointers in general are trouble. Have you discovered hooks? Also you need to learn to adjust the bias-handles a lot as you go. It's all in the manual. Keep at it!

[bartender]

Yes I have seen other models use hooks, havent quite got the hang of that yet, It feels better to know its not just me, thx!

[thefreshestever]

also, when you´re ready with modeling and bias-tweaking, use the porcellain-material to make your model even a bit smoother... be sure to have the normals all in the right way when you drop the material on your model...

[rusty]

Hi,

 

Somewhere I remember watching a tutorial on smoothing out heads. I can’t remember what his was though.

 

First, make sure you tap Page Up until your PC starts beeping!!!! This results in max patch subdivisions so you can see what’s really going on!

 

Second, for a face you will want to animate there are some guide lines which not only allow the face to animate properly but also help with smoothing. Bill Young’s ‘How to Model A Face’ CD from Anzovin Studios is the best and most complete guide on this that I have seen.

 

Back to that mystery tut, I remember this tut (I don’t think it was Young’s CD) talked about ‘lifters’. This is where you have splines traveling in the same direction (more or less) that have large spaces between the cross splines (the forehead is a place you see this). You will see these splines. Getting rid of these using just bias tweaking will be next to impossible. Lifters are simply stitching in more cross splines to ‘lift’ the offending splines up so that they do not show (if that makes sense).

 

Bias tweaking is the main way to get rid of bumps and other patch blemishes. I do not know if this will survive ‘Copy/Flip/Attach’ – in other words, if you can fix half a face then mirror it and the bias tweaks will be there on the mirrored half.

 

The porcellain-material blurs patches and is the final solution. However, I have found that it blurs maps too. However you can turn this effect up and down.

 

Rusty

[bartender]

thanks for the help guys!

 

i actually just ordered bill youngs face modeling and face rigging CDs from anovin studios, so i look forward to following that!

 

also i have been snooping around other peoples face models, and ive been clicking on CPs, then checking their bias settings, and i have notice the alpha and gamma are usually at 0, and in MAG and out MAG are 100%

 

is this mostly true, or is it all relative to other things too broad to generalize?

[bartender]

oh and also, how do i make this porcellin material?

[Caroline]

If you have downloaded the extra data that comes with A:M, or if you have the A:M CD, then the Porcelain Material is in Data\Materials\Geometry.

 

Extra data is at

ftp://ftp.hash.com/pub/misc/data.zip