Meet Sandra, My First Head

[Olorin]

I was going to wait until she was more complete before I showed her to the crowds, but I'm itching for some input - and she's just so darned cute!! I wanted to do a child for my first head model since their contours are so much rounder and simpler than adults. Now I've got the basic shape, but I find I'm at a loss about how to approach the eyelids and especially the ears. Any suggestions would be most helpful.

 

The model (human) is about 11 years old. Do you think I captured her youthfulness? The decal is from a photo of her, but not the same one I used for the rotoscope. OK, criticize (and suggest) away.

 

B-

[SeanC.]

Wow, for a first head youve definitely got some good things going on here. Your splines seem laid out rather well and there definitely seems to be a sense of youthfulness about her. For the decal i would look online for some help on how to apply a realistic decal such as the one u are using. As for the ears, check this link out. This guy uses modeling techniques i have found to be invaluable.

 

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

 

Also, there seems to be a dark ring on the nose area. Not sure if thats a shadow, modeling or decal but may want to chek that out.

 

Hope i helped a little,

 

Sean C.

[Olorin]

Thanks, Sean. That's a great link.. I'll definitely learn a lot from that!!

[genocell]

I'm new in this businesss but I'll give a shot in my input.

 

Nice model you got there! It needs only a few adjustments

more to be smoother. Kids got smooth faces. Then, add

the Porcelain material after you smooth it out. It helps

with the lighting. Add 1 more spline to the laugh line if

you want her to laugh real good. (The spline that goes from

the sides of the nose to the sides of the mouth)

Kids today laugh a lot. A good smile helps too for the kid's mental.

 

If you don't want her to smile that's okay. You don't have

to alter it anymore.

 

Keep up the good work!

[Olorin]

Thanks, Genocell. I definitely want her to have a beautiful sunny smile, so I'll try your suggestion. I'm also gonna fiddle with her nose like SeanC suggested, to make it softer and less harshly angled. Maybe this weekend I'll tackle the ears and the eyelids.

 

BTW, can you tell me more about the porcelain material? Can I use it in addition to decals? How does it work? Where do I find it (it's not in the libraries that come with AM)?

[genocell]

At the top of the forum there's a search button.

Just enter porcelain in the search form.

 

There's also in the Martin TechNotes in the

Hash homepage if you want it in depth.

 

happy Hashing!

[Olorin]

Well, I found the porcelain material and applied it, but I didn't see any difference. My model was not any smoother. Is there a trick to making it work?

[Olorin]

OK, I got the porcelain thing figured out. The problem was that it's effect is only visible in renderings, not in shaded mode. This may seem painfully obvious to some, but I found absolutely no mention at all of this simple fact in any available docs, Martin's Tech Notes, or in any post revealed by a forum search. So here for posterity is what I learned about applying Porcelain:

 

1. Porcelain effect is not visible in shaded views, only rendered views.

 

2. Black, blotchy surfaces in models using porcelain are caused by patches with normals turned wrong way around.

 

3. Strange spline artifacts can be eliminated by a) saving, closing and reopening the model after porcelain has been applied and rendering twice in a row - sometimes the renderer doesn't get the normal blending right the first time.

 

Now that I got it working it's really cool. My model looks sooo smooth. I thought at first that the porcelain/normal thing would be a pain but it actually turns out to be a great way to quickly find the areas where normals are reversed. Porcelain clearly shows the trouble spots, then the 'normal hairs' show the exact patches that need flipping.

 

OK, enough blather. I'll post an updated model in the next day or two for comments, etc.

 

B-

[Olorin]

OK, as promised here is the latest on Sandra's head. I've fixed a number of issues with her chin and brow areas, softened and smoothed her nose considerably, added 'laugh lines' which made her mouth look more natural and I've applied the porcelain material to make her softer and rounder. Whaddya think?

 

Here's a rendering using a simple skin material and slight lip coloration. Next, I tackle the eyelids and then the ears (with some trepidation).

[Olorin]

And here she is with a set of eyelids. Took a while but once I decided to model them in the closed position it worked out fairly well.

 

I decided to try out the v11 hair for eyelids and that turned out pretty well, too, for a crude first try. I could get used to that Hair System stuff. Now I just need to figure out how to make a pose so I can get her to open and close those pretty eyes for me. I couldn't get enough info from the manual or the help file... I'll scan the tutes and see if I can find the missing info. In the meantime, if anyone knows of a particular tute for making poses with v11 don't be shy about letting me know.

 

B-

[Olorin]

Well, I'm pretty pleased with the way my model is progressing, but since noone else seems to be interested, perhaps I should cease posting updates. If anyone would like to see more let me know, otherwise I'll just keep her to myself.

 

B-

[Simon Edmondson]

If anyone would like to see more let me know, otherwise I'll just keep her to myself.

Well, as someone less adept at modeling than yourself I am very impressed with the model. Not least the economy of the splines you have employed.

 

My current effort has about twice as many splines doing about half as much. Did you use thge equalise normals feature ? If so can you tell me where to find it. I've tried searching to no avail and I know it has been discussed before.

 

Is she your sister or daughter?

[Olorin]

Well, as someone less adept at modeling than yourself I am very impressed with the model. Not least the economy of the splines you have employed.

Thanks much. I tried to be frugal. I based my splinage on a model by sonofpat (see earlier posts this forum) which is of Naomi Campbell. I wasn't sure if the layout would work as well for a caucasoid face as they do for a negroid face, but they seem to do just fine. Probably be just as good for a male face, too.

 

Did you use thge equalise normals feature ?

 

No, I didn't. Haven't heard of it before. I did spend considerable time flipping normals to get them all facing out, though.

 

Is she your sister or daughter?

 

No, just a model I found on the web. Lately I've spent so much time staring closely at her face, though, I'm beginning to feel like she's a long-lost niece.