My First Head

[Srmjr]

...It's shameful that I've had A:M for years and never attempted modeling a human head, so here it is. Please look at the spline layout and offer your (CONSTRUCTIVE ) thoughts- especially about the neck. I'm having trouble there. Also the ear connections are a little haphazzard, hazarrd ha..., oh you know what I mean.

 

Sterling

[Rodney]

Very nice!

 

I especially like your economy of splines.

Looks to be a very low patch count model!

[Srmjr]

I especially like your economy of splines.

Looks to be a very low patch count model!

Thanks, Rodney.

 

I hope to keep it that way as I build the rest of the body. Did you check out the neck/adams apple area. The spline there is a little screwy. I admit I didn't discover the whole "maintain curvature thing until after I finished this. But I was wondering if the weirdness was being caused by the fact that it is a three spline intersection?

 

Sterling

[pleavens]

It looks like the centerline spline in the "adams apple" area is not continuous. It is a continuation of the neck spline, instead of the centerline spline.

 

If you break and reconnect it, you should be set. You'll want to do this anyway to improve your chances of future copy/flip/attaches with the model working correctly.

 

Phil

[Srmjr]

Thanks, Phil.

 

When I go about re-attaching it, how do I make sure it attaches to the center spline and not the neck. I know that maybe a "no-brainer" question, but..., well..., anyway, how do I do it?

 

Sterling

[pleavens]

Stitch them one at a time. ie.

 

Break all the bad splines and delete any unused cp's, now fill in the "hole" by continuing the centerline spline first, then stitching the neck spline loop together with the new centerline. You will have to edit the resulting cps location in the "z" axis when done.

 

Be sure to have your "show bias handles" button checked, as they will quickly show you when a spline is discontinuous or coming out of the cp connection the wrong way.

 

This will work most of the time. Sometimes (mainly when splines are at a fairly close angle to each other) it's necessary to do this in two steps.

 

1. Click and add your new spline, if it seems to be coming out of the "wrong" loop, complete just the first new cp and leave it dangling.

 

2. Now if you try again, the connection should be correct (as the other direction is taken) and you can go ahead and stitch away. Once done just delete the dangling spline.

 

One more thing, you should get rid of the "5 way" connection at the base of the neck on both sides. Just continue the loop below the upper one all the way around, or deadend it with a hook.

 

Try to avoid these types of joins, except in places where a small crease will not hurt you.

 

Phil

[Scottj3d]

Here is another way you could do it. It is basically the same except by extruding the 3 cp's in question you can do 3 at almost the same time. By deleting the disconnected splines the center one (with the bad bias) should become continuous with the spline running horizontally. Select the 3 green ones in the 3rd pic to the top right and extrude twice, This will creat the cp's to connect as well as the dangling ones. I've been getting alot of practice at this recently and it works pretty good for me. I just thought "for once here is something I can help with".

[Srmjr]

Again, thanks all! This is very helpful.

 

Sterling

[Scottj3d]

Oh, and please excuse the apprentice for not seeing the 5 pointer. he was so focused on the center he missed it. You should still be able to implement Phil's recommendation on the hook. The nice thing about AM is there are many ways accomplish the same goal.