sprockets The Snowman is coming! Realistic head model by Dan Skelton Vintage character and mo-cap animation by Joe Williamsen Character animation exercise by Steve Shelton an Animated Puppet Parody by Mark R. Largent Sprite Explosion Effect with PRJ included from johnL3D New Radiosity render of 2004 animation with PRJ. Will Sutton's TAR knocks some heads!
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Hash, Inc. - Animation:Master

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Posted

Hi Guys,

 

I've been away from this software too long. I've lost my modeling techniques... :(

I'm looking for a pretty basic, but good head modeling tutorial. Which do you recommend?

The model I need to do is a cartoon character - it's basically a "ball" head (no ears, pretty simple features, but fully functional mouth and expressions) - Actually, it's going to be a flaming head (another challenge). I'ts a stick figure that is going to be a character for a wood burning pizza place - like a match stick with a flame for a head.

 

I'd love your recommendations...

 

(BTW, I did not design this character, I just have to build, rig and animate it!)

woody_character.jpg

woody_character.jpg

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Posted

There is a head tutorial in The Art of Animation:Master booklet but it's over complex for what you want to do here.

 

My basic strategy is to start with the obvious features first.

 

make the mouth

make the nose

make the eye sockets

 

then add the splines that connect between them.

Posted

Based on the character's design, I'd model the flaming head and use decals for the eyes and mouth. Making the head appear to be animating flame is going to be the tough part.

Posted

animating the flaming head with a animated material should work see one of my blog posts for animating flames...will try something when on computer now on chromebook

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Posted

This is no tutorial but I couldn't resist...

 

Here is an attempt/proof of concept, translating directly what I see in the drawing.

Without a side view there is much to be desired from the profile view.

 

I won't say this is the best way to proceed but it's the one I experimented with.

I like the idea of using decals but there is something about having the geometry there to work with that appeals to me as well.

Likewise I decided to pursue geometry as the base for the flame... not quite sure that works.

It might be better to make the entire head partially transparent (i.e. like the flame) with a mesh underneath to hide whatever shouldn't be seen.

 

I started breaking things so figured I had better post this before I no longer had anything to post.

At the very last minute I added a Light at the head of the character.

For better control of lighting it would probably be better to add the flames light independent of the character.

 

Added: Forgot to mention that I borrowed gloves from Rabbit and Shoes from Edit out of the A:M Library.

Doh, looking back at the rotoscope I see I forgot to add the characters teeth!

Woody000.png

Woodyz000.png

WoodyLit000.png

Woody.prj

Posted

Hey guys, thanks for all of the suggestions. I'll probably go back to the basic face tutorial in the book take it from there. John, I like the material you used on the face - I may have to borrow that from you, but I think I will try putting an array of particle emitters on the top of this model w/ animated velocity values to get the flames varying in heights. I'll keep you posted as it develops.

 

Oh, and Rodney! Nice job on the quick and dirty Woody! I used to be fast like that! You lose a lot when you've been away from this software for like 10 years!

 

thanks again,

 

Tommy

Posted

I'm sure it'll come back to you, Tommy.

 

There are some new tools in A:M, too. I haven't tried this yet, but I was thinking one day that you could use the new retopology tool to draw your faces onto shapes, much like using shapes as the foundation of a cartoon drawing:

 

How%20to%20draw%20faces%20uncle%20sam%20cartoons%20Bill%20Nolan%20cartooning%20self%20taught.jpg

 

For example, you could take a couple of spheres and create a cartoon head shape. As long as they had fairly dense splinage, you could then use the retopology tool to draw the eye holes and mouth hole and the shape of the head and use that as your starting point.

Posted (edited)
There is a head tutorial in The Art of Animation:Master booklet but it's over complex for what you want to do here.

 

I'll probably go back to the basic face tutorial in the book take it from there.

 

As Robcat said, that's probably a bit complex for what you want to do.

 

Have a look at this tut based on a SIMPLE way to model any head/face (based on Malo's method of modeling) - it is another example, another way done for a cartooney type head. This method almost guarentees that you will end up with an optimal number of splines. ie least amount for amount of detail. Always a good thing when you want to rig a face, least amount of cp's to weight, bone.

tut2splines.jpg

Edited by NancyGormezano
Posted
I'm sure it'll come back to you, Tommy.

 

There are some new tools in A:M, too. I haven't tried this yet, but I was thinking one day that you could use the new retopology tool to draw your faces onto shapes, much like using shapes as the foundation of a cartoon drawing:

 

How%20to%20draw%20faces%20uncle%20sam%20cartoons%20Bill%20Nolan%20cartooning%20self%20taught.jpg

 

For example, you could take a couple of spheres and create a cartoon head shape. As long as they had fairly dense splinage, you could then use the retopology tool to draw the eye holes and mouth hole and the shape of the head and use that as your starting point.

 

 

This retopology tool you speak of.... Hmmm... sounds interesting. I'm sure there are threads on it. can you point me to a concise overview?

Posted

As far as Woody's concerned... Here's the route I've opted to go with him...

Screen_shot_2013_10_22_at_10.18.48_PM.png

 

Not totally happy with him and the particles take to long to render, but now I've got to still get him rigged set up, and lip-synch animated tonight! It's going to be a long one!

Posted

No... he had too much detail and the particles were killing me! 2 min/frame for that simple little character! Going to take another stab at him today w/ a much simpler approach. I did a quick sketch so I could use it for roto - I created a profile for him... I'll let you know how he turns out.

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