First effort...

[Morphy]

I'm still just a few inches off the ground, at the foot of the A:M learning curve. After some messing around with tutorials, I decided to have a shot at making a figure of my own.

 

I think this Work In Progress is probably just progressing towards the trashcan - it has too many splines in some places and not enough in others, endless 3 and 5-point patches, some dead-end splines and lots of other bad stuff ('cos I don't yet know how to do it better). But I thought that making a figure of my own (complete with errors that will make it difficult or impossible to rig and animate) might be the quickest way to learn WHY models have to be built in a particular way.

 

But even if he won't work, I'm kinda pleased with how the face turned out.

[CRToonMike]

Nice face!

 

What I discovered when I first started using A:M to model (and I'm not a pro yet) is that the more I model with it, the better I understand how splines work as a 'group.' There's a bunch of tutes on the ARM (in the modeling head and body section) that I found helpful. There's the SAY head, that you can d/l a project and see how Young did the head. The best thing about that tute is using the "wrinkles" that happen for you. I found that by hitting a CP and then the comma key allows me to see the whole spline and how it is placed and connected.

 

With the models that I felt was going to be trashed, I kept working with them and learned how to delete a spline in a few steps (select a CP on the splne you want to get rid of, hit the comma to select the entire spline, then the period to 'reverse' [complement] the selection twice. The first comeplement will invert the selection, the second re-selects the orginal spline -- my mind uses the paradigm that the second time selects the spline's CP's in "both directions." Then you can hit the delete key and viola! the spline is totally gone.

 

I found that by deleting and then adding CP's and splines really got me thinking about splines and patches and when to hook, use 5-pointers and such.

 

Good Luck and I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

[KenH]

He looks great regardless of the underlying mess It's pretty easy when you get the hang of it. Just remember animation areas need rings around them and it's just a matter of joining them up into the face you want. Oh and less is more with splines as you know.

[Morphy]

Mike,

 

thanks for the tips. I still have an AWFUL lot to learn about spines, but at least with splines I've managed to create my first humanoid figure - something I never managed to do when I dabbled with polys.

 

I think I'll keep various versions of this figure as a 'lab rat' and perform weird experiments on it in an attempt to see what works better (or worse).

 

Ken,

 

It really IS an underlying mess - I was actually going to post a pic showing the splines, but I chickened out! Some three-point patches, lots of large 5-points, and hooks in all sorts of places where there probably ought not to be hooks!

 

But hey, this time a couple of weeks ago I didn't even know what a 3 or 5-point or hook was. I feel a bit the same as the first time I did a drawing with a pencil: I could see it was far from great, but got the feeling that 'if I keep practising this, I could get to be OK at it...'

 

With the face, I found the biggest problem was that it looked like it was modeled from a wet paper bag or something, and didn't really look as if there were bones and muscles under the skin.

 

A quick question, if anyone has time to answer - One of the things I found hardest was to stitch the ear to the head. It got me wondering... Is there any definite advantage to stitching it (ie, making the whole model connected)? Would it be 'wrong' to make the ear a separate entity and just position it against the head without any stitching? Sort of like the eyes or teeth, but on the outside?

 

Thanks again, guys.

[-TC-]

I can't help you with your question, but just thaught i would say that your model is lookin great. I still haven't got the hang of 3/5 point patches, but im sure with practice, i should learn.

The mouth and jaw area reminds me of your "Washer" character.

[adamP]

I don't think there are any advantages or disadvantages for attaching the ears to the head. It depends on what YOU prefer. The ears look pretty good to me already.

 

btw - nice job on the skin texture

[CRToonMike]

In his "SAYhed" tutorial, Young mentions that having an ear being a part of the 'body' mesh is a good way to get rid of excess splines because the ear is a junction where there are creases and such already, so splines can be hooked there. And the ear has so much detail, usually you'll use most of the splines that end up there. And he's totally right. I think that any advantage/disadvantage of having a ear be part of the body mesh is going to be dependent on what you want the model to do. If the character is bald (or folically[sp] impaired), I would think that having the ears be a part of the model would work best.