DM - Holly's Project

Hey Holly,

It's no problem, I am looking forward to it and just hope that I can be some sort of help.

You seem to have made a good start to your mesh. I wouldn't worry too much about the joins...........no one will ever see them!! Just be sure to extend the head mesh underneath the body mesh so you will never see any gaps.

I hope you don't mind but I have scribbled a few nots on the images you posted, thought it was the best way to explain what I was thinking. Here they are:





For her bum, it might be worth flattening off that area and extruding out the glute muscle. This will give you extra geometry to create the crease between her bum and upper thigh. Be sure to blend the top of the extrusion into the back mesh so you don't end up with a "shelf".

A note for all on the shoulder/chest section is that be sure to keep the volume of the chest muscle as it inserts onto the upper arm. Scott Eaton mentions it as a major point in this month's 3D World........give his article a look, it is very useful. I think as a rule if you see where the muscles flow and insert and follow with polys you won't go too far wrong.

For the hips I would look at increasing the angle of the edge loops between the groin and the hip bone. When you bend your leg the crease angles up higher than your hip bone. Have a look at this model I found on CGSociety: http://forums.cgsociety.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=117381 . It has been modelled following the muscle groups. Obvoiusly, your model will not need this level of definition but the general principle is similar.

Also, check out Samar Vijay's cow girl. This is a fantastic model and he shows his topology on his site: http://www.samar3d.com/cowgirl.html#

Hope this is helpful. Look forward to seeing the progress.

Cheers,

Dan

DM - Jamie's Project

Hi Jamie,

Your project looks great......really interesting.

I think you have totally the right idea as far as reusing as much of the mesh as possible. I think if I were to tackle this project I would go as far as possible with the base mesh in T pose. By this I mean get some deformable topology, doing your UV's will be considerably easier in a non deformed position and this might make it easier for you to paint your textures. When in ZBrush, I would suggest experimenting with the morph target and 3D layer facilities. These should allow you to pose your model with the possibility of popping back to your t-pose were you needing to adjust the base mesh (i.e. change UV's or topology). You might find it difficult to retopologise a posed mesh, especially in areas such as bent elbows and knees.

You have made a good start on your props. If you have plans to take them into Zbrush at all you might think about breaking up some of the longer polys. I think those kind of objects are really sold by the texture, so keep your eye out for some good dirt textures to add over the metal work ( www.cgtextures.com ). The Helmet I might have considered making in XSI but in depends how close you are thinking going into the model. The holes might benefit from showing the thickness of the metal up close. As it would have been made from sections of metal sheet riveted together I would try and model it like that. Also, managing the addition of holes in panel work is a challenge and might show off your hard surface modelling skills.

The horse mesh is a good start. Just check the head size as it looks a touch large at the moment. Also, think about it's purpose. A Horse capable of carrying a knight in battle would probably have been a very powerful animal. Try to convey this in the model when it comes to sculpting the neck, "shoulders" and hind quarters. There is a great section on horses in the "Death of a Centaur" section on Scott Eaton's site.

All in all I think you have made a great start. look forward to seeing how things progress.

Cheers,

Dan

Hi Dan

Thanks for agreeing to Mentor us in Modeling.

Here's my project, I'm doing a Sailor Girl Pin-up model, sat on the rather large handrail of a ship. I intend to model and texture her for the purpose of animation

The black lines are my way of manipulating the 16:9 ratio of the screen to make the image a portrait format.


I was able get some T-pose images of my model
and have decided to model her starting in
her underwear to get basic feel of muscles and
proportions, but I intend to model her mainly in
her costume.

I have split the mesh in two. The body ends at the neckline of the sweater.

I've gotten confused about the flow of the the way the two meshes meet. I'm not happy with the way the shoulders flow into the neck, and the way the chest flows into the neck. Please advise if possible.






















I intend to taper the waist in as the model will be wearing a belt. But even so this is one area that I want to alter to make it look smaller.

I have not yet worked in any muscles to the legs or the forearms, but I intend to do this.

I look forward to seeing how you add edgeloops to the hips to make them animatable.

Another area where I've gotten confused is how to make good topology for the boobs and the shoulders, because I'm concerned about how many stars I've put on my mesh - can you advise if the stars around this area are okay, or could be bettered?

Hope this makes sense, let me know if you need any more images.

Will quiz you on the face next...

Thanks

Holly

Jamie's Project!

Hi, Jamie here, I'll try to explain my project:

The idea is based on an important moment in Scottish history. On the 23rd June 1314, the first day of the battle of Bannockburn, the Scottish leader king Robert the Bruce was involved in a clash with English knight Sir Henry de Bohun. The incident is said to have happened when a section of the English army were involved in a skirmish with the Scottish forces. Sir Henry caught sight of the Scottish king and started a glorious horseback charge with lance in hand to eliminate the Scottish king before the battle had even properly began. Bruce, caught unawares and apparently not fully dressed for battle remarkably stood his ground and waited for the advancing knight. As De Bohun thundered towards him Bruce, armed only with a hand axe, evaded the knights lance and struck an almighty killing blow embedding his axe-head in the Englishman’s helm. Bruce emerged victorious and when told by his commanders that his actions were foolish and that he should have fled he is said to have only expressed regret that his axe had broken in two upon impact. This small triumph against the odds prove to be a symbol of the spirit of the Scots, their army emerging victorious despite being outnumbered by 3 to 1 by a better equipped force. The project that I wish to complete is a detailed modelling project capturing this momentous clash. (the moment I chose is shown above in my concept drawing)

Here are my character sheets for the two men and their horses:

With the designs complete and research gathered I have begun production over the last week or so. I don't really have any specific questions at the moment, appart from a few things that I've come across. I just thought I would post to introduce the project and show how it is going. My main problems so far have been deciding how exactly to tackle the project, I wanted to work efficiently and to reuse as much as possible between the 2 horses and the 2 men. Deciding when to split the one man model into the individual characters was difficult for me, not having any experience with character modelling. They both are in very different poses and alot of the high frequency detail will be unique to the poses, eg. folds and twists in clothing so I decided to get the models into pose quite quickly.

I made a basic Zsphere base mesh, used both XSI and Zbrush to refine the basic forms, sculpted the hands whilst in the t-pose to make use of symmetrical sculpting and then transposed the models in Zbrush to the rough poses. I planned from the start to retopologise to a neater mesh as would be used for anamation deformations. There's alot of twisting and untidy geo after my transopsing, especially round the twist in Bruce's neck, so I might retopologise now, before I sculpt any further. Do you think that would be wise? Also I unwrapped the body's Uvs in XSI before transposing (so in T-pose), this made sense to me at the time but now I'm having doubts as to whether it would be more sensible to unwrap the final retopologised mesh to ensure there's no unwanted stretching, rather than transferring the Uvs the current model has. (eg. using GATOR). I wonderred how you would tackle this?

I've also been working on some of the hard modelling accesories alongside the organice stuff. I also started thining about the intense angry expression on Bruce's face and sketched it out in Zbrush. (a long way to go with this, it will most likely be separate geometry from the body itself)

I have a basic horse basemesh for sculpting from too. I need to get the main anatomy sculpted in and define some areas much better. I will most likely do this in this neutral pose and then transpose it into the 2 very different horse poses.

Apologies for all the writing, was struggling to explain myself in fewer words! Hope it all makes sense. Cheers, Jamie

DM - for All

Hi All,

Just a quick note to say good luck with the final push on the MA.

I thought I would post a few links to forum threads that I found incredibly useful during my MA project and still use a few years on.

Topology research:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=25&t=38469

Body Topology:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=7&t=108412

There are some huge names that regularly help out anyone who posts on these threads. I would advise everyone to post there questions there as there are people with decades of experience to help you.

Anyway, good luck and I look forward to seeing how everyone is getting on.

Cheers,

Dan

DM - Lies - Basic Meshes

Hey Lies,

Looks like you have made a good start to what looks a really nice project.

As to your question regarding Sub Surface scattering and displacement. I am not aware that there is any issues with using them together. I used the skin shader with displacement in my MA piece and it worked fine...........just takes a while to render!! :D

From what I can see most things are shaping up well.

I hope you don't mind but I have added a few bullet points to some of your posted images. Seemed like a good way to explain what I was thinking.

With female models it is very easy to make the features too harsh. My advice to all doing female characters is add in the landmarks features then gradually soften them back. Men are easier because you can make them look ugley!! :D

With your body mesh you are free to go as far as you like really. If you are just using it to allow you to correctly position and shape the clothing which covers most of it, then the topology is not crucial. However, if you want to demonstrate your ability to model a human body on your reel, then I would suggest looking at the hip area. You will need some edge loops to allow the legs to animate properly. I will try and draw on you mest to show you what I mean.

For the hands you might consider moving the thumb joint so that it sits about halfway between the wrist and the thumb tip. Also, it might be worth add in some geometry where the knuckles will be as that is an area of slightly higher detail.

Here are a few pointers and suggestions to get you started:

Basic meshes

I've been making the body and the head.
The body has been modeled in XSI. You will actually only see the arms and hands in the final model. I'd like to have some advice on the topology and how to tackle the hands. I heard that using displacement maps and subsurface scattering doesn't go well together, but I was planning on using subsurface scattering on the skin and a displacement map for the arms, hands and face. Do you think it is better to model the arms and hands entirely in XSI, or is there another way where I don't need to use a displacement map?


I've been sculpting the head in ZBrush, starting with a sphere. After the main shapes, I retopologized the mesh so I could add more detail. I then imported the high res mesh in XSI and rendered some images. The wireframe you see in the image is the second subdivision level from ZBrush. I still need to define the features a little bit better. Especially the side view needs some more work.


I had to make the edge loops around the eyes quite low because of the pronounced cheeks I was going for. I'm wondering if this is a good topology of the head and if I'm on track in the overall process. Does the head need more detail in Zbrush, or should I add additional detail with bump and diffuse maps?

Lies Veldeman Master Project

Hi, I'm Lies and for my master project I'm going to model a Victorian woman. I chose to do a Victorian woman because of the complex clothing in that era.

I'm including a couple of images that I've been making for my concept art so you have a better idea of what I'm planning to model.

The moment that I'm going to model is the moment the woman takes off her mask, symbolic of her situation/back story. She is reaching out for a moth that is flying around a lantern.

I'm going to base the head of the model on Cate Blanchett because of her strong features.

I'm going to use XSI and ZBrush for this project. I'm modeling a basic mesh for 2 reasons: For posing the character and for using it in other projects.

Testing.

Hi folks,

Just tested out video and picture uploading, worked fine, but couldn't work out how to delete the post entirely. Best I could do was remove the items! Anyways, I'll be posting properly very soon!

Jamie.

Hello! Add a post when your all set up, and may the modelling mayhem begin!