Modelling Considerations

# 1 09-06-2005 , 10:25 PM

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Hi Guys,

I've been modelling for some time now, and I'm familiar with most of the tools, etc. But I've run into a question that I can't seem to find an answer to. I like to know these types of things before I go too far and realize there was a way easier solution.

I've noticed in one of the modelling tutorials (Cartoon dog) the nose is not actually attached into the main body mesh. Is there a an advantage to having this as a separate piece, for rigging or animating? I was wondering this, because for animating and texturing purposes this could either add or subtract alot of time if done correctly.

I understand why you would have the eyeballs and mouth as separate pieces, but what about horns/noses or things like that? They could be attached, but is there and advantage to having a model setup this way? Grouping or parenting to joints? Will I have problems with blendshapes or animating?

Anyone have some good advice on setting up characters?

!MasterFool

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# 2 10-06-2005 , 10:45 PM

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Yeah, I saw it too. The nose( or horn, maybe ), it's better to keep it as a separated face until, on my oppinion, you texture everything.
To the eyes, try to see what happens if you rig it when it's attached to the body( I'm not too sure exactly what is goin' to happen, though, but... ), it's goin' to look as a arm attached to a torso, for example.

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# 3 11-06-2005 , 12:12 PM

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You may run into a few problems when you try to blendshape the nose. When you apply a blendshape you can only do it to one object so to blendshape the face you would have to combine the nose and face then blendshape the entire lot.
This however can cause when texturing you have to be careful with the uv's because you basicaly merge the two uv maps together.
You also have to be careful with your history and pivots when you parent objects and animate them, things can rotate on their own.
Another problem with parenting the nose is that if you wanted to do a nose twitch (bewitched style) it would look unrealistic when the nose is unattached because no skin around the nose would deform and you would need a bone for the nose.
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The only reason eyes are generally parented is because all they have to do is rotate on a local axis so you can target them to a locator and move the locator around which is simplier in animation.

I dont know what you mean by having the mouth as a seperate piece, i think it is often done with blendshapes of the face, you can use the membership tool in the deeformers menu to have a blendshape to apply to only certain vertexs of the entire model ( in this case the mouth). I know it can be done with bones in the face but i've had no experience with this method.

There are definetly peices of a character that you could simply attach but you have to be careful and plan what that will do in an animation because if you change your mind during animation to change it means changing a whole lot of things, so plan ahead.

hope it helps to clear things up

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Last edited by mumbojumbo_13; 11-06-2005 at 12:15 PM.

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# 4 11-06-2005 , 10:03 PM

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Thanks Guys

Heheh,

Yeah, eyeballs attached would be funny, I've gotten eyeballs down pretty good. I never actually attached eyes before user added image

I see what you mean about the nose, because a nose twitch or other facial expressions are key. That advice made alot of sense, thanx.

As for the mouth, say you create the inside of the mouth (gums and teeth I should have said, my bad) as a separate piece and parent to the jaw joint, just as you parent the eyeballs to the head joint. That all made sense to me.

!MasterFool

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Modelling Considerations

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