Ears
 

I've been having trouble with attaching the ears to the head without that ugly choppy looking incision scar. It's hard to explain but the edges where I merge the vertices stands out so it makes the head/ear look like they are detached.

Anyone know how to correct this?

posting a pic would help us see what is wrong

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-...98/earprob.jpg

the problem is at the area where the grey suddenly changes contrast drastically. This happens whenever I attach a polygon to another polygon.

not sure and don't have too, but a picture with the wireframe on the skin might be of a better visual for others to help answer. (just a suggestion)

and i was thinking, could it have something to do with the normals?

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-...tardedprob.jpg
This is not a geometry problem. This happens whenever I polygon-> combine two polygons and merge vertices together. The line stays there no matter what I do to the geometry.

What do you mean by normals? what are you trying to say?

Yeah, looks like its a problem with your normals.

Try my normal video:

http://www.vtutorials.com/maya/normals.wmv

thanks, that video was very helpful, however, when I viewed my models vertices normals, the chaos kind of intimidating. Do I have to adjust all these normals to make a UV map?

Normals are not really related to UV's.

Send me your file and tonight when I get off work I'll take a look at it.

I have a feeling that even if your face normals are all nice, your topology isn't doing the trick (5+ sided polygons can cause some problems with shading). - I was wanting to do a video on this. Can I use your file as an example and show how to clean it up?

Re: Ears
 

This may not be the way to do it, but give it a try ^.^

Please note, you must have modeled the ear seperately from the head to do this, and they must be polygons; I can't help you if it's a NURBS model.

1) Move your ear object very close to the head

2) Make only the utmost minor adjustments to the vertices of the ear object that will be attached to the head; this is to better get the shape of the ear to match your head's curvatious side.

3) Put the ear object in its own layer, and turn it to "Relic" mode (R); this will make it unselectable, yet visible.

4) Select your head.

5) In wireframe mode (4) and side view (or front, depending on how you modeled your character/ear), use the Split Polygon tool to make additional vertices "on" the vertices of the ear where you will want to be making the connection.

6) When that's done, un-relic your ear, select your ear and your head, combine them into one object, and merge the vertices

All should be well and good...