First attempt at a nurb patch human model
 

The next three shots are of my first attempt at a nurbs patch model.

I started this a while ago but stopped working on it to learn more about the basics of maya. It was really to ambisious a project as my first nurbs model in maya.

The boy is my nephew. I used a digital photos for reference materials.

(1) The first photo is the basic nurbs head mass

(2) The patches I have completed. I stopped because I was not really happy with some of the patches and decided to take a break to rethink how I want to complete it.

(3) The full body so far.

I will probably start with the base nurb head mass and keep the nose patch. I am not happy with the way the eyes were progressing and I will probably scrap them and start over.

Probably scrap the mouth as well. The lips are looking strange and I have not been able to put my finger on it, but I'll figure em out as I get more of the chin and cheek area patched.

The ears are just fast and dirty place holders.

The shirt and pants I modeled from the reference photo.

The shoes, hair and hands are subd's I imported from the sybex master maya book.

(2) The patches so far...

(3) the full body ( the nurbs patches just on top of the nurbs head mass)...

Oh, and here was my reference photos...

I plopped some hair on him in the full body shot. Here is a upper torso without the hair. You can see it matches the reference pretty well for my first attept.

Nurbs YUk... very nice model =)

Very nice job. :) NURBS patch modeling can be very tricky, and it looks like you've gotten the hang of it very well.

good start. but face needs much more work. nose, eyes, mouth, ears. u should reconsider your curve network setup.

I am pretty happy with the head mass shape and the nose patch.

The mouth patch is okay but I think it will need to be refined when I get more of the surrounding cheek patches in.

The eye patches will need to be redone. At some point I tried to reduce the geometry and refine the mesh and I lost a ton of detail then I overwrote the file, (newbie lession number 1 - backup to seperate file and backup often!).

The patch network is boluxed and that is why I stoped the model at this point. I intend to come back and finish it but I decided to take a detour and learn more about basic maya modelling with polygons and poly proxies and subd's first.

Jumping into a major human nurbs patch modelling project as ones first forray into maya is probably not the best way to go. The initial massing goes really fast in nurbs but adding detailed patches and then then patch network require a lot of work and pre-planning.

I might redo this project in polygon modelling then use the polygon mesh and draw on surface to build the base nurbs network and then complete the nurbs model.

For me I am thinking nurbs (basic massing) -> poly's/poly proxy for roughing in details and bulding a rough nurbs network -> back to nurb's to complete the model, might be a better way to go. This way I will use the poly model as a wrap deformer and as a starting surface to build my nurbs network from.

This has the added bonus of being able to make a very light poly model that I can then dress in some embarrasing outfit and put into one of the first person shooters. Problem is I have not seen any 3d game that your can added your own models AND skins to yet. :(

Thanks for the comments.

I am learning all the time and maya is a blast!

Cheers:(

wireframe on shaded so you can see the current patch network on top of the base nurbs mass.

Very Nice:)

It´s looking really good, clean smooth detail. ;)

Liked you model, looking forward for the development