Benny K - Winter Challenge
 

I'm in! This is my first competition in SM and I'm still pretty newbish... I hope my lots of free time at the moment and the extra long challenge can compensate my lack of experience.
And of course I can get some help here (I hope)...

I'll be going into martial arts (about the only sport I know something about) - Karate / Judo / Brazilian Jujitsu / MMA ...
My plan is to create a character, rig and skin it (after I learn how) and then see what martial art can give me the best looking scene.
Benny

I started today with some image planes, and got a part of the head done...
I'm having problems with keeping two rings in the head - mouth and eyes. (this is the first time I'm trying to build a realistic head).
Any help with cleaning the geometry will be appreciated.
Also, can someone ref a tutorial for modeling an ear please :confused:.

hi

my suggestion would be to get rid of some of the divisions around the mouth, it's way to many at this early stage of your model, imagen what the ploy count is going to be like when its smothed

Thanks jali
 

I got rid of a couple of edge loops, but I need much of these for the nose...
Here's an update - still messy, but I'm not going to animate It's face, and I'm not even sure it'll be seen from close enough distance to even see the lips protrude...

yeah - as jali said - you have way too many edge loops for so early on - focus on getting the basic shape down before you add detail.

Pretty much done with the head, just need to add the ears, but I'm happy with the way it looks :attn:

The ears... They don't look too well but I want to get on with the model already.

Progress
 

I worked for a while on a hand from another project (Franky) :

Hi people, I took a break from modeling and decided to learn some skinning...
I have some questions about this:
* Is there a problem with using an 'influence object' for almost every joint?
* What kind of object is best for skinning? (Polygon/Smooth polygons/Subdiv/etc)
*I only used 'Smooth' skinning. Is there a point in learning the other option? (for this project)
Thanks in advance,
Benny

Are the influences for the muscles? I wouldent use them for every joint.

I use non smoothed polys, skinning with smooth polys is a right paint in the ass, hence the paint in there, use the low then add the smooth later or use a wrap an hide the low.

I generally use smooth all the time but depending on your project rigid is good, but I would say for this just use smooth.

No, I want them to simulate the bones...

What's the problem in that? (besides 10 min of calculating when applying them :( - Still better and faster then painting weights...)

What's wrap? (lol, I'm such a noob :attn: )

I typically bind my low-poly mesh with smooth bind and use paint weights to adjust most of the joints. If painting weights just isn't cutting it, I may use blend shapes to clean up some of the deforming. When I'm ready to render, I'll run a smooth on everything.

Wait your using objects to simulate bones? why???

Whats wrong with just using the joints to drive your mesh to the simulate bones?

Thanks Mike, and congrats on the wedding.
I'll see what blandshape is when I have some spare time... lol

some progress on the body.
***When I look at it full size, from this angle (that's about the first time) I see the body and the head require some shaping...


gster123: I mean the joints on both sides of the bone (so they don't collapse) like the elbow, wrist, shoulder, knee, ankle,etc.
lol, I mentioned almost everything...
Edit: sorry for not answering in the previous post. You posted your reply while I was writing mine:)