Self Portrait Poly Head
 

I guess there are certain models you have to make sometime in your life; the sports car model, the cool babe with too big boobies and the self portrait head.
I'm going for the head this time, hope to get something I am pleased with, after a couple of tries at least. :D

- S

You will need to adjust your mesh to get rid of the nth sided faces (polys with more than 4 sides) or you will run into all sorts of problem later, I would take the time to clean up the mesh now before going any further.

Well I know how hard it is to build your very first head model, so I wanted to wish you luck, since I am too working on a self-portrait head using a combo. of a few 3D graphics programs (mostly Rhino and some of 3D Viz, which is very similar to 3D Max). Good luck, and I hope to see more of what it looks like as you progress! ;)

~CGPMaya84 (also DragonTU84 from SimplyPhotoshop and CPAnimate84 from SimplyMax)

I am aware of the problems my non-quads may cause, but I continue anyway for the moment, trying to build a better mesh as I go. Feels like I'm learning alot from different tutorials on the net and nice friends telling me all the good tricks. ;)
Have had some problems getting the image planes in the same scale, due to different angles on photos and so on. My model has some kind of an eye and a holes in his nose, I will not try to convince you it's nosetrils.

I would start to put in some loops around the eyes, nose and mouth area to clean the mesh up even at this stage. If you want to add loops quickly go to www.maya3d.dk and download mjpolytools script. Its a must for your Maya toolkit!!!

Jango

Sorry I hope you dont mind but I have marked what I think you need to do. The green area is ideal to start your ear


Jango

Thanks for the encouragement! I'm beginning to understand that the tutorial I've spent quite alot of time looking at hasn't stressed edge loops enough, but I'm working on it atm.
Hasn't got the thinking of how to efficiently get quads from different situations of 3 or 5sides. Testing out the mjpolytools aswell. Some really neat tools in there ;)

- S

[I understand that the egde loops from over the nose should run down under the mouth, going to engage that one now...]

This is the reference, ehrm, me. :bandit:

- S

Done working for tonight. managed to kill some of the bad polys and replace them with lovely nice looking quads. Also got a start on edge loops.

I'm thinking maybe it's a good idea to broaden the yellow edge loop and remove some of the polys on the cheek. Also thinking about to add a edge loop around all the others, going from the forehead to the chin?

That green loop around the eye is not at all in quads. ugly looking stuff going on. :o

- S

Stedo

Hey that looks better already, excellent. Now you need to sort out the top of the forehead and get the edges to run across the top and over the head to avoid the triangulation you have there at the moment. Keep it up!!!


Jango

I decided to start over. I think I learned from my mistakes the first time a bit. Comments on the new mesh?

- S

Even Better!!!


Jango

Have unfortunately other things to do besides playing around in maya :/ , so the progress today isn't astonishing.
But started on the eye area and shaped up the mesh here and there.

- S

OK, time to sleep really now. 4am here now. But I got the nostrils to look quite good, an the eyelids too. Think I will go on with mouth and ear before I spend more time tweaking vertices...

nn

- S

coming along nicely..on the right track now.
Keep it going :)

Yeah, thats great, you're getting there now, I think you need some more loops, just one or two around the mouth area, it'll give you more definition when you need it

Jango

Been busy with c++ programming most of the day, but managed to find some time for maya too. :D
Worked on the mouth area and fixed a bit with the eyes. But most of the time went into the ear. The ear is not finished at all, started to redo it just a little while ago. But I think I got a better starting point this time ;)

C&C appreciated!

- S

looking very good, the overall head looks of similar proportion to the picture of yourself - need a bitmore defintion in the mouth area, but I guess you are will get round to that :)

keep it going

Thanks for the comments guys :D

And yes, there's still alot of work that has to go into the model before it will look like me..

I have this question about quads etc etc.
Started to model the ear, and I think I'm making quite good progress, but I have these quads that kind of cut another quad. Bit hard to explain, check out the image. Is there any problem with this poly cutting? It makes it possible to stay in quads all around the ear, but it looks a little bit strange...

C&C most welcome!

- S

Its not a problem, I think you just need to tidy it a bit cos its a bit stretched. But on looking closer I dont think you need all that geometry there which is probably a lot to do with it

Been working on the ear for a couple of hours. Think it's time to leave it for the moment ( before I go mad .. :D )

Redid a lot of the ear mesh and got rid of the unnecessary polys in my previous post.

Next thing is to add detail to the mouth I guess. The nose needs some attention too.

C&C appreciated as always

- S

that ear looks really good!!

Maybe you could add a little more width to the head overall, seems a little narrow, although that could be the angle we are looking from.

Yes, the head was a little bit too "narrow" indeed. Did some broadening and it looked much better at once. Thanks for pointing it out!

Next thing to play around with to get this better would be the eyes I believe...
I'll see if I get some more time later tonigt, it sure is fun to model when you're making progress :D

- S

Redid most of the eye and have been moving around more or less each and every vertex in the mesh... Merged the head and it feels like I'm quite finished with the modelling. C&C?

Next thing is probably to UV-map it. Will go look for tutorials now... ;)

- S

Got something that might work as UV-mapping on my third try or something like that. The ear was really hard to get right, and if I started over one more time it would probably get much better...
But I want to try out how it looks with a texture, so I'll leave it for now. :)

- S

Been playing around a litte with texturing. Something tells me that the eyes on the model might be a little bit too big.. :rolleyes:

The skin texture is only a color map atm. (and the eye texture is, well, not good.. :))

- S

Hi Stedo
Looks good so far. Please see the link below for a good texturing tutorial on faces. Its quite old but the result are good. I saw it over a year ago and I think this guy uses some Maya procedural textures too for skin bumping. Hope this helps too

Jango

http://www.3dtotal.com/team/Tutorial...xturing_01.asp

Thanks Jango :)
I've seen that page when surfing around for good tutorials. Very in depth, I like it. (altough I'm not really that old and wrinkly.. :))

- S

Well you dont have to put those in, not yet

Jango

Been working on the texture (color, bump and spec map) and testing different lighting techniques. Now it's really late again, but the last render came out quite nice I think.
Now using final gather with two nurbs hemispheres as "area" lights. (thanks for all the help fredriksson :))

c&cwaa.

- S

Hey you have come a long ways! Very nice:)

Just one little thing that I thought is not right, altough your head may be formed that way, but the cheek bone look off around the eye area. Look at pic and you will see what I mean.

And the shader looks a little to shiny for skin, unless you have very oily skin:)

Other then that the model look really good!

Or he might be very sweaty :D
I think it looks really good and very much like ur pics

Heh, the specular reflection on the shader was really messed up. :)
Been trying to fix the eye area a bit, but with no great result so far. Also been trying to get a really good looking eye ball, which also is quite a challange.
Tried this tutorial by Steven Tubbrit, http://users.tinyworld.co.uk/steven_...ic_Eye_01.htm, which actually is really good, but I get alot of strange shadows on my sclera. Will give it another try tomorrow or so.
I'll post some shots when I make progress.. ;)

- S

Ok, I'm leaving this project now, getting tired of it... Feel that I have learned alot though, will try to model a whole character next.
Left to do on the head is:
- better eyes
- eyebrows, eyelashes and hair :)

Thanks for the comments ant critics!

- S

Looks really nice. The end result looks a lot like you!

i like the skin tex alot! good job! was a pleasure to what's your wip! :D

yeah very nice work :) cant wait to see more from you!