humanModeling part II
 

while working on my last model I recognized a lot of mistakes I did. trying to improve my work now with focus on the mesh especially. else I used a real person for modeling this time. and that is the reason why the model looks more realistic in a natural way than my first one I think.

for now I´m pretty finished with the raw torso - sure, still needs some tweaking, also did her toes.

Crits and comments are welcome!

toes

Looking very good so far. Great job on the toes. Also nice to see a 3D female that doesn't have breast in different time zones. Look forward to see your progress.

very nice. would like to see a nother like view from the side on the butt. the 2nd to pinky toe could use just a little bit of twist like the pinky. Just a little and thats just my opinion.

:) about the breast. I guess austrian girls in contrast to the californian governator are not that big sized. but as I said - I want to keep it realistic.

and that 2nd to pinky toe - I watched it closely right now. It can use a twist you were right. not to inside as I first thought but to the outside. in adittion he needs to be slimmed at the root. I´ll fix it after the weekend.

thx mates! and here are another views on the butt.

the breast are superbe !!! did such a wonderfull job on them. The rest of the body sames to lack some ummm descriptivness that some others have, but being low weight might be the reson.. also I'm thinking this all might be very close to dead on to the refrance your useing. Like I noticed there are not really the sorta characteristic indentions on eather side of the tailbone but not all wemon have that. Although fun to model sometimes.. :)

well, that might be because the breast is the part which I was being busy the most with until now :) those and the lower buttpart. all other details will be shaped when I have the full character finished in a rough level. soon hopefully...

Hey Falott

This is very good. I like it alot, its nice to see a more natural female being modelled like Pony is doing too, instead of the cliched big busty bitch like stuff. I like the way you have caught the imperfection of the little toe and have bent it inwards. Its details like these that will make the character more realistic and not look like a clinical cg image. Keep it up, I'll be watching the progress on this. Im about to embark on a female body model at work so Im looking at everyone else right now and seeing what they are up to.

Cheers
_J

looking good. hope to see a wire frame when you get the chance.

thx jango. don´t wait for too long - just get yourself ref images and start. the first model I worked on was knocked together with highres pics from the net. but it is not the same fun than modeling someone U know. for this character I shot the ref pics myself and am highly motivated to get it as much realistic as possible (or else I can pack my bags) . that´s why I don't want to render it until the persp view window looks like a monochrome photo, or at least -> I try my best. maybe U can take a picture of a friend of yours like I did.

PS: I will add some fat on her stomach and butt in the postprocess..

here comes the wire. thought you might to have it unsmoothed.

and some footwire

dang! again the bodywire.

the wires are comeing along very nice..

Hey Falott

When I say waiting, its just a time thing right now cos of head models and rigs etc, but Im always seeing what the next guy does or doesnt do that way I know what to look for and not what to do and cool subtleties etc.

As for the reference my wife always helps me out if Im stuck, she understands how important my work is and the need for reference. I have a full house of reference for most stuff. I did a female body a while ago and used that as a template for my girl character for my project, I use the legs body etc for base meshes for clothing so it fits pretty well and the geometry has the same flow for the rig pretty much too.

Look forward to more of your updates

Kind regards
_J

caught me!

feel a little bit stoopid now - a noob telling a pro how to do his work. sorry for that, didn´t mean it like that. it's just that I´m so ethusiastic with maya...ahh what the heck! U know what I mean.

updates coming soon

I have to ask something. never rigged a thing in my life - therefor -> is it better to model the arms in the classical T-pose or should they be put down, or does it even matter at all?

I would be happy if someone could tell me in a short way. maybe pros an cons on that issue. thx in advance!

personaly I would rig in a half T pose if given the chance buy the ref. Arm's down to the side don't give you enought chance to really get in to the armpit area and work right. full T pose is nice and probably need for some rigging perpuse. I'm sure others will pipe up about that. But so far from a modeling perspective Half T wins for me. At full T it makes it a big harder geting and keeping the uper shape of the sholder right.

I'm intrested in everyones view on this also.

Hey Falott

No apology needed, its just a bit of a natter and all about helping one another, no worries. As for enthusiasm, great!! Its half the battle!! If you want to do it, you will do it.

As for rigging, well the T or crucifix pose is the most widely used. But I have seen digital models from a certain ILM and Weta with the arms modelled slighly bent at the shoulders and elbows but not huge amounts just enough to model and start the deformations off for the areas that matter


Cheers
_J

thank U for your suggestions on the pose. before I got to know your opinions I would have done it in full T-pose. decided to do it in between half and full pose - in a kind of relaxed state like you both mentioned.

next I´ll post a close-up of the breast with little explanation, because some of you were impressed by them. my opinion about this bigBoob thing - exidently happening on models builded by man - is that we compensate aestethic with quantity, or others might say vulgarism. but it´s a big misunderstanding! in order to create something deeply feminine, we´re lazy in shaping and simply make em big. problem is -> it looks apocryphal and everyone notices that.

personally for me this more inconspicuous appearence of the breast results secondly of natural sized mamma but firstly of shaping the.. in my language it´s called aureole (didn´t find translation for that) - the little area around the nipple.
besides that next important thing is - if U look at it U have to sense Gravity.

so my conclusion is -> less is more and if the modeller puts the energy out of quantity and into some more hours of shaping - one can see the difference. it took me 6-7 hours of experimenting to get this little shaded effect around the nipple with a very, very simple mesh. First I tried with bevelling/more closeToEachOther-lying edges to define the topology. but it looked artificial, so I left some edges and in the end I found out that it´s only a matter of the right size of the red marked inner square in context to the angle of the circumjacent squares around it. see it on the piCs

I didn´t want to sound smart alec, it just cost me many hours of trial and error to create this subtle effect which is maybe what pony was impressed by. that and Gravity! Gravity is important!

and the wire

very very nice shape you got with only 4 edges going out form center. Very intresting. I my self prefure 6 or 8 but getting that shape down first is inportant and you did it inpresivly.

I'm also intrested in the very nice tuck you did on the underside.. wire on that ? I see it some in what you posted..

if U think it´s helpful to see the wire I´ll post it in the evening. but I can tell it´s only 3 edges close to each other to get a sharp turn. - if it was that was you meant.

Dude
Looks good, are you using Smooth Mesh or Subd surface?

_J

modeling in polygons and convert it to subDs to check if I did the right thing.

Cooooool, mmmmm SubDs!!

My favourite

_J

Yes, subD´s work fine!

I reshaped the toes and bent the 2nd to pinky one slightly inwards like you Pony submitted. and yes - it does look better of course. the whole heel area doesn´t seem to be right, don´t know what it is by now. but anyways, I have to take care of the ankle as well. have fun with the images and tell if you find something odd!

(how does someone notice when the point is reached where tweaking doesn´t make the model look better?)

and some sideview

don´t mind the shader, I know it has this color like from a corpse. still looking for a realistic skin shader tutorial which I´m able to understand. I found mr. stahlbergs tutorial on his site very interesting - but I don´t understand sh** for crying out loud!

s#i$ ! I'm drooling over thoughs feet. Curent wire would be nice from matching angles as the rendered view.

About your shader.. I think it works fine for this stage ! What are you useing now ? Stahlberg's shader is bilt around the faceing angle from object to the light so that some extra red hue can be added at the temiating edges between the light and shadow side. Hince the SSS afect. On his tutorial he omits that you need to change a value on the clamp. Otherwise it works fine.

I would say when YOU feel that you cant do anymore. Unless somebody points out a 'No,no'. Thats when you go back in and tweak again.

_J

Hey Pony, fine you like it and here is some wires as you wished. I didn´t finish the sole - still needs some definition. btw I didn´t even understand what you said about the shader :) anyway I´ll lern that somtimes. it´s only a creamy colored blinn with 3 volume- and 1 directionalLight.

Jango - yeah that´s right. by now it´s getting kind of boring tweaking the foot. maybe I´ll start with the hand and finish em later.

and other side

and bottom side.

I really think about starting with something elso from the body.

well, I knock the foot off for a while and start with the hand. In contrast to the former hand I worked on, I will separate the fingers and singletweak them like I did with the toes. cause when the mesh becomes dense tweaking is no fun on fingers or toes when they are not separated.

I played around with the subsurface scatterer DT3DskinShader from miguel santiago. his very cool site can be found at www.digiteck3d.com
the shader is awsome and for me the first time I use SSS. the skin I tried to create does not look very natural by now (too much wet spec maybe) because the interface contains of over 50 tweakers and as you guessed - it takes time to find out what everyone of it does (dokumentation is included).

I post a shot from the topView. have fun!

wow.. thats a nice foot. Gonna try that shader out myself now..

connected foot to leg, shaped the knee and hollow of the knee. legTopology is still little bumpy but the mesh gets denser, so tweaking is also more and more timeconsuming. hopefully I´m done with the legs now.

I decided now to start with the head because I find it easier to work on different things at the same time - so it doesn´t get boring. this time I tried to patchmodel with polygons - used the createPolygon tool and replaced the vertices in space. in opposit to Dave K's Poly Head Modeling Tutorial which I modeled my first head after, this method leaves more room for creating a cleaner and more manageable mesh. in addition to the natural clues of the face I marked the face with an eye linner.

I wondered how you guys 'n gals handle the set of teeth on a model. would it be modeled separately or as a part of the head? I have no idea about animation right now, but when she´s finished and textured, I´d really like to animate her. in addition to the teeth, what about the inside of the mouth? in order to let her speak it will certainly be necessary to model oral cavity and tounge. but what about the influece zones in there (weight painting, etc)? the mouth area I fear the most because it´s all stuffed together in very little space and I don´t want the ear moved when moving the tongue or something.

would be great if anyone who is experienced with such issues or has anything to say about could give me some hints! thx in advance.