Eyes and other details on animals and characters
by Justin Woodman · in Artist Corner · 05/02/2007 (2:25 pm) · 7 replies
Alright, so I feel that I have become relatively good at modeling animals, and occasionally a human will come out looking passable. That is, until I move onto the face. The body looks great, but there are just so many details on the face such as the nose, eyes/eyebrows, mouth etc. (my current struggle is a horse). I try all kinds of funky subdivisions and moving around of vertices until the whole face looks really choppy when it's smooth shaded. And even in solid shaded mode, there is such a mix of quads and tris (yeah I know TGE converts quads anyway) that it looks like I used some really bad poly reduction or something. So I ask anyone here who considers themselves a reasonably good modeler, what the hell can I do?! I've got a head that looks great shape-wise, but textures can only go so far, and adding the details as real topography is the best looking result I've seen.
I guess I'm just asking if theres some kind of method people use for the small details like this, or perhaps a reference guide/tutorial that covers this stuff.
Thanks!
I guess I'm just asking if theres some kind of method people use for the small details like this, or perhaps a reference guide/tutorial that covers this stuff.
Thanks!
#2
05/02/2007 (3:14 pm)
I model in subdivision mode in lightwave, and extrude and smooth shift is the tools that help the most for adding more details. 
#3
In general proportion is a bit too much to try to describe in one forum post, you should really pick up an anatomy book for artists, especially if you're going to be doing this more than once...
A couple of links to help...
http://www.portrait-artist.org/face/
http://realcolorwheel.com/human.htm
05/09/2007 (12:50 pm)
Really the amount of geometry that you put onto your models isn't as important as where you put it, putting up reference images behind your object will allow you to align the features to an actual picture of a real human. In general proportion is a bit too much to try to describe in one forum post, you should really pick up an anatomy book for artists, especially if you're going to be doing this more than once...
A couple of links to help...
http://www.portrait-artist.org/face/
http://realcolorwheel.com/human.htm
#4
05/09/2007 (12:55 pm)
To go with what Dion is saying... take a front, side, and back view of your own face and use that as reference in the background of your modeling program. After your done modeling, uv map your face to your model. :)
#5
www.poopinmymouth.com/tutorial/tutorial.htm
05/24/2007 (8:12 am)
Here are some video tutorials on modeling (and other related stuff like texturing) I found useful:www.poopinmymouth.com/tutorial/tutorial.htm
#6
The first being techincal. That is do you have the tools, or the best tools, to get the job done. Mastery of this comes with knowing what the software does. In your post it doesn't sound like this is your problem.
The second part of modeling is what is considered the artistic side or making an artificial object look like the real deal. Pictures do help while modeling. When I model I make sure I at least have 50 pictures of what subject I am modeling. But pictures don't tell you how to make it real. I think the best thing you can do is go back and start drawing. Most people who want to jump into 3D Modeling say that they don't know how to draw but drawing and modeling are actually the same thing. You're taking something "fake" and making it look real.
To keep this short here is the best book I know of to learn how to draw/model correctly.
www.drawright.com
There is a book, workbook, and workshops you can take. I suggest buying the book and reading it first then doing all the exercises in the work book. I personally take the work book and copy the pages and do the exercises over and over. I know you can order this book from the site I provided or from Amazon or other internet sites. I have also found this book at several book stores.
I bet if you read the book and keep practicing the exercises you will be able to model better.
I know this solution isn't a quick fix but anything worth while takes time and hard work. I hope this helps!
jlmstudio [Justin]
06/14/2007 (7:11 am)
In my opinion there are two parts to modeling.The first being techincal. That is do you have the tools, or the best tools, to get the job done. Mastery of this comes with knowing what the software does. In your post it doesn't sound like this is your problem.
The second part of modeling is what is considered the artistic side or making an artificial object look like the real deal. Pictures do help while modeling. When I model I make sure I at least have 50 pictures of what subject I am modeling. But pictures don't tell you how to make it real. I think the best thing you can do is go back and start drawing. Most people who want to jump into 3D Modeling say that they don't know how to draw but drawing and modeling are actually the same thing. You're taking something "fake" and making it look real.
To keep this short here is the best book I know of to learn how to draw/model correctly.
www.drawright.com
There is a book, workbook, and workshops you can take. I suggest buying the book and reading it first then doing all the exercises in the work book. I personally take the work book and copy the pages and do the exercises over and over. I know you can order this book from the site I provided or from Amazon or other internet sites. I have also found this book at several book stores.
I bet if you read the book and keep practicing the exercises you will be able to model better.
I know this solution isn't a quick fix but anything worth while takes time and hard work. I hope this helps!
jlmstudio [Justin]
#7
Thanks again!
06/18/2007 (10:07 pm)
Wow, thanks to everyone who responded. Sorry for the late follow-up. Now that I've got time again I started playing with some of the ideas here. I picked up some animal anatomy books, and scanning the pictures in and using them as background images in blender has helped a lot. Like some of you said, pictures (esp. from the front side and top) help in countless ways, but also noticing the edge flow makes things a lot less choppy. I can tell this'll take practice, but I've got something I'm happy with now, and I might put some shots up in the showoff area sometime here.Thanks again!
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