I’m modeling up a character for a video game. She is being done in the anime style. and and thought the character was pretty cute when I was working with her. I tweaked the face a little, and after I was satisfied, I applied my mirror and started to rig my mesh.
When it came to the eyes, I put on a quick material so I could reference the centers to my tracking rig and taken aback by how ugly she became. I seem to have hit the bottom of the uncanny valley.
I don’t quite know what’s wrong with it other than it’s wrong. There is something “icky” about the way her eyes look. Can you guys help point it out.
One of the problems is that I applied my mirror ages ago, and I need to do symmetrical edits to her eyes. How is the best way to do that?
Can someone tell me where I messed up? It was looking pretty good there for a while.
First off, we can help you out better if you post some wireframes of your model. Just by looking at the picture you have posted here, I would have to say try playing around with the eyballs first before playing around with the model. They are protruding out a little to much and giving her a buggy look. Plus you also have a normal problem happening in the chest. Go into edit mode and select all verts, then do cntrl-n.
Now as far as symetrically editing the eyes, the best way to do this is to select half of your model, delete the verts, then re-apply the mirror modifier.
I can also receommend that you look around in the forum for reference model. I know that in the gallery section, fedb has a manga girl model that is pretty well done. I even believe he has a model you can download to get notes off of.
The icky thing about the eyes is that you can see white all the way around the iris/pupil, and they “bug out.” The eyes carry so much visual emotional baggage, even small things have a big effect on the “look.”
Notice in your drawing, the iris is stretched vertically, so the lower eyelid covers the iris. This is a cool, cute, relaxed anime look. The model eyeball is round, so that little sliver of white underneath the iris says ARRGH, TERROR! PANIC!! and totally destroys the cute, relaxed look of the entire face. Bummer.
Anime faces are also flatter than real faces, it’s part of the anime genre. But using spherical eyeballs in a flat face causes the eyeball to look like its bulging out of the socket. Some people actually have eyes like that, but they are generally cast as villians or madmen or clowns. Again, not the look you’re going for.
There is a solution. Put your eyeball inside a lattice, set to deform the eyeball. Then you can use the lattice to flatten the eyeball, correcting the “bug eye” problem, and you can stretch the eyeball vertically, shaping the iris to fit the enlarged anime eye socket properly.
Putting the eyeball inside a lattice instead of simply flattening and stretching the eyeball itself allows you to rotate the eyeball, have the rotation look correct while retaining the eyeball inside the eye socket. If you are simply making a still render, and don’t care to pose the character, then you can do without the lattice, although I wouldn’t recommend it, since even in making stills, you may want to adjust the position of the eyes.
I tried the lattice deform and colored the eyes wider It looks better, but something is still wrong. I colored the model with materials a little more so I could better see if it was just me.
There are a few issues.
How do I mirror a lattice? Or better yet, make symmetrical edits after a mirror has been applied? I have to edit the eyes separately and they are asymmetrical.
There is something still “creepy” about her. What is wrong?
Why does the perspective view look so awful? She looks like an alien there.
I feel like I’m learning to draw anime all over again. I know that you can put them in “3d” and look good. What am I doing that is messing it up.
Chin is too thin and pointy. Anime is 2D, and you are working in 3D. Also, no hair makes her look like a chemo child/alien. Anime is toon shaders (see wiki on diffuse and sepc Shaders) and you are using the realistic ones. Anime is Edge shaded, you aren’t using that. I think these differences are confusing the styles so that it does not look right. Use a reference pic and a render. You’re going to end up with something like a cross between them, like the Johnny-genius cartoon kid.
That’s a whole lot better. Now, the serious expression that remains is mainly a function of the eyebrows. Try lifting them to give more of an open, lighter, less serious expression.
Working symmetrically without the mirror modifier is mainly a technique of selection (you must select opposing vertices) and substituting the scale function for the grab function on the “mirrored” axis.
For example, in front view, you select a vertex on the left eye. Now you’ve got to select the same vertex on the right eye. This is probably obvious. You can grab and move those in the z or y direction (and you should constrain the move with ‘z’ or ‘y’, or use the widget) but you cannot move in the x direction, because as you move one vertex closer to the midline, the other will move further away. This is when you use scale, to move the two vertices either closer to or away from the midline.
Now, this generally only works with two vertices at a time. Scale works on a percentage basis, so if you have four vertices selected, the vertex further from the midline will move further when you apply scale. This introduces subtle distortions that you have to go back and fix anyway, so it’s usually just as simple to move (scale) the vertices in pairs rather than try for larger groups.
As an alternative technique, especially if you expect to be making a lot of modifications, is to delete half of the model and mirror it again. Sometimes I’ll make “test edits” on one side of a face, then decide whether to keep them or throw them away.
Thanks a lot guys! You advice really helped. I have attached a screenshot of my result. The lattice really did work out well.
The problem was that I had made the eyes too wide. The outside corners were stretching beyond where any ocular orbit should be. The perspective view looks tons better too. I fixed it up and have the results of my work. I have her gawking at my 3D cursor. Everything tracks swimmingly.
