I have moved on to a new character, with the goal of good topology. It is my first based on a real person.
The girl has a lot of character to her features, and I have tried to keep that in the base mesh. I want her as realistic as I can , before I resort to sculpt tools. I am working with mirror modifier, how ever… which has already been a minor problem because her face is not perfectly bi-synetrical.
The topology is better to see in an edit mode ;).
Also, can you show the reference without the mesh on top of it?
OK, here is an edit shot and the pics. I got these as a download for use with “Introducing Character Animation with Blender 2.5”. I confess I did not follow the tutorial exactly.
looks okay so far, be sure to watch your verts. keep it up!!
I think the topology is great and also the resemblance is great
I’m sorry, don’t want to be harsh, but it’s just looks wrong. I’d like to see a perspective view. From the two views… The mouth looks duck’ish. The cheeks seem to slant straight back from the nose. And the eyes look like they’re cut into the top of a funnel. The circular edgeloops around the eyes aren’t true to life and the eye openings are forward of the cheekbones. etc.
I could be completely wrong, but given the two ortho views my mind can’t put those wires together to make a head shaped mesh.
As for her being non-symmetrical. My suggestion is, ignore it. Model for one half of her face with symmetry on. Then once the mesh is complete, turn symmetry off and tweak to fit.
Thank you, thank you,… and ouch…
I redid the eyes and have worked on the ears. I know I will have to adjust the ears along X axis because the pic I have to go by is not in orthographic view, obviously. Also the front and side view of the girl is not perfectly aligned, so getting the eyes right has been hard. It to the point also with the ears and eyes that I am going to have to wing it.
Why are you using 2.49 instead 2.62 ?
Hi Sunnyfield,
I’m sorry if I came across a bit strong. 
I think it’s got a ways to go, but you’re moving in the right direction. Since you said your goal is good topology let’s talk about that. Focus on the structure of your subject. The majority of your lower face is comprised by loops around the mouth and no loops that follow the jaw line. Yet the jaw is the larger structure that drives the mouth. Your subject has a clearly defined crease along side her nose and though your mesh does seem to kind of fold that way it has no clean loop that flows that direction.
A lot of people can put faces together to define a shape, but when you start talking about topology you have to ask yourself, “do these loops simply outline the shape, or do they follow the underlying structure of the subject?”
Some good examples here wiki.polycount.com/FaceTopology
I am using an old version of blender because my pc is too old apparently to use the latest version, it would not install. I have extremely limited time right now and not able to get a new pc yet either.
I have done some more mostly on the ear.
I have a question : why is there a slit along the center when I render… I have the mirror modifier on, will the slit go away when I apply the modifier? Or is it my merge limit? It still is there if I click “do clipping”.
I tried to do the eyes like in a book I got, and it involves making the outer eye transparent, then an inner eye with the colors, so you get a shiny looking eyeball with a cornea effect. My outer eye refuses to render anything but black, however. Any thoughts?
Assuming Blender internal… For the outer material set z-transparency, alpha 0. Uncheck everything under options and shadow. That should get you into the ballpark I think.
receive transparent shadows on the underlying object like cornea and whatnot.
This would need to be done on all underlying materials. Whereas shutting off traceable and shadows on the outer material allows any interior materials to display properly using defaults. Am I wrong?
Thanks guys for the advice, which sounds right , but I still am doing something wrong. I decided to move on to hair for now…In the past I have done well with Particle Hair, but this time I am having a strange problem. The hair emmits in all different directions. I thought maybe I needed to recenter the object, but that didn’t work. I tried duplicating the scalp, yet the result is the same.
OK, I fixed the eyes, but advice is still welcome as to how much reflection they should have (and what shader, currently orennayer and wardiso).
I still can’t get the hair to emit straight out from the face normals and this causes me trouble styling it. I have never had so much trouble with particles. There is also a great discrepancy between the 3d veiwport appearance of where the particles are in particle edit mode vs. object mode - the hair looks smooth in edit, yet wild in object mode and render. And they tend to fall below scalp. I’m about ready to give her a perm!
Here is a render of where I am without particles, the particle problem is shown above.
Oh yeah… any thoughts on lighting? I have a 3 point setup now. In the past I have used hemi lights and AO, but this time I wanted to learn about more complex and realistic light set-ups.
Well some advice would be great… kinda stuck for the moment unless I delete the scalp and start over.
sunnyfield, why are you using 2.49? Get the latest, particles setting are simpler and more friendly IMO. There has got to be something wrong with the mesh, duplicate verts maybe, or perhaps the normals are incorrect?
First test, add a sphere and apply your particle system to it. Is behaviour the same?
Second test, start a new file, and append your head mesh to it. Result?
Hope that helps, it is nice to see yu working on the human form. Good luck.
About lighting the head, I suggest you read some Ben Simonds.
Lighting: http://bensimonds.com/2010/06/03/lighting-tips-from-the-masters/
SSS: http://bensimonds.com/2010/05/31/three-layer-sss-in-blender-demystified/
I suggest spot lights, especially since you will be working with hair. David Ward goes over most of what you need for good hair in this tut: http://cgcookie.com/blender/2012/01/27/character-modeling-creating-a-cartoon-style-groundhog-part-03/ He covers setting for the materials and lights.