I’m not sure if this is the right spot for this, please let me know if it isn’t here.
Well I am still working on modeling the foot, but this time i’m starting from reference images of a skeleton and am trying to get something that will eventually be anatomically correct. So, enough with the intro, onto the screens
The reference images are fairly decent, but the bones aren’t in exactly the same position in each one. I have had to compormise and just trying to get it to look right. I started a few times to just fully model one bone at a time, but that hasn’t seemed to work to well so i decided to just layup a rough draft of the whole foot in the form of basic boxes shaped to follow the bones. Is this a good way to start? I figured it would be easier to model the surfaces if I tried to make the articulations at the same time. Also, whats the best plan of action once i block out all the bones? I was thinking I would just subdivide each bone and start to refine the shape with each level of subdivision. Is it better to just cut the mesh in an ordered fashion to get divisions at the exact spots i want? or should i use the subdivide function and just work from there? Are there any good tutorials you can recomend i watch? I have been reading the thread in the modeling section on face loops and edge loops, I would assume that to get the shape of the bones right I will need to carefully use loops to get the right curvatures. Thanks for any input you can provide.
Anyways, i’ll update with more screens after i block out the rest of the bones.
Well i’ve made some progress and managed to get the rest of the bones blocked out.
I know its not much, but i’m actually kind of surprised how well cuboids?(whatever a six sided 3-d object is) can be used to construct the overall shape of the foot skeleton. Now i’m not sure exactly how to procede. I tried a little bit to get the shape of the big toe bone, but i still am weak with making and using loops to create topology, and I am trying to avoid just relying on the subsurf modifyer to create the shape of the bones. I am thinking, for atleast the long bones I may try just modeling from a circle and use the surrounding bones as reference for scale and position.
Most of those bones are very similar but differ in their length, width, general scale and specific details. So think of using a template, model one bone first (think: average bone) and use your current block geometry to guide you while you position duplicates of the average bone geometry. Sometimes you will find it is more efficient to make (and modify) duplicates of bones that you have already duplicated earlier.
Modeling each bone individually isn’t really what you want to do! However, each bone is unique and does require a little bit of attention to add those specific details.
Hi zeffi, thanks for the advice. I just need to figure out how to model the bones in the first place. I’m not thinking the cubes are the best way to start.
If you need modeling help, you may want to visit the support section dedicated to modeling. Your question seems quite general ‘how to model a shape’, and might be best posed in that sub forum.
im sure it wont be too hard to adapt your current blocks to rough out the bones. if you dont need to much detail to them you can just add a couple of loop cuts around where the bone gets wider at the ends then extrude the geometry to get the general shape?
Zeffi and bacon, thanks for the advice and tips. I’ve been trolling the modeling forum a bit more and will post if i have issues with the modeling.
I tried using a plane to start since it seemed to be a good starting point for other complex organic shapes and I realized it is super easy to make loops with them. It then took me a few days of moving verticies around and making each section vertex by vertex. I now present my finished bone, the 2nd proximal phalanx of the right foot.
I’m fairly happy with how it turned out. So now the next step is for me to watch some tutorials on duplicating objects. Let me know if you want more views or the .blend
Do you mean ‘trawling’ (with a net?). It looks like you have the hang of this polymodeling, and it won’t take that long for you to be fully comfortable with whatever technique you settle with.
Are you creating a separate named object for each bone? or have multiple bones in the one object?
I would do separate bone objects and group them.
You can duplicate geometry by :
in edit mode, select the geometry you want to duplicate
shift+d (new geometry is ‘attached’ to your mouse position, move your mouse for example)
hit esc to release it from the mouse (keeps new verts+faces selected, but releases from mouse)
hit P->by selection for the option to separate it into it’s own new object.
Thanks zeffi! No i haven’t even duplicated the mesh yet, I took a break and went to play some handball. I’ll post an update when I duplicate the bone and start to reshape them. I will probably try to retopo the bone first though and just get the edge flow down first. I also haven’t tried this tool yet, but for the workflow it seems like the next logical step. Also, should I switch to 2.57? i haven’t tried it, but i assume it is better. looks better. will my file open in 2.57?
