Hey guys, i’ve decided to start a little head tutorial competition. They can be old or new, and for extra cookies can include creating faces aswell. leave the tutorials as replies and one more thing…
GOOD LUCK ! :yes:
EDIT
Lets collaborate the old ones in this thread then !
while we do need some new tutorials, do we really need a new head tutorial? I think it could be a good idea to rewrite some of the older tutorials when 2.5 is finally out so new users understand it better…
Instead of a competition to create a head tutorial (because there are plenty out there) it would be better to have a collection (in this thread perhaps) of the existing ones.
http://www.bendansie.com/HeadTutorial/BD_BlenderHumans.html
Mine on texturing to get the ball rolling. I want to do an updated version and did start that with a video tutorial, but haven’t done a video tut before and that was my first written one anyway. So it’s on the to do pile, but will be a while.
Out of interest to newer BlenderHeads - most modelling tutorials and many texturing tutorials for Max, Maya, etc can be completed in Blender. Just different buttons in different places from time to time. An edge loop is an edge loop regardless of software.
Besides been a blenderartists forum member am also a thready( 3dtotal forum member) though I have been a member for a year there I have only like posted once, I have been lurking there often now, Domiance war is about to start and that’s one forum worth watching. One thread that been going down well there in the last week or so has been a head topology thread. Perharps starting one here would be worthwhile too.
I don’t really think you need a head modelling tutorial competition, this is one area of cg that’s well covered tutorial wise.
a cool idea I think would be an ongoing tutorial that everyone can contribute to…so the first bit would be the topology of the mesh and then the eyes, nose and mouth ears etc… each person contributing different ways of doing stuff…It means that we would have a tutorial that branches out for different styles and differently proportioned ppl…
Some way we can have that in wiki form? A ‘human character’ section of the wiki with modelling, texturing, etc? I’ve been meaning to do wiki stuff for a little while and this could be a good place for me to start contributing.
What about a ‘full human’ tutorial, walking the intermediate user through an in-depth look at all the tools (i.e. all of blender) used to create, rig, light, etc. Any demand for that?
Yeah, we should make that an area of the already great wiki
ZombieJohn - wondering the same thing myself. Even if it started out as a collection of other tutorials and someone (myself or whoever wanted to chip in) then filled in the blanks, started to make it more coherent.
Main thing would be to minimize overlap with what is already out there (to avoid wasted unpaid volunteer time)
Of course, overlap might not be a problem if the point was to have a complete tutorial. There is so much random, outdated, or not-blender-geared (or any combination of the three) stuff out there that someone might understand not to use six-poles but never understand why, or know that blender’s bump-maps look funny, but not ever figure out that you should use normal maps. There’s no tutorial out there that explicitly involves linear workflow either.
So - if we come up with a basic structure, get permission or whatever to create a new section in the Blender wiki and just start filling it in chunk for chunk?
Ie a Chapter type thing of modelling (split to head / torso / edge flow for animation / etc), texturing (painting from scratch / projection mapping / creating the other maps from the colour map/ etc) and so on and so forth through to rendering?
I am happy to coordinate the thing, but will need some help filling it all in. Would be better to have multiple contributors for different methods / workflows anyway.
Who does one contact about editing the wiki?
(edit - this is rather good timing. I have a male and female character that are both still in the modelling stage. Decided to re-start the main female character of mine that has been in the Focused Critique section)
ok then, if thats ok with ben, you can coordinate it, and zombiejohn you can contribute if you like, and anyone else that we feel would add a valid contribution.
It’ll be a great resource for all blender-newcomers. (im a newcomer anyway!)
thanks guys
Rightio - created a wiki account and started reading through the gear for style guides, templates, etc. I think I’ll probably write most of my gear in a word document or html file and then transfer it to the wiki. If nothing else, there will be a backup copy. (Mild healthy paranoia with technology and all.)
Will write up a detailed list of areas to cover, maybe tonight, probably the weekend though.
Should be fun though, although my progress will be limited to what I have time for on my end. Don’t work full time (yet), but keep busy with a few part time things lumped together to make up a week. So any help that can be spared will be much appreciated. That and I don’t personally know every little detail on humans in Blender, just trying to pick as many up as I can…
DomDaBomb - welcome to the forums by the way! Would you be able to change the topic title of this thread (edit the first post, hit “Go Advanced” and the title box is editable) to something like “Humans with Blender - Wiki Documentation” so people can see it more easily and discuss? Cheers.
One early thought - I take it most of this will be geared towards the “realistic” CG human? I was thinking - for example the head modelling section could be in depth on realistic modelling, with an added section at the end for using similar topology loops on a more stylised character? That way it would enforce the importance of clean topology for animation as a principle rather than “this is how to do a human start to finish.” I’m all for getting the principles across rather than just spoon feeding step by step instructions down. Step by step is clear to follow, but expanding a bit will help people apply the principles they learn in those steps to a similar-but-not-exactly-the-same project.
To understand how I’ll probably be writing most of this, I was quite happy with how my first tutorial came out in the previous post:
http://www.bendansie.com/HeadTutorial/BD_BlenderHumans.html
Gets a bit long winded, but I try to explain as I go and get more info across than:
Anyways, should be fun.
Hi Ben
This sounds like a fantastic idea. Full body tutorials (especially those tailored to blender) are few and far between. I agree with tyrant monkey though that head tutorials are well covered already. If you don’t mind me suggesting some areas that are not well covered elsewhere:
As you know I’ve been working on this kind of stuff myself recently, and the stuff I list above is mostly the things I’ve found difficult, but I’ve also learned a lot and would be happy to contribute anything I can to the wiki.
EDIT: Almost forgot, a great anatomy reference site (and free too) is fineart.sk. I think they’re affiliated with 3d.sk, but they’ve collected all their free stuff in one place, and lots of other usefull reference images to boot. Particularly usefull are a set of orthographic views of female models here (NUDITY WARNING), that are great for modelling from (plus the 80’s outfits are hilarious).
Why don’t we write it in a seperate workspace before trying to upload the entire thing to the wiki.
EDIT: Content before style, after all.
ZombieJohn - on the same wavelength. I’m not keen on editing anything longer than an email or forum post directly on the net, mainly in case I accidentally hit the back button or lose the connection, etc. I was thinking just word documents or html files, probably just word files. I use open office now which has the handy default “export to pdf” for either word files or html, so downloadable updates would be easy to do as well. If there was a ‘publish to wiki’ option then the whole thing would be too easy, but I’ve used a wiki before so I get that specific formatting and such needs doing.
My first goal is to nut out headings section for section and that will serve as a sort of ‘master to-do’ list as well as giving people a look at what it will cover, make suggestions, etc.
Organisation wise, this thread will do for now, but will probably start up an online file host folder or similar to just dump the wip documentation before feeding it in to the wiki. That way editors/contributors can view the progress / update their own without too much hassle.
ben - never fear, shoulder (and arm in general) rigging has taken up much of my time, so it will get focus. 
My current solution for the arm twist (other than the pydriver one) was to make a little bone to scale the upper arm back up to preserve volume, seeing as the twisting was uniform anyway. Manual hack, but simple. But yes, multiple methods will be mentioned where appropriate. ie, when an authour actually knows more than one way to successfully do something…
BenDansie, i’m just wondering whether you found my comments on the texturing tutorial useful at all, because i didn’t hear back from you…
thanks for the effort everyone, i’m too busy with school to be contributing, but i’ll be happy to proof-read if needed… PM me if you prefer proof-reading prior to making things public…
good luck
Hi dyf,
thanks for the comments, just haven’t made the time to go back to that tutorial yet.Sorry if I left you hanging for an update/reply. I did try and work on the video version since then, but still getting used to the whole screen capture thing.
Proof reading would be handy, both for simple grammar and how easy it is for other users to follow.
Why not a WiP thread, so people can comment on what they find clear or unclear as the process is assembled?
Hear, hear. I’ve discovered that my human head loops work equally well for dogs and wolves, bears, cats and giraffes. I suspect they’d work equally well for any animal that has a jawbone and keeps its nostrils over its mouth.