I remember the time when there was no UV unwrap mapping , you had to compromise for sphere, cube , screen UV maps etc. nasty stuff. Blender UV unwrap must be one of the coolest I have seen , the whole deal with the seam tool can make the process a breeze. UV unwrap should not matter that much if you are going to texture the model directly, at least I did not worry about it when I used zbrush and my texture were never distorted when I imported them in XSI. But this way you loose the ability to apply image textures on top of your textures or process your textures externally in a meaningful way. I had imported some textures in photoshop from zbrush and there were a mess to work with , because zbrush has no unwrapping . I did not know what was what.
Again if you want a good tutorial I will advice “the Essential blender” you can find uv unwrap here
One thing I noticed, you have edgeloops flowing from the ear to the top lip in an odd way. I think they should flow around the mouth (in blue) instead of straight across the head (in red). You already have a loop or two around the mouth, so you might be able to build off of that.
lol I have no idea why your uv is doing that, I could probably tell you if you posted the blend.
Here’s what we have been saying about the area around the eye. Notice that things are softer looking, proportions are basically the same. Also, the eyelid is actually rather thick, much more so than people usually think. You have to keep the edge loops spaced in such a way that sharp creases are not formed.
@Minifig: lol that’s because I took the nicer side of my face to work with - severe asymmetry! Also I was fighting the flatness on the cheeks for a while, so maybe you just brought up the next thing that I’ll have to work on!
@kilon: I tried a few procedurals… reptile skin and stuff but somehow I didn’t get them to spread out evenly, they always seemed distorted in one or the other way. I’ll have to go through my tutorial DVD again. My texturing sucks, so I’ll have to spend a lot of time with it! No complaint though I never used any other 3d software but Blender, so I can’t evaluate it’s UV qualities anyway, and importing models with textures han’t had any success yet, but I probably only spent 10 minutes on “trying”. Thanks for the resource links! Finish modelling - best advice! Gotta take a few excursions though. Spices things up and distracts from actual problems lol
@tatsuyame: well, I needed those loops to connect the ear with - but I’d be glad to get rid of them above the lip… so you mean I should delete the edges running across the lip and let the loops “bump” straight into the circular mouth-loops? I’m sorry, I’m not getting it 100%! :spin:
@soter: I repeated this procedure several times, maarking seams exactly as done in the tutorial Here’s my blend…
And I get the eye thing now - especially above the eye! I don’t know what I can do about the eyelid, well, I’ll get to it and look if it’s still ME! Beautification is good, realism is better, but I’m far from the latter anyway so… But now I’m gonna fix the ear if I can. That one really stings…
I took a look at your blend. I don’t know why, but the cube must have been at a different orientation, maybe added from a different viewpoint?
I rotated your cube (using the rotate command ® then by numerical entry (90), then enter) in 90 degree increments and unwrapped each time, the UV finally went to where it’s supposed to be. As soon as I rotated it the first time, it snapped to a straight layout. It took a few times for it to get the the proper direction. The UV didn’t rotate properly when I tried it by 180 degrees, strange.
I deleted the cube in your blend and added a new one, had no problems with the UV layout.
All right, before I jump back into UV land (thank you, Soter!), here’s another update.
I tried to clean (overall) and restructure the mesh (around ear, side of the neck) and I improved the modelling some more - especially the ear has become better. I had only ONE zone where I merged lots of vertices (where the lobes are attached to the head) instead of almost the whole ear, and I believe there’s not a single triangle, except maybe at the lobes inside the head mesh. I finally start to understand restructuring tools (ripping!!) and building diamonds.
The ear still looks a little edgy to me, with zones that look flat, so I’ll probably have to inject 1-2 more edgeloops, but it’s getting there (I would say).
The eyes also look much better now (Ben Dansie!), though still far from perfect. On the closeup you can see inside the head awsome job, I know, but I’ll fix that these days.
Please ignore the texture - I can’t texture properly, I just slapped on some procedural skin and it runs in stripes, but for now I didn’t think it was too important.
Cool man, the overall shape of the eyelids are great. They’re still a little too sharp edged, but the shape itself is very good. The eyes are a little too far apart, they need to be slid toward the center. If you take a look at your photo, you should be able to see what I mean. Good progress! Keep it up!
OK, here’s what I’ll do: I’ll flash out my retina and take a closeup of my eye, so I can get into the really fine work with the eyelids!
I also wonder how I’ll construct the corner of the eye - maybe put a transparent shell over the front of the eyeball that has only a texture in the corner of the eye, plus a reflection map to get the fleshy look… I could use it also to get that “wet” effect maybe. I figure I’ll have to attach it to the bottom lid so the tearliquid that gathers above it remains where it’s supposed to be once the eye is being moved. Good idea? Getting teary-eyed
I’ve seen the technique of putting a transparent layer in the corner of the eye and long the bottom for reflection, as you’re thinking. It was pretty effective, from what I’ve seen. I’m not sure that you’d have to attach it to anything, just parent it. Could be wrong about that though, some experimentation will be needed. That’s what I’m going to try too.
I think that technique would be logical… Though it’s sheer fantasy right now! A fattened, modified and transparent copy of the eyeball, textured with a transparent 24bit png flesh texture. Maybe some bones in the corner of the eye to let it move parented to the eye… Project for Sunday. Praise the Lawd
I think its great model, and the resemblence is easy to see so nice work
the only thing that bothers me is the transition from chin/cheek to neck, it looks a little odd to me
Looking good so far. Have you got that book you ordered yet? I am thinking of getting it and a few of the others so would like to hear what you think of it. I’m sure it is worth the money. Keep at it.
Thanks to all @cire: good point! I think the neck is too wide from front view! Guess I only checked that from the side…
@linuxpimp: no, not yet. Don’t remember how many weeks ago I ordered it :-S KernonDs training DVD is now stuck at the customs, I ordered that a week later… i’ll comment the book thoroughly once I have it, rest assured!
OK, another update: I have reshaped the eyes and set them further towards the nose, as many said they were too far outside. You all were right, because somehow during the modelling process they shifted, which the Zkey showed me accidentally. I would never have though this would happen
The eyelids/folds astill look quite sharp - it’s getting hard to control this, avoiding to increase everything’s thickness as well! I’ll have to work on that some more, too.
The chin is refined, I basically think that’s it (thought that a few times before already :p). The ear has been reworked quite a bit, and for now I would say the ears seem to look correct. I also had to reshape the nose, as somehow I managed to deform it a few times without even noticing. Probably a selection leftover or proportional BS.
What I’ll have to work on some more: transition jaw->neck, I couldn’t quite see that so well now, so I’ll wait.
In between I gave particle hair a try (10 minutes) and the glorious outcome is posted as well I have no clue why the head mesh disappeared after hair was applied - but I’d have to partially increase mesh density in the few hairy portions my head sports. Maybe it was because I hadn’t applied mirror mod yet - I think I already asked that somewhere else…
Also I made one of those glorious turntable “animations” because… I just wanted to. Maybe you’re interested: vimeo
Hi Corniger.
You said your mesh disappeared after applying the hair. The reason why this happens is probably due to forgetting to select the render mesh option from your particle tab.
Another tip is that if you -need- more density in your hair area (most often this can be fixed by simply adjusting the roundness/distance of your children strands thereby leaving the option to tweak both shape of the head and hair simultaneously.), you can split off that particular part of the mesh to avoid messing up your original, it will make it more flexible if you’d like to apply physics for instance as you can use a fairly low res cage for the deflection that follows the same movement as your head( it’s ofcourse best to do this after you’re done tweaking the basemodel to avoid readjusting it to fit) Hope this made sense
Hey Frizmer!
Made quite much sense though I’m very new to hair. I watched a Blenducation tut on this and everything you mentioned hairwise seems to be in it, so I`ll just follow along a few more times and then apply as you said.
But one thing I cannot find: the “render mesh” in the particle tab! I looked 4 times now, I can’t find it…Do I have to free editing before?
I think I really don’t need physics there, because ma facial hair is all very stiff and it really takes quite a storm to move it, but I’ll rig and animate this, so it will become necessary anyway at some point. Deflection cage is still chinese to me, but I’ll figure it out!
Thank you
That definitely worked, sorry for the clumsiness, but now I KNOW
Looks very weird now, gotta apply the mirror.
So I’ll just wait what comes out with the basic mesh until the next days and when I can say “it’s finished - for now” I’ll get to the hair for real, now I’ll be testing only.
I’m stuck on the different hair on eyebrows and beard again, but I already started a thread on that once, so I’ll refer to that one and get cracking
but somehow I didn’t get them to spread out evenly, they always seemed distorted in one or the other way. I’ll have to go through my tutorial DVD again. My texturing sucks, so I’ll have to spend a lot of time with it! No complaint though 
I never used any other 3d software but Blender, so I can’t evaluate it’s UV qualities anyway, and importing models with textures han’t had any success yet, but I probably only spent 10 minutes on “trying”. Thanks for the resource links! Finish modelling - best advice! Gotta take a few excursions though. Spices things up and distracts from actual problems lol
But now I’m gonna fix the ear if I can. That one really stings…
awsome job, I know, but I’ll fix that these days.
And after you mentioned it I saw it at first glance :rolleyes:
I have no clue why the head mesh disappeared after hair was applied - but I’d have to partially increase mesh density in the few hairy portions my head sports. Maybe it was because I hadn’t applied mirror mod yet - I think I already asked that somewhere else…
