Hello! This is my first attempt at modelling something organic and I seem to have run up against a couple of issues that I wondered if anyone could help with.
Problem 1 can be seen in the two panels on the left. Top is an ortho view, bottom is perspective. I know the cause of this is working in orthogonal view, but I am not too sure of the solution. I was thinking of using a lattice to shrink the front a little and expand the back. Is there a better way of compensating for the ortho build and should I apply it now or after it is done? I wouldn’t know how much to warp it by and I would have to wing it rather than following the reference images closely.
Problem 2 can be particularly seen in the bottom right. I have been trying to maintain the edge loops, but when I add loop cuts to refine the tip of the nose, the area surrounding the mouth gets more and more cluttered. Not too bad yet but if it gets worse the UV unwrapping could get interesting.
The ortho thing is my main problem at the moment as it seems to be throwing off the placing of the eyeball. i.e. huge gap on one side, clipping through on the other.
The reference images in case you can’t tell by those lips are of Angelina Jolie.
very good for a first head, i supose you have seen the adrianna video tutorial or read torq’s face tutorial!
but i think that yes you might want to check your edge-loops perhaps add some more and so on.
If you are satisfied with the nose as-is, I think the edge-loops around the mouth should be ok. Your edge-loops are fine, the mesh should unwrap with no problem.
Not quite sure I’m following you on where the “gap” and “clipping” are occurring around the eyes.
I recommend doing all modelling in orthographic view. Trying to model in perspective gets pretty hairy as you cannot tell if what you have is actually proportional, or square, or really anything very useful, imo.
Felix, Yes I have seen the Adrianna video and my loops are based directly from torq’s tutorial.
Soter, I see what you mean, especially as the background images are only available in ortho mode. I can fix the perspective between the modelling and texturing phases.
Thanks for the comments!
I have made some progress.
The eyelids are in place and fit the eyeball, but they still need some work. Does the crease function not work too well on subsurfaced objects or am I just using it wrongly?
I know the back of the head looks like a crash test dummy but I can fix this and hair covers a multitude of sins (right?)
I think I will play with ear making seperately for a bit before I alter this more. Anyone know of any good ear tutorials?
The crease function should work for the eyelids, but I found that just adding enough loops to make the creases appear normally worked just as well, if not better. It gives a slightly more convincing effect, I found (although I may prove myself wrong as I keep going with my own head model).
mr_bomb has a great ear tutorial that can be found here. It’s a video bit of a download, being a video tutorial (130 megs or something), but well worth it.
Not quite sure what you are seeing in the windows on the left that you consider a problem. Ortho and perspective will look different, perspective also depends a lot on the distance to the camera and the lens size.
If what bothers you is the sort of squashed up feeling from the mouth and chin area, there is something else to consider. In the side view, the head is tilted back about 15 degrees (the ear angle is normally about 15 degrees for a head looking straight forward, in this photo the angle is almost 30 degrees.) Another indication is the horizontal line on top of the ear goes through the top of the eye, not the middle of the eyebrow.
I can’t tell, because the photo is covered in front view with the mesh, but I suspect that Angelina doesn’t have her head tilted at the same angle in both photos. If so, you wind up building a model that looks right (matches the photo) in both front and side views, but is subtly off when viewed in the round, from 3/4 view or in perspective.
Your modeling the side view looks to be dead on. If your modeling the front was equally accurate (and I see no reason why it shouldn’t be) then you should have a really good likeness if the tilt is the same in both photos.
You’re making good progress. Looks like there is a bit of a hard line under her cheek, looks a little too indented too.
Orinoco brings up a really good point, you should look into that.
On creases: IMO, don’t use them.
while it is easier to crease subsurf edge in the short-term, in the long haul I’ve found it to be a bad deal.
Reasons? 1. That I know of there is no visible way of marking (and thus later knowing) which edges you have creased. This makes it hard to adjust later. 2. edge-loops give better and tighter control of the hardness of edges and you can see where they are, no matter how long ago you worked on the model. 3. To my knowledge, creases do not export with the model. In other words the crease will not be recognized by other 3d programs. I’m not sure if this extends to creases not appending with the model if appended to a different scene. If so, this would be the most damning thing about it.
Just my 3 cents on it.
Looks like the concensus is that loops is better than creasing which is good because I would feel better using more loops. The only reason I was using the creases was in an attempt to save on polys but it shouldn’t add too many more. Is there any way of clearing all creases?
Dawvee - Thanks for the ear tutorial link, i’m downloading it now. Should be good if it is like his Adrianna tutorial.
Orinocho - I tried to rotate the side view in GIMP as best I could but was hampered by the fact that GIMP doesn’t keep transparency as you are transforming a layer. I could be a little off in which case I will try to tweak by eye. In fact I will do this anyway.
Soter - Thanks for the input. I see what you mean about the hard line. Good points about the creases. Thanks.
Ok, I made and ear that I am happy with the shape of but am having severe problems trying to attach it. The target area on the head has 8 vertices while the interface area on the ear is 25 vertices. I tried to make the head hole up to 25 verts using the technique in mr_bombs ear video but just ended up confusing myself. Perhaps I can reduce the number of verts on the ear edge somehow. The problem is keeping all the faces as quads and not trashing the geometry of the ear.
As I post this screenshot I can see a raised ridge in the ‘cup’ of the ear. I will fix this.
OK, not had much time lately, but after tweaking my head by eye for a while it will do. Of course you can be tweaking forever. There are a couple of hard lines but those can be fixed after.
Unwrapped.
Now for the fun part.
As soon as I buy a new graphics tablet anyway - the dog ate the pen from my last one and i’m not good with a mouse for 2d work.
Right on, look forward to seeing this textured.
One thing, is Angelina Jolie’s jaw really that square? It’s pretty masculine looking. That aside, your mesh looks good. I’m not very experienced at texturing, so I don’t really know what to look for in your UV map.
Sorry to hear about your tablet pen. What kind of tablet? Usually one can just buy a new pen, it’s a little cheaper than a whole new setup.
Looking at the reference pics I have of her, it actually is that square. Lucky it’s offset by those lips or she may have been in danger of looking quite masculine. The UV unwrap is pretty much as it unwrapped by default (i’m very impressed with the LSCM unwrapping in Blender), all I did was pin a couple of places where it was overlapping.
My tablet was only a cheap £30 thing - I think I will treat myself to a wacom next time. (Note to self - speak to bank manager tomorrow )
I can probably block out the basic colours with the mouse, get most of the diffuse and specular maps done but the fine stuff on the bump maps etc. will keep for a while.
