The human back

Don´t run away :stuck_out_tongue: - here are some of my suggestions.

Firstoff, I really recommend to turn the arms downwards, else you´ll never be happy. Just make it seethrough, select the arms with the <b> tool, rotate around 3d cursor, set it at the shoulder joint and use the proportional edit tool to rotate it down and start the retopo.

The area where the the deltoid muscle runs into the trapezius muscle will always be jolted in this pose and overstreched when skinning the mesh and moving the arm down. For the armpit it will be vice versa.
Skinning the shoulders is enough trouble with a good topo even if you use additional deformation bones, your initial setup just makes it harder.
It is a matter of taste though, maybe even religion if you spread the arms wide, or just raise them enough to have the shoulder and armpit deform averagly the same.

Most important is, you don´t have “the flow”
Your loops are all zig-zag and hard… not smooth, no flow.
You got to get yourself to see the flow, which involves a certain amount of anatomical knowledge so you see the muscles even when they are not there.

For the neck area… you didn’t change it at all for what i see, you just made 2 huge quads in the chestspine area.
What I meant was to lengthen the definition of the spine up to the atlas (the tight U-turn at the smileyface arrows hehe)
The back of your skull is box-ish, there is no flow.

The red stuff on the right side, those loops have no real reason, they run the way they do for no reason and the long one limits the shape of the spinebone and the edge between trapezius and deltoid muscle - and for that its too far away from the spine, giving him puny looking bladebones.

The area with the huge triangleshaped quads, is supposed to be where the trapezius muscle runs dow. The base of the muscle is at the head towards the spine and runs down almost until your pelvis, he is responsible to pull your shoulders up and pull your shoulders back, thats the green curved arrows that go away from the spine towards the bladebone.

I hope this helps you a bit, I know it is a hard task, and I know by now you feel bad about me tearing your mesh to pieces, I´ve been there too =)
You have to think more organic, leave the default cube behind :o) , curve the flow and you´ll soon get rid of the squared paper look of your topo.

And for your back it might be a problem, but maybe you got a friend or brother, or your dad, or your wife, dunnow your age and for the back the sex doesn´t really matter =)
You got humans all around you, watch them.
Personally I enjoy looking at this gore-machine. Sometimes I sit somewhere and just move around one finger and watch what is happenening, where the joints are, what the sinews are doing and on what muscles they might be attached.
Let someone you know do pushups and watch their back, let them stand in front of you and lower and raise their arms, watch the bladebone move and the deltoid work.
Let them raise their shoulders and see how the trapezius moves…
(obviously the person you choose should be rather “normal build” in order to see that stuff)
Of grab your digicam and make a short video of them doing the action once and watch it.
If you feel uncomfy asking or watching half naked people you know, record a body building competition on TV or youtube for them, although bodybuilders are not really specimens of the golden number =) they are made of the same parts than other humans hrhr.

When it comes to human modelling it´s really all anatomy of muscles/sinews, skeleton, skin and fat and understanding how the body is able to move

http://gallery.arexma.net/ba/suggestions.jpg

I’ve been following your example so far, this is where I am right now.

Attachments


Yeah, thats much, much better.
You´ll definately get there.
I guess its a WIP and your still going to change stuff that I might point out next which you´r already aware of.

Here´s more stuff (sowwiiee) =)

You broke the spine. Be sure to keep it one straight column as it is in your body. And in order to be able to make it seeable you need to define it with a second loop close to the 2-polywide spine, so you can pull it out and push it in accodring to the spines S-shape in the profile.

The bladebones are still too small…
The muscle area over the bladebones under the shoulders looking good already.
You see the loop running from the one pole where the shoulder joint is supposed to be to the other side?
Take this one, break it in the middle and let it run around the bladebone…
Meh. Words suck here. I´ll abuse your shot again to draw smartassy arrows =)

Here we go, pictures say so much more when it comes to topo =)

You really made me want to do a human again, has been quite some time and most of mine ended in a dead end with loops I was not satisified with and in my rage I just deleted them =)
I hope you enjoy retopo as much as I do and don´t feel it to be a torture exercise…

However, green is my flow, red are your loops.
On your side near the armpit you see the 2 roundish loops which define your bladebone area. It´s too small and almost in the armpit. =)
Your spine should be a real U-loop. Making a turn at the Atlas. Your skull has a hole there where the spinal chord enters it.
The loop for the chest on your side is good at the bottom, but as you see on the top it flows into the back and over the bladebone. It should flow to the front, beneath the armpit and then run into or under the breast muscle, depending on your front topo.
You also might notice the loops on my side of the shoulder. It is better for this loops to have the arm pointing downwards so that the quads on the shoulder and in the armpit are stressed pretty equal.
With those shoulder loops you get equal sized quads for medium stress, so when they get jolted or elongated they do it evenly and it ends in a nice deformation. Trust me on that. You´ll hate your shoulders when you skin your char.

http://gallery.arexma.net/ba/back_topo_01.jpg

My progress so far…

Attachments


Awesome progress!
It already starts to look clean and sorted.
keep going =) and keep the screenshots coming… :wink:

And don´t take all I suggest as given, play with your own ideas and loops based on the human anatomy. It is mostly trail&error unless you copycat some other topo.
I wish some other topologists =) where in this thread to drop their C&C as well, I am not exactly a pro when it comes to organic modelling… my department is mostly anorganic machinery.

You actually made me dig out a reference from my library, I am going to give it a shot again to stay in shape :wink:

You should rotate this edge, (CtrlE,
Keep these loops straight,
since…theres no need for them to branch out.

I’d draw on it more, but I’d rather draw on something with edges, not faces.
Make my eyes hurt ~_~

Attachments


From the red one you marked, if you go 2 polys to the left there and then 1 down, there is a triangl-ish looking quad… thats the one disturbing me most atm. =)

Okay, I fixed the line, and some other stuff that I noticed.

Attachments


Starting to see some definite edge loops there. Looks a lot better.

I say merge the two verts in the red circle,
Get those green lines in,.
And for you, try to solve that triangle, without disrupting the rest of what you have.
And where the yellow line is, slide those edges over, so their not bunched together.

Attachments


Thanks, I’m really greatfull to you guy for helping me out with this.

Attachments


Sorry, I didn’t realize that I had selected everything in that other picture.

Attachments


Do the lines on the lower back look okay to you?

I have some further suggestions, but so far its really looking good for the upper part =)
Unfortunately I am drowning in code, I got to finish some stuff. I´ll get back to you ASAP if no one else jumps in earlier.

Homework: =)
Think what happens if you turn the upper body sidewards or bend it forward to pick something up for instance. The rather horizontal topology in the lower spine/tailbone area will cause problems.
Take the triangles that limit the polyloop at the lower spine to the left and right.
If the body leans left for example, the lower right vertex of that triangle is most likely to get a Z-coord below the vertex that is below causing overlapping folds.
The basic idea of the lower back is good, its just all zig-zag and S-edged again. You need to even it out.

hth.

That loops that defines the ribcage bothers me.
As it was pointed out ealier, it’s not supposed to be that far.
The angle makes it hard to see the rest of topology tho,
and how to go about changing it.
and unfortunately, I’m pretty busy this week.
So, lets see a 3/4, and try to hide some of the arm.
I’ll gve more tips when I can.

Here’s a three quarter view. I plan on changing the horizontal spine topology later.

Attachments


Does the three quarter view look okay?

Sorry for neglecting you pal, I am still quite busy. :confused:

However it doesn´t look too good =) (guess thats what you didn´t want to hear)

The “folds” at the front should represent the rectus abdominis? Commonly known as sixpack?
They run way to far back. They end pretty soon and there is the transverse abdominis first which, with the help of some muscles in the back and the rectus ofc, turns and tilts your torso.

But before going to the front your back needs some overhaul =) The backview looks not that bad now, but the 3/4… assuming your frontview is the frontview of your figure, the topology along the Y axis is now messed up.
You still got the old topo there with the puny bladebones, you got to define the volume along the new loops.
Also the spine… the human spine is not sunk in into the back. In the lower part it is, then it is beveling out in the chest area, and then sinking in again when it gets to the atlas and running into the skull. Sadly it also is a matter of ethnicity, gender and muscle mass, so there is no general formula for that. =)
But on second thought, for the amount of muscle mass your pal has, the sunk in spine is fine as a pronounced trapezious muscle, which runs almost along the whole spine would clearly shape it the way you got yours.

And don´t wait for us to respond =) Take matters in your own hands, don´t be afraid to delete portions of your model, to try different approaches on the muscle flow. Just go play and have fun =)
There really is no point in asking for guidance ever time after changing 5 edges.

And you might want to get your thread moved by a mod to WIP or focused critique to get the input of more people. The support forums sadly are off the track a bit as it seems nowadays peeps are not getting past off-topic -.-
I guess best would be to get your thread into offtopic, but then it would be closed soon for some political or ethnical flamewar fg

Another question/suggestion.
If you are serious about organic modelling and if you´r having troubles or don´t like image references, I strongly suggest to get one of those:

http://www.freedomofteach.com/products/figures/figure_male_1

Granted, they are not cheap, but a bargain =)
Besides that they are 1/3 the size of a real human which makes them an awesome study reference, IMO those are the best there are to “feel” the organic flow of a human.

There is also a section with great free stuff:
http://www.freedomofteach.com/downloads/

Thanks you again, also thouse folds are the serratus anterior muscles, just to answer your question. I’ll make the changes that you suggested, and I think I have an idea about how to model the ribcage. Not sure about the back of the head, though.

Thanks again for all your help.

Attachments