#idv maya

[abigailgelston]

A rendered turn table of my modelled head. I forgot to look at the camera in the graph editor so some parts are faster than others. Useless!

[abigailgelston]

Some half decent renders of my final Natasha head model. Some are quite scary in perspective view...

[abigailgelston]

After mirroring the geometry, I then started to change things like the ear, nose and mouth on the right hand side of her face as it looked in the images. I also changed little details like making her nostrils different sizes like her own. I still think more work could be done but this is as far as I’ll get since hand in is tomorrow. I spent a lot of time fixing the ears because I was basing them off of the side view as that is what I focused on from the beginning but I extruded the inner part of the ear too much so they do stick out a little too much at the bottom. I did make it better....they looked more buddha-like originally. 

I focused on topology but because I had a lot less resolution than many, I couldnt do it very neatly on the cheek. This part bothers me as well as the little bit to the left of her ear. 

[abigailgelston]

The top image shows my modelled ear from the inside. I brought the ear canal in and deleted the inner face. I also modelled it so that the edges on the original shape that i extruded from stayed the same so i could wield the vertices to the head model. I tried to fix the topology as best I could and checked if there were any n gons with the cleeanup tool then fixed these. 

[abigailgelston]

I went on to then look at the digital tutors head model and attempted to carry my edge loops around the rest of the head in a similar fashion. I didn’t find it as hard as I thought it would be, with careful watch of the other model, but I did find it difficult to create a ice smooth head. There are still lumps and bumps. After bring the polys around the head and neck, I shaped an area for the ear to fit and finished off the bust. 

I think the ear was probably the most difficult thing to model in this project, but making sure my edge loops and the topology was correct or at least decent was also difficult. I just kept the four polys that i detached from the rest of the head and started extruding and adding more resoltuion. I extruded too much on the small part next to the ear lobe as I realise that this should sit right against the head. At the moment, Natasha has buddha ears from the front view but they are okay looking from the side view, as this is what I mostly worked on for the whole project...that’s why the nose, chin and ears do not line up with the front image. I still need to bring the ear lobe close to the head so that it looks half decent in the front view.

[abigailgelston]

I started off with bringing my images in and modelled the eye as shown in the eye modelling tutorial that I’ve previously posted: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_Go5V373_g

I then outlined the head with the create polygon tool as shown in the Project 2 tutorial I uploaded, and I extruded this then deleted the inner face. I went on to use digital tutors mastering topology to model the eye by using the cv curve tool, duplicated this and lofting it. As you can see, I shaped everything as I modelled so as it make it easier in the end. I only started looking at the digital tutors model once I finished  shaping the eye, mouth and nose. 

I basically went on to create the nose after I extruded the eye further out, using project 2 again: 

I tried to keep track of my topology as I went to make sure I was joining edges where they were supposed to be. I don’t think I did too badly for a first attempt at some more detailed modelling, but there is always room for improvement!

I started to get tired of the nose and just started on the mouth by simple extrusions of two polys from the original outline of the head then I extruded from all of the mouth to create the edge loops.

[abigailgelston]

Mastering Topology

This digital tutors series helped me a hell of a lot! I would not have been able to model our character, Anam, for our final animation, or this head model without it. I would recommend it to everyone who is starting out with modelling. Was really useful.

Removing N-Gons

Smoothing subdivides the quads.

N- any number over 4

Way of selecting N-gons- Select mesh, mesh, cleanup, select matching polygons, gons with more than 4 sides.

How to fix- Multi-cut tool or split polygon tool.

Working with Triangles

Mesh , cleanup, choose n-gons and 4-sided polygons.

Shift, drag over model- inverts selection.

Leave ear canals open when modelling.

Working with Poles

Valence- how many edges are coming into a particular point/vertex. Try to keep this to 3 or 4.

Sometimes there is pinching where poles are trying to smooth.

It’s okay to have poles around the eye and mouth- in parts that aren’t animating as much:

Rerouting Edges

Where edges are- where it can deform (wrinkles around the eyes, laugh lines).

Move edges so it can bulge up in these areas.

Stick to wireframe mode.

Exercises I followed to help form good edge loops along with the video. The last image I did alone:

Facial Loops

Eye- cv curve tool around the eye, same vertices on either side. Hit enter. Surfaces, edit curves, rebuild curves (keep cvs on, fix vertex). Duplicate and resize to fit the eyeball area. Shift select both, surfaces, loft.

Isoparms- pulling parts in and out to shape more. Edit nurbs, insert isoparms. Use hulls to shape. 

Modify, convert nurbs to polys- quads. (per span-isoparms 1, 1, tessellate).

I created this from one of the exercises:

Geometry Reduction

Cutting polygons off (kite/diamond shapes).

Connecting geometry.

An exercise I completed:

Resolution for Animation

Have enough resolution for things to move and bend (knees, elbows, feet, tail).

[abigailgelston]

This is the rendered video to show our belfast building model. Compared to the original nice rendered images, the glows within this went far too bright. I’m assuming this is because of all the reflections. To show this video we also had to take away our textured floor and show this through rendered images because of the building being difficult to move in maya to use the camera.