3D Head - Base Mesh Tutorial

3D Head - Base Mesh Tutorial

Hi Guys,

Sorry i haven't posted for ages. I have been busy doing an MA in 3D Computer Animation at Bournemouth Uni (in the UK); and have subsequently been spending a lot of time playing around in SoftImage. This was my final project: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT550rr6x_o
and this is a character design project that i started in cheetah then decided to take to the 'other' package to finish up and to rig for animation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjDjukCohxE

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This is an intermediate level tutorial to make a base mesh for a head. It is for anyone, like me, that doesn't like starting with a blank canvas and building a base mesh poly by poly. It puts all the pieces in place and you then "simply" have to push the points around to sculpt the form.

This tutorial requires you to know how to:
* create a cube
* Add edges
* Delete edges
* Inset Polygons
* Weld Vertices
* Ring cut faces

I have been doing some character modeling recently, and after another session of chasing triangles around a mesh trying to get some pretty edge loops (which are really important for decent mesh deformations) i decided to sit down and refine my 3x3x3 box technique which i came up with in cheetah a while ago and can be found here: http://www.cheetah3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2991.

It is now a slightly more complicated 4x5x6 box technique, but it gives you all the polygons you need for a pretty decent base mesh. The resulting mesh has been based on one by Scott Eaton, who does work for Pixar and The Mill... so if there are any polys out of place blame it on him

Please note it is a base mesh only, and is intended to give you a good flowing polygon mesh. To create the eyes and mouth you need to add more edge loops inside the existing ones to build up detail.

I hope that someone finds this helpful, and that it isn't too confusing. If you have any questions please ask.

good luck!!!
Dave

Thanks for the helpful tutorial. It is very clear.:icon_thumbup:

Very well executed tutorial.:icon_thumbup:
Good thing on this workflow is, you have a perfect UV layout.

Cheers
Frank

Pretty cool tutorial, Dave, thanks. It seems this is what you end up with, it needs a lot of pushing and pulling to get a good mesh.

Cheers
Terry

TerryG said:

Pretty cool tutorial, Dave, thanks. It seems this is what you end up with, it needs a lot of pushing and pulling to get a good mesh.

Cheers
Terry

Click to expand...

Hi Terry, thanks for trying out my tutorial, it highlighted a couple of things that i need to add. It was pretty much there except i forgot to say to continue the blue edge on the side of the head, up and over the top of the head, and to delete a row of edges (second from bottom) at the back, so that everything ends up as nice friendly quads . I have attached a zip file with your original model and the updated version so that hopefully it makes sense. And i will amend the tutorial and re-upload it.

You are right the final mesh does then need to be pushed and pulled into shape, but you know that the polys will all be flowing properly when you are through I would suggest keeping the 3d illustrations in the tutorial at hand, to refer to, (or inserting blueprints of a reference head) and then some hardcore pummelling and stretching with the, very handy, magnet tool to get the main proportions into shape then using the move tool with tweak turned on to fine tune it.

hope that helps. and thanks again for trying it out.

Dave

PS. i am loving your work by the way... damn you are prolific

very well done, Dave!
an interesting approach, quite different from what I've seen so far... thanks for sharing!

cheers,
Alessandro

Nice work!!Great tutorial!!:icon_thumbup: :icon_thumbup:
Bye

Very nice tutorial. I have to try it by myself once i have some time.:smile:

macmonkey said:

Hi Terry, thanks for trying out my tutorial, it highlighted a couple of things that i need to add. It was pretty much there except i forgot to say to continue the blue edge on the side of the head, up and over the top of the head, and to delete a row of edges (second from bottom) at the back, so that everything ends up as nice friendly quads . I have attached a zip file with your original model and the updated version so that hopefully it makes sense. And i will amend the tutorial and re-upload it.

You are right the final mesh does then need to be pushed and pulled into shape, but you know that the polys will all be flowing properly when you are through I would suggest keeping the 3d illustrations in the tutorial at hand, to refer to, (or inserting blueprints of a reference head) and then some hardcore pummelling and stretching with the, very handy, magnet tool to get the main proportions into shape then using the move tool with tweak turned on to fine tune it.

hope that helps. and thanks again for trying it out.

Dave

PS. i am loving your work by the way... damn you are prolific

Click to expand...

I see what you mean, Dave. Yes all the polys flow very nice. The pushing and pulling is a tricky job in itself I think, but once it's done you have a good base mesh for any head. It's a good tutorial.

Thanks for the compliment. I'm prolific because I always work from the same base mesh, well, one male and one female. So again, it's just a question of pushing and pulling.

Cheers
Terry

Image

Computer can't seem to load the entire image of this tutorial. Shows only up to step number 8. Can anyone provide a link to the complete tutorial?

Thank you!

Not sure if I understand you. The image from post N°1 isn´t one?
Simply click and drag to Finder - no?

Cheers
Frank

Got it!

Got it! Had to reset Safari as the image downloaded less than half way before getting stuck on step No. 8. After that, I could only get the same image from the cache.

Thank you!

Nice approach. Spherizing the cube at the start might simplify the shaping process.