Modelling - Part 3

I changed the faces around the eye so that they bend around in a circle. After looking at similar meshes online, I found that most, if not all of them, did something similar with the eye area. Making loops of faces around the important areas of the face allow for much more efficient and attractive movement when they're squished and stretched.

Next I did a similar thing around the mouth, trying to make small loops going around it so that mouth movements look good.

Connecting the chin to the neck was quite tricky, and I actually re-did it 3 times before getting a result I liked. The main issue was that I had the two separate rings from the eye and mouth, and I had to connect them in the middle.

With the head, I once again had to re-do it twice to get a good result. Although the topology on the back of the head isn't very important and doesn't need to be detailed, I still wanted to make sure it was efficient and attractive.

To create the ear I made a new cylinder with 11 sides, and then positioned each corner to match up with the ear on the side-on drawing. Next, I used the inset and extract tool on one side of the ear, rotating the newly created interior ear to create a slightly more realistic shape.

After adjusting the thickness of the ear and earlobe shape, I attached it to the side of the head and connected the two. 

By changing the viewport to wireframe mode, you can get a better understanding of how the head and ear are connected. Although I try to stick to using quads as much as I can on my model, I had to use a lot of triangles when attaching the ear.

Modelling - Part 2

As I'm now taking more screenshots at regular intervals I will be writing less about each step, but the pictures are fairly self-explanatory.

First I added the upper lip, connecting it at the corner of the lower lip.

I then made loop across the side of the head, giving me the basic shape from the side.

I created a basic forehead shape with a defined brow extruding from it.

I went under the head and modeled the chin, connecting it up to my neck.

I then started to connect the socket up to the rest of the head using the bridge tool.

I created more advanced topology around the eye socket, though it was still quite messy at this point.

I started to create a more detailed nose shape, which was mainly done from my own imagination without any references.

For more efficient facial animation, I made the faces of the chin loop around the mouth, allowing them to move in a more believable way.

I then made a lot of faces around the eye and improved the shape of it.

I realised at this point that the poly-count was quite high, and that I didn't need quite so much detail around the eyes. I removed a lot of the edges, but will need to work on it more as right now there are a lot of faces welding at a single vertex.

Modelling - Part 1

Today I've made some good progress on the 3D modelling, and I'm feeling confident that I can complete it within the next 2 weeks. On these posts I will go through the steps I'm taking to model the character, and provide screenshots where possible.

I started by setting up the Front and Left views to my images in 3DS Max. I had to re-scale the front image so that it aligns with the side view well. If the two images are too misaligned, the modelling would become distorted.

Then, using the Line tool, I traced out the silhouette of the head on the side view, adjusting it as I went along. I decided to ignore his hair for now, and model it separately afterwards. When the line was close enough to the original drawing, I used the Extrude modifier to convert it into a 3D mesh.

After converting the mesh into an editable poly, I started to remove any unwanted detail from the shape. It's a lot easier to add complicated geometry than it is to simplify it, so working with a low-poly model to start with makes more sense.

Using the Bridge tool, I chose two edges at the bottom of the model and bridged between them, leaving plenty of edges in-between to work with. I then rounded the shape out into what will soon be the neck.

I decided to then fill in the chin of the character, as it is one of the easiest features to do. Keeping the geometry fairly even, I was constantly switching between my 3 viewports to create the correct shape.

I then added the brow line  and the under-eye, using the side view as my main reference. From the bottom eyelid, I created the cheek bone and wrinkle which run down the face, joining up with the chin at the bottom. After that I was making a lot of minor adjustments, but because I was so immersed in the modelling, I forgot to take many screenshots of this process. For future sessions, I may consider setting up a piece of software to automatically take screenshots for me.

Digital Tutors - Creating cartoon characters in 3DS Max

As this is my first time modelling a humanoid character, I decided to watch a  class by Digital Tutors in order to pick up the base knowledge I'll need. I chose this class because it seemed to be the most relevant one to my project, considering I wasn't aiming to create a realistic character. I will start modelling the character soon using these techniques, and then blog about any issues I come across.

The lessons covered the following topics:

Lessons 1 - 2: Introduction & Adding Viewport Backgrounds

This lesson is very helpful for setting up the scene in 3DS Max, and has shown me a new way to model using blueprints that I've never tried before.

Lessons 3 - 20: Creating the head

Before I started watching the class I had no idea how to create complex organic models, but I now know a very efficient method using the blueprints. To put it simply, it involves drawing a spline across the outline of the drawing, and then converting it to polygons. Once this is done for both the front and side views, they can be connected together and morphed to create the framework for the model.

Lessons 21 - 26: Creating facial features

Although I don't plan to put a lot of focus on facial rigging for my model, I still want to model the interior of the mouth so I can go back to it in future. These lessons showed me how to create the teeth and tongue using basic shapes, and then reshaping and dividing them to give detail.

Lessons 27 - 43: Creating the body

In a similar way to the facial features, he made the body of his character using shapes and then morphing them. Although I found it interesting to watch, I don't think it'll be as useful for my character as he has more complicated shapes on his body. I will most likely use the method he used to create the head.

Lessons 44 - 45: Creating the eyes

The eyes were made as normal spheres, but then morphed using an FFD Binding to shape them into the head with no overlapping. The eyes can still be rotated around, but the shape always stays the same.

New character design

After attempting to create a 3D version of my lion drawing, I found that the head shape was incredibly basic. Although I may be interested in modelling and rigging similar characters by myself at a later date, I feel that doing a slightly more complicated character would be more impressive as a dissertation piece.

I have decided to try a caricature human design, with the basic anatomy of an ordinary human but with both extruded and simplified features of the body. I found that looking at Pixar was a good place to start with these, as I feel that they create characters with an excellent blend of realistic and cartoony features (such as big heads, expressive faces and interesting anatomy).

In particular, I focused on one of my favourite Pixar films: The Incredibles. There is a lot of media based around super heroes, so I feel that creating a superhero character is a good way to show off my modelling and rigging skills. Using Mr. Incredible as the main inspiration, I created my new character: Larthur X. To save time, I took a character blueprint from the internet and morphed his features in Photoshop to change his appearance. I then traced over the images in Flash and added a new outfit. I also did this because I don't expect to be marked on my actual character design, so I felt that spending too much time thinking of a new one would be wasted time.

With the front and side views below, I will start 3D modelling tomorrow and see how I get along with it, but I'm hopeful that he should convert to 3D well as the blueprints are fairly accurate.

As you can see from these drawings, the character has a fair mixture of muscle and fat. I felt that having a fat superhero would be more interesting to model and rig, though I currently don't plan to add physics to his individual fat pockets or muscle tissue.

I may change how his side-profile looks as I model it, as right now I feel that his forehead and chin may be too square. Both of these will be answered with experimentation.

Career Direction and Rough Character Designs

Whilst thinking about what I want to do in the future, I confirmed with myself that I am mostly interested in making animations and video games for children. I mirrored this decision in the Portfolio module, tailoring my curriculum vitae and portfolio website towards a family-oriented company (Rovio). I therefore think that the content of my dissertation should reflect this, with family-friendly content which still shows off my skills.

I've now started to draw up some rough character designs, both of which are drawn to be as cute as possible. I've read a couple of online articles about making cute character designs, but it's all fairly obvious stuff. Right now I have made a lion and a sheep character, and I may make more depending on how easy/hard they are to model.

After I have chosen my final character design I will draw a side view, a front view, and possibly a top view of them to make it easier to model. I will do this after I have finished watching 'Creating Cartoon Characters in 3ds Max' from Digital Tutors so that I can add any details I feel would make the modelling process easier.

Dissertation Idea Overhaul

Due to a huge lack of interest and direction in the current dissertation, I have decided to make a big change to the dissertation project. Below I have outlined the four stages of development I plan to do, and a rough estimate of how long I will spend on each. The estimated times are done with a 2-month timeline, but that is just to leave wiggle room at the end.

I will keep the blog updated with developments on the project as usual.

Step 1: Designing the character (1 week)

Using Flash, I will design the basic character that I want to model. I plan to keep it fairly simple with a cartoony style, so that I don't spend all my time modelling it. I plan to have extreme proportions on the character, such as a big head and large phalanges.

Step 2: Modelling the character (2.5 weeks)

In 3DS Max, I will model a 3D version of my drawings. For this I will use a Digital-Tutors series for help, as well as any other useful online sources. Although I am not worried too much about the poly count on the model, I do want to try and keep it simple considering my short time period to do it.

Step 3 : Rigging the character (1.5 weeks)

Still in 3DS Max, I will use a pre-build biped for adding bones to my character, and then skin it myself. Although I have a little bit of experience with rigging and skinning from my second year, I still plan to use a Digital-Tutors series for help.

Step 4: Animating the character (3 weeks)

This step is similar to the old project, though instead of animating a whole continuous animation, it will be split up into different cycles. The animation of the character is still my primary focus, so I want to make these detailed and believable (note that I don't use the word 'realistic' here, as it's cartoony). Right now I plan to make an idle standing animation, a walk, a run and a jump; I also still want my dissertation focus to be making the animations expressive and interesting