Character Modeling Workflow Example

[Teyon]

Then I loft the surface and correct the points near the edges so that when the object is mirrored, there is no visible seam.

Just a note...this is more of a workflow example than an actual step - by - step tutorial thingie. So, feel free to ask questions about stuff that's unclear but don't expect a lot of detail in the initial postings, ok?

[Teyon]

I then insert two sets of symmetrical knots into the surface (totaling 4 extra knots). Once that's done, I turn points on and select points along the side of that model that flows from the lower front up to the chest area.

With these points selected, I click rotate, and, switch to the Right view. I start the rotation a little below the front of the model and rotate the points inward (while working in the Right view). Next, I will rotate these same points in the Front view, starting from the armpits and rotating inward so that the crotch area is more defined.

[Teyon]

Then I add 3 knots (u direction), one at the base of the neck, one inbetween the shoulder area, and one where the chest would be. These knots have no symmetry by the way.

After doing that, I began manipulating points so that the breasts begin to take shape. As you attempt this, you'll notice that the chest area doesn't seem to look as curved as the one I made. You'll assume I either added weights to a point or added knots. This is not the case! What I did was simply move a point to a spot I didn't want it to go and then I clicked UNDO. That forces Rhino to rebuild the surface without adding or changing the current knot layout. Neat little trick to smooth things without bulking up the model too much.

[Teyon]

Now then, this is the fun part. We start to see the power of points and good placement. Insert one knot (v direction) next to the knot shown in the picture with the arrow. Then turn points on. This new knot we just placed will help the breast maintain most of its shape while we create the shoulder and armpit from the knot that was next to it.

What we do is move the points inward, toward the shoulder in both the Top/Front and Right viewports. In the top view, it will probably be necessary to rotate the points of the breast toward teh armpit a little bit to round the breast out some. We still lack enough knots to truly make the required shape but this gets us so close, you'd almost be willing to leave it that way.

[Teyon]

Okay, let's take a break for a sec and do a quick mirror to see how things are going and what is left to be done.

You can see from the image that things are going well but we have a few key problems. For one thing, the breasts aren't sitting properly on the ribcage. That will require another knot in the U direction and some minor point pulling. The other, more delicate, more crucial problem is that the breast has no break, one flows into the other. This will require some points in the V direction and careful point movement...we don't want to ruin the shape of the breast but we also need to cut into it. There also seems to be just the slightest bit of a seam developing (this actually isn't the case) so we have to be really careful in how we position the edge points and hope that when we use matchsrf, the seam will vanish.

[Teyon]

So enough talking about it, we're gonna go do it! So, add one to three knots in the U area, one in the middle of the lower part of the breast, one in the upper part near the colarbone and if you want, you can add another around the ribcage area. The v knots are a little more complicated...I'm thinking maybe add two but you could go as high as three or four depending on your taste and how you want the breasts to seperate.

If for some reason you still find the effect not quite right, add a few more knots in both directions but try to do it strategically, keeping in mind that you want as few knots/points as possible. As always, feel free to ask questions.

[Teyon]

Okay, that's basically it for now. Only her throat has the smallest amount of a seam at the base but we'll be splitting most of that away so no worries. Besides, we don't want to get too detailed with her body because:

1. We're trying to give a semi-realistic/semi-cartoon feel to her.

2. We're going to be covering her up in clothing so there's no point in making what won't be seen.

[Teyon]

Okay so after the torso was pretty much done, I went on to do her head. Here's the workflow on that: :)
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Hi everyone. For those catching up, we left off with the torso pretty much done (we didn't do any work on the back of the model if you recall). Now it's on to the head. I'll post the steps required up to this point.

As I said before, this isn't so much a tutuorial as it is an example of my workflow and thought process when creating characters. A little more of the why then the how, if you will. So, if anything is unclear, I will try to elaborate when asked but don't expect the general posts to be detailed in the how of things.




So, the first thing I do is set up some base curves to loft from. Once the curves are lofted, I line up points and then tweak them a bit to get the basic shape I want.

[Teyon]

Then I start planing my next move. Take a look at the wireframe and try to figure out where you'd put your next knot.

[Teyon]

There's a couple of ways to attack the next step and depending on my mood at a given moment, I use either one.

What that step is, is to add another U knot to further shape up the front of the head and get the knots to flow in a nice clean way, shaping the head. The first way is to simply leave it as is, add about three knots roughly where the nose/eyes go and start reshaping to taste. That works sometimes but can leave you open to lots of extra knot adding that you didn't want and also some wrinkling around the chin and jaw line if you aren't careful while moving points. Again, sometimes that's ok.

The way I prefer to do it (the way I like to do it when I'm not too lazy that is) is to add a knot in back of the front forehead knot or just behind the center knot between the forehead and the knot that connects the jaw to the head (sometimes I add both of those). The reason I do this is that it forces you to use what you have to get what you want and it also leads into some other steps right away that you may forget as you go.

What are these steps? well, if you look at these images of Gollum, you can see that the front of a head is a lot narrower then that of the back. While we've planned for this already with our initial loft curves, the effect can be further enhanced by moving some of the points of the front of the face inward toward its center. The problem with doing things the first way (placing curves in front of the forehead)is that it can become hard to figure out what points to move and how far to move them. If we place the curves in back of the forehead, as described in the second way...we are FORCED to move the forhead's points so we have soemthing to work with.

The best way to move these points is to rotate them foward until they are where we want them to be. Those of you familiar with polygon modeling characters would have by now heard of a term called edgelooping. These are the major loops of a face that block out the shapes needed to keep a face looking like a well porportioned face. While the method is different for us, the result can be the same. I'll go into more detail in a sec.

[Teyon]

Here's a good example of edge loops and how they relate to the model and anatomy.

Notice the loops in the upper pictures? How the major parts of the head are blocked out? Well, we're trying to achieve something similar (though not exactly) and it IS possible with NURBS. You just have to train yourself to see and seek them.

[Teyon]

So, just a quick re-hash of edge loops and how they apply to Rhino. We won't be able to loop as fully as they do in polygon programs...that's just not the nature of NURBS, however, we can learn good structure by studying these polygonal models. The mouth is sperated by a specific loop which causes the indention below your nose. The ends of the nose are connected to the loop that creates frown lines, which in turn, encircles the mouth, etc, etc. This gives you and idea of what to look for as you model. It gives you a way to help determine if your model will have the structure needed to maintain the look you want.

The best way is to show you I guess. Have a look at this NURBS model I made. Notice how it has very similar looping to the image above, even though it is a more realistic head? Just because you're making a toon character doesn't mean you get to change the structure of a face. It is this sturcture that helps it relay to us what it is supposed to be and will decide how well it is recieved.

Now that that lecutre is over, let's get to some modeling already. LOL.

[Teyon]

So, as I said, I placed my curve after the curve that made the forehead. See the image? I put my new curve at the tip of that arrow.

[Teyon]

Then I reshape it by moving some of the points foward and down along the shape of the head. This helps to get my model into the looping stages shown above. Once you have the shape right, you can add more knots to detail the face some.

What I tend to do is attack the mouth area first. You'll find that this can be the hardest area of the face to get right and if you wait until after you've added detail elswhere, you can seriously screw yourself up. Waiting will cause sudden creases to show up because of how close the surface knots are and that will force you to do extra point pulling as well as struggling to find a way to smooth the surface while keeping your previous detail. As Blowtorch once said on GI JOE, "Start at the foundation and the rest comes tumbling down." If you base your foundation around the mouth of your model, the rest of the details will just snap into place and be far easier to manage.

[Teyon]

Here's a shaded look at it from multiple angles. Please note that this particular model holds her head down, not the greatest way to model a head, but it is a characteristic of this particular toon I'm making. When starting out, try making your heads so that they are looking perfectly straight ahead, as doing otherwise can result in some porportional issues.

[Teyon]

A quick detail of the mouth area. If you look, you can see how I basically just kept moving the knots downward, toward the mouth opening, while attempting to keep the circular pattern already established. This form of looping is called spiralling if I remember correctly. Not something you'd want to do in polys exactly, as true edge looping works better, but in a NURBS program, it's one of the best ways to go. Notice how with only 3 lines, the mouth is made, the line above stands as a barrier of protection for both the mouth and the areas outside it. 3 is the magic number here folks. It takes 3 points to make a curve, and it tends to take 3 knots to add details.

The only thing you have to be careful of is the chin area, where the surface knots tend to bunch up. This is a prime place for wrinkles to show up and if I'd done the eyes first then did the mouth, there'd be nothing but wrinkles to see. :)

[Teyon]

Continuing our spiraling, we simply move down the front points of the next set of knots so we can establish the nose area. If you're worried about losing the shape of the head as you go, simply figure out the knots you'll need to move and place a new knot either in front or in back of them (at this point, it's usually in back). Keep shading your view and rotating your perspective viewport to check the surface quality of your model for dimples or pinches. These tend to pop up now and then but with the low amount of knots on your surface, finding and fixing them should be easy.

Adding knots as needed, remember to check for creases that appear in the shaded view. Depending on your render mesh settings, Rhino can sometimes make you think there are creases where in fact there are none. So be sure of your surface before moving or adding things.

[Teyon]

And, with just three knots, and some decent point placement, you can define the rough of the nose. Detailing will take a little more but there you are. It's starting to look like the face of a video game character and we've barely added any knots at all. The next thing to do would be to sharpen the look of the forehead, which in turn, would help to define the eye area. More on that later though. For now, I have to finish up some personal projects.

[Klasz]

Hehe, Nice :thumbsup:
I didn't even know some ppl were doing this kind of stuff whith rhino.... I use it especially for object design and architecture so...

;)
Great that there is a new CGTALK RHINO FORUUUUUUMMMMMMMMMMM :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

[Teyon]

Thanks, it's actually the reason I purchased Rhino in the first place, lol. Little did I know I was one of the few doing that sort of thing. If you like the head modeling example here, you may want to see one in motion. I happen to have one of my workflow videos available for folks to watch and gleam info from:

*Edit: Link Removed due to bandwidth issues*

[Klasz]

Link seems to be dead :hmm:

;)

[Teyon]

lol. oh, I didn't realize that many people have downloaded it. I'll have to post it to my other site later tonight. Here's a pic of the model at the stage that video ends. I'm going to rar the vid so I can use a free hosting site until I have time to send it to mine.

[Teyon]

You can get the file from Rapid Share here. (http://rapidshare.de/files/2009763/CM2.rar.html)

How it works:

-Click on the link
- Scroll to the bottom of the page and click "free"
- Wait 30 Seconds (there is a little counter, sometimes more than 30 seconds)
- Click on the link
- Wait an hour or two (just kidding but it is slow) and voila.

You'll need Winrar or another program that can open *.rar files to unpack the avi file.

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