Week 3-Continuing to Model My Face

This week I began by creating the back of my head. The first thing I did was to return to Photoshop to segment the head area before building the structure. With the pen tool I marked areas of the neck where there were creases in blue. Then I used these as guidelines to divide the head and neck into quadrants. When doing this I paid close attention to the example and believe this went reasonably well.

The next step was to work with the guidelines to create the remainder of the head. To begin the modelling I went to the create panel and selected the sphere. When I drew this out I used my profile photograph as a guide to the size I needed.

When I was satisfied with the size of the sphere I rotated it so the areas where many of the vertexes met were at the side and used the scale tool so it was also in proportion with my head on the frontal image. I then reduced the number of segments in the sphere so the edges aligned with vertical edges of the already modelled face.

Afterwards I made it into an editable poly, selected polygon mode and with the paint selection marquee highlighted all the segments which were not needed, these being the ones which backed onto the model of my face and around the bottom of the sphere. When I felt all the unnecessary polygons had been removed I also deleted one half of the sphere as when I attach it to the front of the head the symmetry modifier will create the other side for me.

Next I attached the sphere vertexes to the forehead. For this I selected the sphere and chose vertex mode before turning on snap and setting it to ‘snap to vertex.’ Then, with the move tool I joined the vertexes in turn. For the outer edge vertex I used the soft selection tool set to 14.047 to raise the edge of the remainder of the sphere so the join would be smooth and unnoticeable.

Following this I removed some of the polygons as they were unnecessary, especially as the smoothing tools would make the surface smooth. To do this I went into edge mode of the editable poly modifier and selected every other edge on the outer rim of the back of the head. Then, by selecting the ring button in the menu all the parallel edges were selected.

With these selected I chose collapse in the edge menu. This resulted in the selected edges being removed, simplifying the geometry.

This part of the model had gone well so far, and so I decided to continue onto the next step. This was to create the rest of the head and the neck and shoulder area. For this I remained in edge mode and selected a few of the edges before holding down shift and dragging them to create new polygons. I repeated this process several times, all the time referring back to the quadrant guidelines I drew on the picture. Once the basis of the shape was established I used the move tool to reposition the vertexes and add the third dimension. Gradually I built up the shape using this method.

This became very messy, particularly when I worked around the front of the neck and under the chin. This was due to me making an error and not welding the vertexes as soon as I created the new ones. This did result in me having to go back a few stages and remove some of the polygons I had already created.

After I had created the basis of the neck I decided to add in the quadrants where the ears were positioned as these are key areas and therefore important to establish the position early on.

From here I worked on filling in the area above the ear. Before beginning I tried to work out the most sensible place to put each quadrant and decided the most practical procedure would be to work in a circular direction. I used the same method of dragging out the segments as I did for the neck. To enable me to create a continuous surface I once again used the snap tool.

However, this left me with a segment with eight sides. To overcome this problem I used the cut tool to divide the polygon further. The polygons I created were all quadrants and were the best solution I could come to, but I am slightly disappointed with the shape of one of the quadrants.

Next I completed the head by joining the vertexes at the back of the head to the face. This task was completed by new polygons being created and their vertexes being snapped to the front of the face. For this I started at the cheek and worked around to the chin. Joining the chin was slightly more difficult as there was a difference in the number of segments around this area unlike the cheek and side of the head. Due to this I needed to also use the connect edges tool to enable me to join the neck without creating any five sided shapes.

After I had created all of the segments I looked at the shape overall and felt the width of the head was too small in comparison to the modelled face. To resolve this I selected the vertexes which I felt I had positioned incorrectly and with the move tool placed these further away from the others, creating a rounder shape.

At this point I was reasonably happy with the shape of the head and so decided to join it with the face. To do this I selected the face, and in the editable poly drop down menu opened the attach window. I chose the back of the head from the list and selected attach.

I then used the paint selection marquee tool to highlight all the new vertex joins I had created and then, using the weld window, made the overlapping vertexes into one.

I felt this had gone reasonably well and so turned on NURMS subdivision to check the appearance once the surface was smoothed. During this I discovered that all the vertexes which should have been welded together during the previous step had not as some small gaps had appeared on the surface. To resolve this issue I went back into vertex mode and with the snap tool joined these vertexes together before welding them again. The result of these corrections was a continuous surface.

I felt the head was as good as I could get it and so decided to go onto the lips. To start I selected the face area and went into editable poly edge mode. I then selected all the edges along the top of the mouth, selected the move tool and moved them whilst holding the shift key to create new polygons. Then I welded the vertexes which I had just created. I repeated this process a second time to get another row of polygons. I then used the move tool to make the vertexes follow the shape of my lip in the photograph.

The technique I used for the top lip worked well and so I repeated this for the bottom lip. This time however, I decided to create three new rows of polygons as this lip is larger and I therefore believed I would need more vertexes to be able to model the correct shape.

Afterwards I turned on NURMS subdivision to see what the surface would look like when smoothed. I was really pleased with the outcome of the bottom lip, but felt the top one still needed some work as I was unable to tell the difference between that and the surrounding area.

To resolve this I went into vertex mode and in the side view viewport I moved the vertexes of the lip further towards the nose as this would make this part of the model protrude more than the surrounding area. Whilst doing this I paid close attention to the profile reference image to try to get the lip as realistic as possible, therefore I aligned the vertexes at the top of the lip furthest forward and made the others gradually recede as I worked down toward the bottom. Also, I kept in my mind the anatomy of a head in general and so placed the vertexes closest to the centre of the face very close together and gradually spaced them further apart as I worked around to the side of the head.

During the previous task I also referred to the frontal reference photograph when working on the central part as previously I had not created the indent under the nose. After my initial attempt at modelling this area I had produced a ridge at the symmetry join which did not look quite right. To resolve this I moved the first column of vertexes back towards the ear and the second column forwards so it lined up with the outline of my reference image. However, I took this too far and added a slight indent to the lip as well (as you can see in the image above) and had to reposition some of the vertex points on the lip to remove this. But, once I had done this I was pleased with the outcome.

After this I noticed that there were two triangles at the corner of the mouth. This error was easily corrected and I went into edge mode and deleted the line between the two to create one quadrant.

At this point I realised there was still a problem with the neck. I thought the steps I took earlier had corrected the errors I made on the neck; however solving this issue was not as easy as I first thought. In one place at the side there was a split and one of the segments involved was a pentagon. Snapping vertexes together in this case was not feasible as there was no other vertex to join it with without overlapping segments. My only option was to delete all the polygons affected and recreate them. So, I select the edge icon in editable poly mode, selected the edges, held down shift and dragged out two rows of new quadrants. I then used the snap tool set to vertex and joined the new vertexes to the originals. Finally I welded them.

I then checked that this had worked and was pleased with the result.

Following this I felt it would be a good time to prefect the shape of the face. To do this I made sure NURMS was turned on so I could see how smooth each area was. I then went into vertex mode and with the move tool repositioned the vertexes to create a better shape. Originally there were dips on and under the cheek and so I moved the vertexes out towards the nose to make this part of the mesh rise to the same level as the parts surrounding it and consequently flow around a natural face shape.

I then repositioned the vertexes on the neck to make this smooth as well. Using the reference images as a guide I moved the vertexes accordingly to make it round and therefore more realistic. Any vertexes which were too pronounced I moved back into the neck and the ones which were creating a visible indent I moved outwards as appropriate.

There was still a large ridge at the symmetry join on the back of the head. To stop this part from sticking out I selected the vertexes along the join in turn and used the move tool to place them inwards. I started at the top of the ridge and worked downwards, making a gradual change each time. This is because I did not want to overdo this and end up with an indented area instead. Also, I was not sure how much affect moving the following vertexes would have on the ones already positioned and so felt the best option would be to do this slowly. Eventually I got what I was looking for.

I was quite happy with this so far and so decided to go onto the ear. To begin I reopened my photos in Photoshop and defined the edges of the ear with the paintbrush tool. This was more difficult that I had anticipated as the profile picture I originally chose to work with had some hair covering the detail, leading to me having to refer to another image so I could get the lines as accurately positioned as possible.

Next I used these lines to guide me with the segmentation of the ear. Here, as with previous areas, I tried to make sure the segments were all quadrants. The instructional video was a useful guide as to how to put the less obvious areas into quadrants, such as the inner part of the ear. However, I did find myself having to reposition some of the lines to stop any from colliding and making the quadrant sizes as even as possible.

When I was happy with the quadrants I went into 3Ds max so I could start to model the ear, but the photograph had become very pixelated and as a result the quadrants positions were unclear. To resolve this issue I went to the customise menu and opened the preferences setting window. From here I changed the setting in the ‘Configure Direct3D’ window by ticking the boxes to make the bitmap sizes match as closely as possible.

Once the guidelines on the ear were clear I selected the line tool and set both creation methods to corner. I then turned on snap which I set to ‘snap to vertex.’ From here I traced the guidelines to create a set of splines which resembled the shape of the ear.

I felt the splines represented the shape of my ear quite well and so went on to make one into an editable poly. Then, within the editable poly menu I opened the attach window and selected all the other lines which make up the ear so they all became polygons. The final step before modelling the ear was to weld the overlapping vertexes which made up the ear, making the shapes into one.

The next step was to move the vertexes so the ear would have a third dimension. To do this I firstly positioned the ear to the side of the head and selected the object property of see-through. I then went into vertex mode and repositioned the vertexes with the move tool so that they also followed the shape of the ear in the frontal image. For this I started on the outer edge and worked in towards the head as I used this approach for the face and it worked well for me. Once I had the basic shape established I did find the need to make some minor alterations to the position of some vertexes as some were very close together in relation to others, but eventually I got an arrangement I was happy with.

Even though the ear had now gained a third dimension it still did not look realistic. So the next thing I did was to create the inside of the ear. To do this I selected the polygons which were located in this area and opened the inset window. Here I changed the inset amount to 0.08.

Next I used the move tool to deepen the inset. I then repeated this process with other parts of the ear where there are indents. Then I applied the NURMS subdivision to see how it would look when smoothed.

I was disappointed with the shape of the ear as I had not managed to create the overhang at the top and side. I tried to create this using the inset and move method, but was unable to get the right shape. Instead I decided to go back the last few stages and try again.

Once I had the basic indent amount I changed to vertex mode and rearranged the start and end vertexes of the outer indent to make a smoother transition into and out of this area. I also repositioned the vertexes at the top of the ear to try to show the ridge in this area. I then looked at it in NURMS subdivision mode.

I believe the ear is starting to look quite good. It still needs some more work, but I will continue with this next week.

I am very happy with the progress I have made during the last week and hope next week goes as well.