Working on the eyes.

Today I have been learning how to create and animate eyes, I searched for tutorials and followed one which I just couldn't get my head around, the quality of the video was rather poor and the narrator didn't explain things which was frustrating. I then found another tutorial which was run over a series this was much more detailed and explained techniques and interfaces on 3DS Max which was incredibly useful and because of this I learned a lot about the program which I didn't know.

Firstly I created a sphere, however for this I used the keyboard entry which allowed me to align is right in the centre of the stage.

The next thing I needed to do was to create an eyelid for my eyeball and to do this I created another sphere in the exact same place but made it very slightly bigger to overlap the whole of the eye ball. To create a split to from the eye lids I opened the modifer panel and it gave me the option to turn 'Slice on' I checked the box, and could then move the values of 'Slice from' and 'Slice to' this created the opening of the eye.

I then needed to create a visual point that the eye would follow, to do this I learned something new which was to go into the helpers tab and create a 'Point', I aligned the point to the centre of the eyeball and attached it, I then created another which I placed in front of the eye and created constraint for the point in the centre of the eye, I selected at the top of 3DS max Animation > Constraints > LookAt Constraint and selected the point in front of the eye, this meant that where ever the point in front of the eye moved, the eye would follow. Now I had the eye following the Points I needed both of them to follow one particular object so that the eyes were both looking at the same thing, I simply created another pointer, centred it between the two that the eyes were looking at and added a LookAt constraint from both Points to the centre point, and this would be the 'Parent'.

 I also learned at this stage about layers in 3DS max, similar to adobe programs I was able to open the layer panel and create a new layer, in this window it allowed me to modify different settings, such as enabling that particular layer to be viewed or not when rendered.

The next stage was to clone what I had created and apply some materials which would make the eye look realistic and give it some pupils to show what they were looking at, in the tutorial the teacher creates his own using the material editor, however because he was creating eyes for a cartoon I felt that these were rather poor, so I decided to find some on-line, I search for eyeball textures and found a royalty free eye ball and skin texture. I applied the skin to the outer sphere creating the eyelids and the eyeball to the centre sphere which I then gave a UVM map to position in correctly.

The next step was to make the eye lids open and shut and to do this I needed to add a control which would allow me to open both the left and right eye lids together, I went into Helpers > Manipulators > Slider, I could then draw a slider on the stage, I renamed it according to the eye lid, top and bottom. I now needed to connect the slider to the eye lids, I right clicked the slide > Wire parameters, and then clicked on the eye lid, this opened a menu and I chose 'Value' and then Object > Slice to, this being the top half of the Sphere (Top eye lid), this opened up another window, which allowed me to connect the Value and the Slice to, and clicked the one way control direction, this means that the Value will control the Slice to, I then pressed connect and this finished the process.

Now that a slider has been assigned to the eye lid I was able to control the movement by moving the slider, however to do this I had to select the 'Select and Manipulate' tool at the top of the program to enable the use of the slider. In the modify panel with the slider selected I was able to set the minimum and maximum value that the eye lids would open, this meant that the eyes would open and close to realistic positions, as the movement is limited.  I then did the same process with the slider and the wire parameters to the other eye so that one slider would control both eyes, I created 2 sliders in total, one for the movement of the top eye-lid and the other for the movement of the bottom eye-lid, and both eyes were controlled by the single sliders.

I am extremely happy with the out come of the eyes, I feel that they look amazing, and will be extremely easy to animate with the use of the sliders and the Auto-key, I will hopefully be attaching to my head some how, and should help give a realistic animation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=op1_XY9NbNQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GtwOdTV0qA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH9d9oj_cFk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4JkYT9avgc

My strategy review.

Most people I know have been modelling by using extrusions on their model, however my approach has been to model each aspect of my character separately; head, ears, nose, hands, and body. I have found this way of modelling to be a little more time consuming because I am having to attach the aspects and manipulate the aspect to suit the shape of the character, also its important that I line up the geometry so that the lines flow, as this should make it better for rigging and animating, this is also proving to  be time costly.

Although I may be creating more work for myself I am pleased with my progress and the way I am doing things, by creating each aspect individually I am able to have separate files for each of them, and also I believe I am learning a lot more about each individual aspects geometry, by following tutorials and researching before creating them, some people have created excellent models, however I don't believe they have learnt much about the topology and geometry of their models, and when it comes to animating their models may not animate as they hoped.

I hope that because I have taken extra time to create my model and learn more about flow of lines, that my model should animate well. Again with a 3D module like this I don't feel like we have enough time to create sufficient piece of work, because of juggling other modules, I think we would all benefit a module like this to be run over the course of 2 semesters, I am hoping that what I  am hoping create will be satisfactory according to the time scale.

Modelling hands

The next stage to my character was creating the hands, I decided the best way to approach this was to watch some videos and try and understand the process of modelling the hand, I also looked at the geometry of the hand, and the bone structure to get some ides of where the bones run and the position of the joints.

I found a series of images when I researched 'Hand topology' in Google images, and this helped me understand the structure of the hand.

I then followed a YouTube tutorial series which helped me model my own hand, the tutorial took a good couple of hours and it was quite a hard tutorial to follow, however I am extremely pleased with the outcome and I would go as far to say it is one of the best models I have created, even without the fine details of the hand such as veins and creases I feel that the outcome is very realistic, the shape is all in tact and follows the shape of a real hand.

To create the hand I print screened a reference image from the tutorial I was following and used this to help with the geometry, I then created a box and moved the vertices to correspond with the reference image and video, and I then began using extrusions to create the shape, I also used a technique which I have learnt this year quite a lot which involves me selecting a line and using a 'ring' then using the 'connect tool' which adds another line along the sequence of lines I am manipulating, this is also a great reference to see whether a model has correct geometry because the connect will only work if the geometry is in the right places.

I then spent a lot of time moving and pulling vertices on the box to try and eliminate the box shape and try give it a more rounded shape, this helped a lot when applying a smooth as it provided a more natural looking hand, the tutorial suggested using Turbo Smooth, however I believe that the NURMS smooth is better and have been using that throughout my other models, so decided to stick with it. 

For modelling the fingers I created a cylinder and added some more geometry to give the finger definition such as knuckles, it was important that the amount of sides were the same as the amount of vertices on the palm of the hand, so that when it came to welding the finger to the hand it would align easier. I then deleted the end of each cylinder as one end would be attached to the hand, and the other end I needed to create the nail bed and nail, I did this by creating a cylinder and cutting in half, I then attached this using target weld to the end of the finger and from here I could sculpt the nail, for the nail bed I simply extruded the 4 polys downwards three times, and then extruded the 3 lines it created to  create the cuticle of the finger, I then selected the polys again and extruded them upwards and then out to create the nail.

I then copied the completed finger 4 times, for the fingers and the thumb, scaling them corresponding to each finger, and for the thumb scaling it significantly, rotating it and changing the shape. The final step was to attach each finger and the thumb to the hand, and I did this simply by using the target weld, this was quite an easy task as I had an equal amount of vertices to attach to. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksVUhWUcXN0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn8pwcGav7A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOQD-csErOk

Attaching the ears to my model.

I have had a lot of trouble trying to attach the ears I created to my models face, I managed to attach the ear to one side of the face and then I tried to delete half the face and use the symmetry modifier to complete it, however once I added the symmetry it would not align properly and for some reason I couldn't get it to join symmetrically, I asked several people in the group for their help and it seemed to stump everyone, I tried changing the centre point of the head, I tried symmetry on the other side of the head, however nothing seemed to work.
I finally decided that I would re-start the process of adding the ear and add the symmetry tool to specifically the ear only, and then I could start cutting and welding the ear on and both sides would be identical, I managed to get this method to work and this is how it turned out.

This is how I added the ear, I imported the ear into the head file and placed it just away from the position I wanted it to sit, I then applied the x-ray tool so that I could see through the ear and to the side of the head and this allowed me to cut in vertices which would align roughly with the vertices of the edge of the ear, once this was complete I then began to target weld the vertices of the ear to the head.
I had to play around with the shape of the ear once it was on the head by scaling and rotating specific vertices to give a more realistic shape to the ear, as it was modelled flat so therefore did not have the right characteristics of an ear.

When the whole head is smoothed using the NURMS smooth I am very proud of what I have achieved.

Attaching the nose > Head

After completion of the nose, I imported the nose into the head file where I could finally attach it to the face of the model, I had already had a place on the head for the nose to fit as I deleted the polys from the nose position.
I used two different techniques for adding the nose that I have learnt from doing tutorials, and that is the bridge tool, which allowed me to fill in holes from one line to another, and the target weld tool which allowed me to connect two vertices together.

There was a lot of vertices movement involved, I found that the nose stuck out quite a bit and this meant that I had to move different parts and scale them down so that it looked more realistic once of the head.

I had to use the cut tool to create more vertices, so I was able to connect the nose vertices to the correct place on the head, and create a good geometry.

Once the nose was in position and I was happy with the scale of it, I was able to add a NURMS smooth to show me how it would look, I was extremely happy with the end result and think that it looks a lot better than I initially thought.

Ear modelling.

I have begun modelling the ear for my model, I found this process extremely hard, however again likewise with creating the body, I think this was down to myself rushing ahead and not thinking about things through, I eventually took the time to watch a tutorial and learn how to create an ear with the correct geometry, one of the biggest things I have learnt with modelling human features is that geometry is vitally important, I tried to create the ear by going straight into it and creating the ear-like shape, however when it came to adding a smooth to the object the ear didn't look realistic what so ever, and lost all of its shape.

After watching the tutorial I grabbed a print screen of the persons ear so I could follow the geometry, I set up a plane and then created another plane to model and follow the template I set up, from here I cut in all the geometry and followed it according to the image, and then I followed the tutorial for extruding the different aspects of the ear, I firstly extruded the outer edge, and then the inner parts I used a bevel technique, so that once extruded they could be scaled down slightly to give a gradient.



I also learnt a new technique whilst watching this video, I found that its possible to delete certain polys which may not be needed, and can then join the vertices to close the gap, to do this select two vertices, right click > collapse, this then allows the vertices to join.

This is the outcome of the ear after following the tutorial and making sure that the model has the correct geometry, I am very happy with the outcome, and this is how it looks when using NURMS smooth, I do however think it looks a little bit too smooth, but this can be altered by adjusting the settings on the smooth at a later date.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhF_lhx7QSM