Bibliography

Maslowski, E, (2007) 3ds max video tutorials – organic 3d modelling [internet]

http://cg-india.com/tutorials/3dsmax_tutorials_organic_modeling.html

[Cited – 21-09-11]

Unknown (2011) Mr Ali Korns Digital Designs [Internet]

http://www.digital.alikorn.com/index.php?act=showItem&item=110

[Cited – 17-10-11]

Rendered Head

Below is a picture of the head fully rendered as it is at the moment:

Rifining Head

This next part is to do some small refining adjustments and additives to the head. To start select all of the lines around the bottom of the skull, hold the shift key and drag out some new polygons. Go a little way down and start moving the vertices around to form the shape of the neck and underneath the chin. The head is also a little too pointy, but this can be rectified by moving the vertices at the top of the head out a little to make a rounder shape.

The next part is to add the eyes, draw a sphere and convert it to an editable poly. Next shape the sphere to fit inside of the eye socket without leaving any gaps between the socket and the eye.

Next add an eye material to make the eye appear more realistic. This can be an image found on the internet, for the moment it is just there to illustrate the fact that it’s an eye. To make the head appear a little more realistic, change the colour to a peachy colour instead of the gold at the moment.

Ear Creation

The next stage is the creation of the ear. To start, open up the image file in Photoshop and draw some topology lines around the ear. This will make the ear much simpler when put into 3DS max as it is using the same technique used to create the face and skull.

When the topology lines have been drawn, insert the new image into 3DS max, and using the line tool draw around each polygon.

Once all of the polygons have been drawn the vertices need to be moved using the viewport with the front of the face. This is so the ear is extended to roughly the correct width of the ear in the picture using it as a guide.

Once the rough shape has been made, select all of the polygons in the inner part of the ear and extrude those inwards.

From here make any adjustments still in the turbo smooth mode so that you can clearly see the parts of the ear that’s being affected when moved.

Next position the ear roughly in the place where it needs to go on the skull. Make sure the head is see-through so that you can match up the ear on the head as best as possible.

Now select the ear and select the lines in edit poly. Select the lines around the outside of the ear, hold the shift key and move out new polygons to make the ear 3D.  

Next select the area of the skull where the ear will be placed and delete the polygons. Move the ear back to the new hole in the skull and start attaching the vertices from the ear to the skull.

Once the ear is attached the vertices can be welded together to make the ear a part of the head.

Primative Extension

The basic objects around the face have now been created, so now to move onto the skull. Back in Photoshop using the side view, more topology lines need to be drawn, that will make drawing the skull a little easier. These lines are not as important as the ones for the face so there is no need to spend a whole lot of time on them.

First choose the sphere shape and draw a sphere over the head, then adjust it to match the images as much as possible. Due to lining up key aspects of the face the side view looks a little bigger than the front view, so choose a size for the sphere that fits somewhere in the middle. This can be adjust later if needed.

Next delete one half of the sphere, so that the half you are using matches up with the half of the face that is being edited. Also delete the middle and about half of the sphere so that you have vertices from the top of the face, to the back of the head. Connect the vertices from the sphere to the top of the face using the snap tool. Don’t weld them yet because the skull needs to be completed before permanently attached.

Next switch to the line select, in edit poly mode and select every other line on the inner semi-circle.  Click ring and it will select the rows of lines as shown below.

Underneath the edit geometry in edit poly mode click on collapse, which will remove unwanted polygons, leaving a much simpler shape to work with for the next step.

To start making the skull, select all of the lines at the bottom, by the back of the head and holding down shift and moving the objects. This will allow you to extend down to the back of the neck. Keep on doing this all the way down the head, remembering to connect the vertices to the face where needed.

This leaves a few gaps in the head, but using the cut tool new polygons can be created and the vertices can be connected. This can also be done using the connect tool. First by selecting the lines in-between where the new lines will be placed and clicking the connect button. This will make a line joining the two lines you selected.

This then allows you to connect the vertices together making the shape solid.

Now the shape can be mirrored using the symmetry modifier. In the modify panel select symmetry and click on the cross next to it to bring up the mirror drop list. Select the z axis and flip the image, then drag it out to close off the skull. A few alterations may need to be done if there is a gap in the skull, such as moving the vertices a little. When the skull is in place, go back to the modify panel and select turbo smooth, which will smooth the skull out.

This is roughly what the final skull will look like. From this view it is clear to see that the sides need to come out a little to make the shape a little more rounded rather than dented.

Refine Techniques

Now it is time to move onto the nose, to start zoom in so that you can see the hole in the nose very clearly. Select the outer lines around the nostril while in editable poly mode, hold the shift key and use the scale button to draw out new polygons. Select vertex mode again and drag the vertex over to the side that you did not extract new polygons from; this will form a basic hole for the nostril.

Next select the polygon option in edit poly mode and click on the create button. Now you can create one or two polygons over the newly made hole for the nostril by dragging around the vertex from corner to corner.

Select these new polygons and click the extrude button, this will allow you to move these polygons up the nose, creating the nostril.

Some tweaking around the nostril needs to be done to make it look more like a nostril rather than a hole in the head. The mask can then be turbo smoothed so that you can see what it looks like. In turbo smooth mode it is sometimes easier to see what lines need to be moved and where.

Now that the basic nostril is done I can now start on the lips, using roughly the same techniques used to create the nostril. First select the lines around the mouth, missing off the lines at the edges. Once again hold the shift key and use the scale button to draw out new polygons. Move these polygons around so that you can see them better individually.

Next take the corners, using the snap tool to move the vertices onto the vertex at the corner of the mouth. This will make the half-moon shape of the mouth.

Now the lines around the mouth are smooth they can be shaped to look like lips. This is done by moving the vertices around, in an upward and outward direction. This makes the lips look a little more 3D dimensional.

The small dip, between the nose and the lips is also easily created. Simply take the line of vertices and move them backwards slightly. The vertices next to it can then be moved outward slightly to show the bump between the nose and lips.

Now for the eyes, select the lines around the eyes and just like with the nose and mouth, hold the shift key and use the scale tool to draw out new polygons. Switch to vertex mode and select the vertices at the top of the eye and move them out slightly to form the top eyelid. Select the bottom row of vertices and move them out slightly to form the bottom eyelid.

 The corners are a little more difficult. The same technique, holding down the shift key using the move button instead can draw out the new polygons. These polygons however are only moved out a little, to form a V shape connecting the bottom eyelid to the top eyelid.

Symmetry

The next stage is to use the symmetry tool which is located in the modify panel, this will mirror the half of the face already created. This is hugely beneficial as whatever changes you make to one side are mirrored in the other side. This prevents you having to switch between each side to try and make them look the same.

Click on the symmetry option so that you can see the mirror panel and mirror the half of the face in the x axis and flip the image so that it is mirrored the correct way.

Now that it is mirrored go back to the modify panel and select turbo smooth, this will make the face smooth.

Now that the image has been mirrored and smoothed we can clearly see if there are any problem areas, for example a small hole, puffy features etc. these can now be edited by clicking on the edit poly option in the modify panel. Any changes that you make to one side are automatically changed in the other to help keep the symmetry. Any changes made are more easily spotted with the see-through option turned off.

Keep rotating the mask to spot any puffy features, for example just under the eye needs a bit of smoothing out. Move any vertices if needed to make the mask as smooth as possible.

Line to Surface

This stage involves the lines being drawn in 3DS max using the reference as a guide. To start change the view in 3DS max to front and left view, this can be done by right clicking on the cross and choosing configure, then selecting the layout of 3DS max.

For now we only need the front viewport, so this can be extended to fill the whole screen. Using the topology lines as a guide the lines can be almost traced using the line tool. When the line tool is selected click on the snap toggle tool at the top of the tool bar, then right click to bring up the toggle constraints. Grid points are usually the default option so un-check it and select vertex instead. Now the lines can be drawn around the face, each one needs to form its own polygon.

Drawing using a paint brush tool is quite different opposed to using straight lines so there may need to be a few changes in the polygons as the work progresses.

When all of the polygons have been drawn, right click on one of the lines and choose convert to an editable poly, this will form a polygon shape. Next go to the modify panel and find the button “attach”, next to it there is a small box, click on the box to bring up a list of all of the lines drawn. Select all of these lines and the click “attach”, this will make all of the lines drawn polygons. The only polygons that don’t need to be filled in is the space around the nose.

Some adjusting may need to be done to make sure the entire vertex joins up correctly and that there are no triangles in the polygons. Once the polygons are ready the viewports can be put back so that you are seeing the front and left viewport.

Right click on the object properties and tick the see-through box which will make the polygons see-through. This is so that when you start moving the polygons around you can still see the topology lines and your face for reference. Click and drag a line over the vertices, from the top of the forehead to the chin (only the first line of vertices). Switch to the left viewport and drag the vertices out towards the nose, and then select each vertex one by one to put them into place.

The next set of vertices will be place really close to the ones already in position.

Repeat this step until all of the vertices have been put into the correct place upon the face.

This will leave you with half of a hollow mask, which is ready for the next step. Some parts of the face might seem a bit off, such as the eyes not quite the right shape or a lot of puffy places on the face but these can be edited later.

Reference Setup

The next stage in the head modelling is to set up the pictures of my face with all of the reference lines in 3DS max. To do this, planes must be created for the pictures to be placed on. In the material editor choose the bitmap option and select the image for reference. Once the image has been placed on the plane, in the modify panel select gizmo and it will allow the plane to be copied by pressing shift and rotating the plane.

 The side view then needs to be flipped so that the head is facing the correct way. This can be done by going to the modify panel – plane – gizmo and check the box marked “Flip” next to the u tile selection.

 The quality of the images is very fuzzy and the topology lines are unclear to follow. To clear the pictures we need to go to customize – preferences – viewports, then select the configure driver option down the bottom. Next check the boxes that say match bitmap as closely as possible. In the material editor click on the map, where the picture has been selected and click reload which will reload the image in better quality.

The reference planes are now setup but before moving on to the next stage the planes must be frozen so that they can’t be selected by accident. To do this right click on the plane and chose object properties, then check the freeze box and un-check the show frozen in grey box. This will ensure that the plane cannot be selected and the image can still be seen.

Now this is ready for the next stage.