The Final Result

Unfortunately I am not very good with 3D Max, however I did try my best with these tutorials. Initially I found them very easy to follow but when it came to the more detailed parts I felt he skipped over them. My outcome is reasonable but compared to my peers' outcomes such as Alex Chapman it looks terrible. It didn't seem to end up looking like me in any way. I would say I definitely need more practiise with 3D Max but I have learnt quite a few new skills going through these tutorials which is always a bonus!

C'est la Vie!

Tutorial Twelve - Specular Painting

Applying general specular level of glossiness does not allow the freedom of choosing where you want the shine to be. To achieve this I took the bump map, copied and renamed and then adjusted the levels under the image drop down. The levels were darker than the bump map. I then took the brush tool, made the colour white and made sure it was lighten. I then started to paint the forehead, lips, tip of the nose, all the places where I would consider the face to be shiny. I then went to filter and used the Gaussian Blur under the blur drop down. This gave a smudged effect. I then applied it as a material on my model.

Tutorial Eleven - Bump Painting

Using the previous colour map I will create a bump map. Firstly I desaturated the image under the adjustments and image drop down, I also changed the levels in these drop downs too. Next I completed the high pass under the filter drop down, this gets rid of a lot of the shading, I set the radius to 2. I went on to use the clone stamp to get rid of the seam and bossing effect. Once this was completed I added it to my material editor in 3D Max and adjusted the bump and noise settings to give a natural bump in the skin.

Tutorial Ten - Texture Painting Part Two

In this tutorial I used the normal information which I exported at the same time as the UV lines. The colours show which way each surface is facing. I copied the normals into a new layer and then changed my action process so that the normals layer also shows as hidden.  I used bright green to round the inside of the eye, nostrils and mouth. It happened that my texture was up to the green guide lines and so I did not need to change it.

Tutorial Ten - Texture Painting Part One

It was now time to move back to using Photoshop in order to give some texture to my model. I opened my rendered UVW Map as I will use this to guide my painting. I created a new layer and named it guide; I then chose bright blue as this will stand out within the texture. I then chose fill to add this colour to my new layer. I then selected the image and copied it. To achieve quick mask mode I selected the blue layer again and switched it to quick mask mode, and pasted the black and white image into it. This then only showed the white outline with the blue background, when zoomed out it was very hard to see the lines so I made them thicker by modifying the border under the select drop down. I changed the width of pixels to four. I then clicked the add layer mask which preserved what was selected (the lines) and removed everything else. To finalise the layer I applied the layer mask.

I went on to open my topology files so that I could take parts from the face and start to build up my texture starting with the forehead and finishing with the chin. Using the lasso tool I selected areas that I had copied and gradually built up more of the face. I also used the clone stamp and patch tool to smooth out the colour variations.

 

To make sure that the texture guide didn’t load when in 3D Max I created a new action and called it Texture. This meant that Photoshop would watch everything I did, I then hid the guide layer and saved, once this had save I hit stop – this meant that every time this would load it would automatically hide the guide layer I went on to check back and forth on my texture in 3D Max. It was doing this that I noticed my lip was slightly higher than it was supposed to be. To change this I used the liquify tool which is found under the filter drop down. It allowed me to smudge pixels to where I needed them to be.

Tutorial Nine - UV Co-ordinates Part Two

Again this tutorial was mainly focusing on the ear which I had not completed, however I did get some extra useful parts from it. Above the Symmetry Modifier I added another UVW Modifier. I then went into edit parameters and copy and pasted the mirrored side into my edit UVW. I went on to weld them together down the centre seam and fit them to the blue box. I then rendered my completed UV with the aspect ratio width of 2048x2024.

Tutorial Nine - UV Co-ordinates Part One

To start my UV Co-ordinates I added a UVW Modifier to my model. In face, sub object mode I used the paint tool to go other the selection. Then, under map parameters I selected the cylindrical method and aligned this to achieve the correct orientation. As the mesh was not within the cylindrical gizmo, I scaled it to size. I then came out of this mode and applied a checker pattern to my mesh using material editor. The checks should be square so to achieve this I went into the edit mode under parameters.

This allowed me to modify my UVW Map, making sure that there were no complications with the head. Luckily I only had two trouble areas, the first was a vertices at the top of the head, this was simple to fix and I just moved it back into position. The second trouble area was the nose and this was mainly because of the extrude used to make the whole in the nostrils. I did try to untangle it so it did not flag up red but there were still a few faces highlighted. To relax the edges I selected the chosen area and used the relax tool to relax the edged angles. Finally to finish this section I chose overlapped faces and selected faces to make sure there were no hidden overlapped faces.

Tutorial Eight - Ear Creation

As mentioned in my previous blog I was unable to obtain a reference for my ear and therefore left this part of the process out. I do feel that I would like to try and model an ear as a lot of peers had said it was difficult and akward. I feel as though I have learnt some new skills over using these tutorials and these could have been put to the test. Unfortunatley I had no ear in my reference planes and I did not have time to start again with new images.

Tutorial Seven - Primitive Extension

I will now go on to use primitives to improve the geometry of my model. I went back into Photoshop to add more topology to the left view reference; I used the same method as before and used distinctive wrinkles etc, to define where my topology should sit. As a lot of my hair was covering this I found it very difficult and had to assume where the lines would be. I then went back into 3D Max and updated my reference planes. Once completed I began to model again, starting with creating a sphere to use as the top of my head.  I moved the sphere over my head and placed it where I felt it lined up best. I then went on to orientate the poles of the sphere by using the rotate option so that they were showing at the side. Once this was done I was able to line up the edges with those of my head, decreasing the segments to match, this would allow the welding of those edges to be completed far quicker.

The next stage was to get rid of the extra geometry. This was achieved by turning on the marquee paint selection. I painted across all of the interior quads to the side keeping a strip down the back of the head. I then did the same with the right hand side of the sphere as my model would mirror any changes. I then lined the quads up using the move tool and soft selection, snaps toggle was turned on so that the vertices were close together. To carry on the neck through and across the shoulder I held down shift and moved the edges out creating new quads. It was at this point that I realised I had no reference for my ear I therefore carried on the faces and covered where the ear would be. Unfortunately there was not enough time to complete an ear.

To simplify the geometry of the sphere I selected every other edge to the left side of the sphere, I then selected ring and then collapse within edit geometry giving a simpler form which will be easier to modify. To finish I went on to target weld the vertices of the head and sphere.

 

What has been produced so far...

Everything seemed to be running smoothly until I went on to create my nose which caused a few problem areas. This was a section on the head in which I had too many quads resulting in a lot of editing and re organising. This did take some time and unfortunately I am still not pleased with the outcome, however I probably would of had to of started again to get the best result.

Tutorial Six - Refine Techniques

It was now time to add more detail to my model, starting with my nose. Under editable poly I was going to create more edges to the outside of the nostrils. By selecting the edges and holding down shift it created a copy, I did this with several edges at the same time. It was here that I realised I had to many edges to my nose, which then led to my “nose job”. I decided that in order to get the best shape for my nose as possible I would need to remove two of the quads that I had originally created. To do this I simply selected the edge which was separating the quads and removed it. I repeated this with the edge next to it, this gave me two quads instead of the original four which when it came to creating the nostrils, made my life much easier.

Before (This shows the edges which needed to be removed)

After (Once the edges had been removed giving less geometry to work with)

I used the snap toggle to align the vertexes of my inner edges to my main nose; I then selected them and welded them together, creating a single vertex.  I then had to add extra geometry as there was not enough detail. I used connect to create an edge to join the edges I had already selected creating an additional loop. The first quad to my nostril had now become five sided as the loop ended at its left edge. To change this back to a quad I used the cut tool and separated it into two quads. When it came to filling in my nostrils I realised I could only make one quad from the nostril shape, the other would have been a triangle. To rectify this I added an extra edge using the connect tool again, this ran from the bottom of the nostril to the top of my lip. Using the create button I was now able to draw two polygons for the nostril.

I then went on to play around with the outer nostril vertexes to give my nose a better shape. I was glad that I managed to rectify the inner nostril polygons as I also extruded them up into the nose to give a more natural inner nose. After I had finished my nose I used the same techniques that I had learnt from building it to create my lips (this went much easier!).



Tutorial Five - Symmetry Subdivide

Now that I had shape to half my face, I needed to make it a whole face. To do this I applied a symmetry modifier to the first half of my face. Initially the symmetry modifier was oriented the wrong way, to change this I flipped it, but it was too close to the original half of my face. To be able to move it I chose the mirror on the sub menu for the symmetry modifier, this allowed me to position the second half of my face where it should be. Now I was able to change the original half of my face and it would mirror the same changes on the second half, thus resulting in less work and time being put into changing both sides. As I wanted to see the changes take place to the second half of my face as well, I turned on the show end result within the modifier. To smooth certain parts of my face I turned on NURMS sub division within edit poly. This allowed me to smooth round the areas of my eyes as they were showing as quite far out. After this I turned off NURMS subdivision to get back to my low poly cage. I then added a TurboSmooth modifier as this would give me much more predictable results.

Tutorial Four - Line to Surface Part Two

Now that my topology had been defined I could give my face some shape. In order to do this I had to select all of the vertices and weld those together under edit poly mode (as I mentioned in my previous blog when I had simplified the topology it was at this stage of the process where I realised the simplified version would not work).  This meant that when I started to give the face shape it would move together as opposed to separate quad shapes. I altered my viewport to make the next section easier to monitor. I had the front viewport on the left and the left viewport on the right. I then started to select vertices and match them to the shape of my face within the left viewport. As I progressed this became very difficult as a lot of vertices would sit very close to each other and it was hard to see where they were. I spent quite a lot of time trying to correct this and make it right. Making the topology see through helped with this.

Tutorial Four - Line to Surface Part One

To begin with I set up my viewports so that I could get a closer look at my front view image. To start going over my topology lines and creating my mesh I selected the line tool and made sure that both the corner options had been selected under the creation method. I then followed my topology using the line tool and creating the quad shapes. I used snap to aid me so that the corners of each quad were in line. I continued this process to cover the whole of the topology which I had set out in Photoshop previously. I did try to simplify what I already had (as I said before my topology had a lot of quads) however this made it even harder when completing the next task and therefore I had to start the line process again. Once I had completed the lines I selected one of the quads and modified it to an edible poly, this converted the quad to a surface. To make the rest of the quads surfaces too I went to attach under edit geometry within edit poly, this allowed me to select all of the other quads which then gave a mask effect as shown in the image below.

So Far...

The tutorials have been easy to follow. The intructions given are clear and have really helped with my progress. I am feeling positive about the 3D face at the moment but I haven't started modelling yet so that could all change! I am hoping that the tutorials will progress as they have done so far ( no complications or confusing moments). Bring on the modelling!

Tutorial Three – Reference Set Up

Now that I had finished editing my reference photographs in photoshop it was time to set up my reference plates in 3D Max. I started by creating a plane that would hold the front view image. I then modified the plane by changing the length and width segments to 1. I then positioned the plane by using the top viewport and dragging it to the left side. Using material editor I assigned my bitmap image to the diffuse channel. As the image had been squashed to fit the plane I went on to modify its texture co ordinates. I did this by adding a UVW Map, and using bitmap fit it allowed me to keep the aspect ratio of the original image. I also had to reposition the texture on the plane to allow me to view the front profile of my image. I did this by moving the image using gizmo within the UVW Map. As the image was becoming darker when I moved the view around, I self illuminated the material to 100% under the parent section of the material editor. I then went on to copy the plane and material, using the rotate and angle snap tools I rotated it by 90 degrees. I then moved it to the right side of my original plane. I also had to flip the image as it was facing the wrong way and increase the width of the plane to fit the image. Again I used gizmo to adjust it as before. To make sure I did not select the planes whilst modelling, under properties I froze the object and made sure that it was not showing the frozen object in grey ensuring that I could still see my reference image.



Tutorial Two – Topology Lines

Using the pictures that I had previously edited in photoshop I started to add my topology lines to help guide me when I come to use 3D Max. With the brush tool I began by defining the main areas, the parts to my face which had creases or wrinkles, such as the area around my lower eye and lips. I then went on to draw my topology lines in red. I created a new layer and traced some of the lines that I had already created in blue and at the same time making quads out of them. Using quads will allow me to reduce the pinching effects when I come to subdivide my face in 3D Max. This part was quite difficult as I had to ensure that there were no five sided shapes as this would limit the flexibility later down the line. The result of my topology ended up having a lot of quads to it which I knew would cause difficulties later on but unfortunately I could not see any other way without having the five sided shapes appear.

Tutorial One - Reference Plates

The initial part to the 3D face was to prep the reference images taken, for use in 3D max. To do this I used Photoshop. The image result that I wanted to create was a flat representation of my face; I could achieve this by using the lens correction option in photoshop. My right pupil was higher than the left, to correct this I used the straighten tool and focused it on the centre of my pupils. I was already aware that I tilt my head to the side naturally which helped when looking for these issues to correct. I then went on to remove any distortion which occurred when taking the photograph as barrel distortion from the lens is common. I also adjusted the vertical perception to tilt the plane. I then went on to do the same to my left profile. To check that the key features lined up I merged both images and extended the canvas to the right so that I was able to view both. I then changed the opacity on the left reference so that I could still see both. I used the rulers in photoshop to check that the main features such as the eyes, nose and mouth were aligned. I then saved the image as a jpg ready to add my topology.

                                      Side and Front Profile Pictures