final render

these are the final renders of my photo-real head. i a, pleased with it as my first attempt but there are things that i would change in the hair and eyelashes.

after modelling the hair using the paint hair tool onto a nurbs sphere i starting playing with the settings to get the right sort of look that i wanted from her hair. above are some renders taken at different stages of hair making.

eyelash and eye render

this is a render with mental ray of the eyelashes and eyes applied to the mesh from mudbox. its looking good so far.

eyelashes

to make the eyelashes i actually modelled each one individually and then applied about 3 hairs to each follicle, clumped it close together at the root and spread more at the tip of the hairs as to even them out.

eye render

im really pleased with my new eyes and they have all the attributes i wanted such as realism. you can see the part i made translucent and with the iris texture behind showing through. i also put a plain black lambert shaded object behind the pupil so that it always renders a pure black.

another aspect of realism i have applied to this model is a bump map on the iris just so that through mental ray shadowing it appears more vivid.

in this image you can see the vein texture i applied after painting it in photoshop picking colours from images of peoples eyes. i then projected that texture onto the nurbs sphere with the ramp transparency map.

eye

I realised that the eyes as seen on the last post didn't look that real so after researching the eye and watching some tutorials i found that making the eye in relation to its anatomy works better. by that i mean modelling and texture the iris behind a see through material.

on the top image you can see the workspace with the eye on show texture mode (6 on keyboard). you can see the ramp translucency map applied to make part of the eye see through.

maya!?! :@

Finally managed to get my model to open in maya and managed to figure out how to get all the maps attached. basically a century of trial and error. in this you can also see my first attempt at making and eye. i did this by attaching a ramp texture and playing with the settings to get the eye pattern.

mudbox finished

This is the finished mudbox model with texture and is now ready to be imported to maya.

in these images you can see in more detail the mouth and ear regions. at the top there is a screen shot of the head in its final stage of mudbox ready to have the texture applied.

mudbox close-ups

In this close up image of the eyes taken from mudbox you can see the detail in the skin and the pour effect i have made. it was a struggle to get the eye lids to look the way that they do and this was accomplished by building up around that area then using the knife tool to cut deep into the mesh and finally pinching in the line made by the knife.

the images are ordered bottom to top.

the first image shows the polygon mesh at its lowest level as it is when it is imported to mudbox. the next image is of the mesh with some sculpt work done around the eyes.

third and final images are of the mesh with some more detail around the mouth and eyes.

mudbox

the next step in my work is to put my model into mudbox so that i can do a paint displacement and build up the features such as cheek bone structure and brow height.

ear patch modelling

in this post you can see the way that i have patch modelled my ear separate from the head, just to make things easier, and i then later attached it to the head.

more from silo

these are the final silo images as the development of the head is now finished and is now needing to move onto the next step and consequently the next program, mudbox.

images of the ear are to follow as it was made separately.

Photo-realism

images from my current project on photo realism.

The above images are some of the first from my polygon mesh i have been modelling in Nevercenter Silo. Starting with the topology around the eye and then moving down to the mouth. These three images show the steps i have taken to get the basic shape of my reference photos.

Photo-realism

the beginnings of my head are looking good and is already taking a basic human shape.

New term, New start

Started working on some research for my final year at Uni and discovered some pretty cool websites. One of which contains some very impressive images of some CG work done in the form of Morgan Freeman and Russel Crowe.
This is the link:

http://www.cgartworld.com/human-characters/Morgan_Freeman.jpg.html

By all means take a look as this is the type of imagery i want to produce for my final design.

evaluation

Evaluation

Character

The show reel shows my character in different filters used on photoshop going through what I hope looks like development starting with black an whit images through to the finished image I created last term. I used this image as I feel like it is the best 2D piece of work I have created and I wanted more than just 3D in my final show reel so that people can see that there is more to my work. In the show reel I wish I could have put more effects into it for this part but unfortunately I found 30 seconds to be too short of a time to include three pieces of work with a nice clean finish and effects that can improve the site of it during the final show reel. I included in it a close up of what I think to be the three best parts of my character; his hair shine, the body belt lighting and the good contrasts on his skirt. If I had more time in the show reel I would have made the close up boxes fade in from 0 opacity to 100% with an ease zoom in feature. This would bring more of your attention to the boxes as they appeared but instead I used some negative flashes of each one so that they are clearly what needs your attention at that time.

3D Environment

From the start of trying to make a fly through camera of this environment I had problems. For starters I didn't know how to make one and also I wasn't sure whether I was going to be able to show the whole environment with two other videos to add as well. Instead of doing the camera fly through I was able to, with some technical advice from the 3D technician, record the screen as the character ran through the environment after which I needed to take 31 seconds of film and edit it down to just 13 seconds or so. The end result isn't as good as I would have liked as there are parts in the video where the camera jumps and misses out some turns the character did during the run through but unfortunately it was unavoidable. All in all the final render shows all of the environment and every aspect can be seen which is what I wanted.

3D head

I am very proud of the way my head turned out with the final render looking the way I wanted it to. There are still quite a few things I would like to have been better. For starters the texture on the head isn't to the standard that I would have liked, for example on the back of his neck is a dark area where I had forgotten to paint over or adjust so it fitted better with the rest of the skin tone of the head. Also on the face the eyebrows have been painted on and the next time I produce a head or face I would like these to be modelled with the fur tool that I used for the hair thus creating a more realistic looking head. Another point I don't like is that there are some sharp edges on the cheek bone area that are noticeable when the model rotates in the final show reel. The things I like about are his eyes in particular as I think the y look quite real and have a good shine and reflectiveness to them creating the said realness. The over all shape of the head and its proportions are good. The ear is something I had some trouble with, I couldn't quite get my head around how to make it without box modelling the whole thing which I was told was much harder than patch modelling, that turned out to be exactly right, but it ended up looking satisfactory although could have been better. The last thin I dont feel was perfect enough was his jaw line and how it has a sort of droop to it on either side of his chin which is noticeable from the front.

NOTE: The 3D technicians have been more than helpful and I would like to say how appreciative I am of their time and patience with me throughout the duration of this project because I have been pestering them non-stop.

Music

The music did take a while to find the right sort of tracks to match up to the type of video being shown at that particular time but worked out really well in the end. I used a fast paced track for the environment as I think it matches the video because its fast paced and needs the viewer to take in a lot at one time. The following piece of music was perfect for what I wanted for the head rotation but was too quite, unfortunately when I turned it up the sound distorts slightly which is a shame. Also it would have worked better if the head videos rotated at a slower speed but that comes down to the alloted time I had.

Overall

Overall I am pleased with what has been produce and again like last term I have learned a lot and that comes from attending the studio practice times and having interaction with the technicians. I also have a better understanding of Maya which I thought was an impossible program to use. The one thing which I was unable to do was stick to the time given of 30 seconds as I just wanted to add more and more of the work I have produced to it, I could have quite happily have made it 5 minutes long.

I hope you enjoy my show reel as much as I did making it.