Conclusion

I have learned a lot of completely new things about 3D modelling and 3DS Max whilst doing this project. Not only have I learned new skills with the Hair and fur and UVW mapping, I have also learned about good practice when modelling. In earlier 3D projects I did not pay attention, for example, of keeping quadrilateral polygons and found I had problem with smoothing and pinching of the model later on. I also did not know how to unwrap a UVW map and often had problems texturing my models due to the fact that polygons were either scattered over the entire map or they were overlapping.

I particularly like the idea of spline mapping I learned during this project. It makes modelling organic type models much easier that box modelling, which was the first technique I learned for creating 3D models. I can see it will have a big use in later projects and will make modelling some things much easier.

During this project I encountered many challenges and problems. The biggest of which was creating the hair using the hair and fur modifier in 3Ds Max. It was a very difficult tool to get the hang of at first, but with perseverance I eventually worked out a way to make an effective looking hair texture. All other problems I encountered I made sure not only they were fixed but also to try and understand as best as I could what the cause was, so in the future I would not make the same mistake again.

Overall I am happy with the face that I created. Even though it does not look entirely like me I feel the model looks quite natural and I feel I followed Eric Maslowski’s tutorials as closely as I could where helpful to good effect.

If I were to redo this project I would spend more time on the hair as I feel the shaping is not quite right and I could learn a lot more about how best to use it. I would also like to spend more time creating a more detailed skin for the face as well as looking at adding bump and specular maps.

Creating the Hair

Instead of texturing the hair onto the UVW map I decided to try and use the Hair and Fur modifier, something I had never attempted to use before. To create the hair firstly a preset hair type “Wet Brown” was loaded from the presets menu. Then in “style hair” mode the hair was trimmed using the cut and comb tools, then using the hair brush tool, the hair was lifted into position. After a lot of time and experimenting with the hair tools the hair style was finished. The hair colour was then altered and hue variation property with turned down as the default setting made the hair look too bright.

UVW Texture Map

Instead of using Photoshop and following Eric Maslowski’s tutorial for this part of the head I decided to use Adobe Fireworks CS4, a piece of software I know much better than Photoshop. Once the UVW template was rendered and saved I started by cutting and pasting the key parts of the face from the photos onto the template. I then used the clone stamp tools in Fireworks to fill in the rest of the skin texture and fill in any gaps. It was difficult to blend one part of the face into another but after enough time a good result was achieved using the clone stamp tools and blending tools. Finally a texture for the eye was created and assigned to the eye spheres.

UVW Unwrap

To start with an Unwrap UVW modifier was added to the face. Using the face sub selection tool all faces apart for those in the ear were selected. The division was given a cylindrical map property and the cylinder marker was scaled up and aligned with the midpoint of the face. A chequered pattern material was added to the model to help identify problem areas of the UVW map that would be stretched when the UVW skin was added. In the edit UVW dialog box the relax tool was used to help sort out these problem areas. Then the “select inverted faces” and “selected overlapped faces” tools were used to identify any areas that could also cause a problem with UVW map. These were then amended.

To mark out the ear area the polygons that made up the ear were selected. Instead of a cylindrical map like the head, Eric Maslowski’s tutorial suggested a technique called pelt mapping. This was attempted however Eric Maslowski’s tutorials were composed in 3DS Max 8 and I was using 3DS Max 10. The older version did not match the new version and made the confusing technique even more confusing. In my opinion it was over complicating a problem that did not exist for the ear on my model. It was decided that as the ear only really needed a simple skin texture and it did not matter about unwrapping it perfectly. Therefore I decided that the ear could be split into two parts (front and back) and it would not compromise quality in doing so. Similar to the face the “select inverted faces” and “selected overlapped faces” tools were used to identify any areas that could also cause a problem with UVW map. These were also amended.

The final part of Unwrapping the UVW map was to apply another Unwrap UVW modifier on top of the symmetry modifier. This meant both sides of the face did not have to be identical with the texture. Using the edit map tool the opposite sides of the head and ear were mirrored. The joining vertices on the face were then stitched and welded together to complete the map.

Creating the Ear

To create the first I went back into the Adobe Photoshop topology file and added in the topology lines for the ear. Then back in 3DS Max the same technique was used to create the face with splines to match the ear topology. Once all the quads were traced they were converted to editable polys and attached to each other then welded. The vertices were then manipulated into the correct place. Symmetry and turbo smooth modifiers were added to mirror the ear on the other side of the face and to smooth it over. Finally some more definition was added to the ear as the turbo smooth modifier smoothed the detail over and the back and thickness of the ear were adjusted.

The trickiest part of this process was to stitch the ear onto the head. As the number of vertices on the head had to match the number of vertices on the ear where it would join the head a number of polygons had to be adjusted and redrawn. Once done it was a case of attaching the ear to the head using the attach tool. Then using the snap-to-grid tool to join and weld tool the vertices were connected together. I felt that the way the ear was made in Eric Maslowski’s tutorial made the ear creation over complicated by using subdivision and isolation mode. It was not needed when creating the ear for this model and still gave a nice result.

Creating the Rest of the Head

To create the back of the head the same technique was used as Eric Maslowski suggested. This involves creating a sphere object and matching the number of cross sections in the sphere with the topology on the face. This helps form the back of the head and also helps to keep a steady quad polygon formation. This object was then attached and welded to the rest of the head using the appropriate tools. From this point it was just a case of adding more geometry to create the rest of the back of the head and eventually the neck and upper torso.

Creating the Eyes and Eyelids

The eyelids were created in much the same was as the lips. Using the Shift + Left Mouse to add geometry and then manipulating the vertices into position. The scale selection tool helped to move all the edges into the eyelid shape at the same time. A sphere was then created for the eyeball and positioned accordingly. It was hard to move the vertices of the eyelid to exactly fit the sphere of the eyeball and a lot of time was spent trying to. The problem is most likely due to the fact that the sphere has a lot more vertices than the eyelids and so the eyelids can not bend as tightly the sphere can. Finally a symmetry modifier was added to mirror the eyeball to the opposite side of the head.

Creating the Nostrils and Lips

First the nostrils were created by using the connect edges tool to subdivide the edges around the nose into more sections so the turbo smooth modifier was act more harshly around this area of the nose. The create tool was then used to create a polygon to fill in the nostril area that was missing and finally the extrude tool was used to lift the nostrils up into the nose. The area around the nose was then altered slightly in order to give a more natural appearance.

The lower lip was created by highlighting the edges on the mouth edge of the mesh and holding Shift + Left Mouse to create extra geometry connected to the lip area. Doing this a couple of times created enough polygons to be able to manipulate the vertices into the shape of the lips. The same was then repeated for the upper lip.

Refining the Face

Although all the vertices were moved out from the plane I was not happy with the outcome and felt that it did not fully follow the topology of my face. Some extra lines that were missed from the topology bitmap image were added making it easier to follow the topology. After many hours of tweeking vertices the topology was sorted. A symmetry modifier was then applied to the face to mirror it on both sides and a turbo smooth modifier was also applied. The number of iterations on the turbo smooth was increased to 2 as it gave a better result.

Creating the Face

The tedious process of moving the vertices out into the position on the profile view one by one was then necessary to create the topology of the face. By toggling Alt + X the mesh could be made see through / opaque. This was very helpful as making the mesh see through meant the topology image of the profile view could be seen and so the vertices could be moved into the correct position more easily.

Drawing the Splines

Using the line tool the topology was traced and drawn on in 3Ds Max to create the mesh of the face. By turning on the snap-to-grid tool and setting it to snap to vertices it made it easier to join the vertices together so they could be easily welded later on. One spline was then converted to an editable poly and the rest of the splines were attached to it to create the polygons that make up the face. The vertices were then welded together using the weld tool.

Fixing the Topology

When starting to draw on the splines I noticed that I had a few 5-sided polygons that would ruin the topology and cause pinching of the mesh if I left them in. To fix this I had to go back into Photoshop and edit the topology lines. It ended up adding more polygons that I would have liked, but it fixed the 5-sided polygon problem. Thankfully the reference plates in max did not have to be redone as only the topology bitmapped needed to be reloaded in the material editor.

Creating the Reference plans in 3DS Max

In order to import my reference images into Max I first had to create a couple of planes to fit the materials onto. Next the reference image was imported as a material and applied to the planes. There was a problem in that the images were shown out of scale on the planes. This was fixed by applying a UVW mapping modifier and clicking the “Bitmap Fit” and flip texture buttons. Then using the Gizmo tool the image was manipulated into the correct position. The self illumination property for the material was set to on as in the view ports the material would show up black from some angles. The planes were frozen so they could not be accidentally moved when creating the face. The final problem in the stage was the fact that the bitmap showed up as a really poor resolution meaning it would be impossible to trace around the topology lines. To fix this problem a setting with the graphics driver was changed so it would match the resolution of the bitmap image. Finally the view ports were configured as recommended by Eric Maslowski to show the front view on the left and the left view on the right side as well as disabling the grid and turning on “Smooth + Highlights” option.

Drawing the Topology

With the reference images created I could now go about drawing on the topology of the face. Using Eric Maslowski’s organic modelling tutorial I started by drawing on the main lines of the face’s topology in a blue brush paying special attention to getting the cheek topology correct. Once completed a red brush was used to draw on the quads that would later be traced around in 3DS Max 2010. I started by drawing a rhombus shape to connect the main lines of the cheek topology and then moved in and completed the eye area before the rest of the face trying to make sure there were no irregular polygons with anything other than 4 sides.

Creating the Reference images

After images of my head were taken with a digital camera (one in profile view and one in front view) they needed to be lined up in order for them to be useful as reference images when creating the 3D model. The problem with this stage is that there was a slight difference in the lining up between the profile view and the straight on view as well as lens distortion from the digital camera. The solution for this problem was to load the images into Adobe Photoshop CS4 and use the lens correction tool to remove the lens distortion and rotate the images so they lined up correctly. Then using the ruler tool in Photoshop key points on the face such as eyes, nose, and mouth were checked to make sure they were in line with each other in both photos. I was unable to line up the ears in both photos as well as the other key features, so I decided to ignore them as the ears would be modelled separately from the rest of the head and therefore it would not create a major problem.