Finding a Reference

The first step is pretty much a dead give away. Before modeling anything, you need to find some reference images for the item you would like to model. As far as shields go, there are many… many different types. I searched on google for images of shields and came up with several ideas. Since I was doing a Scottish shield, I didn’t want to model one based on the movie Braveheart. I might love that movie to death, but I heard it wasn’t the most accurate showing of it. After some browsing, I noticed a painting with William Wallace as he was leading his knights to a battle. I shall attach this below as inspiration for my shield.

Next, I was able to find a decent reference shape that I will use to model the shield, and slowly turn it into one similar to the painting.

Setting up the Reference Image

Now that we know which shield type we wish to model, now it is time to actually set that into max. I would recommend using a plane, and setting it out in front view port. Make sure the plane has both length and width segments of 1 each. Reason for this is due to it being just a plane that we will have the reference pasted up on. It should look like the below image when you have it all set up and ready.

Next step you will have to do to be sure that the image is set correctly will be to do a bitmap fit of the image so that the ratio of the image isn’t warped. In order to do this, you select Modify panel, and on the Modifier list you will want to select UVW Map. Now scroll down till see the Alignment section and hit the button for Bitmap Fit. Next you select the image of the reference you are using.

Now as I said, I am using 2.62 which was downloaded from Blender.org.  If you have downloaded a version from GraphicAll.org then yours may look a little (or a lot) different.  That said, this is less tutorial, and more “look at the cool stuff I found” than my usual posts.

First off, if you have the plain version like I do, then the first thing you need to do is figure out how to set it to Cycles.  That is easy enough to find.  On the top bar, you will see “Blender Render” with arrows next to it.  Click there and choose “Cycles Render.”

Now, normally to render as you work, you would hit F12.  With Cycles, you can set it to constantly render while you move the view around.  This is a little hard to explain without showing you in video, but I’ll do my best.

At the bottom of your window, next to where it says “Object Mode,” is the Viewport Shading menu where you can choose wireframe, solid, texture, etc.  In that menu, with Cycles selected as the render engine, you can choose “Rendered.”

Go ahead and try it.  It will render a preview of your lovely cube in nice shades of gray since we haven’t put any textures on it.  What’s so special about that?  Well now, move your view around.  Try zooming in or use the mouse wheel to adjust the view angle and watch as it re-renders the preview automatically.  Pretty cool, huh?

The next thing I want to just touch on is textures.  I had a lot of fun playing around with this and in a future post I will go over some more about textures.  First, let me show you the end result.  It’s not anything pretty, but it does show some of what you can do with Cycles.

So, how did I do this?  Well, this is what the final version of my nodes editor looks like:

So how did I get to this thing called a nodes editor? And how did I get it to look like that?  We’ll start from the beginning.  If you’ve already been playing in Blender, you can go to File > Load Factory Settings to reset.  Don’t forget to select Cycles at the top after the reset.

Now, we need to make room for the nodes editor.  In the upper right corner of the User Perspective window are some diagonal lines.  I’m sure there is a name for it, but I have no
idea what it is.  Click on it and drag down so that you have 2 user perspective windows.  The cursor will change to crosshairs when you are over the correct spot.

Next, in the lower left corner of each of the User Perspective windows is a little cube with up and down arrows.  That’s where you can change between 3D view and various editors.  Select Node Editor.

In the lower window, create a couple of objects.  It’s always nice to have a “ground” plane as well so your primitives aren’t floating in space.  As a reminder, the short cut to add an object is shift A.  N brings up the properties so you can make adjustments to your object.

Now that we have some objects to play with, it is time to get to the fun stuff.  Select one of your objects (I picked a cube), go to the materials button, and click New.  You may have noticed 2 boxes appear in the nodes editor.

The Diffuse BSDF box on the left has the same selections as the materials tab on the far right of the screen (color selection and roughness) which means that you can make adjustments either place.  It is attached to a Material Output box located to the right in the Node Editor.  If nothing is connected to the Material Output box, then your object will appear black in the render preview.  You can drag the boxes around to make room for more boxes, or to neaten things up if you want.

Now, I’ve decided I want to add some gloss to my cube.  With the cursor over the Node Editor, hit shift A.  Go to Shader > Mix Shader.  This will give you a Mix Shader box
that is not connected to anything else.

Now we’re going to connect it to the boxes we already have.  Click on the green circle next to BSDF in the Diffuse box and drag it to the top green circle in the Mix Shader box.  Now that Diffuse and Mix Shader are connected, we need to remove the connection between Diffuse and Material Output.  Click on the green circle next to Surface in the Material Output box and drag the line into the empty space.

Next, we need to connect the Mix Shader to the Material Output box by dragging from Shader to Surface. This is what your Node Editor should look like:

Using Mix Shader implies that we will be “mixing” a couple of things.  At the moment, we only have one, which is the Diffuse BSDF box.  So, we need to add a second one. Shift A and go to shader > Glossy BSDF.  Go ahead and connect the Glossy BSDF to the lower Shader green circle on the Mix Shader box.

Adjusting the roughness in the Glossy BSDF box will affect the reflection of other objects in your cube, or whatever object you started with.  I set mine to .01.  Play with it until you get a result that you like.

The next thing I did in my example was add a texture.  In the Node Editor, hit shift A and select something in the Texture menu.  I selected Checker because it’s pretty obvious what it does.  Move the resulting box up to the left side of the Diffuse BSDF and Glossy BSDF boxes.  Then connect the Texture box to the Diffuse BSDF box.  If you chose Checker Texture then you can do this by dragging from the yellow circle beside Color to the yellow circle on the left side of the Diffuse BSDF box.

Without changing any of the settings in the Checker Texture box, my render looks like this:

Go ahead and play with the settings in whichever texture you chose.  You may need to move any extra objects around as well to get the effect of the reflection in your main
object.

After playing around a little, this is what I ended up with.

You may have noticed that your render is a bit fuzzy or grainy.  You can adjust that somewhat by going to the little Camera button on the right side of your screen and making adjustments there.

Next time, I’ll talk some more about textures and we’ll get into lighting.

We recently had a question come in about how to quickly assemble image sequences into an AVI.  Here’s the way I prefer to do it on Windows.  It uses free, open source software, Virtual Dub, and is very quick.

Getting Virtual Dub

Go to the virtual dub website and look for their download section.  When I wrote this, it was here.  On their downloads page, grab the latest version.

This will download as a .zip file.  Open the .zip file and extract all of its contents:

Converting an Image Sequence

First, launch Virtual Dub by double clicking the VirtualDub.exe file that you extracted in the previous section:

Now, choose File -> Open from the menu, or hit Ctrl+O.  This will give you the almost completely normal File Open dialog.  I say “almost,” because this one has two extra check boxes at the bottom: “Ask for extended options after this dialog,” and “Automatically load linked segments.”  We only really care about the second one for this tutorial.  Choose the first image in your sequence, and make sure the “Automatically load linked segments” checkbox is checked.

VirtualDub will now look something like this (although, of course, with your image sequence, shown, not mine).

Next, we need to make sure the frame rate is correct.  Choose Video->Frame Rate from the menu, and tweak the settings there:

If you like, you can choose a codec by going to Video->Compression.  Be aware that some codecs are lossy.  Search for info on the codecs on your system, and choose according to your needs.  If you’re going to do further editing, it’s generally best to choose a lossless codec.  If you’re just dumping this to a file you’re going to post for a quick client review, I recommend XVid – it’s free and provides very good compression ratios.

Next, choose File->Save As AVI from the menu, or just hit F7.

Choose the name of your output .avi file:

And VirtualDub will immediately begin converting your image sequence to .avi:

Tips and Tricks

If you have exceptionally long sequences, turning off “Show Input Video” and/or “Show Output Video” in the conversion status window (see last sceenshot) will increase the speed of conversion.

If you have a lot of sequences to convert, you can choose “File->Queue Batch Operation->Save As AVI,” or hit Ctrl+Shift+F7, to build a queue of conversions.  Once your queue is deep enough, go to “File->Job Control” or hit F4 to start converting all of the sequences.

VirtualDub is capable of a lot more than just converting image sequences into AVI’s.  You can load AVI’s and save them to different codecs, convert AVI’s into animated .gif’s, replace the audio in an AVI, copy individual frames from an AVI, and even use it with the cryptic but very powerful AVISynth toolkit to do scripted video editing.

Conclusion

We’ve gone through one way to convert image sequences to AVI’s.  There are probably dozens or hundreds available.  There are command-line utilities to do this, GUI applications that do a lot more than Virtual Dub, Mac and Linux applications.  Which do you use?  What questions about this approach do you have?

My only complaint with the tutorial is that they don’t really explain when you would want to do this, only how to do it. I would imagine that it would be useful, for example, to animate a die bouncing around. When would you want to do this?

Recently, I was looking around at tutorials just to see what was out there and I ran across this method in a Maya tutorial. This was new to me so I wanted to give it a try and see how I liked it. With this method, you start at the eyes and mouth because the point of it is to get good edge flow around those areas from the start. Good edge flow around the eyes and mouth is a must when modeling characters, especially if you plan to animate them.

So, in Max, make sure you have your reference images set up and ready to go as discussed in Part 1 of this series.

Create a plane that is large enough to cover from chin to above the eyes in front view. Convert it to editable poly and make sure the edge is on the 0 line. In the picture, I have the plane set to transparent (Alt x) and the edges selected to make it easier to see.

Figure 1

Now, in the side view, you will need to move the vertices around to start forming the shape a bit.

Figure 2

Now you want to select the two vertical edges and hit connect to divide your polygon into two. Then move those vertices around a bit to continue shaping.

Figure 3

Select the top polygon by using the polygon selection tool, then click on the settings button next to Inset in the modifier panel. I set mine to about 30, but you can set it to whatever number you want and fix it later using the scale tool.

Figure 4

Now you want to center the small inset polygon you just created over the eye and you may need to resize it or reshape it a little. You can use the scale tool to resize it, or do what I did and move the vertices around a little.

Once that is done, do the same thing for the lower polygon, only this time line up the inset over the mouth.

Figure 5

And finally, select the small inset polygons you created for both the eye and mouth, and the polygon beside the mouth and hit delete.

Figure 6

Then grab the two verts shown in the next picture and set them to 0 on the x-axis. You’ll need to move each one separately or it won’t work quite right. (See Figure 7 in Part 3 if you have forgotten how.)

Figure 7

At this point you’ll want to adjust where the eye and mouth verts are. Don’t forget to check out the side view and adjust there as well. If you do all your work in the Front viewport, you’ll have a very flat face.

Figure 8

Now that we’ve got the edge loops started for the eye and mouth, we need to think about the nose. Select the edges from above the eye to the top of the mouth and click Connect.

Figure 9

Next, select the segment above the mouth on the 0 line, and click on Ring, located on the modify panel in the selection rollout. If you have followed along correctly, then your selection should look similar to the center picture below (Fig. 10) Click on the settings button beside Connect and set segments to 2.

Figure 10

Guess what’s next? That’s right, more adjusting of the vertices. You will find that in organic modeling you are constantly switching back and forth between views and tweaking vertices. I usually end up adjusting in front view, then adjusting in side view, then I go back and forth tweaking several times. As you can see, I’ve also started blocking the shape a bit more to fit the chin and area below the lower lip.

Figure 11

Now we’re going to add another edge loop around the eye. Just select the segment that goes straight up from the eye, click on Ring, and Connect. Whoops. If you’ve been following along and haven’t needed to restart Max (which sometimes crashes for no obvious reason other than it wants to keep you on your toes) then the settings for Connect are still set to 2 segments. While, I’m sure we’ll want 2 edge loops (or more!) around the eye eventually, for now hit ctrl-z. Then click on the settings button and change segments to 1.

Figure 12

Now, once again, move those verts around in both the front and side views. You’re going to be as tired of reading those words as I am of typing them by the time we’re through.

As you work, you may find that you want to add some more segments or edge loops for detail. Go ahead and add as many as you need, just don’t forget to shape them in both the front and side views as you go.

Now we’re going to start on the nose. Select the polygon over the nostril area in the front view, switch to the side viewport, and extrude it outwards. To extrude, just click on the Extrude button in the modifier panel under the Edit Polygons rollout and drag in the side viewport, or click on the settings button and choose a number for extrude height.

Figure 13

Once again, move your verts around in both the front and side views to give your nose some shape.

In the process of moving verts around, you may have noticed that extruding the nose area created an extra polygon. To get rid of it, just select it and hit delete. You may need to go perspective view to select it. Once that is deleted, go to the front viewport and check the two verts highlighted in the picture to make sure that x is 0 for both.

Figure 14

Now, go to perspective view and select the polygon that is the underside of the nose. Click on the inset button and drag towards the center of the polygon. Now switch to the side view and extrude the new inset polygon up into the nose. Now, in the front viewport you will probably need to scoot this extruded polygon over since it probably crosses the middle line like mine does. You shouldn’t need to move it much.

Figure 15

Alright, now you’ve got a good start on a human face. It’s probably pretty ugly at this point, I know mine is, but next time we’ll start making it look better. See you soon!

Alright, previously I showed you that there are at least two ways to start this project along with some pictures. However, if you are fairly new to Max, then you probably have no idea how to actually shape your plane, move vertices and edges, extrude new planes from the first one, cut in segments, and whatever else I may have mentioned.

Extruding Edges

The first method I showed you involves creating a small plane and basically extruding the edges out and connecting them until the face is covered. It sounds more difficult than it is.

Start off by creating a small plane in the front viewport. Set the segments to 1 for both length and width.

Figure 1

Now you want to right-click on your plane. Select convert to > editable poly.

Figure 2

Now, on the right side of the screen you will see a panel that looks similar to Fig. 3. Click on the second icon which is the modify panel.

Figure 3

Under the selection rollout in the modify panel, click the second icon, which is “edge.”

Figure 4

Now make sure you have the move and select tool selected, then select the left edge, as shown in Fig. 5. Hold down the shift key and drag left along the x-axis (if you are still in the front viewport). (Fig. 6) Congratulations, you have successfully extruded one edge of your polygon.

Figure 5

Figure 6

From here, it is a simple matter to continue extruding in whatever direction you need. At some point, however, you will need to begin to shape your object.

Moving Vertices and Edges

Moving vertices and edges around is pretty easy. Basically, you select the vertices or edges you want to move and move them the direction you want them to go.

For example, in the modify panel, select the first icon in the selection rollout to go into vertex selection mode (Fig. 7). Select a couple of vertices that you want to move (Fig. 8.) and use the select and move tool to drag them around (Fig. 9)

Figure 7

Figure 8

Figure 9

You can move vertices on opposite sides of the model by having only those selected, as long as you want to move them the same direction. (Fig. 10)  You can also move 2 vertices at once by moving the edge that connects them instead. (Fig. 11)

Figure 10

Figure 11

That example is pretty weird looking at this point, but hopefully the overly-exaggerated example will give you a decent idea of how this works.

To Cut or To Connect?

I mentioned cutting in edges on your model, but I actually use the connect tool more than I do the cut tool. I just have a bad habit of using the word “cut” for both tools. I will try to refrain from mixing them up here, because although they sort of do the same thing, they work in very different ways.

The connect tool is located in the Edit Edges rollout on the modify panel (if you have edge selection turned on) (Fig. 12). To use it, select some edges as in Fig. 13.

Figure 12

Figure 13

Now click on connect. (Fig. 14) The connect tool “connected” the selected edges with a new edge that went right through the middle of the selected edges.

Figure 14

If you click on the settings button next to the connect button (Fig. 15), you get a little pop-up that looks like Fig. 16.

Figure 15

Figure 16

In that box you can choose how many segments you want to add, set pinch, and slide. Pinch affects the spacing between the new segments. Figure 17 shows 2 new segments with pinch set to 95. Slide affects the position, making the segments not centered.

Figure 17

Figure 18 shows 2 new segments with slide set to 50.

Figure 18

Figure 19 shows 2 new segments with pinch and slide left at 0.

Figure 19

I love the connect tool. It’s easy to use and it rarely surprises me. It does have a disadvantage though. If you aren’t being careful with your modeling and have polygons with more than 4 sides, the connect tool will not work.

That brings us to the cut tool. It can be a pain; however, if you have weirdly shaped polygons or you were a naughty modeler and have 5-sided polys (or worse) then the cut tool will work for you, especially if you use it to fix those polygons with too many sides. The one thing you will need to remember is to go back and check your vertices when done or you might end up with multiple vertices in one spot.

The cut tool is located in the Edit Geometry rollout in the modify panel. When the tool is selected and the mouse is over the model, the pointer will change to look like Fig. 20. When the pointer is over a segment that can be cut, the pointer will change to look like Fig. 21. When it is over an existing vertex, it will look like it does in Fig. 22.

Figure 20

Figure 21

Figure 22

To use this tool, click on an edge or a vertex and move the mouse. In Fig. 23, I have clicked on an edge and moved the mouse to the right. I have not yet clicked anywhere else. The white line is showing some of the possible choices. In Fig. 24 I have cut in a line by first clicking on the left edge, then the next segment, then a vertex, then the middle of a polygon, and finally the last vertex. I now have a 3-sided poly mixed in amongst my 4-sided polys.

Figure 23

Figure 24

Weld

Now I need to go back and check on my vertices. I don’t want to have multiple vertices on nearly the same spot because that will be messy and cause all kinds of problems. To do this, I go into vertex selection, then drag a rectangle around the upper right vertex.

Looking over at the Selection rollout in the modify panel I see that Vertex 10 is selected. Apparently I lucked out and matched up the vertices well. I checked the others and they were all matched up well too.

Unfortunately in this case, that’s no good. I wanted to show you a mess up so you can see how to fix it. Therefore, I went back in and messed one of mine up. Fig. 25 shows the messed up version with 3 vertices in practically one spot. Those three are meant to be a single vertex. Don’t worry, it’s an easy fix. Under Edit Vertices in the modify panel, just click on Weld as shown in Fig 26. If it welds the vertices together correctly, then you should show a single vertex number selected.

Figure 25

Figure 26

That’s all for this time. Next time I will show you yet another modeling method that I ran across the other day. I have never seen anyone do it quite this way before so I want to give a try for myself before I subject you to it.

Part 5

For this part here, I looked online for guides and tutorials on how to set up a reference image inside Maya. I was able to locate a decent one on youtube. Sometimes it is amazing what all you can find there.

With your Maya opened, you should see your viewport in the left hand side of the screen. Beside the viewport, you should see several buttons that you can click on. About half way down the buttons is the list of viewport options can select from. The one you will want is the “Four View” Button.

When you select this, it will switch to the four viewports mode that is a little easier to set up an image in. The four viewports remind me of 3ds Max a little, which is good for me.

Now,  look at your bottom left viewport, this one is the front angle which can use to set up your first image. At the very top left corner of the viewport is the “View” Button.  Clicking this will give you a drop down window with several options. The one you would use is near the bottom called “Image Plane” which will in turn offer a couple more choices. While holding your mouse over “Image Plane” be sure to select “Import Image” which will open a browser on your computer that can use to select which image to load into Maya.

Now, you just have to pick which file you wish to load into the scene as a plane. Selecting the one you wish will place an image plane into Maya that will have the image that you selected on it. Do this to both the bottom left viewport and the bottom right. Should look like this when finished, but with your own image there.

Now you have your reference image planes in the scene.

The ResPower Super/Farm™ proudly supports the use of free, legal software, including FileZilla, to access its service.  This tutorial discusses how to install FileZilla, and to configure it for use with the ResPower Super/Farm.

Before we get started, there are some minor things to cover:

• If your computer belongs to a corporation with an IT department or network administrator, please contact the appropriate individual there to get whatever permissions may be necessary to install FileZilla at your facility.
• FileZilla has both Windows and OSX versions. This tutorial covers the Windows version. Hopefully we will be able to add an OSX tutorial in the near future.
• FileZilla is free software. ResPower will assist you in configuring it to work with the ResPower.com site. If you want to use it for other purposes, please do not ask for our assistance. There are support forums available at the FileZilla homepage for that purpose.

There are a few simple steps involved with installing FileZilla:

• Navigate the FileZilla Website to Get the Latest Version
• Download the latest version
• Install the latest version
• Configure FileZilla to work with ResPower.com

Navigate to the FileZilla Website to Get the Latest Version

First, open the following page in a separate browser tab or window: http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/ (Note: If your browser supports tabs, and most do, simply clicking on the link will open it in a new tab.)

Once on the FileZilla page, simply click on the “Download” link as highlighted in Figure 1. Make sure you choose the Client and not Server versions.

Figure 1

At the next screen, click on the link as highlighted in Figure 2.

Figure 2

Install FileZilla

Once the download has completed, double-click on it to start the installation.

On the License Agreement page of the installer, click the “I Agree” button as indicated in Figure 3.

Figure 3

On the “Choose Components” page of the installer, click the “Next” button as indicated in Figure 4.

Figure 4

On the “Choose Install Location” page of the installer, click the “Next” button as indicated in Figure 5.

Figure 5

On the “Choose Start Menu Folder” page of the installer, click the “Next” button as indicated in Figure 6.

Figure 6

When FileZilla’s installation is complete, it is time to configure FileZilla to work with ResPower.

Configure FileZilla to work with ResPower.com

Launch FileZilla. It should look similar to Figure 7.

Figure 7

Click on the File menu and choose “Site Manager” as shown in Figure 8.

Figure 8

Click on “New Site” (Figure 9).

Figure 9

Under My Sites, as highlighted in Figure 10, a new site will appear with the name “New Site.” Change that to www.respower.com.

Figure 10

Next, type in www.respower.com for the Host and the port is 21. (Figure 11)

Figure 11

Logon type is Normal, as shown in Figure 12.

Figure 12

User and password are the same as your respower account. (Figure 13)

Figure 13

Once you have your account information set, click OK. (Figure 14)

Figure 14

Now, to connect to ResPower, just click the connect button as shown in Figure 15.

Figure 15

If everything is set up correctly, you should see a renders folder and a source folder. (Figure 16) The source folder is where you will put all of the files you need for your rendering job. The renders folder is where you will pick up your output.

Figure 16

Once you are done, disconnecting is easy. Just go to the Server menu and click on disconnect. (Figure 17)

Figure 17

At long last, it’s time to start modeling. There are as many ways to model as there are modelers. You’ll need to practice and try different techniques until you find the one that works for you. Most tutorials start by using a plane and the main difference is where on the face they start. Some start at the eyes and others at the mouth (Fig 1). Some start with a large plane covering the entire face and cut in as many segments as they need (Fig 2).

Figure 1

Figure 2

Now obviously, whichever method I choose, I have a lot more work to do. For the first method, there are lots more polygons to be added. For the second, I’m going to need to cut in a lot more lines. Regardless of which method I am using, I need to make adjustments in the left (or right) viewport as I go. You can have a front view of the face with all the lines beautifully contoured, but if you don’t go make your adjustments in the side view, you’ll have a very flat face (Fig 3). It also doesn’t hurt to take a look in perspective view every so often. Just don’t model there or you’ll likely be sorry.

Figure 3

You’ll notice in the above picture it is difficult to see the side view at the moment. That’s because it is flat and sitting at 0 position. When we start making adjustments to the side view you’ll be able to see it just fine (Fig 4).

Figure 4

Some of the vertices in the front view are selected and are red in the above picture. They are also in the left view, but at the moment we are primarily concerned with the front view. Those are the vertices that will need to “meet” their counterparts when we turn on symmetry. It’s very easy to get them slightly off without even realizing it. If you do, then you may end up with either an overlap or a hole in your mesh when you turn on symmetry. Figures 5 and 6 show an overly exaggerated example of this issue, both before adding symmetry and immediately after.

Figure 5

Figure 6

This is easy enough to check and fix. Simply select the vertex and look down at the position numbers. X should be 0, not .01 or -.01. If it is something other than 0, then right click on the arrows next to the X number and it will go back to 0. It may help to turn on transparency so you can see the vertex, in case of overlap. Alt X turns this feature on and off. Figure 7 shows the transparent mesh with the overlapping vertex selected.

Figure 7

Figure 8 shows the corrected vertex. Now you would just do the same thing to correct the gap at the other vertex.

Figure 8

Something else to keep in mind as you model, there are no straight lines on a human body. Therefore all of your lovely segments need to curve. It doesn’t have to be a huge, sweeping curve, but some curvature is necessary, otherwise your model will never look right.

That’s all for this time.

Part 4

Last time, I meant to note that there is no one right way to model anything, much less a human head. The steps I am showing in these posts are merely the way that seems to work for me. The best idea for anybody starting out is to read and work through several tutorials. It will give you a better feel for the many ways something can be accomplished, and somewhere along the way you’ll figure out what works best for you.

The same goes for setting up your reference images. I like having mine crossed in the middle. Some people prefer to have them on planes but offset, and others have them set as the background image. It doesn’t necessarily make any real difference, what matters is what works for you. I prefer mine because no matter what view I’m using, the model is in front of the reference image without me having to move it.

Once again, I am using Max 2009 for this tutorial.

Reference Image Setup, Continued

I promised we’d get to modeling, and we will next time, I promise.  Last time I forgot to mention that it can be helpful to draw contour lines on your image in your image editing software. They all have some form of a pen tool which is the perfect tool to accomplish this. If you do this, it will give you a good template for how you want your polygons to line up as you model. I’m not actually going to do this for this tutorial, but to give you a small example:

This was done in a hurry, and the lines are not as careful as they would have been if I had been planning to use it, but it should give you the general idea.

The Symmetry Modifier, Your New Best Friend

You may have noticed that I only drew lines on one side of the face.  That is because the symmetry modifier is about to become your very best friend in the whole world, at least for the duration of this project.   Many of you are probably already familiar with what the symmetry modifier does, but please bear with me as I explain it.

When you put the symmetry modifier on an object, you can make edits to the original half of the object and those edits will appear on the new half as well.

For example:  Create a sphere in Max, and make sure it is centered. You can do this a couple of different ways.

First, you can have the top viewport selected, and use Keyboard Entry to create your sphere. It will automatically be centered on the origin.

Another way is to do the usual drag in any of the viewports, then set the parameters to the size you want. With the select and move tool active, right click on the arrows next to the x, y, and z at the bottom of the screen.

Before we go any further, if you want to get rid of that annoying little box around your sphere, hit J in each viewport. G will get rid of the grid as well, if you want it gone.

Now that you have a sphere and it’s nicely centered, right-click on it and convert to editable poly or mesh. I tend to use edit poly always since that is what I learned in school.

Now we’re going to cut the sphere in half. Make the front viewport active. Go to the modify panel and click on the red square for polygon selection.

Select the polygons on the right side of the sphere as you are facing it. Make sure Ignore Backface is not selected. The picture shows both the top and front viewports. You may want to look at the perspective viewport as well, to make certain you have all the of the polys on the right side selected. It’s easy to miss some on the top and bottom when they are tiny.

Now hit delete. Amazing! A half of a sphere. Now, click back on Editable Poly in the modifier stack to turn off sub-object selection. In the Modifier List select symmetry. Oh no, my sphere disappeared!

Not to worry, that’s easy to fix. You’ll just need to play with the parameters for the Symmetry modifier. In this case, the problem is easily fixed by clicking on Flip.

Now, anything we change on the left side of our sphere will be reflected on the right side.

This is going to save us a lot of time when we model the head because for the most part we will only have to work on one side. See, new best friend.

One thing I almost forgot to mention , the little button in the next picture is the Show End Result toggle. With it on, you’ll be able to see the symmetry modifier, even while you have Editable Poly selected and are making changes.

I think that’s all for the preliminaries so next time we should actually get to modeling.

Part 3