Chapter 2

After finishing the first chapter of the 'Character Modeling with Maya and ZBrush: Professional Polygonal Modeling Techniques' book I moved on to the second chapter. Chapter 2 starts with an overview of the software Maya. I have used Maya a lot lately whilst working on my other unit where myself and my group are making a short film. This section of the book talks about the guidelines of modeling, the guidelines state that you should use quad (four sided) polygons, your mesh should not have 'n-gons' (polygons with more than four sides), your mesh should have uniformly spaced topology. Fortunately I had learnt these points whilst modeling in Maya on lots of other projects that I have done at my time a Ravensbourne.

The chapter then goes on to explain some of the tools of Maya and how they work, it also goes through Maya's user interface. Again having used Maya a fair bit I knew pretty much all of these basics that were in the book. However there were two tools that the book pointed out that I had never used before. The first tool was the 'Offset Edge Loop Tool'. The 'Offset Edge Loop Tool' creates two new edge loops and evenly spaces them between the selected edge loop by sliding them across the mesh. The second tool  was the 'Lattice' tool, I had heard about this tool but had never used it before. The 'Lattice' tool places a low-res cage around the selected object. You can then manipulate the high-res object by using the low number of points of the low-res cage that was created by the 'Lattice' tool. Both of theses tools will come in very handy when modeling.

Now that the overview of Maya is out of the way the book moves onto the first important stage of modeling a character. This stage is called 'Blocking Out'. I followed the tutorial in the book on how to model a Game Character in order to teach myself how to carry out this process. The tutorial starts off by showing you how to set up your character reference images. I have done this lots of times before so this was not difficult. The reference was supplied with the tutorial. Below is an image of my scene with the reference in place.

This tutorial then taught me something new. I already knew that to save yourself time you only model one half of the character. Once finished you then mirror the geometry of the half that you have modeled and you then get the other half, this now gives you a complete character. The book uses a different technique that I was not aware of. The technique or tool is called 'Duplicate Special'. What this tool does is initially the same as mirroring geometry but allows more flexibility. Mirroring geometry simply just mirrors or copies what you have created. 'Duplicate Special' allows you to edit the original half of the mesh and the mirrored half will constantly update itself with the changes that have been made to the original half. This way you can always see the whole model and you still have the luxury of only working on one half.

I then continued to follow the tutorial step by step. I already knew about the process of 'Blocking Out' and how to do it, but I had only ever done it once so it was still vital for me to follow this tutorial just so I could make sure I was doing everything correctly. Everything was running smoothly until the book offered a technique that I had not used before. The book used a technique that would cause the model to mimic the twist that humans have in their forearm that is created by the ulna and radius bones.

The tutorial stated to rotate the bottom face of the arm at the wrist 90 degrees. When I was doing this my results looked similar to the results in the tutorial but it did not quite match up. However I kept tweaking and finally got it to look as best as I could to what the image in the tutorial was showing. I then felt that this had a result on the rest of the tutorial as my 'Block Out' was slightly different.

I found that this meant I had a lot of trouble when it came to blocking out the hand, the index finger and the thumb. Although my block out was not too far from the images in the tutorial it was still not quite perfect. I still pursued and carried on tweaking until my block out looked as close as it could to the one in the image. Overall I was fairly happy with the outcome as my block out looked pretty much spot on. Below is an image of my finished Game Character block out:

Now that my Game Character Block Out is complete the next stage will be to add detail to the block out. That gets covered in chapter 6 in the book. So unfortunately there are a few chapters to go through before I will be continuing with this character. Now that I have completed this tutorial and chapter of the book it is time to move onto the next chapter. Chapter 3 is called 'Introduction to ZBrush Modeling'. It is now finally time to start learning some ZBrush!     

Chapter 1

I have now read and followed the first chapter of the 'Character Modeling with Maya and ZBrush: Professional Polygonal Modeling Techniques' book. I learnt a lot about the first stages of character modeling and how it fits within the production process.

The first chapter is titled 'Pipeline and Modeling Guidelines', firstly I learnt about the pipeline of a production. In simple terms this mens that I learnt about the different stages a project goes through in order for it to be completed. I will not go into detail about pipeline and its importance because I already knew about it before reading the book. Seeing as this unit is about advanced research, finding out and learning things that I do not already know it makes sense to not talk about the topics that I already know.

After talking about pipeline the book then explains how to set up a new project in Maya. As I have been using Maya for a while now setting up a new project is something that I have done many times. So at the moment this chapter of the book has covered topics that I already currently know about.

At the end of the chapter this then changed. The last two pages of the chapter are about the difference between modeling with Polygons and modeling with NURBS surfaces. This is a bit of a grey area for me as I have only ever modeled with polygons. I had come across NURBS a few times before and had experimented with them but I did not have a great understanding about the difference between the two. One of the main things that I wanted to know was what NURBS were used for. This part of the chapter really cleared up any of my confusion and taught me something that I didn't know before.

I learnt that to start with NURBS were mainly used in many film houses instead of polygons. This was due to the fact that a very high number of polygons were needed to achieve photo realistic characters and environments etc. Due to technology back then the render times for very high polygon models were way too long. Using NURBS surfaces meant very organic characters could be created and would fit within the rendering budgets.

I then went on to learn that there are some major drawbacks with NURBS modeling. One major problem is the NURBS surface patches could loose their stitching during the rigging and animation stages. This is a problem because these two stages follow the modeling stage. This means the model would have to be handed back to the modeler and fixed, this then adds on more time and slows down the production. The other main problem is NURBS surfaces had to properly be parametized for texturing, and surface trims had to be dealt with if holes were needed in the model. Polygons have none of these drawbacks making them a better candidate for modeling.

I learnt the many advantages of polygon modeling. Polygons can be made of a single mesh, the UV's can be edited independently without changing the mesh, and polygons can contain holes in the mesh as desired. Polygons also tend to be much easier for new artists to learn to use for modeling. The only real disadvantage of polygon modeling is the fact that an incredibly high number of polygons are needed in order to create organic characters.

I found out that the tables have now turned and polygon modeling is now mainly used in many film and game houses instead of NURBS modeling. The reason for this is the development of technology. We now have more powerful computers that can handle an incredibly high amount of polygons needed for photo realistic film projects. Seeing as technology is constantly developing it becomes apparent how CGI keeps on developing and improving.

However NURBS modeling is not completely extinct. It is still a technique that is very useful for hard surface modeling. A perfect example that NURBS modeling is used for is modeling vehicles. The reason NURBS surfaces are one of the best ways to model vehicles is because a vehicle is formed of lots of panels. Another reason is because vehicle models have hard surfaces that wont deform, this means there is no danger of gaps appearing where the different surfaces meet. So perhaps after learning about Organic Modeling it would be wise for me to learn about NURBS modeling, as it seems that it is a skill that could still be very useful.          

Introduction

I am now in my third year at Ravensbourne studying Animation Production and this term I have two briefs to fulfill. This blog covers the unit titled 'Advanced skills'. The other unit that runs along side it is a group project where we make a short film. 

The Advanced Skills brief states that I am to choose and focus on either my main role within the short film that myself and my group are creating or a new area that I will benefit from. I am required to carry out an advance level of research and experimentation within my chosen area. This research should be seen as a deeper learning activity. It is essential that I reflect and critically analyse my progress, this blog is exactly the place where I will be doing that.

The area that I am going to carry out advanced research for is Organic Modeling. Organic modeling simply means modeling living things such as a creature or a human. Looking at Organic Modeling from a technical point of view it could be argued that it is modeling something that has flowing topology, lots of curves and barely any hard edges. However this now broadens the meaning of Organic Modeling and means that an Organic Model could be a car, a football, a bowl etc etc. Despite saying that Organic Modeling is generally perceived in the animation industry as modeling characters, which is exactly the area that I want to focus on.

One of the reasons that I chose to research Organic Modeling for this unit is because it is an area that I am very interested in. However there is probably a more important reason for me choosing this as my topic, and that reason is Organic Modeling or Character Modeling is one of my weakest area's. Considering the specialism that I want to go into in the animation industry is modeling Organic Modeling is definitely a skill that I am expected to have. I think one of the main reasons that character modeling is one of my weakest areas is because I have not had enough practice, I have only ever modeled one character before and it was not the best attempt to say the least. Another reason that it is one of my weakest areas is because I simply do not know enough, I know some of the simple basic stages and tools but my knowledge needs to be developed a lot further. 

This unit gives me the perfect opportunity to gain the knowledge that I need. A piece of software that is now commonly used in industry for lots of tasks especially character modeling is Zbrush. I currently have never used Zbrush before and this unit seems like the perfect opportunity to gain a good understanding of how to use it or at least learn the basics. I am also looking to develop my knowledge of character modeling in Maya. I will be using both of these software together to create a character worthy enough to go in my show reel. This means that the character I create will need to be of a very high standard in order for it to stand out and show that I am capable of working in the animation industry.

In order for me to learn the process of character modeling in Maya and the basics of character modeling with Zbrush I have bought a very helpful book from amazon. The book is called 'Character Modeling with Maya and ZBrush: Professional Polygonal Modeling Techniques'. It is written by Jason Patnode and was published by Focal Press in 2008. Below is an image of the book:

I have completely read this book and I think that it was a fantastic buy as it contains lots of important information that I needed to know, I learnt a lot from reading it. The next thing for me to do is to follow the tutorials in the book as this will solidify the knowledge that I learnt. There is a tutorial in this book that shows you how to model a Hyperreal Character, this character is a monster. Unfortunately due to me falling behind schedule I will not have time to follow this tutorial as well as the others. However this should not effect me too much as one of the other tutorials that I will be following has a very similar process and uses the same range of tools, so by skipping this tutorial I will not be missing out on too much new information. I think that I will benefit a lot from the chapters on Zbrush as I have never used it before, so everything about Zbrush is new to me which is slightly daunting yet very exciting at the same time.


Despite this book being really good there may be a problem due to the fact that it was released in 2008 and it is now 2011. The tutorials in the book demonstrate Maya 8 and Zbrush 3. I will be using Maya 2011 and Zbrush 4. This could be a problem because there will probably be some new tools in the newer versions of the software that are not covered in the book. I can counter this problem by research the new additions of the newer software. I will do this by using the Internet to look at the latest character modeling tutorials for the latest versions of Maya and Zbrush. 

Another book that I think would teach me a lot is called 'Zbrush Character Creation: Advanced Digital Sculpting' it is written by Scott Spencer. The reason that I have not yet purchased this book is because it is 'Advanced Digital Sculpting', I currently have no experience using Zbrush so at this moment in time I think this book would be too much of a big jump for me. Once I have mastered the basics of Zbrush then I think I will be more able to understand this book better. Below is an image of the book:

Once I have followed the tutorials from the 'Character Modeling with Maya and ZBrush: Professional Polygonal Modeling Techniques' book and the tutorials from the Internet I am then going to then create a character from my own concept art or maybe ask a fellow animation student if they have a character design that they want modeled. I will create this character without the help of any tutorials, this will ensure that I have learnt from the tutorials and will help to develop my understanding.