Since the design of the main
character is settled, it is now time to bring her to life, so to speak, by
producing a CGI model of her for animating later on. I achieved this by using
Autodesk Maya 2013, as the software had certain qualities such as nhair, skin
shaders and dynamic cloth effects that may be useful. Since I was not going to
have the little girl as a live-action character, due to time management issues
as well as other complicastion, I decided that full CGI was the best option.
Concept
Artwork
Original design, used earlier during pitch/presentation.
Little Girl - Modelling
Based
on the concept artwork I drew a template of the head structure, scanned it into
the computer and then assigned the image file to material asset on a simple
plane shape. Then I attempted to create the basic shape of the head out of a
polygon sphere, altering the position of various vertices (points). Also used a
series of tutorials in order to accomplish this technique, the links to said
tutorials are seen below.
As I was going for a stylized look with animation, I
made sure not to make the characters look too realistic, otherwise there was a
possibility that it would fall victim to the uncanny valley concept.
Used the Cut Faces Tool and Edge Loop Tool to add more faces to the shape in order to structure the face more.
Here, I've structured the eye sockets and nose as well as the basic jawline.
Have structured the nostrils, lips and brows. Now producing the ear out of a simple cube, adding several divisions to alter the shape more. Also duplicated a copy of the head mesh as a backup in case anything goes wrong with the design of the original head. Have structured one half of the head and then mirrored the geometry to complete the head shape. So in a way, this beats the "one side of the face is never the same" fact.
Of course there were problems with the vertices merging when the shape was mirrored, especially at the line that goes down the middle of her nose, so had to mirror the geometry with the option to merge vertices unchecked and then merge each single one individually.
Here I've constructed the neck and portions of the shoulder areas as well as attaching the ears to the head and the eyebrows. Achieved this by combining the shapes and then merging the vertices to the appropriate places. Have also assigned a material asset with a basic skin colour to the original mesh and a sharing material for the eyeballs. As seen in image above, I've started experimentation with the CV Curve tool to produce hair curves to be used later on for the hair system.
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| A shot of modelling the hand in progress. |
To model body parts such as the hands/fingers and feet/toes, I have researched and followed several techniques/tutorials on achieving this part of the modelling process. Have viewed several tutorials on modelling the same body parts in order to compare different methods.
Links to hand modelling tutorials.
Links to feet modelling tutorials
Autodesk Maya 2012 Tutorial- Model a simple footModeling a foot with basic polygon tools in Maya
Modeling a Foot in Maya (Part 1)
Modeling a Foot in Maya, pt1
Modeling a Foot in Maya, pt2
Modeling a Foot in Maya, pt3
Modeling a Foot in Maya, pt4
Modeling a Foot in Maya, pt5
Modeling a Foot in Maya, pt6
Modeling a Foot in Maya, pt7
Other Tutorials
3D Maya 07: Polygon Model Making - Body, Feet and Arms
How to 3D Model a Head Part 1
How to Model a Head Part 2
How to Model a Head Part 3
Following the tutorials listed above on modelling a hand, I managed to make a model of a hand in a short period of time by producing one finger and then duplicating it four times to attach to the main shape, slightly changing the size and shape of each finger appropriately. Have achieved the same with making the foot. Attached the foot and hand to the mesh after producing an arm and a leg and half of a body through using the Extrude tool and Manipulation tool and then once again used the Mirror Geometry tool to create the other half of the body. Then combined and attached the head and neck to the body.
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Full body mesh. The body is complete as well as the hands, feet and the head. A kind of stylized character.
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Little Girl Modelling - Continued
Maya Tutorials 009A cloth modeling by Naveen Ma馬國樑
Maya Cloth Modeling1
To the create the dress, I simply duplicated the main mesh and removed the arms and legs to have the body of the dress, then extruded the bottom repeatedly to produce the long skirt. Manipulated the vertices of the skirt to make it look different.
Although I had produced feet with individual toes, I mainly did it to practice my skills on modelling human anatomy, I didn't really have the intention of having a bare footed girl walking over sharp rubble and debris. So I modelled a simple shoe (left side) out of a cube shape, duplicated it and then reversed one of the scale settings to make a right shoe.
Another part of the modelling process was to create blend-shapes, which would later be used for animation purposes. Duplicated the head of the character mesh several times and manipulated the vertices of each one to create several different facial expressions, which will be triggered later using deformer nodes.
Created a basic shape for the hairstyle so I could use it as reference with the CV Curve tool to make the hair curves as mentioned.
Have produced eyelashes using several polygonal shapes parented together and the eyebrows were created using a grass clump paint effect tool. Had to adjust the controls slightly to make them look like eyebrows, had several difficulties including keeping the eyebrows in the same place but managed to attach them to the head so that when the face changed shape due to blend-shapes, i.e, a facial expression, the eyebrows would also move and change shape appropriately.
Texturing
Now that the modelling stage is complete, I now move on to texturing. I simply used several UV Mapping techniques to achieve this and a series of images of produced using Adobe Photoshop.
Image of UV Mapping image. Needs a few tweaks in certain areas, evidently, but have achieved this layout through the use of Automatic Mapping and Cylindrical Mapping.
Saved an image of the UV Map layout and then added several layers of colour and texture via Photoshop so that it would look more like skin.
Original UV Map image of the layout for the dress mesh. Like the other, still needs tweaks, especially with the overlapping as that undisturbed could cause problems in the texturing later on.
Original texture design for the dress. Decided to give the dress a bit of dirt and age as the girl is wearing the same dress for a long time so put some dirt marks on and a burlap texture to make it look more woven. Will bring the cloth texture out more later on by applying a bump map to the material asset.
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| UV Mapping the girl mesh in progress. |
Original image for the eyeball, produced in Photoshop. Decided to make look it more interesting by applying psychedelic strings around the edge, imitating faint veins in the eyeball.
Simply applied a spherical mapping to the eyeball and manipulated it slightly to get the pupil in the middle of the pointed edge as shown in the image. As the pupil of the eye is actually flat, I flattened the edges of the sphere where the pupil would be.
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