"Kata" character -- eyes solution found

chip

Been away a long time, back again with some eye candy, shots of a model I've built & rigged in Blender. It's nearing the end of texturing, still some tweaks to facial vert weights to do, but worthy of a look I think:


working pose 4-view


some "beauty pose" shots



portrait closeups.

Model's probably too high in polycount for game use (though maybe not next-gen, who knows?), but will be featured in an animated short I have in the planning stages, working title Kata.

Feedback always welcome.

Enjoy!

Gmanx

The one thing that struck me most is that her inner ear is a very weird shape. It's very large and doesn't seem to contain all the cartilege folds it should. It's also a bit thick at the top. She's obviously stylised - but the ear looked odd to me.

Just my two cents.

chip

Thanks, Gmanx. The ears have been remarked on elsewhere, but I'm not seeing it, so new eyes are valuable . I'd love some detailed crits. Here's some closeups... feel free to paintover, markup, whatever.

Jaco

Nice model, could you show some wires of the body?
As for the ear, my best advice would be to look at some pics of real ears:



I've tried to show the main forms of the ear, you should look at some pics from the front to. Notice how the red form wraps into the depths of the ear.

_Eclipse_

for me, ears are good. Not all the ears are the same, so the forms could vary

Gmanx

[ QUOTE ]
for me, ears are good. Not all the ears are the same, so the forms could vary

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree - ears are very individual. Personally, I noticed these to be an 'odd' shape.

Do you have any reference for the ear you made?

I find the following is useful when I'm building them myself:

chip

Thanks for the markups, folks. Very helpful & I can see a few places I can make changes. Re: refs -- I use many and synthesize, rather than copying a particular image. Keeps things more in character. I think part of the problem is also the extreme regularity of the outside rim of the ear shell -- it's too perfect. For some reason this level of stylization doesn't work as well on the ear as with the other parts of the face & body.

Here's thumbnails to some wire and rig shots (thumbs because they're pretty big images):

HEx

MAN she was cute! really love the facelines, good work mate!

JKMakowka

the bellybutton is a bit too low. Usually is sits right below the the horizonal line that goes through the thinnest part of the torso.
The feet also need some work.
Otherwise not bad.

Edit: the overall torso seems elongated to some (smaller) extent. Head is a bit to big in scale compared to the body and the back of the head, or more precicly how it connects to the neck is to aprupt.

hawken

nice body

face looks like a pretty man

which is ok because some women look like men.

"don't look at the mantle piece while stoking the fire" is the obvious mantra here

Xaltar

Very clean looking model, Hawken has a point about the face though, it does seem to have more of a masculine bone structure. The thing that looks the most unfeminine to me is the cheakbones are too high and a bit to sharp, try lowering them so that in your 45 degree shot the apex of the cheakbone is almost level with the tip of the nose.

But as Hawken said, its believeable as it is so its up to you wether you want to change it

Nice work

chip

Good observations, all, and many thanks for your comments.

Re: the face. 'Twasn't my intention to make her tend toward masculinity, but I was trying to avoid the rather stereotypical ultra-fem look. Part of the overall look is technical -- it's hard to "pluck" particle strand eyebrows, for example -- and part intentional. The character is a fighter (Kata will be to some degree a martial arts flick), very self reliant, very confident, and these qualities aren't usually easily seen in the girly-femme face so often seen as "feminine." She's also not wearing any "makeup," those little tricks the fairer sex uses to enhance their natural endowments, but which also contribute a great deal to the cultural norm of "beauty."

Not that I'm trying to bust any gender lines, just not wanting her to look like an everyday sort of beauty queen. Drop-dead gorgeous, probably not. Attractive, well, that's definitely a goal.

All points well-taken though, and I'll see how incorporating them works out.

chip

Revisions, most per your good suggestions.



The ear's less "perfect" in its curves, with some interior changes as well (though it may be a tad big now??), jawline trimmed a bit in the chin area, cheekbones rounded out. One thing I noticed -- the hair style makes her face look significantly longer than it is, what with the shadows and straight fall from the temples, and that may have also contributed to the somewhat more masculine look of the previous version.

Skin texturing now nearly complete for the full body, with blemishes and coloration variety added (may add more as I detail the hands and feet). Adjusted the costume material as well, it was too obviously leathery before, now has deeper & richer darks that contrast better with the skin coloration & texture. Pose at right hints at the type of content the animation will portray.

aesir

I assume she'll be performing a kata.

Good luck, that will be really hard to animate well with a fairly realistic body like the one you've got.

chip

[ QUOTE ]
I assume she'll be performing a kata.

[/ QUOTE ]Of a sort, but not one of the formal kata from karate. The word means "form," and I'm broadening that meaning to include more than that from the martial disciplines. Artistic license and all that. And despite the naturalism of the character (a word I think is more accurate than "realism"), there will be a strong fantasy aspect to the short.

[ QUOTE ]
Good luck, that will be really hard to animate well with a fairly realistic body like the one you've got.

[/ QUOTE ]
The challenge of portraying the human form in motion is one of the reasons I want to make Kata. The basic principles are the same as working with a more stylized figure, they just have to be approached with a more subtle hand, perhaps, not as much room for broad & exaggerated gestures. Definitely not a simple subject, but one I think will make for an interesting film.

Master_v12

sounds like an ambitious project man and you are doing a good job so far. good luck! looking forward to seeing how it turns out

TorQue[MoD]

Well, you're definitely hetero cause you know what a woman looks like!

She's great looking... not sure I like the pic where she's showing her teeth... makes her face look too long and the eyes look off. A little too wide set and they don't "smile"

But otherwise she's looking great!

super_villain

Good looking female model. I would probably add a couple of little details, like the indents on each side of the butt, and that noticable muscle on the back of the leg, opposite the knee. Good luck animating her.

JKMakowka

The shape of the head (especially behind the ears and the connection to the neck) is still wrong.
I mean seriously... it is completely circular
Sure the hair is covering it up a bit, but why not make it right anyways? And the neck is probably visible even with the hair.

chip

[ QUOTE ]
...why not make it right anyways?

[/ QUOTE ]For the same reason I haven't modeled the crowns of her molars, because it's unnecessary work. I have a great deal to do that is necessary. There's even a fair possibility that much of the geometry of the hidden area of the skull will be removed. The hair is a soft-body "wig" designed to have some limited motion during the animation, not "realistic" but enough to keep it from looking like a helmet. As such it's subject to occasional minor but visible collision errors with the skull geometry, the visual effect of which can be eliminated if there are no faces under the hair (there's a separate collision proxy skull that does not render, btw).

There's implied volume in the hairstyle that makes its shape appropriate, and the curve at the back of the neck implied by the shape of the "wig" doesn't look particularly out of kilter to me. Feel free to be more specific with a paintover or markup, it might help me see your point more clearly. But as far as getting the hidden part of the skull more anatomically correct, unless there's a pressing need to do so, it'll probably stay as is.

chip

Added bump-mapped musculature detailing (subtle but effective, I think), some reshaping and realignment, all in all progressing well, though I'm having rigging probs for some reason (rig was complete & tested quite a while ago but it's developed some glitches in the script drivers -- bummer).

Stills:


23 frame 360deg turn @ 1fps (QT)

BTW, I used bump mapping because the raytracer I'm using doesn't play well with tangent space normal maps.

C&C welcome as always.

Slum

Hey, this has turned out really well. I'm not fond of the haircut though. Also, her kneecaps seem a bit exaggerated and lumpy for her lean form.

The face looks great.

chip

I've trimmed up the knees in response to your comment, Slum, you were right, they were puffy. I'll post more body shots later after I finalize the skin texturing. For now, some pics of expression tests I did to try out the facial rigging and re-worked topology of the mouth & cheeks (a few early image in this thread show how I was getting awkward deformations). Better now, I think:

Joao Sapiro

REALLY nice man , really dig the style, the smooth skin the facial expressions are really cool ! congrats ! this has come a long way

Snowfly

Yeah she emotes really well, but show some gums man! Good work so far!

chip

[ QUOTE ]
Yeah she emotes really well, but show some gums man! Good work so far!

[/ QUOTE ]Thanks, Johny & Snowfly. Yep, the gums aren't evident, part of the test was to gauge the size of the teeth, and also because the color shader for the gums was left out of the renders -- it's on the same flat as the costume and I didn't want the facial "swash" to obscure the expressions.

Could use some opinions on a new treatment of the eyes, I added reflections to get a better "wet" look, but the raytracer picks up a lot of the environment as well, tending to obscure the depth of the iris and pupil. Too much so? Feel free to comment.

No reflection on top, with reflection below, similar camera angles. Thanks!

Illusions

I don't know what kind of shader tools Blender has, but in Maya to get around this I would have a sampler info node feeding the facing ratio value into the v coordinate of a ramp. What this would do is depending on how I set up the ramp, have the reflection more intense at the sides of the eyes (where the normals point away from the camera), and lower in intensity as the normals pointed more and more towards the camera.

...or you could paint a reflection map.

Anyway, I like the blackness of the iris on top, but the reflectivity of the eyes in the bottom. Also, if you're going to be that up close...she needs tears (depending on how realistic you want to make this).

Ryan Smith

I noticed on the angry facial expression, there is no defmoration in the face betwen the nose and upper lip muscles... The edges of the nose should lift up, and crease, because the muscles tighten around that area which lift up the upper lip. Here is a little paint over

Wells

iris looks like it has an odd drop shadow or bevel/emboss going on it. hard black line along the bottom half stood out for me.

love the pouting face

vividly_pathetic

I think it looks pretty good. But she looks sliiightly sweaty or shiny maybe, but other than that it looks good!

Richard Kain

I love how expressive her face can be. It would be great to see some facial animations as well as poses.

stimpack

the ankles from a front and back view seem a tad wide? probably just personal taste, but they feel like kankles to me. good job tho! shes lovely.

MoP

I think the specular highlight on the eye should be brighter - the reflection is ok but it's really the little point of light that you get from the specular that should be punched up to make them seem more wet/glossy.

The facial expressions are cool

chip

Final eyes solution, incorporating many of your very helpful observations:



@ Illusions: Blender has some settings similar to that, I've adjusted them to minimize the obscuring effect. Thanks for the input. Good suggestion on the tears layer, I've added that in as well, and pulled the mesh around to form the tear ducts and visible tissues at the outer eyelid creases.

@ Virtuosic: Good call on the frown creases. I'm starting a library of expressions soon, I'll add them in to that pose. Thanks!

@ Sectaurs: Yep the previous bump map for the eye was not ideal, and caused a small ridge at the iris edge that the cornea material's IOR magnified. Fixed now.

@ vividly_pathetic: I'll see how toning down the specular looks. Thanks for stoppin' by!

@ Richard Kain: I'll likely be running a number of test anims in the coming days as I finalize the rig and weighting, though they'll probably not have the high render levels of the stills. Savin' that for the final short. Stay tuned!

@ MoP: THanks, dude! Yeah, the eyes materials should have been fairly straightforward, but the raytracer I'm using (YafRay, external option fro the latest Blender) doesn't treat the Specular and Hardness settings the same as Blender Internal scanline. I've got the Spec & Hardness turned way up, and boosted yet again using some texturing channel tricks, and I still can't get a hard highlight from my key lamp. So I had to fake it by using the RT reflections of a big white, self-illuminated plane set off camera. It's actually more "realisitc" that a Spec-only approach (high-spec highlight are just reflections after all), but more difficult to implement due to the placement issue. Glad you like her emos!

verybad

The pouting expression is great. Made me want to buy her something. (That's what chicks genernally pout for in any case) I've not seen eyes that color (my own are hazel, I've never seen aqua-green), more blue would be less odd to me. They look good, but to0 green (IMO)