Need SERIOUS help modeling first character!

archangelclover

Hi Polycount,

I recently got a contract job modeling a character for my school's website, yet I've never modeled a character before, our character modeling classes were cut right before I was given the assignment, and my usual mentors are busy. Therefore, I am trying to learn on my own.

The character concept is a typical space marine, with a sleek build and lots of small armor plates. He'll be wearing a helmet so I won't have to worry about facial features. My poly budget is practically limitless, but I'd like to keep the base mesh low so I can reuse it for future endeavors.

I need some serious help with the edge flow, especially around the crotch/lower torso. Something is...wrong here. VERY wrong. If any of you can show me how to improve my edge flow so it looks more natural, I would greatly appreciate it. General character modeling tips/tricks would also be very helpful. (I'm using Max 2013 by the way)

Thanks,
Clover

BARDLER

Two important things is keeping your mesh symmetrical and keeping your quads relatively equal density in each area. Right now you are pushing verts into weird areas and making your edges quads all kinds of weird sizes and shapes. At any point you should be able to drop an edge loop on your character and it should flow through your entire mesh.

The wiki has all kinds of topology reference. http://wiki.polycount.com/CategoryTopology?highlight=%28\bCategoryCharacter\b%29

ivanzu

Hate N-gons love quads!!You got a bunch of n-gons at the chest area and at the butt:D.You should keep proper edge flow and make everything symmetrical for H-poly model.

teggs

I agree with ivanzu and BARDLER.

In addition to the poycount wiki link BARDLER mentioned you can also take a look at the following resources:

Character Modeling Video Tutorials by Andrew Klein:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL20DC39DABF6D9307

Ancient Pig’s Basic Deformation Tutorial: Great resource for understanding edge loops/topology for deformation
http://www.pig-brain.com/tutorials/tut02-04/

Polygon Modeling: Focuses on topology of the face but will help you better understand topology basics and edge loop placement:
http://www.phungdinhdung.com/Studies_paper/Realistic_face_modeling.shtm#4.1-

Dave K’s Poly Head Modeling Tutorial:
http://www.thehobbitguy.com/tutorials/polymodeling/index.html

Nick Zuccarello Tutorials: Has a collection of basic Maya introduction tutorial videos as well as some great resources for sculpting in ZBrush
http://nickzucc.blogspot.com/search/label/tutorials

Brygelsmack

Like mentioned, symmetry is important. Delete half the model and just work on one side, and then mirror it over. Someone more experienced than me should make this guy a paint-over, man this is so messy. What are they teaching you at school?

archangelclover

@ Brygelsmack: That's what I was doing initially (working on one side), and then I tried to mirror it over and got this mess. I was actually hoping for a paint over. As for what they're teaching us in school, it's all low-poly environment modeling so far. I actually registered for this particular Max class under the impression that it was going to be a character modeling class, and the board decided to completely change the curriculum this semester to...MORE environment modeling! *sigh*. Thus, I've never had to worry much about organic edge flow, what with us doing mainly boxes, guns, pillars, and other things. I'm actually one of those overachieving students when it comes to basically everything else (believe it or not). It's just...THIS. It's so bad it makes me want to cringe. But I need to stop ignoring it and fix it up, which is why I asked for Polycount's help.

@ teggs THANK YOU! Those tutorials look GREAT! It's nice to see such an abundance of useful information in one post rather than having to sift through the vastness of the internet. I'll take a look at them when I get the time and begin learning the magic of edge flow.

@ ivanzu: Quads good, n-gons bad, got it! I was wondering what was making the butt look god-awful. XD

BARDLER: LOL I know the guy that made a large portion of the models in that wiki. I had no idea he was such a celebrity here! So you're saying keep the polys all the same size roughly and maintain symmetry right? Okay, I'll try that out.

archangelclover

Thought you'd like to see the sort of progress I've been making. The project mentioned in the OP ended up not working out, however I didn't give up on trying to learn character modeling.

I started over. I kept all the useful advice you all mentioned this time (especially the part about evenly-sized quads!) Finessing in Max and Mudbox right now. Will be adding clothes, hands, and a head soon.