Body Modelling a Woman (Warning: Nude reference images)

Mebrial

Warning: Contains Nude Reference Images

This thread is going to be linked to my University assignment for Body Modelling (which requires the body to be nude, thus appropriate references are required). Everything here will be a copy of the Digital Academy I'm initially putting posts onto.

I have collected reference for the body I would like to create. After careful study of the references available on 3d.sk, I have chosen the body form I would most like to create for this module.

The subject in question is Klara:
A-Pose
There are multiple angles here to be able to capture the most detail and help identify the musclular structure of the subject.
Front

3/4 Left Front

Left

3/4 Left Back

Back


T-Pose
There were only two images avaliable for the T-Pose.
Front


Another collected reference is from a 3D model from Turbosquid.com, which I am aiming to ultimately recreate in terms of quality standard. The turntable of her is in the A-Pose and helps me as an industrial standard to look at.
(http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/rigged-female-max/669560)
Front

3/4 Left Back

Back

Right


I think that it would have been easier to realize detail of the body if there was a life-drawing class accompanying my studies, but I am going to be utilizing various books to help my study of the topology and human anatomical muscle structure.
The books included are ZBrush Digital Sculpting: Human Anatomy (Scott Spencer), ZBrush Studio Projects: Realistic Game Characters (Ryan Kingslien) and Human Anatomy for Artists (Eliot Goldfinger).
Although this body is a simple frame that is (at least at first glance) easily identifiable with the muscle structure compared to an obese/elderly/pregnant person, I feel it's a good starting point to learn the basics of muscle structure and positioning.
I hope to capture the feminine grace of the body and its curves, and show my perception in more detail in a sculpt.

There are 6 important areas that need to be identified with this reference:-

The body type of the character
Klara has a slim body, and is aged between 21 and 30. Distinctively, she has a thin waist with broad hips. She doesn't have distinctive muscles, but they are still visible in the high resolution reference.
Her skin is heavily freckled, which will make a unique skin texture for the model. There are also small scars/birth marks across the front of her body, which will be acute detail which could be easily looked over.

The quality of the photographic reference
The bony landmarks are noticeable because Klara is slim.



Muscle Structure of the chosen reference subject
Klara's muscle strucure is generally 'standard' or 'average', but that doesn't make it easy to see. I have used Human Anatomy for Artists: Elements of Form (Eliot Goldfinger) to guide my knowledge and create reference to the best of my ability. Sketching out the muscles on Klara has helped me grasp a better idea about the faces I will be dealing with later on in ZBrush when it comes to sculpting, as a base mesh won't easily mould to the organic muscle shape.



Topology other character artists use during base mesh construction

Lee Devonald split his base mesh of a woman into polygroups before they started sculpting or reproportioning, and said that he intended to use the same base mesh for the final topology where possible.
[imgres]http://crazyferretstudios.com/public/nlc/nlc_basemesh.jpg[/imgres] (Lee Devonald "almighty_gir", Polycount http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=110454&highlight=woman+topology)
Various artists on Polycount and Scott Spencer have used the method of symmetry in their mesh, to ease making the whole model and for the time spent to be spent more carefully. This results in a symmetrical model, and might not be the approach I take to the base mesh. It could, however, save time if I was to make the model symmetrical and then work the figure to the reference; but this will make it harder to work with the reference.

Topology sketch on reference

This topology attempt was an approach to edge loop placement and an estimate at the polygon count and density around various areas. It is by no means appropriately-spread topology, just a map of the potential pole placements.



The first area I will be focusing on is proportioning. The total character height will be 8 heads, which will make a simple task of measurements in comparison to the standard 7.5 head tallness used in artistic figure measurement. The concerns in this part of development are the measurements of each major part of the body. The points I am going to be paying attention to are (as suggested in the ZBrush Studio Projects: Realistic Game Characters -p.21, Ryan Kingslien) the Head, Neck, Shoulder, Waist, Hip, Thigh, Knee, Calf, Ankle and Foot.

Ravanna

Did you attempt a full male body before this?
Generally (feel free to nay-say me) you would finish a male sculpt 1st, to learn the positions of muscles, and learn the basic shapes.

The female form is arguably more difficult; whilst it utilises the same muscles, the focus is on subtlety and soft features.

Regardless, it looks good.
The armpits seem a bit too concave, don't rely on photo-textures in the model, can you show us the pure sculpt/lit model?

Mebrial

Hi Ravanna, I haven't attempted a full-body sculpt or model before. I wasn't given any preparation warnings about which may be more difficult, but now I've already started the project so it's a bit late to change what I've done so close to a milestone deadline for the base mesh.
The sculpt in my first post was purely to be used as reference, and I would like to achieve something of that quality in the future, but I don't expect I'll manage on a University deadline so short (it leaves me no time to practise).

I have been working on making the base mesh resemble the photo reference as closely as I can and have been using the Turbosmooth modifier to enforce accuracy when preparing for ZBrush.
I've had a lot of difficulty with the topology in terms of pole placement and how to craft the breasts.
Initially, I had a valuable reference image (which helped with my topology sketch over the reference) that was only showing the female torso. (1) However, from sketching to practically working on the topology, my approach made it difficult to understand how to proceed with the breasts to get evenly and sensibly spaced topology. I had made a generic genderless body structure and simply tried to pull out the vertices and move them to the correct spacing. This didn't work well, and I spent too much time without a break to be able to handle the situation at the point I realized it was the wrong approach. So after backing up my file I tried multiple techniques of extrusions and changing the edge flow, trying to match the reference.



Another important problem is that there are minor differences in Klara's stance in the front and side reference images, causing some difficulty when trying to align the silhouette. I could improvise a lot of this with the body structure, as I stuck firmly to the front image as it's got the most landmarks to work by and the largest surface to model against. The differences only provided a real problem when I was modelling the head, but using the 3/4 reference image, I could judge by eye the shape of the face in the Perspective viewport.

I have used sub-material ID loops to demonstrate where the loops are occurring. This process also helped to guide me through the topology alterations.
The body at this current moment in time:-
Front of the body

Back of the Body

Feet

Feet underside

Head

Head with wireframes


I feel I'm coming to a close with the base mesh, though the topology is rigid and not perfected by far. However, from having more appropriately placed poles and loops, I have more confidence for the results of sculpting in ZBrush. With further refinement, I would continue use of this base mesh by using it for the retopology after the sculpt.

(1) Reference for the topology of the torso: [ http://cgcookie.com/blender/2010/08/03/male-and-female-torso/ ]

MM

your photo reference model has implants for breast and not natural ones. so i would suggest you find a model reference with natural anatomy to learn properly.

Mebrial

Hi MM, thank you for pointing that out. But how could you tell? Sadly, I really don't have the spare time to make this again. I'll be aware of it from now on, and try and pay more attention.

An update on my progress:-

Here's a turntable render of my base mesh with wires over the coloured loops:-

http://youtu.be/aTYqxFl1pe4

Here are wireless renders of my model with the coloured loops:-



Here are wired renders of my model:-

Mebrial

Here's my model uploaded to Sketchfab, which is fantastically awesome for showing the topology where I haven't been able to get good images myself.

http://skfb.ly/5ji2f1a

Aga22

it would be more clear if the model was in quads...

Goeddy

your poly density is very uneven. if you are not shure how to get the edgeflow you want while retaining shape and poly density, i would recommend you download someone elses basemesh that sort of looks like what you are aiming for, and then analyse how they did it/ compare it with yours.

also you could just ignore the edgeflow, and build your mesh so you are satisfied with the shape.
then you put a turbosmooth ontop of it and build another mesh ontop of the smoothed one with 3ds max´s retopology tools, so you don´t have to worry about the shape and are able to fully concentrate on the edgeflow and density.

also i wouldnt take a model with augmentations as reference. just my personal oppinion though.

Mebrial

Thanks for the feedback, it has been noted. This is my first body model, and I anticipated the topology and figure to be incorrect on a first attempt to a strict deadline. The methods suggested by Goeddy are great though, so thanks.

The next steps I'll be taking are importing the .obj to ZBrush and making it look better.

Also, what did you mean by

i wouldnt take a model with augmentations as reference

, Goeddy?
And is there any way to tell if the reference model has implants, as someone mentioned before?

MM

Mebrial wrote: »

Also, what did you mean by , Goeddy?
And is there any way to tell if the reference model has implants, as someone mentioned before?

usually you can tell if they are implants by location of nipple and shape and transition of breast to torso.

attached is a mock up to show you what i mean. the transition on the top of the breast is more prominent in most implants and nipple location is usually pointed slightly upward.

natural breasts usually have nipples pointing down and at most close to horizontal line. if nipples were pointing upward naturally then it would be very difficult to breast feed.

there are slight exceptions when it comes to spotting an implant specially if the implant is done on a person who already had average size. but for this model in your reference the bubble shape and sharp transition is a dead giveaway.

Mebrial

Thank you very much for the reference MM, I can see what you mean now. I really had no idea before. I haven't worked with the human body much before, and I haven't got much free time to do much research.
But again, thank you kindly for pointing out that. I'll mention this to my peers. :-)

quadrant

Hi there. The images in the original post are no longer being displayed. Somebody please advise how I can access them. Im in the same struggle to understand how to render the female body into polygons more accurately.Thank you very much.

kanga

Yeah I don't see any images in this thread. Is this the work of some butt clenched algorithm? I don't need parental supervision, really.

Neox

check the dates

kanga

https://polycount.com/discussion/comment/2771725#Comment_2771725

Yup, that'll do it!