Translating 2d to 3d

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I was just wondering if anyone ever had a problem taking what they drew on paper to the computer screen.

A few of my sketches SEEM to show exactly what i want the character to look like, but apparently not enough becomes when it comes to modeling i cant compute all angles.

im assuming this is due to poor source art, or perhaps i just dont know what i really want.

how do you overcome a problem like this? ( ive redone the skethc dozens of times but to justice to the original.

Scott Ruggels

Usualy that happens when you , as an artist, do not have a firm mental grasp of the volumes of the character in the sketch or prepared drawing. If you are basing the drawing on a front, and side, or front side and back, often you will lose some of the shapes in the diagonal views. (amateur models of females having night unto spherical or cylindrical buttocks, heads based on othrographic Photos, losing their likeness on the diagonals). the cure for this, may be to do drawings at the diagonals, or sculpt the figure out of Fimo or sculpy, so that ou have a maquette to turn in your hand as wellas orthographic drawings to use a blueprints and maps.

For real people you have to really KNOW the anatomy in all it's dimentions, and for your character, you have to KNOW it's form from all angles.

Scott

Snowfly

Yeah there's a lot of filling in the blanks involved. The model sheets usually take you as far as silhouettes, then the inner contours are up to you.

It's easiest to handle volumes in flatshaded mode.

hawken

as you model and add verts, just keep rotating that model, fill in the blanks as scott says.

I often take mini breaks to re-sketch on paper the char I'm modelling and try to think about what verts go where, or draw how many slices of polygons I'm going to model something from, usually from as many angles as my brain-to-hand will cope with.

making a model from one drawing is pretty hard, you have to understand the volumes of your character before modelling.

Badge

ah scott you nailed it exactly right...

the original sketch is an awkward pose, almost a 3/4 turn.

the macquette is an awesome idea, i never considered that.
the problem is very clear now, but i wonder what you do when you cant fill in all the blanks of a character. how do you decide how to texture something such as a monsters arm if the area on paper is completly white?

what do you guys usually do about that kinda stuff?

Snowfly

Ah, there's millions of things you can do with a "blank" area on a monster's arm. Just look at D_H's work!

First you could consider drawing up some blueprints. It's tough modeling from a posed image. They can be super crude, as long as all the important shapes are laid in. Also I can't stress the importance of sketching out your ideas enough. While I was modeling, I was constantly refering to the concept art, even with blueprints in the background.


The blueprints give you a good silhouette, but also pay attention to the inner edges when you model. Look how the shapes are "drawn in", but just as important are the light and dark areas. They define the surface of the model for you. Like hawken said, just keep spinning the model, evaluating it from all angles and tweaking. And when you can't see anything wrong with the silhouette and contour, you're done.



The third step is just a paintover to show one way the model could go.

Delaney King

In 3dsmax You can actually project a bitmap onto your model and edit the mesh without the projection being distorted. You do this by putting a mesh select (with nothing selected) or polyselect between your edit poly and your uvmap. When you go down the stack and hit the preview button, you can see the guide image.

If your classy, like me (heh, yeah right) you can sit a further uvwmap above that which provides the left view too, allowing you to toggle as you model.

ciao.

Daz

LOL! You are one walking discreet ad Dave.

Another thing I find handy: set up simple lights in your 3D app. I throw a spot in front and above the character. As Im spinning it around modeling it, I can also see how light bounces off the model. Making it much easier to follow a piece of ref that has dramatic lighting like so:

http://home.comcast.net/~dpattenden/images/abs.jpg

Daz

Tip #2 for musculature for example.

I have gone onto 3d.sk, and grabbed frames of a turntable rotate of a muscular guy, ( front, 3/4, side, rear 3/4, back etc ) and compiled them as a .mov. I scroll through the frames as Im modeling a torso.

It's all about making life easy for yourself.

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"It's all about making life easy for yourself. "

well i think i did just that. there were many areas on the model that had no material assigned to them. i got somewhat lucky, and i also comprimised a few design aspects of the model, but i feel for the better.

soon ill show my work, ive still got a few more areas, then ill debut, itll be almost complete but i dont want to take the WiP tag off just yet.