first character model (female - WIP) -- looking for crits and help

Flaringo

right, so i've always wanted to model characters, but i've never really felt "ready" to start doing it. my impression is that it's one of the harder things to model. up until now i've only done fairly simple props, never really got my hands dirty, but i can't learn how to model characters by modeling things that have nothing to do with characters, so i'll give it a try. and then another one, and another one, and keep on trying.

so i found this reference image in my downloads folder:


and this is what i've got so far:


so far what i've done is make boxes and extrude them to fit the shape of what i'm trying to model. after that i applied the turbosmooth. in retrospect i honestly think this was a bad way of doing it. plenty of wasted triangles.

currently i'm working on the pelvic/bum area. i haven't quite worked out how to do the bum yet, though.

any comments, crits or resources would be helpful. thanks

EDIT: fixed bad links

dfacto

You've posted tiny thumbnail images. We can't help you if we can't see your work.

Flaringo

that's really weird, they worked fine when i first posted the thread.

i'll fix it shortly

Radamein

Make the area where she is skinniest slightly larger.

Other than that looks great!

JimeeB

Personally to me, she's a bit mannish.

She doesn't have nearly enough curves, and the ones she does have aren't pushed enough.

Flaringo

update, hooray!



i'm reaaaally having some trouble with the chest area. it keeps ending up looking like a boob job gone terribly wrong. any ideas?

radamein: what exactly do you mean? on the legs or arms or torso or what?

JimeeB: does it look any better now? if not i'll try some more.

in the mean time i'm going to go stare at boobs

haikai

I think your approach to this may be a little bit too hesitant. The ortho sketch is just a reference, and it shouldn't prevent you from doing what looks good and natural in 3d perspective. Don't be afraid to go "outside the lines" on the orthos to push the shapes to something that is appealing.

I presume you're making a game model, and I don't know what your intended poly count is, but chances are that you could probably benefit from placing every extrusion and cut yourself instead of making a shape and applying Turbosmooth. Use the faceting of low polygons to your advantage. In fact, it might even help to occasionally view the model with all hard faceting or no smoothing groups.

I also don't recommend grafting on spheres for breasts because that's pretty much the shape you're going to end up with. It seems like it would save you time, but it would take you longer to adjust the shape of that to something natural than if you had gradually built it up yourself (not to mention all the extra edges you're going to feel obligated to work into the rest of the body).

Anyway, what you have so far is pretty decent. Just be a little more free form with how you approach it and it should be easier. I'd go ahead and try to add the head, hands, and feet as soon as possible to get a feel for the model as a whole.

Flaringo

It's been a while, sorry about that, but I got around to connecting the arms and making the breasts. They look pretty bad, and chances are the way I've gone about doing it is not the right way at all.



I just started trying to make the hands as well, and I thought it was going to be a cakewalk, but god damn was I wrong. I guess at that point it becomes more than just "follow the lines" for me.

haikai: thanks a lot for your advice. I took it and made some (not so significant) adjustments. I think it looks a little better, but we'll see. I might adjust some other things later on as well.

It is intended to be a relatively low poly model, but there's no limit since it's not going into a game. I try to keep it as low as possible though (without changing the silhouette). I'll remember not to use turbosmooth for my next one. I have to admit that was a little lazy of me.

Again, thanks!

EDIT: I know the neck is really weird, I'll do something about that now

ıomeen

Great concept!
Now, talking about the concept: I really like her body. But I feel like the head might be a tad too small compared to her cute figure.

/edit: Just noticed it's not your concept. Sorry.

Flaringo

ıomeen wrote: »

Great concept!
Now, talking about the concept: I really like her body. But I feel like the head might be a tad too small compared to her cute figure.

/edit: Just noticed it's not your concept. Sorry.

You had me going there for a second until I noticed you were talking about the concept! Now I'm sad.

Flaringo

Hey again. Believe it or not, I've actually been working on this. Slowly, but surely.




First off, after looking at the picture for a bit, I'm going to guess that I have too any loops in the hips/waist area, more than I need over the chest, the feet and head are more or less very, very unfinished. Hands are probably too dense compared to the rest of the model, I need to do a lot of vertex-moving (parts sticking out that shouldn't be, etc), shoulders look a bit to thin around the part closest to the body (?).

I also have a few questions; the cuts I've made, "can I do that"? Am I breaking any "rules"? Can I just go hog wild with cuts in anywhere as long as it doesn't create n-gons?

Are triangles OK for game-models? If I've got it right, this is what it comes down to anyways when it's rendered in the engine, right? I've heard something about shading issues with triangles but I don't really know what I'm talking about.

This is sort of relevant to the previous question, I guess, but when optimizing the model, do I have to worry about triangles? Or can I just weld everything to everything as long as it doesn't fuck up any shapes?


Thanks.


EDIT: One more: Does anyone have any pictures of character models within the same-ish triangle count range (with wireframe)? Say 1500-2500.

Any general advice would be very appreciated too. And thanks to everyone who already replied if I haven't said that!

haikai

Triangles are perfectly fine, but avoid having too many edges meet at the same vertex. If the shape looks right and it's deforming okay in your tests then it's probably good enough. You'll learn more about what you should and shouldn't do with more experience. It's better to complete it and move on as there's nothing precious about a model you're still learning from .

You'd be surprised how many "professional" models out there actually have rather shitty wireframes, but I would look up models from games you like that fit your technical specifications.

That said, there are some things I would change about your model. You should probably have more rings around the elbows and knees so they can bend. Look to see where you have long rectangle quads and see if you can get things more even. It's okay to have rectangular quads in areas of low curvature and low deformation, but if you can collapse edges without affecting the silhouette too much (in pelvis, for example), then try it out. Don't continue an edge loop all the way around just because it was useful in one area.

The roundness of the chest and the butt may require more geometry and so it's okay to have some triangulation as it eases into the rest of the model, but make sure the transition is smooth. The area you have circled is awkward. I'd consider running one of the edge loops into the shoulder instead.

This might sound confusing, but instead of thinking of it as quads versus triangles just do whatever it takes to keep density in localized areas that need it and try to make the transitions between the two areas even and smooth. You should keep edge loops in mind where necessary, but don't be afraid to push things around to get the shape you want. Rewire the topology after you're happy with the shapes.

Lastly, considering the tri count of what you're looking for, you probably have too many polygons in the fingers. At this res you may be able to get away with four sided fingers.