Week 3

 

Back of Head & Ear Construction

Once I had finished shaping the main facial features the next step was to form the rest of the head and skull. This began by creating a basic sphere object which was squashed accordingly to match up roughly with the reference images using the scale tool.

 

Sphere Head Object

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The sphere was then rotated 90 degrees so that the triangular polygons that comprise the two sides of the sphere were over the ear area. The edges that make up the circumference of the sphere were now running parallel to the edges on forehead. The number of  segments on the sphere was increased to "32" so that its edge spacing matched that of the forehead as closely as possible.

The triangular polygons in addition to others underneath the face were selected using the "paint selection region tool" as a quick method and then deleted.

 

Rotated & Scaled Sphere w/ Adjusted Segment Count

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"Vertex Snap" was then enabled so that the edge vertices of the sphere could be lined up with those on the top of the forehead. Having done this the rest of the head could then be lined up and attached to the face. However before doing this the sphere object was simplified to reduce the number of edges in comparison to that of the face. Fewer edges may mean less detail but smoothing modifiers produce a better effect as a result, further details can be added at a later stage by adding extra edge loops for example. In order to simplify the sphere/head object without a significant transformation of shape, every other edge was selected and then the "Ring" selection button was used to select all adjacent edges.

 

Head to Face Vertex Alignment

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The "Collapse" button located under the "Edit Geometry" Rollout menu of the "Modify Panel" was then used on the selected edges. This function basically removed the edges and alters the object according to the selected and surrounding edges that remain.

 

Sphere Edges Ring Selected (Before Collapse)

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Collapsed Sphere Edges (After Collapse)

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The sphere object was then attached to the existing face object using the "Attach" button found under the Edit Geometry Rollout. Although the sphere object changed to the same colour as the face to signify they became one object, they were still not attached. This is due to the fact that the aligned vertices were only overlapping and consequently needed to be welded together.

 

Head Attached to Face Object

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After welding all overlapping and unconnected vertices, the side of the head as well as neckline were modelled by extruding new edges. Whilst conducting this process I purposely tried to use as few edges as possible for the previously described reason of better end results after applying a Turbo Smooth Modifier. Large polygons were also created over the ear area as these will need to be deleted in order to attach the ear once produced, a lower number of edges will also making connecting the ear an easier task.

 

Connected Head, Face & Neck-line

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Before constructing the ear itself it is crucial to analyse the structure of the ear by referring to the head profile images. This is because the ear is an extremely complex object in terms of replicating an organic object, as it is comprised of various dips and ridges. As a result I planned the Topology in Photoshop by drawing on rough curves following the contours of the ear, to approximate the flow of quads (four-sided polygons). The side profile image was then updated with these additional topology guidelines and imported into 3DS Max to start the creation of the ear.

 

Hand Drawn Ear Topology in Photoshop

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Production of the ear was then initiated using the same techniques that were employed when originally making the face. The Topology was traced using Splines which were converted to an editable poly and then welded to form a single object. The vertices were then dragged out using the "select and move tool" based on the positioning apparent on the reference image planes. During the shaping of the ear a Turbo Smooth Modifier was previewed to identify how vertex positioning would effect the final smoothed object. Additional edges were also introduced in order to replicate the majority of the ridges that are present in the reference images. This was achieved via the combination of creating edge loops and connecting specific vertices.

 

Ear Spline Topology / Vertice Pull-Out

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Smoothed Ear Preview & Adjusted Shape

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The ear canal was then produced by insetting a selected group of polygons and extruding them inwards multiple times to replicate the curvature downwards of a real ear canal.

 

Ear Canal Creation - Inset Polygons

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The rough shape of the back of the ear was then fashioned by extruding the outer edges and scaling them down appropriately. This process was then repeated a couple of times to build up the rough shape of the back of the ear.

 

Back of Ear Edge Scaling

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Now that the production of the ear was nearly finalized it was time to attach it to the rest of the head. This was achieved using the same attachment process as used for connecting the back of the head to the face. However in this scenario the ear itself required considerable tweaking before it could be physically attached to the surface of the head. This was due to the fact that the ear contained a large number of edges in comparison to that of the side of the head were it was being attached.

 

Ear Edge Problem

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In order to resolve this issue a great deal of time was spent governing several methods and which produced the best outcome. Initially I attempted a quick fix by simply inserting numerous edge loops equivalent to the number of extra edges of the ear compared to the side of the head. However this severely disrupted the surface of the face mesh, where many of the newly created edges were too close together causing harsh lines to appear across the surface of the affected areas. Consequently this method was rapidly abandoned for a more laborious approach which yielded more satisfying results. This alternate technique involved carefully placing additional edges on the edge polygons of the ear causing three edges to meet for example, creating a new polygon with a single connecting edge.

 

Edge Reduction Example

 

 

Back of Ear Edge Reduction in Progress

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Having reduced the number of edges on the ear it was then attached to the side of the head by extruding polygons on the head around the ear. These were then attached to the ear surface by target welding certain vertices to connect the required polygons. The overall shape of the joint ear and head object was then tweaked with smoothing previewed to finalize its appearance.

 

Ear Attached w/ Reduced Connecting Edges

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Ear Attached w/ Smoothing Preview

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