#Kyle's KM HEAD work
16 messages in this thread
I just d/l'ed your kmhead.jpg file. Wow. Great job. How did you do those teeth?
I was kinda bummed on metaballs since a lot of meshes look blobby. Not that
render though. That is a pretty realistic, but stylized head. Have you made a
body or animated it yet? I'd like to know how well that works. I would expect
slow updates with all those metaballs.
Tim,
Apologies for the late reply – I was on vacation and away from my keyboard <g>.
thanks for your compliments.
The metaball mesh is pretty simplistic (not very many reference spheres.) Most
of my time and work went into the various texture/bump/displacement/shininess
maps.
I have all my bones working fine, and am dealing with various lip-synching
targets. This head model (or a variation on it) should be finding it's way
onto my muscle body model sometime soon.
-Kyle
Kyle,
very nice work. I was impressed. The head is reminiscent of the character's in
"the boxer", although a little less realistic. It's inspiring me to upload my
character heads I did for "Virtuosity", which I've resisted so far. I'm fairly
pleased with them, especially considering they were done under a nightmarish
production schedule, and I know they could be improved but who has the time?
(not me).
Martin
Martin,
thanks. you're right – it is similar to 'the boxer' (now that I think about
it).
I'd love to see some closeup's of your head from Virtuiosity.
-Kyle
Kyle,
Nice details and modulations on the head views you uploaded. I'm impressed!
Carlton
Carlton,
thanks! I'm glad you like the details – I spent quite some time on them <g>
-Kyle
Kyle,
Bravo! Very well done. I wasn't expecting that much detail and coloring when I
went to take a look. Am I correct in assuming that you have at least 6
different objects there linked together? If not, then how DO you keep the face
count within bounds?
I loved it, "That's a great piece of work!" I hated it, "I can't DO that!" <g>
Terry
Terry,
<<Am I correct in assuming that you have at least 6 different objects there
linked together?>>
nope – it's one object – no cutting, slicing, booleaning, or linking going on
here.
I generated the meta-mesh at 64,000 polys, then optimized it down some, so what
you're seeing is about 20,000 polys.
thanks for the compliments.
-Kyle
Kyle,
>> What you are seeing is about 20,000 polys. <<
GAWSH! I'd probably have more than that in the teeth ALONE! LOL! I see I have a
ways to go with the economy of faces thing. <g> Speaking of teeth, hair, and
eyeballs, how do you paint all the different colors on the same mesh? If I
painted eyes like that, I have eyes on the back of the head also. You must have
used something other than Meshpaint?
I *AM* impressed. Terry
Terry,
the eyes and teeth were created and mapped seperate from the head. note that
the eyelids are part of the head.
my materials are pretty complicated, but everything is applied through the same
cylinderical map.
-Kyle
Kyle,
>> my materials are pretty complicated <<
Sounds like it. Pretty impressive though. I was toying with the idea of trying
some sort of decal on my critter to get around the mapping problems. It would
require a little rereading for me to know if it was even worth the attempt. I
was able to cut down a lot on the number of bones I originally had. I also
found out that the spheres themselves (or a copy of) make some perfect bones
for some parts. Like a long tail, which this creature has.
Here's one you maybe can answer. I tried two paths with dummies for the
animation. I have the main body following one, that gives the direction and a
little hop when the feet hit the ground. The other is a helical path for the
tip of the tail to follow. I like the movement in the tail, but, it just can't
keep up with the more or less straight path of the main body. It would be even
better if it could lead the main path at some points. Is there any way to have
two parts of the same mesh travel two paths at different speeds? Hmmmmm, I just
remembered I have Tempo. Can I bring the dummies in there and get the results I
am looking for?
Thanks. Terry
Terry,
<< the spheres themselves (or a copy of) make some perfect bones>>
I'd be careful here – remember that you can use any object as a bone, but it's
influence is based solely on a quad defined by the box extents of the bone –
that's why they suggest (and I do too <g>) that you use various sized boxes for
your bones. But hey, if it works OK for you, no problem, keep doing it <g>. I
just wanted to make sure you were aware of how it determines it's influences.
<< Is there any way to have two parts of the same mesh travel two paths at
different speeds?>>
sure, if you have bones that are travelling two different speeds affecting the
one mesh.
<<Can I bring the dummies in there and get the results I am looking for?>>
I think so – but I'm not positive if Tempo will see dummy objects. BUT,,, if
it doesn't, just copy the tracks from the dummy to an object and run Tempo on
that object, then attach the dummy to the object and add hide keys for all
frames for the physically rendered object.
-Kyle
Kyle,
>> I just wanted to make sure you were aware of how it determines it's
influences. <<
After that "beak" fiasco, I think I understand now. Had I known before hand I
would have never put a beak on the bugger. Glad I didn't know though, I learned
a lot making the top lip leave the bottom one alone.
>> ..if you have bones travelling two different speeds affecting one mesh <<
I guess I should have asked …can you have two dummie objects keep pace with
each other on different length paths. But, you nailed it in that last
paragraph, despite of my inability to ask the right question.
Thanks, yet once again, for all the help.
Terry Terry
Hi Kyle,
The head images are really impressive!. From the proportions to
the skin mapping, not to mention the way you defined the hair.
Every model you make is better than the previous. Congratulations.
-Javi
>> the eyes and teeth were created and mapped seperate from the head. <<
Do you mean as a secondary map used as a decal?
– ej
Ernie,
<<decal>>
no, they're just seperate objects that I attached to the main head object. –
actually, only the eyes are mapped – the teeth are just a solid color.
-Kyle