escaping the lab - *.obj for download added

[Tim Leydecker]

Hi folks,

been adding XSI to my toolset lately, my day is pretty much
filled with testing things now.

Been trying to transfer models between Maya and XSI the
last couple of days, trying the various tools and render options.

Well, ended up being inspired to build that guy, will finish
his face tommorow and´ll abuse him to test displacement
and such coming from ZBrush inside XSI.

Currently a Maya 6.01 render in layers, comped for effect.

Props to Zack Petroc for SuperAverageMan, btw.
Initially had started with snippets of his mesh,
helped quite a bit in blocking out the shape.
Thanks for sharing your excellent stuff.

Guess I´ll give away the model for free as well then!

Just need to get it done, first :-)


Cheers

tim

[Blaine91555]

Unusual pose

[Tim Leydecker]

The guy is actually leaning against a broken down wall.
Planned on doing a Maquette as the VFS guys often do
for their showreels but won´t be able to finish the whole
piece - there´s other things I need to get done instead.

That´s why I´ll give away the mesh at least...

Cheers

tim

[Tim Leydecker]

Hi there,

haven´t had a chance to work on this piece during this week.
Have some hours left during the weekend, am currently cleaning
and quadrangulating the mesh. Reworking the feet, then moving
on to the left of the face and forehead. Should import fine then...

Cheers

tim

[Tim Leydecker]

Hi folks,

finally managed to quadrangulate that damned character...
As promised, the attachment contains the free *.obj download.

There probably are some quirks in the model but I won´t
be able to spend any more time with it - unfortunately.

Cheers

tim

[javierloredo]

Hey Tim!

Very nice modeling! I opened in maya and took a look of the model and looks very well modeled.

I wonder if you can share your workflow when modeling, specially when modeling the head, hands, and feet. Maybe pictures of your workflow to see how you subdive the polygon. If you have the time of course, if not it's cool. Thx

Keep the good work Tim.

Javi.

[Tim Leydecker]

Hi Javi,

For this model, I started with a rigged skeleton posed in place,
then cut up and mixed meshes and snippets from various sources.
The skeleton helped in getting the desired pose, the snippets
were great for getting an idea of the final mesh layout.

But beware, you get fast results for the basic shape at the cost
of quite some extra time when merging those different parts together.
Would have probably been faster to *stick&bolean union* those parts,
then redo the topology ontop. As one would probably do with a 3D scan.
(The making of Leon by CG Toolkit also has a video or two on this topic)

I´m currently putting together the references as used in this model.
Great for good hands and feet, Zack Petroc´s SlightlySuperMan:

http://206.145.80.237/zbrush/reg/sup...Man_hi_m07.zip

Helped me alot in getting a good layed out mesh here, kept most
of the hands exept for an extra (poly)split along the fingers to get
around loosing too much volume when smoothing (in Maya).

I´d recommend to start with his hands to test the effects of splits
in different areas of the mesh for learning purposes since shape
and volume of those hands are allready spot on.

Alternatively, Anh Nguyen´s Sample Meshes available here:

http://pixologic.com/download/demo_pc2.html

Haven´t used any of those meshes here but really liked them, too.

For the head, I started using an XSI face/man morphed to my liking
but ended up using the most basic face plus a female head I´m working
on whenever I feel like doing so. The ears turned out the most difficult
part as I wanted them to look not too detailed. Redid them accordingly.

After all, the model is supposed to look like a *real* maquette element.
Good shapes with slightly exaggerated details according to reduced scales.

If I where to do this again, I´d make more use of shrinkwraps and custom
built lattices to deform larger portions of the mesh, use the sculpt poly
and soft modifications tool more and would see if I can get the same
feeling of wheigth on a model in bindpose rigged using a wrap.
Using XSI 5.01, where you can modify geometry and see the results
prpagate through too the envelope.

Would allow to work in a clean coordinate space but see the result/copy
distorted according to the wrap/envelope. Could be cool...


Cheers


tim

[javierloredo]

Tim thx a lot for taking some time and posting back. Also for the links too.
I asked you this because I like to learn different techniques from different artists and to learn different ways how to model. Im going to try to use your workflow to see what can I get from it. Thx again.

Javi.

[billrobertson42]

Hi Tim,

I hope you don't mind, but your model brought this to mind.

[Frenchy Pilou]

Can you export it in Ztl format for the Demo users ?
Pilou

[willog]

I hope you don't mind Tim
but I have posted the model in ZTL format for the demo users such as Frenchy. It is really great when we can look closely at this kind of modeling to examine the polygonal structure. Helps a good deal to perfect ones own modeling format.
So here you are Frenchy hope this helps.

Bill

[Tim Leydecker]

Hi folks,

I´m sorry for the late response - been out in the sticks.

Regarding the model, go ahead. Use&abuse it to your liking.
I also learn alot from looking at themesh topology of others.

Is see willog allready made it a *.ztl, would have allready
done so myself but thought the 6 MB wouldn´t be accepted
as an attachment. (Seems I had saved it somewhat wrong,
willogs *.zip is reasonably small)

Can´t promise to create a version with good UV´s due my
hefty workload currently but hope you may still find this thing
useful anyway.

Cheers

tim

[Tim Leydecker]

Hi there,

finally started to paint textures using ZBrush, rendering
done in XSI using a fast skin SSS node, ambient occlusion
piped into the diffuse wheight to darken things down.
Depthpass multiplied ontop to stregthen the front lighting.

Don´t know how far I can take this model, still don´t really
have any sparetime but do enjoy learning the XSI rendertree.

So yes, I may find an excuse for myself to go on with this...


Cheers


tim

[mattybyng]

Love this model. Keep the updates coming..!

[aminuts]

cool render. I think you need to keep going, animate him so that he can do a duet with Joe_Seig's Melanin dude.