Week 1 - Topology Lines and More

For this first bit of work for the 3D head assignment, I had to follow a tutorial which took me through the process of adding Topology Lines and Quads to some photos, which would eventually be taken into 3DS Max to be used as Reference Plates. But first of all, I needed the photos, so I had these taken for me.



After having both of these photos, a portrait (front) and a profile (side) view taken, I continued following the tutorial. The first thing I was required to do was to take these into Photoshop and make adjustments including resizing, and using the Lens Correction filter to remove any distortion and make sure that the images are flat. After making these changes, I then used guidelines to help me confirm that the photos were perfectly lined up with each other.



This is what the photos looked like before I carried on with the next stage... like I'm a prison convict or something. The next thing I needed to do was add Topology lines to the front view: these are lines, which I have coloured blue, that seperate the face into key areas, and at the same time represent bumps and lines on the face, such as creases, wrinkles, and the shape of facial features like the nose and chin.



Above is the portrait view showing where I have placed the Topology lines. The next thing I needed to do, using the blue Topology lines as guides, was to draw what are called Quads all over the photo: whereas the blue Topology lines seperate the face into key areas, these red Quads are what will actually define the facial features, and at the same time make up the 3D structure of the face.



This task was fairly tedious, but extra care had to be taken in order to make sure that they are in fact all quads, that is, square shapes and not triangles (with the sides of the face apparently being the only exception), as otherwise this would cause problems when I actually come around to modelling the face.



After that was done, I then needed to draw more blue Topology lines for the profile view, albeit not quite as many. These will probably act as guidelines while modelling my face later on.

Finally, these photos were taken into 3DS Max, and adjusted as required onto some plate shapes that will be my Reference Plates for later on:



Note that by default, images imported into 3DS Max as materials will always look over-pixelated, so the resolution was later changed to solve this problem (Thanks Jo!).

For my next blog entry, I will begin modeling the face. What a fun and time consuming job that's going to be...