3D hand (kinda)

[gidgit]

Hi Bob

Wow man, you are a pretty quick study... and that, along with a ton of patience as well equal amounts of persistance, all of which you obviously have, are the very things which will make you a modeler in no time from what I can tell here thus far... right on

Yea, the nail extrude worked pretty good eh Your nail looks awesome... geez man, now I have to go back in and apply some nail cutters, not to mention having to file down some edges haha

regarding whether or not to carry things right through the body of the hand when dividing into 7 I would suggest yes...

just be sure to select not only the front appropriate three faces to scale down upon x, but also the first top and bottom faces back as well before doing the x scales... this will allow for your knuckles to be ok and squareish for the insets...(see pic below )

and hey, this was only a theory here regarding the 7 faces, though when I look at Laa-Yosh's pics over at Spiraloid it would appear that things were taken right back to the wrist on the topside, while the palm side has been cut short at the first creases on the palm... easy enough to do all straight through at the git go, then simply cut out some edges on palm side and cut in different details as required... What do you think about this?

Basically most every hand wire I have seen is different somewhat in approach in certain areas, and this would make some sense in that everybody's hand is different... some have longer "lifeline" creases than others etc... so in the end I think we all have to basically "wing it" , and so long as it looks like a hand c/w detailing then all is alright... and given that the fingers are basically looped already animation should work just fine, and... in most every other area even including the knuckles, upon animation of said hand areas creases would seem to be the order of the day anyways In my way of thinking this would explain why the overall geom of so many examples found, look so broken up on said hands, thus seeming to lessen the overall importance of "loops" as is the case when doing say a head, where looping around the mouth, nose, eyes etc is very important... looping for muscle areas bla bla...

geez, I am writing a book here

Anyways,try some of these theories out Bob, and let us know how you fair... judging from your manicured nails here I thinx that you will do just fine indeed good work thus far man, carry on, please

looking forward to your progress...

I will attempt to tackle this 7 face theory from several different approaches just to see how things go... no promises regarding time frames on this though, as I am still currently doing work on my "guess" project, which btw, nope, not an auto plant , as well I am doing up two other challenge worx for a couple of other boards I frequent... man, this modeling stuff is work work work eh but... I must say that out of all of them, this hand thread here is a very important study to me in the grande scheme of things, as it is proving to be the most accurate study of them all with the least amount of artistic expression tollerances allowed, other than the obvious natural differeneces in everybody's own hands that is... so thanx Bob, this is great stuff and I am probably learning just as much as you from this interaction

I am off to find some nail clippers now

btw, you will notice that when rescaling the selected faces here, that the finger and knuckle faces are not quite the right sizes as would be required, soooo, once you have done this rescaling as indicated here, then immediately resize these finger and knuckle faces to what they should be before further extruding/insetting... best way to do this perhaps would be to simply select one set of those top/front/bottom middle "web" faces at a time, and simply move over along x to widen/narrow those finger faces, as in apposed to actually rescaling the finger faces,,, will prove to be easier on the overall process if done at this stage

[This message was edited by gidgit on January 10, 2004 at 12:12.]

[Bob C.]

Another great post gidgit...you sound very busy. This is a big help already and very nice of you to say it has been of some help to you as well.

It would be nice if you posted a URL to the other stuff you're doing so we can see them too!

I will try a 7 face palm (hand body) experiment to see how it goes..I understand the concept (I think) but still a bit awkward with the program so implimentation will be slow.

I've read about loops and how important they are..esp. for areas that move during an animation but I gotta read more about them.

I have a lot more to think about and stuff to try as well. Thanks again!

Bob C.

[gidgit]

Hi Bob... I was totaly serious in suggesting that I am probably learning as much as you are in this hand exercise here... it has only been recently that we have began to take off with this box modeling stuff... I am still very much a rooky

Busy? not really, more like burning out than anything else So much yet to learn and my durn computer is terribly slow, not to mention that my brain hurts

I look forward to viewing the stuff you will be trying out... this hand study here is awesome fun and very eye opening, so please do continue... I am with you all the way man

I just posted one of my challenge entries on another thread here

it isn't much to look at but do hope you enjoy non the less...

happy creat'n

[Bob C.]

Box modeling vs NURBS (not exactly sure what that is) or spline modeling, what have you been using?

I don't know how much time I'll have to Work on my hand model this weekend but I'm eager to do more.

Saw your man eating flower, fun and nicely done with lots of detail too ( like the boots). Are you gonna fancy it up with a background and blood etc?

I don't know if its Wings or your computer that bogs you down..But Anim8or is a very small program and lightening fast. I wonder if you will see any different speed results with it?

FYI

Anim8or home page

Bob C.

[gidgit]

Hi Bob...

I do most, if not all of my projects, by box modeling.

NURBS... non uniform rational b splines... back in the days whereby the computers were somewhat slow, like mine for instance, some very gifted mathemeticians came up with Nurbs modeling...

instead of having to move around heavy geometry as in the case of poly modeling where the computer has all the faces to compute when say rotating in 3D space, with Nurbs it simply shows and computes the beizer lines, thus without the rest of the geom having to be computed, things move around very quick like... in the end these beizer lines are to be converted over to poly's in order to show all the surface as in apposed to simply the lines...

not really a very technical explanation there Bob, but... thats my take on it

Rhino is perhaps the one of the best Nurbs modeling apps out there, but most bigger well known apps also have Nurbs in their toolsets...

Spline modeling is somewhat like Nurbs in that the control points are also biezer lines so to speak, only the whole geom is showing as in apposed to just the lines, once lathed, lofted, swept etc... only one manipulates the shape created from said biezer lines/points as in apposed to the actual poly v/e/f's...

Nurbs and spline modeling make for some pretty quick object creation for things like vases, wine goblets, chess pieces etc, just create a line representing the 2d outline of one half the object intended and hit lathe button for instance.... but...

many also use these modeling methods for the some of the most complicated models one can imagine as well, such as auto creation, industrial parts creation, some even do organic modeling utilizing NURBS...

though in all honesty, I find that it is one thing to simply draw out but one beizer line to create something like a chess piece, but it is a totaly different thing to create an organic head requiring many said lines and precisely position each in 3d... much too complicated for a ludite like me ....

thus enter the wonderful world of Box Modeling , edge tools for selection purposes and of course it's big brother,Subd modeling, which is basically the same as box modeling only there is say a first level boxy cage for manipulation and behind said cage your model looks like it has been subdivided already, thus when you move the boxy square face it actualy moves many polys showing behind...

I like to think of this boxy cage of subd modeling c/w with those ever important edge tools, and perhaps even the magnet tool, as a go between box modeling and spline modeling... the best of both worlds so to speak

and if you couple this with some groovy plugins such as Mesh Surgery for C4D users then wow, completely the best of both worlds... providing of course one has the money to spend on C4D's latest version(s) along with to purchase said plug ins... same same for LightWave and plugins, Maya and plugins etc...right on through to even the latest trueSpace offereings plus plugins...

as to which method of modeling is the more precise, well I would think that that basically depends on the app used, the provisions for input provided in said apps, and of course the artist behind the controls

So many toolset and method choices, so little time eh

Basically I prefer box modeling, with some subd cage manipulation thrown in at times, because it is to me very much like digital sculpting... a great hobby at best for this kid and though for sure it is much quicker to create some scene props such as already mentioned wine goblets etc, via spline creation, I still prefer to take the slightly longer route in creating said props via box modeling as it is terrific practice...

[This message was edited by gidgit on January 12, 2004 at 11:12.]

[Bob C.]

Oh man this is excellent gidgit,

In my mad dash to quickly survey the "3D scene" to make a reasonable choice about which software pkg. to start with I must say Wings 3D "felt" the most comfortable and the UI was very friendly. I must admit at being surprised how much "other" the 3D world was (and still mostly is) 'cause I've been playing with graphics for many years yet it felt like I landed on an alien world!

Your little treatise on Splines, Nurbs, biezer line/points, and poly's etc. was very helpful! And ngons...what in creation is an ngon? Even a search on Google was not very helpful. Anim8or has them but with no definition. Thanks for that!

OK to software....I'm an old Amiga head so I have had my eye on LightWave for a very loooong time. Other names that appeared frequently were Maya, 3ds Max, C4D, TrueSpace (again Amiga roots) Wings3D, Poser and Blender (groan). I was very surprised to read, in several places, people owning Maya would use Wings3D to model! SILO also looks very good but it's not free and I wanted to get my "feet wet" before I made a financial commitment.

The other issue was brain pain...and my need to minimize it. I wanted one program that would model, render and animate to reduce the number of UI's I needed to learn, of course Blender meets these criteria but it's UI is impossible for this newbie. Then along came Anim8or not quite as nice as Wings3d but very close AND it does all three. So I plan to revisit Wings, SILO and Blender (sigh) and perhaps LightWave in that order....later! ...Geeeez I even know what v/e/f's mean now, ( Vertices/Edges/Faces right? )

I think you have turned this simple thread into a "must read" text for new and aspiring 3D artists.. This has been wonderful, thanks for taking the time and sharing gidgit...very nice indeed!

[gidgit]

Hi Bob...

tri's... three sided poly

quad... four sided

ngons... poly's with five or more sides/edges to them...

just create a the primitive cylinder for instance... you will notice that the top and bottom of said cylinder are poly's with more than four edges, which is ok so long as your app supports such, but save as any well known file format to export/import into an app such as say LW or C4D, which do not support ngons, and ooops, the durn top and bottom ngons have now been converted into tri's... in other apps such as ZBrush for instance,these ngons are treated as holes and thus will not support texturing...

for the most part ngons are handy to create with in the boxy stages as they are easier to select, like as in select one poly as in apposed to having to select say an edge, then doing a ring selection for all those tri's before doing a further operation such as move, or extrude region or what have ya... also makes for easier bridging, which is perhaps the real strength of ngons,

and... all in all, ngons, and the odd tri for that matter, are converted into quads upon further divides anyways... after all, who exports a cylinder, or whatever, in it's boxy stages anyway eh

though it should also be pointed out here that ngons are the very things which account for some ugly poles on models... even when converted to quads...

pole... for the sake of this discussion, a vert which has five or more surrounding poly's... they are known to create ugly pointy artifacts on what is otherwise a nice smooth modeled surface depending on the surface surounding, whether or not it is curved or a flat plane, as on a flat plane one will not notice any artifacting, but on a surface whereby there are multiple curves for instance, these poles will infact show up ... less with each level of divide of course

here's an example of what I am talking about... on this lawn tractor I did quite a while back, I really was more into the "just model the durn thing" attitude, with little regard or knowlege of little things like ngons or poles... wow, what a rooky...

anyways, you can see the left and right sides on the cutter top are actually ngons, and upon dividing they have created the quads, but with poles as there are six poly's surrounding the center verts on each side... thus, the poles show a pinching like effect on the surface... see what I mean... and though this model could perhaps be divided once more, these poles would still show, as it would truly take several more divides to sort of cover this effect, and that would have made the model too high in poly count for my meager machine, not to mention such a poly count would/should not be required for this here model...

[This message was edited by gidgit on January 12, 2004 at 21:34.]

[gidgit]

now then.. an ex Amigian eh, me too Bob... a500, a2000 and last but not least a 1200 tower 030 never really got into 3d per say, just fooled around a tad here and there, but I sure did enjoy DPaint II, III and then IV...

ok, the search for the holy grail of 3D software...

Being that each human brain is slightly different in composition it may just be that we all, will never "see" things exactly the same way... thus I believe that there actually is a need for so many different choices...

this said, it is interesting to note that perhaps Brad Peebler, Stuart Ferguson and Allen Hastings, the original developers of Newtek's LW fame, also had this in mind when they broke off from Newtek to form their own company to develope an up an coming app code named Modo...

Modo is to be a Subd modeler, with ngon support, which will also act as a hub, or bridge between many of the higher end apps so as to enable artist's to utilize the tools they are familiar with, while fitting into the overall pipeline without hitch... or something like that... the complete details are somewhat sketchy at best, though the app has had a public viewing of sorts, further info, opinions and links can be found on can be found here...

but, back to reality as we currently know it regarding finding just the right app... hmmm, sorry Bob, but in my opinion there simply is not one solution which offers the best in every category...

like for box modeling whereby Wings3D has the better Virtual Mirror yet Silo has the better Subd modeling mode, Wings has the better workflow, Silo has a few more tools on and on it goes... same same for the apps containing complete solutions for modeling, texturing, animation and rendering... they each have their strengths over each other in different areas... durn it

I would suggest that you grab up the demo's of all the best apps and give them a trial run to see which fits best for you...also note that the better you become with modeling, and the more practice you gain in the other areas of 3D the better you will be able to determine just what is important vs what is more candy coated than not...

For free I doubt that one could find a better box modeler than Wings3D... one of the gimme's so to speak... couple this with the free C4D CE version found with the mag 3D world (not sure of which month/edition), and wow, all a person would require for quite the while...

but, for all intensive purpose, hey, Anim8or is not all that bad to get ones feet wet with, heck likened to trueSpace it has had quite a underground following for quite a while now, and like you say, it does all in one...

so... just have fun and keep learning all you can is the best bet... one day you will know for certain just what is your cup of tea and then look out, you will be modeling the whole world and everything in it

[Bob C.]

Sooooo another Amiga head...That explains a lot JK..

You did say ngons are 5 sided figures in an earlier post but the more complete explanation was very helpful and the "Poles" topic was great too....read about them but didn't quite "get it" and the importance of 4 faces/vert..very nice.

So now I gotta spend time working the program to get familiar with techniques.

Oh! I did make a 7 faced figure and reduced three of them like your example with the thin red faces.

Thanks again gidgit!

[gidgit]

Looking forward Bob...