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27. A Human Skull - Modeling the Skull 3 |
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 MODELER, STILL MODELING THE SKULL, (continued) I load the skull image from the last tutorial, called 'SkullTutorial3.lwo'. I lay down another row of points. Here is a good place to show that I use one-to-one relationships if I can, particularly if they are photographs I am working from, when placing points. I place the point the red arrow indicates at the bend of the nosepiece in the frontpiece, and find the corresponding place in the 'Right' viewport.  I do the same for the orange point, using the end of the nosepiece crack as an indicator of position. The Yellow-Orange one, I use a slightly darker pit to determine placement. The Yellow one, the edge of the ridge, the Yellow-Green one, the judgement of steep indent indicated by the dark shadow, and the blue one, the depth of the shadow indicating an even steeper descent into the hole. I connect those polygons before continuing with the rest of the points in that new row. I add another point, creating a new plane. Here is a good place to show another comparison. The lines are indicating faultlines in the skull, or edges of planes. When you are placing points, this is what you are doing. To draw 3D sculptures, it means you must understand the planes in the object you're creating.  Sometimes it will take experiment to determine the proper method of representing the planes. Which planes to leave out, and which to include is everything when modeling. Next, I'm going to steal the points from the rest of the row above this new row to create the rest of the row. The following method is an important one, and is useful when either dealing with copying points, or polygons. I rotate the skullcap to a convenient angle in the 'Perspective' viewport, pressing CTRL-g to enter 'Points' mode. I highlight the rest of the points in the row above the new row.  I press the 'c' key to copy the points to the clipboard, and choose Layer 2 from the layers gadget  I choose 'Wireframe' mode in the 'Perspective' viewport, pressing the 'v' key to paste the points into Layer 2. I click on the bottom part of the Layer 1 control. The points should be in white and the polygons in black. I press the 't' key to enter 'Move' mode, and click with the left mouse button and drag downward about the distance of one row.  I see that the leftmost white point isn't needed, so I select and delete it. I enter CTRL-t (Drag) mode and move the white dots to the positions I wish them to be in, rotating and dragging with the ALT key and left mouse button while in Perspective mode. Once I have them arranged properly, I press the 'x' key to cut them to the clipboard, select Layer 1, and press 'v' to paste them. I select them in clockwise polygons, pressing 'p' as I've been doing all along. Since it's the center of the face, this will be a very important area. People focus here. Therefore, I slow down and carefully place each polygon. I've decided that I rough out the foramen hole (blood vessel passes through the bone at this location) with four points and strategically place polygons. However, polygons from the back of the skull are obstructing my view. I press CTRL-h to enter 'Polygon' mode, selecting them.  '-' hides them. The Upper-Jaw area is an important one. With just a little attention to detail here, I can fake a lot of detail because people will be staring at this area. I lay out my points, being very precise with each point placement. I will have to create a wavering sinewave, basically, so it will need a rise at each tooth and a trough between each tooth. I have to place each tooth bump before I can figure out how to connect it to the cheek. I place them point-by-point, pressing the '+' key on the numeric keypad to enter the 'Place a Point' mode, I place it by right-clicking, drag it around in both viewports with the left mouse button, setting it with either the SPACEBAR or the ENTER key.  Now, I have a dilema. These four red points have no place where they can be connected. I would LIKE to have four points above them that they could connect to. So, it looks like the four polygons which I've selected will have to be removed, and somehow four more rows will have to be woven in.  I press the 'k' key (or select  button from the 'Reduce' section of the 'Construct' tab) to 'Kill' those polygons. The points will be left behind so I can reuse them.If I drop one point per row, that shouldn't be too puckered. So, let them be strategic removals. I think in terms of "Where would a pucker look good?" I use the 'copy some points, paste them into Layer 2, move them, cut them off Layer 2, paste them back in Layer 1' method to duplicate those red points, moving them up, I delete one point in the flattest area. I highlight two of those points, copy them to the clipboard, paste into Layer 2, move them up, cut to clipboard, paste in Layer 1.  I create a couple more points along the edges of planes and complete the teeth-to-cheek transition. I select the four points around the foramen hole, as I will now extend it into the face.  I change the view type of the 'Perspective' viewport to 'Wireframe' so I can see the points, copy the four points to the clipboard, switch to Layer 2, paste them, pressing SHIFT-H (or press the 'Size' button from the 'Stretch' section of the 'Modify' tab). I drag from the center of the four points to reduce them in size.  I move to the 'Top' viewport, zoom it larger so I can see the four points well, press CTRL-t to 'Move' the points, and move them into the face just a little. I press 'x' to cut them to clipboard, switch to Layer 1, paste them back, creating the four polygons between the points.  The Extender is a powerful tool that I oftentimes use when I wish to extend polygon planes. It particularly works well when the points are closed in a circle, but they also work well on flat surfaces (although it will automatically create an annoying 'extra polygon' which you'll have to delete that spans from the first polygon to the last polygon and is hard to get ahold of sometimes). I adjust the 'Top' viewport to best show me the four points, selecting the  button from the 'Extend' section of the 'Multiply' tab. A duplicate set of points has been created for me although no visible change can be seen. I press CTRL-t to move the new points and four polygons are extended into the face forming a tube. If I needed for the tube to bend, I could click 'Extender' one more time, again move them back into the face and another set of four polygons would be created. Now, I'd like to see what it looks like, so far. I press the '\' key to see the hidden polygons (which, actually, I had forgotten were there), and to my dismay, I find that it is in the opposite SubSurface mode than the rest of the polygons are.  Thus, if I press TAB, they will toggle, and so will the other polygons, and they'll always be out of sync. Therefore, I must highlight just the currently SubSurfaced back polygons, pressing TAB on them to toggle JUST those polygons. If I miss reconverting them, they will look like these two do.  I makes sure just those two polygons are selected, pressing TAB again. I select all polygons, press 'q' to bring up the 'Change Surface' requester and again pick the 'Skull' Surface Name to include all of the new polygons. I make sure all polygons are unselected, pressing the TAB key to enter SubSurfacing mode. I press 's' to save the object, then 'File->Save Object As...' to bump the number by one and save it as 'SkullTutorial4.lwo'. I enter the 'Surface Editor' (CTRL-F3) and select the 'Skull' Surface Name. I want to change the color back to white just to see it for a second, but don't wish to lose the light blue color I created before so I click with the left mouse button on the 'Skull' Surface Name's color. I click the button that says 'Add to Custom Colors' and the color appears in the 'Custom Colors' section to the bottom left. I will be able to change it back to that color by just picking that color next time. Realize that LightWave (for unknown reasons) doesn't save that custom color inside the LightWave object itself if you don't use that color. This trick only works during a current session, not being used for a while. If the object remains white, and you don't change it back to the light blue before you save it, it will not remember the custom color.  To see how it's coming, I press SHIFT-V to enter 'Mirror' mode, press 'n' to bring up the numeric requester and the half mirrors.  Not bad! Actually starting to look like a skull. I press 'u' to undo back to before it was mirrored. These polygons, just below the eyesocket bridge hole, will have to be pushed back.  The bottom edge of that hole angles backward. It can't be even with the top edge or there would be no depth to the bone. I deselect all polygons, press CTRL-t to enter 'Drag' mode and drag at the junctures to pull them down and inward. When making decisions such as this, you should imagine the current curves continuing and joining in your mind. When it feels like it's possible that the skull would do that, you can continue.  I will round the teeth to conform to the 'Top' viewport, but will first have to hide all polygons except for the very bottom ones by the gums. I enter polygon mode, right click and drag a cyan selection circle around them, manoevering between the first and second row of points.  I press the TAB key to turn ON the SubSurface mode. Curves must be overemphasized when in SubSurface mode, so when you wish to fine tune curves, do it with SubSurface mode turned ON. I press '-' to hide all selected polygons. I select them a pair of points at a time so as not to change their relationship with each other, moving them to where I imagine in my mind the teeth would connect with the gumline. Imagining and having the ability to extend things with your mind's eye are a large part of what 3D Sculpture is all about.  I press the '\' key to retrieve all polygons. In the perspective viewport I rotate the face until I'm looking down at the gumline from the ridge of the eyesocket. This allows me to, with the use of the 'Drag' tool (CTRL-t), to make fine adjustments to the curves.  I turn off SubSurface mode, rotate the skull in the Perspective viewport, enter 'Points' mode by pressing CTRL-g, and select these points...  I select the tool from the 'Extend' section of the 'Multiply' tab.A white line appears between the first and last points. I press the 't' key, clicking and draging downward to extend the polygons.  Click 'Extender' one more time, draging another row downward. This row's polygons will need to be flipped. The programmers seem to alternate the direction of faces with each extension, I haven't the foggiest idea what advantage there would be in doing that?  I enter 'Polygon' mode by pressing CTRL-h, select the two back polygons which Extender created, and press the DELETE key. I turn off SubSurface mode, stretch and adjust until all polygon widths are equal to their neighbor's polygon widths, and that all the edge seams are straight as they curve. I check it in SubSurface Mode (TAB). Next, I will extend and bend around the inner edge of the eye socket rim. I highlight the four points along the edge.  I select 'Extender', press CTRL-t and move it toward the skull, tilting down. It's hard to see the angle because that polygon that Extender creates is in the way.  I highlight that polygon, press DELETE, highlight the new polygons and press 'f' to flip them. I decide that the foramen hole needs to extend through the bone and come out on the inside of the eye socket, so I select the four points on the end of the foramen tube, use Extender twice, using SHIFT-h to size the last set of our points so it bevels. With the last set of four points selected, I use 'y' to rotate the points, turning them edge-wise, clicking with the cursor to pivot them around the cursor. I rotate the world view from the other angle, press 'y' again and rotate to line up the contours in the other direction. I do this with each part of the tube until it's flush.  I create one polygon at the top of the inner foramen hole, two triangles on the top left and right, creating a point in the center of the arch, bonding the other polygons to it. I press TAB, adjusting the intersections until it feels right.  I turn on 'Symmetry' by pressing SHIFT-y. This will keep the four points I'll make on the zero X axis. I press '+' to create the four points just below the nose in the 'Back' view. I turn off 'Symmetry' mode by clicking the 'Symmetry' button at the bottom of the window. In the 'Right' viewport, I drag the points to their proper positions, creating four 4-sided polygons beneath the nose. I flip any backward polys.  You must realize whenever you use the 'Extender' tool that you must have selected the points in a sequential way, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, either clockwise, or counter-clockwise, or in a row, before you use the tool or the polygons will not be straight and perfect. If you select the points out of sequence, the extended polygons will cross each other in strange ways. I will now extend the hole. I select each point around the circle.  I select the 'Extender' tool, press 't' to move the new polygons out, rotate the ring of selected points to their edge and press 'y' to rotate them to proper angles from multiple directions. Size the ring of points with SHIFT-h, move them with 't', and alternate between those tools until the ring is at the right angle, and is the right size. I press 't' to be ready to move the next set of polygons, select 'Extender' again, jockying that ring of points into position and size, then one more ring.  Once I'm done, I press the SPACEBAR to exit all tools, turn off all points and polygons, and flip all backward polygons. I now have to work on the back part of the orbital bone where it attaches to the back of the skull. I select all polygons which are in the way and hide them with '-'. I place points in the 'Right' viewport.  I turn on 'Wireframe Shading' in the 'Back' and 'Right' viewports, and, along with thinning that is done in the Perspective window, I trim the orbit and arrange the polygons.  I add more points, turning them into polygons, selecting the points along the top edge and extend three polygons sideways to give it depth. I extend two more to round it downward and inward. I press SHIFT-V to mirror it, press 'n' and it mirrors. I rotate the Perspective view and turn the Surface color to white so it looks more normal. I press 's' to save the skull. That should give you plenty of knowledge for you to make anything you'd like, now. Good luck. Click for a Rotating 3D Version of the skull done using the Blaxxun3D Applet |
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