Mudbox and Topology

Learning to use Mudbox
Our second project was to learn how to use Mudbox and because I had not used this software before, I was worried at first that I would find it hard to understand and use like Maya, however after a quick run through of the basic tools, and a few hours to play around, I soon got to grips with the programme. I first started with a basic head, and after an hour or two, had created this.


I really liked using this software and knew I would enjoy the next stage of this project, creating the face of one of our class mates. I and Kerrie decided to work together and started off by taking photos of each other’s faces for reference. Although we only needed a front and profile view, Chris suggested we take pictures at 45 degree angles and possibly one from bellow to help stencil on the projections. I started but using the front view image of Kerrie, and used the grab tool to make the model fit around Kerries head shape, and then I did the same for her profile. After a few hours of sculpting however, I realised that things were not lining up with the images, for example, from the front her nose was higher than in the profile. So i decided to line them up in Photoshop and realised one image was taken slightly closer than the other. I decided to start again with the newly fixed images and things started to take shape. Sculpting Kerries face was a lot harder than I first imagined though, it was easy enough to create a face, but a lot harder to make it look like a specific person. I found her lips were the hardest to create, they would looked right from the  side view, but look odd from the front, and once I had changed them to look right from the front, they would look strange from the side. However, after an hour or two, i managed to get them looking right, and was happy with the rest of the face. I then used the front and side photo of Kerrie to stencil onto the model and it began to look more like her, however slightly different lighting meant there was a clear line between colour where the two images met on the model. Luckily I had taken a 45 degree angle of Kerries face and used this to fix that problem. To finish off the model, I used the wax tool to sculpt on hair, and used a stencil to give it texture to look more natural, I also used a paint brush to fill in any gaps where the colour of the original model could be seen, like the edge of the ears and back of the model.


Topology
Topology is often used in creating 3d modelling and animating, in the example of our mudbox heads, it divides the face into simple geometric structures. Good facial topology follows the muscles of the face, so that whether animated or not, it looks and moves as naturaly as possible.
For the example I drew over my Mudbox model, I made sure to have more sections in loops around the eyebrows,eyes, nose and lips area, as these are the parts of the face that move most.

I found this website about the mathmatical art of M.C Escher, although this is not directly linked to what we are using, I found it interesting as you can see how he uses simple geometric shapes to make up mathmatical art, which is similar to how 3D geometric shaps build up to create a 3D object on something like maya or mudbox.
http://www.mathacademy.com/pr/minitext/escher/