Max

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The Virtual Mime by Dennis Moellers



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Modeling the Head
I started the modeling process with the head. To get the correct proportions I took photographs of a friend and mapped the results onto two planes. Special thanks to Rob Yorke.
A spline cage was made from the pictures by first tracing the profile and front view, then simply adjusting the splines until they looked right. The advantage of this type of patch surfacing to NURBS was that I could create more detail in a place like the mouth and eyes, but keep the detail low at the top of the head. The output of this spline cage is polygons.
After a surface modifier is connected the surface appears. Two vertices must be locked together to create one edge of a polygon.
When the spline cage was finished it was mirrored to the other side. Later on I fixed problems with the model and welded the two parts together to create one seamless mesh.
The ear was difficult at first to create. I started with a circular spline and duplicated it a few times. I changed the sizes of the splines to match an ear then connected them together. After that it was just a matter of moving points in order to acheive a realistic look.


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When the ear was finished I imported it into the scene with the mime's head. The two spline cages were connected then the individual points were connected. When connected correctly the surface would smoothly appear between the ear and head.
The eye was created by making five different parts as seen below. When a light is placed above the character the iris will respond correctly to the light by being brighter in the lower half. The reason for this is because I want to have a few very close shots of the mime's face in the animation. Also whenever people watch a person on screen they always watch the eyes for emotion and intelligence.
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