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.
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.
