Looking for advanced users.

[Nasrudin]

Greetings, this might not be the best place to put it, but I have to try. To put it simply, I'm currently trying to re-learn a couple of things about modeling. I'm not a total newbie, but there's a lot wich I have forgotten in years of inactivity, basic knowledge included.
For now it is purely curiosity driving me, but should I improve enough, I'd like to gift the community with something useful before going back to retirement. Unfortunately, time is not on my side and the tools I have at disposal (Oinker's tools \ Magos \ Notepad) are extremely time consuming.
I'm looking for someone with solid knowledge of modeling and animating who ideally could answer the most complex and silly questions I could think of, before I simply grow tired and frustrated enough to give up.


But let's start with something tangible.

Today I have spent a few hours (far too much) trying to remember how to use the old MDL programs, and figure out how to rig a face and animate it.
So I extracted a basic face from an old file recovered from Wc3c, added some more detail, created the bones with Magos, added matrices in Notepad, linked them with new vertexgroups created with the Vertex Modifier. After that it seemed that the file worked fine in Warshape, and I toyed a bit with some expressions.
The result is the attachment you should see in this post, please check it out if you think you can help me.

Couple of questions now:

- I have issues with the eyes. Currently using deatached planes for the pupils. I found it works nicely for small eye movements, problem is when they reach the far corners, as you should see by the end of the first animation. While one pupil clips with the nose (I'm really happy about it) the other one has nothing to collide with, and proceed to float boldly in outer space, seeking new worlds and civilizations, where no eyes has ever been before. Now, since the pupils are actually a plane, and the area behind was not, I tried to flatter it and align it with them. Not a solution as it made the profile look innatural and horrible. Then I tried to move the pupils closer to the head, adjusting the inclination aswell; didn't seem to change much though. Actually the opposite, the right eye became pratically invisible as it got near the nose, while the other one was as loose as ever.
I just can't figure out a solution for this one. Except adding some more bones, wich I don't want to.


- Jaw, teeth, and collision: I have some little clipping issues with the teeth, expecially around the mouths' corners, nothing major and I probably just need to be more careful while animating, but I'm wondering if there's anything to improve here. Or maybe, all I need to do is move the upper\lower lips bones more, after all?


- More in general, my aim is to be able to animate as much of the face I can with as few bones as possile. I'm using a lot already and yet they might not be even enough. But maybe, I should "merge" some? Like nose (wich I'm barely using for now) and upper lips?




Naturally I have more questions, but first I'd like to see if there's anyone at all willing to give me a hand. Also I want to make clear that I'm not going to ask anyone to do any kind of job in my place. I only need to be pointed in the right direction. So again, if you do have some knowledge of modeling, please consider sparing a few minutes to help me out.

Regards.

 

[Kwaliti]

For the eyes, I'd assign each eye to its own joint, but when rotating, I'd rotate both of them at the same time. I'd pull the joints far back into the head so when the pupils rotate, they would rotate in an arc, just like actual eyes, which are spherical in nature. You would have to modify the face geometry a bit though. If you don't understand what I mean, I'll explain it later today.

As for the bottom teeth, try pulling them back inside a little bit. It'll look a bit more natural and may give less clipping.

After all, all these problems require a bit of creativity for solving. There is no single solution to any of these. Play around and see what works for you best. Sometimes you won't be able to progress much without adding a couple more vertices or joints.

 

[Tarrasque]

Lol at awesomeface. (a bit creepy though lol)
-I usually have bones for the pupils, I also use planes, I don't really had much trouble with them because you don't move too much the head in a portrait and because its small in game so little mistakes doesn't matter. Perhaps you could rotate the eyes independently as they get close to the edge of the face.
-For the teeth, you could assign them to a bone and when you close the mouth you can or rotate them a bit or move them back so they don't show. I don't use different bones for lips and teeth though, when I have clipping issues I just move the mesh of the face a bit until it doesn't clip
-Nose bone is unnecessary, unless its a dog or other animal, ear bones too.

Good to see you back

 

[Nasrudin]

Thanks for the replies, much appreciated.

Got some changes done, not much, but I'll get back to it this evening or tomorrow at least.

I have reworked the teeth a bit so they match the mouth's shape. A little improvement, but seemed to help (and to be fair, half of the "clipping" issues I mentioned early are due to the fact my animating program shows only wireframe, it's kind of hard to tell when the teeth stick out of the face.)
...And only now I notice that I've stupidly made the bottom teeth higher than the lower lips, that's probably causing issues aswell. I will fix it later.

I don't get what you say about the eyes Kwaliti, or rather, I can see the benefit of adding another bone, but why pulling the bones on the back of the head? I'd rather place them where the bulbs are supposed to be.

Lol at awesomeface. (a bit creepy though lol)

Aye, awesome face is awesome! And now it's 20% more creepy (added two bones for the lower eyelids)!

I'm trying to make a cinematic model, wich could be suitable to perform a wide amount of animations in game, so it should look flawless from any possible point of view; I'm well aware that blizz cheated a bit on some portraits, they were smart to do so, but I can't slack like that, I'm aiming higher.

The nose bone is... only situationally used, I agree, but for some facial expressions it brings a nice touch imo. See "ewww" animation for instance.


Couple of days and I should be done with the head. Then I'll start working on the body.
Thanks again guys, check for updates from time to time.

 

[Tarrasque]

It looks impressive, lower eyelids make a difference, still that left pupil is a bit of, I've noticed that you only move the pupils on zy plane, I think that if you move the left pupil on x axis(back to the center of the head a bit) it will look better.
Also in animations where you use the eyelids, you could also move back the pupils a bit so it doesn't clip.

Btw why dont you get 3dsmax?

 

[Dionesiist]

I didn't get whether you are planning on having a separate portrait model, but were that the case you could grant yourself the liberty of actually modeling the eyes, thus saving you the trouble of having to figure the clipping of the pupils out.

 

[Kwaliti]

Here's a crude explanation.

After all, you can go with modeling the eyes themselves, like Dio said.

 

[Nasrudin]

Apparently deleting faces in the vertex modifier may cause bugs. I've lost a few updates thanks to that. Plus I don't have much time free, progress necessarily slowed down. Anyway...

I didn't get whether you are planning on having a separate portrait model, but were that the case you could grant yourself the liberty of actually modeling the eyes, thus saving you the trouble of having to figure the clipping of the pupils out.

(Hi Dio). Modeling the eyes is something probably too hard for me at the moment, and even if it wasn't, in a contest such as Wc3 that kind of detail is plainly overkill.

I finally added that extra bone for the eyes, and reworked some animations. Though I tried severaly methods, in the end your advice proved to be the best Kwaliti, thank you. I do not still understand it completely, but it's definitely an improvement.

I've also made some other small changes, such as connecting more of the upper cheeks to the lower eyelid bones. I think it feels more fluid overall, gives the impression there are actual facial muscles moving... though it might be just me. Apart from that, I haven't added many new anims, and as you can see the head itself isn't done yet. I suspect I'll have to add a lot of unnecessary triangles just to fit the texture better, but I'm not at that point yet. For now I'm just testing the limits of the model - and trying to fix them when needed.

 

[Kwaliti]

God, I really suck at explaining things.

It looks much better than before. The way you rigged the eyes was exactly what I meant.

 

[Nasrudin]

You explained just fine, it's me who couldn't grasp how it would interact with the geometry. Think I got it now, just, it's not possible to let them perform completely natural movements this way (when looking up\down, rest is more than fine). A solution would be adding movement keys as Jigrael was saying, problem is I wanted to keep it simple, but it may be the most efficent solution after all...

Now, the model's progress: MANY frustrating hours of editing later, this is what I come up with (wrapping on that texture is a fucking tragedy). Note, normals and wrapping on neck and ears aren't done yet, but apart from that, I say it's basically done.
I'm quite satisfied with the overall geometry, not too convinced about the uvmap on the face, cheeks expecially, I'd like to hear your opinion on this, guys.
It has a ton of small changes since the last posted version, but in the end the main question still remains, does it look credible? Does it move naturally? Is there something weird you think I should change?
Please let me know what you think, you forum lurkers too, don't worry if you don't know anything about modeling.


Mdx this time, so even those who don't want to go through the conversion process can take a peek.

 

[Nasrudin]

Done some progress, I'm in a bit of a hurry, so I'll spare you a wall o' text.


Stand Ready and Walk animations are more or less done. Stand would be ready too, if I hadn't forgot to delete some keyframes on the face. I'm having issues with elbows, shoulders and buttocks deformation, not really sure how to deal with that. :|