FF VII Tifa : part V - Low Poly Model Finished

So the low poly model is finished. The next step is to create the UVs so I can texture this baby :)

In all it's ungly un-smoothed glory:

And here's the smoothed version:
(I'm not so happy with the hair, but we'll have to see how the texturing looks. I have it on a separate layer anyway, so I can easily redo it)

FF VII Tifa : part IV - Getting there

I nearly spend a whole hour trying to glue the body together. I used the duplicate tool when modelling and when I tried to use the auto mirror geometry, Maya couldn't figure out which vertices fitted to which ones...It couldnt even replicate the crease info from one side to the other! But after a bit of frustration I got it all to work.

I still need to model some accesories but since they aren't symmetric, I'll need to model them seperatly. I still need to model the hair aswell which will cover her shoulders (which is why I didn't add any definition there).

I wanted to keep it fairly low poly, so I'll be doing most of the work in the texture phase and then off to rigging in the weekend hopefully!

This is my first real model I guess, so I can only hope the process wil speed up and I'll get better results with practice.

Here are some shots of the model so far:

FF VII Tifa: Part III - Modelling the head

Since I want to keep this low poly, I am not going to model te head in too great detail.
I won't include eyelids or eye balls, as I'm just going to paint a texture instead.

Roughing out the shapes:

And now refining it some more:

Even started doing the hair and added the earring:

FF VII Tifa : part II - Modelling the body

OK, so a few days late I finally started modelling the body.
I'm using boxmodelling and started with the hips and then started extruding the upper body and then the arms and legs and finished with the shoes and hands.

Here's the model so far in poly without smoother:

Here's a shot with smoothing turned on:

I'll do the head tomorrow and start working on clothes and details.

FF VII Tifa : Part I : model sheet

Ok, so I'm going to try and really start working a bit more in 3D! Jesus it's been so hard to motivate myself. But since I managed to get broke 2 weeks before the next payday, I guess I'll have some quiet time at home to do some work the next while.

First up I drew a modelsheet for Tifa of Final Fantasy VII, I didn't aim for a perfect replica but instead add a bit of my own flavour to the design. Tomorrow I'll start modelling the body from the waist. My aim is to keep it low poly keeping game standards in mind. Wish me good luck :)

Some more WIP on the head...

..and I don't mean whip cream!

Head modelling

Wow, time flies! I somehow need to be a bit more dilligent in spending my spare time on doing some work.
Anyway I tried to model a head based on some sketches I did of Aladdin (since it'd like impossible to find any model sheets on the internet). This time I didn't use any books or refs to help me, and I ran into quite a bit of challenges, especially in finding the right places to add geometry and keeping a good edgeflow. But now that I know what the stumble points are, I can look up some tutorials keeping that in mind.

I didn't get to finish it in one go, so here's what I have so far:

The set up the head refs:

Using boxmodelling to shape out the head:

Autodesk Maya : modelling session 2

Today I sat down and modelled the head of the character Charlie.
Didn't get to finish it, but getting there :)

Here's some tips I figured out today:
- Always save your work! Maya crashed on me about 3/4 times an hour, that's a lot!
- Don't jump ahead. Work from general shapes and try to get as much feel of the character from the basic shapes first before jumping in and refining.
- Keep your topology clean! Rather then adding in topology and thinking you'll fix it later. Make sure you think ahead and clean up your lines and shapes before you go and extrude or cut in more topology.
-Do some puzzles! Figure out on a piece of paper first how you're going to cut your model. It took me ages to figure out how to get 4 sided polygons from 3 and 5 sided ones, but once you figure it out, it certainly speeds things up.

Here's todays' progress :

-general shape

-adding details:

Getting to know Autodesk Maya

I have decided to train myself in autodesk Maya and focus on 3D animation in my future efforts. Even though last year we worked with Autodesk 3DS Max in college, I wanted to see what Maya can offer. Maybe I was drawn to it because it's suposedly the most complicated 3D program to master out there, so I figure if I can master this one I'll be able to tackle any animation software.

It's a bit of a step back though having to re-learn old tricks we already learned to do in 3DS Max, but there are a lot of features already I really like in comparison, while others seem to be less flexible or at least less obvious in it's application.
The book I bought to help me get the basics of Maya is the official book: The modelling & Animation Handbook - Autodesk 2010.

It starts out on intermediate basis but caries you through modelling in polygons and NURBS to a fully animated scene at the end and even some lip synching as a bonus. The book is written by people who worked a lot on the development of the Maya application, which means the whole thing is presented a bit dry, and sometimes seems more like a handy reference then a book to learn the application with. On the other hand since I'm already familiar enough working with 3D, I'm quite happy with that as I spend most of the time figuring things out myself :)

Just finished modelling the body of Charlie Anna, and I'll now be moving over to the head. I'm particularly interested in texturing using UV's and rigging a bit later in the book. But for now here are some images of the modelled body: