Darth Avlectus Posted August 20, 2009 Share Posted August 20, 2009 I've got a certain thing or two in mind for K1 and K2. I'm not this far along yet but this is more for if/when I get there. For now, I'm just seeing about simpler stuff. Say I wanted to tweak the facial structure of an existing model head and hair to more match a character form some other thing, is this out of the question? Fairly significant (without giving my idea away), the changes might entail reshaping the overall structure of the face (narrower, longer), and remaking the hair if not giving it a new hairdoo altogether. I'm aware you can only work with what is already there in a given head model you extract from the game. Also, having kept tabs on SithSpecter throughout his animating of Revan's Cape, I am aware this can be a long tedious, occasionally frustrating process of giving even slight animations to parts. Would I have to worry about reanimating the face if I merely changed its shape? (I know the hair will definitely need to be addressed!) I'm almost tempted to ask if a new model might not be that much more hassle... Is this possible to do with Gmax alone? Can I add a new head model (regardless of its basis) so that I don't overwrite one pre-existing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miro42 Posted August 21, 2009 Share Posted August 21, 2009 I've got a certain thing or two in mind for K1 and K2. I'm not this far along yet but this is more for if/when I get there. For now, I'm just seeing about simpler stuff. Say I wanted to tweak the facial structure of an existing model head and hair to more match a character form some other thing, is this out of the question? Fairly significant (without giving my idea away), the changes might entail reshaping the overall structure of the face (narrower, longer), and remaking the hair if not giving it a new hairdoo altogether. I'm aware you can only work with what is already there in a given head model you extract from the game. Also, having kept tabs on SithSpecter throughout his animating of Revan's Cape, I am aware this can be a long tedious, occasionally frustrating process of giving even slight animations to parts. Would I have to worry about reanimating the face if I merely changed its shape? (I know the hair will definitely need to be addressed!) I'm almost tempted to ask if a new model might not be that much more hassle... Is this possible to do with Gmax alone? Can I add a new head model (regardless of its basis) so that I don't overwrite one pre-existing? A new model from scratch is pretty unlikely. I've yet to see one done. It's better to just reshape an existing head. You can actually add new topology if you follow this thread here. It can be very confusing and very very frustrating, especially if you're new at modeling. As far as reanimating the face, you shouldn't have to, if you keep the general layout of the face, ie lips, eyes, brow. If you check out my PMHC05 Manly Version you'll see a little bit of facial tweaking is done with no need to reanimate. Also my Mara Jade mod has some more drastic changes, such as the hair and her brow and lip placement and she hasn't given me any trouble yet. I hope this helps, and good luck! Oh and you can add a unique head. Once I find the the thread where I got my answers, I'll post the link. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canderis Posted August 21, 2009 Share Posted August 21, 2009 http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?t=193050 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miro42 Posted August 23, 2009 Share Posted August 23, 2009 HAH! I forgot, that I wrote a tutorial based off of Trex's tut. Here's the link and I'll change my signature so it'll show there too! Thanks for the reminder Canderis! My tutorial doesn't have pretty pictures like Trex's does, but it's a little more point by point of how to do things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthParametric Posted August 23, 2009 Share Posted August 23, 2009 Neither of those is modelling a new head. That's minor tweaking of an existing head. There's only so far that can take you. You can radically alter an existing head/body model, however the issue is mesh weighting. For animation to work, a mesh has to be "weighted". This determines how the bones will act on various areas of the mesh (i.e. defining the extent of deformation). When you delete or add vertices to an existing model, you destroy the weighting. If you extensively modify a mesh you have to completely re-weight it. This is alluded to by svösh here and he also includes a link that covers weighting in GMax/Max. As far as making completely new head/body models from scratch, I'm not sure if that is feasible in terms of producing a game-compatible binary model. I don't think MDLOps is up to the job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miro42 Posted August 23, 2009 Share Posted August 23, 2009 Neither of those is modelling a new head. That's minor tweaking of an existing head. You're absolutely right. But it is a good place to start. I actually thought that was a different tutorial and was trying to help with this question here: Can I add a new head model (regardless of its basis) so that I don't overwrite one pre-existing? So with my mistake I bring a correction. The actual tutorial you want is this one here by Darkkender. This tut is about making unique heads so that you're not overwriting pre-existing ones. Hope this helps! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Avlectus Posted August 29, 2009 Author Share Posted August 29, 2009 Oh, why thank you all, these links are very helpful indeed! Ehh, well, aside from facial reconstruction, I'm looking into hairdoos...Now I know you can't really "add" moving hair but modify it... is it possible to move and reshape certain of these moving hair props of the head model? And can you do things like fold, flare, thin, and twist it? I.E. (this is not really what I have in mind, but related), take say one model with freeflowing hair, and put some kind of hair tie in it? Like say, take the dark haired mullet dude (commonly used for anakin, etc. ) and give it, say a slicked down Samurai fishtail at the high back part of the head? What can/can't you do? (You guys are seriously the best!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mono_Giganto Posted August 30, 2009 Share Posted August 30, 2009 Like say, take the dark haired mullet dude (commonly used for anakin, etc. ) and give it, say a slicked down Samurai fishtail at the high back part of the head? Unlikely. Since, for the most part, all you can do is move verts around, there would have to be enough verts on the back of the head to work with, and I highly doubt there are enough since heads are fairly low poly. Odds are, you'd end up with some horrible texture stretching. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miro42 Posted August 30, 2009 Share Posted August 30, 2009 Like say, take the dark haired mullet dude (commonly used for anakin, etc. ) and give it, say a slicked down Samurai fishtail at the high back part of the head? What can/can't you do? (You guys are seriously the best!) Hey take a look here. It's not much as it took me five minutes to do, but basically if you're creative enough you can work with what's already there. The actual hair weighting and what not I have no clue. If it doesn't work for me right away I don't think about it too much, so you'll have to get that answer elsewhere. And of course if you're feeling ballsy you can try the adding topology method I linked to earlier. And take it to heart when I say good luck with that! Hope that's a bit of a help at least! Unlikely. Since, for the most part, all you can do is move verts around, there would have to be enough verts on the back of the head to work with, and I highly doubt there are enough since heads are fairly low poly. Odds are, you'd end up with some horrible texture stretching. Texture stretching isn't such a big deal. You can always reset the UVs to align properly as well as painting a brand new texture. As to the not enough verts, check above . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mono_Giganto Posted August 30, 2009 Share Posted August 30, 2009 Texture stretching isn't such a big deal. You can always reset the UVs to align properly as well as painting a brand new texture. As to the not enough verts, check above . Well I am quite impressed! As far as my comment on texture stretching goes... no, it's not really that big of a deal if you're willing to do the extra work. What I was getting as is that there's a limit to the extent to which you can reasonably distort the mesh simply by moving verts, and if you decide to make extreme changes to the position of every vert on the mesh, the texture will cause problems. However, the head model in question obviously has more polies to spare than I gave it credit for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Avlectus Posted August 30, 2009 Author Share Posted August 30, 2009 Hey take a look here. It's not much as it took me five minutes to do, but basically if you're creative enough you can work with what's already there. Okay. That is very basically what I was curious of, yes. Thank you! The actual hair weighting and what not I have no clue. If it doesn't work for me right away I don't think about it too much, so you'll have to get that answer elsewhere. Tant's okay, I didn't expect answers to everything that may come up (part of the challenge, no?). I had wondered the same sort of thing. Trial + error, until desired results are achieved. And of course if you're feeling ballsy you can try the adding topology method I linked to earlier. And take it to heart when I say good luck with that! Hope that's a bit of a help at least! It is and I don't expect what I'm doing to be easy or quick at all. Unlikely. Since, for the most part, all you can do is move verts around, there would have to be enough verts on the back of the head to work with, and I highly doubt there are enough since heads are fairly low poly. Odds are, you'd end up with some horrible texture stretching. Texture stretching isn't such a big deal. You can always reset the UVs to align properly as well as painting a brand new texture. As to the not enough verts, check above . That is certainly handy to know. Thanks. Well I am quite impressed! As far as my comment on texture stretching goes... no, it's not really that big of a deal if you're willing to do the extra work. What I was getting as is that there's a limit to the extent to which you can reasonably distort the mesh simply by moving verts, and if you decide to make extreme changes to the position of every vert on the mesh, the texture will cause problems. Okay, that pretty much confirms what I thought I understood of what had been said elsewhere here in Holowan...Well, I admit I've taken a very bare bones texturing and modelling class. So this is basically a leisure progression of that. However, the head model in question obviously has more polies to spare than I gave it credit for. It's all good. Thanks for clarification, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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