I've tried this tutorial three times now, and while I haven't yet made a good looking face, I'm convinced it can be done and I keep trying. As I learn more about Carrara and generally gain confidence, it's getting better and better. The mouth still seems to be my hang up, but that's a different post. I saw this little tidbit from Litst in a recent post, "...but keep in mind that it's an old tut and that Carrara supports subdivision surfacing now and that makes things much easier..." Could some one explain this one to me at all? What is it and how would I use it? I need all the help I can get. Thanks.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=1102480

Here's a link to a hand I made. The mesh in it is extremely simple but when the subdivision is turned on, it comes out very smooth and clean looking. The subdivision "model" is a tool which can take a Vertex Object and then will re-cast it in a form which is somewhat smoothed and rebuilt in many more vertexes. The cool thing about it is that it's more than just subdividing. The smoothing of the mesh as it subdivides is pretty smart. The extra good thing about it that your original mesh survives and you can alter the level of subdividing at will. It's a pretty powerful tool and very useful when it fits your needs. -Kix

-Kix

Any chance you could give a few details about that hand of yours Kix? What shape did you start with? How did you do the fingers? Any other tips?

All, Has anyone made faces, hands and other body parts from metaballs in Carrara? Is there potental for making realistic looking hands etc in Carrara using metaballs? I've tried such things in Bryce 5 with a little success ; that's why I was wondering. (I'm not a very good artist so my hand didn't turn out as well as it might have but I can see some potential using metaballs.) - TJ

I don't know if I just don't have enough skill with them yet, but I have a challenging time making much from Carrara's metaballs. (I do do a good candle with dripping wax once.) Even when I do get something close to the shape I'm looking for, I have a hard time getting the edges nice and smooth no matter what I put the fidelity at. Maybe I just don't have enough experience with it though, which is very possible.

Getting back to the Vertex Modeler, I often have trouble adding vertices. Droping one in the middle of an existing edge and creating links between existing vertices seems to work just great. Every now and then though, I'll want to add a point off of existing edges and link it to existing points. I use the poly line tool for this and then link the new point in as needed. Occaisionally this even seems to work, but much more often it seems that the new point has no influence over the model. Is this not the right way to add new points?

I basically started my hand by looking at my own real hand. I drew the palm part as a five sided shape, gave it thickness, then added in vertices on the edges where the fingers should go, added thickness to those shapes and extruded out the fingers. -Kix

-Kix

Here's an example of my latest attempt at the face tutorial. I'm just barely into Step 3 "The Details" here, but by this point, Litst's faces are starting to take shape and as you can see, mine looks like an alien. I have a LOT of trouble with the mouth and eyes, as you can see. Any advice is very welcome.

Attached Link: Rc2000's 3D And Animation at Monsters4u

Hi Bbazzarrakk, You having any more luck yet? Your start on that tutorial ain't that bad. When I tried it, mine came out------strange. That head of mine that you saw at the Carrara group was made of polylines first. Basically drawing a lot of the shapes, pulling them out into the workspace, then rotating, lining them up, and linking or welding vertices where needed. Then I moved them to get the features better. It looked like a bunch of chicken wire balled up at first, but when I filled the polys, it looked pretty good. -------------------------------------------