I was doodling with the vertex modeller last night, and played with a way to make a figure out of a cylinder. The end result reminds me of a VooDoo doll. It went together really quickly, and was a lot of fun, so I thought some of you who are new to and/or frustrated with the vertex modeller might enjoy this exercise.

It really makes a great start for a figure ! Simple, quick,and effective ! Thanks Terri, i'll keep that one at hand ! :) litst

So how about if I challenge everyone to use this technique make a cartoony self-portrait? I promise none of results will show up on rendererotica. Much. --Terri

great idea, terri... I promise not to steal a Snorlax model.

thanx for the walk through! that helped a lot with my probs on the vertex modeler! I was wondering though, is there a shortcut key to make the lines straight, or do you just have to eyeball it? Like when you flatten the front of the image. rockjockjared

The trick to that is to select the vertices you want to flatten, then do a Selection-Resize to 0 in the dimension you want to flatten. For this example, use the top view to marquee select the front faces, then do a Selection-Resize and change the Y scale to 0% (leave the X Scale and Z Scale at 100%). After that, you might want to move those faces back a bit in the Y plane, to make the figure less thick front-to-back. I did something similar when extruding the leg. First I extruded the thigh, then while the face was still selected, I resized the Z Scale to 50%, then extruded the shin. That way the shin was at a more vertical angle than the thigh. Then I resized the Z Scale to 0%, so that when I extruded the foot it was nice a flat relative to the floor. I forget where I read this trick, it was in some Carrara faq I printed out, so I can't take credit it for. Comes in pretty handy, though. --Terri

thanks twillis for the info on the legs...that was extremely helpful! I was trying to draw them with the polyline! (Have I mentioned I don't use this modeler much...) Anyways I thought that everybody might get a good laugh out of my "attempt" Cracks me up everytime I look at it! But at least I'm kinda figuring out how to use it, that's what's important or so I'm told! Enjoy! rockjockjared

Hey, he's pretty cute. Now all he needs is a T-Shirt that reads "How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Vertex Modeler." He might want to switch brands of deoderant, though. I think the one he's using is too acidic. Did that happen with a weld? Sometimes when I try to weld things, I get weird results like disappearing polygons. And then sometimes I can't even use "fill polygon" to fix it. Is that a bug, or am I just doing something wrong? Anybody know?

Here's my voodoo doll self-portrait, so now you know how i look like ! It took me less than an hour to do it . This technique really works well ! :) I've had the weld problem before ... Under what conditions does it appear with you , Terri ? litst

twillis - The "missing arm pit incident" accualy happened when I was uh, "perfecting him..." I hit delete and didn't notice it until it was too late. I tried to undo it but I didn't have enough undos, so it stayed like that...oh well, I'll try it again and see if I can make it turn out better.

Litst - Is your nose really that big? Wow!

here's another attempt...I got brave and did a little more work...plus this one has both armpits! Even tried to do a little bit with the face...I'm not even going to say how long this took me, because it took WAY too long...and it still doesn't look like i want it to. but somewhat better than before... rockjockjared

Rockjockjared - your dude's starting to get some personality. For some reason he makes me think of a sailor - I keep expecting to see a tattoo on his biceps! I know what you mean about it taking to long. I started adding a face to mine laste night, and I'm starting to get the feeling that I'm mucking with it too much. Especially after seeing litst's character. Litst - your guy has that "3D cartoon" feel that I'm trying to develop. I mean, he looks like he's ready to jump into a comic strip. Also, how did you do the hair? I'm tired of my character being bald; what if this voodoo stuff works and I wake up with no hair tomorrow?

Jared, your buddy's getting much better ! The best way to learn is to do ;) Terri, are you of Bruce Willis' family ??? See, i like this guy : i've got the same nose ! Except than mine is bigger ( like Chip said ) . But basically, it's the same shape . An advice : to make my nose in 3D, flatten the front ! It met the floor when i was a baby ... About the hair ... i don't remember exactly how i've made it . I guess i've had vertices ;) See the image to have an idea . litst

Thanks, litst, seeing the mesh view is very helpful. I see I've complicated my figure overly much when I tried to add the face... so, off with her head! I'll try again at lunch. As for Bruce Willis... sometimes I'd claim him, sometimes I wouldn't. Depends on which of his movies I'd just finished watching. Of course, I doubt he'd claim me, anyhow. --Terri

"12 monkeys" by Terry Gilliam is a wonderful movie ... :) litst

Yes, I liked that one, and I also liked the 5th element, I thought that was pretty fun. I also enjoyed the one with Merle Streep and Goldie Hawn where he plays the mortian (but I can't think of the name).

It's titled "Death Becomes Her." Yeah, that was pretty funny. A good use of CG that was integral to the story. Oh, and here's my vertex doll. About two hours, half of that snatched in between stuff here at work. Okay, I did it... can I go home now? Terri, started on that tutorial for ya... I'll keep you posted.

...you are all so brave. ...Im afraid : ) One thing I fear is that it will take an hour just to do the first "flatten"... : ( boo hoo! : ) Dave PS: Twillis, I especially liked your suggestion: "Now all he needs is a T-Shirt that reads 'How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Vertex Modeler.'"

o.k., o.k., I'll see about working on the shirt thingy...and I'll see what I can do about the tattoo...I think I'm going to leave him alone for a little bit though...after he used Secret (PH balanced for a woman but strong enough for a man...) well, he's had some other issues since then...so he needs some rest... just wanted to say thanks to everyone here for all the helpful hints though! My other vertex model is coming along...slowly, but surely! rockjockjared

OK, so it's not exactly a self-portrait. Turns out I'm better at making dog heads than human heads. So I give you... Anubis, God of the Dead. --Terri

Nice model, Terri ! The hands look good, too ! litst

of course, for the spelling-impaired, he would be Anubis, Dog of the Dead. Works wither way. yeah, Terri- great hands!! and nice smooth musculature. how much time did you put into this one? Just curious, to get a sense.

Probably a day or so? Not sure, because I decided this one was a keeper, and ended up backing up to the first subdivision. I've gotten into the habit of keeping 3 versions of the file, so I have an anubis (unsubdivided) an aunubissub1 (subdivided once) and anubissub2 (the one above). The musculature was done just by pinching it at elbow and wrist, and then letting the second subdivision do the work. In other words, I got lucky. Anyway, I think I'm going to play with this one a while, and see if I can't bring it all the way into poser (reading over various tutorials). Thanks for the encouragement, everyone. It really increased the fun/frustration ratio! --Terri