Hi folks! This is latest update of a model I am working on - her name is Antonia. My first complex model, so obviously, there's a steep learning curve to master. Some earlier versions can be found in my gallery. I will post updates as I go, including some meshes. Crits, comments, advice and habanero-lime salsa are all more than welcome. Cheers, Olaf

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

Here's the head mesh.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

Farely low mesh, that can be an advantage to us, who are still making do with our Pentium 3's. One of the the reasons I still stick with Posette, Eve 4, and P4WWG. Will she include genitals like Eve 4 and P4WWG, or will she be neuter like the Vickies?

  STOP PALESTINIAN CHILD ABUSE!!!! ISLAMIC HATRED OF JEWS

dphoadley: She currently has around 6700 polys. For the Poser render, I subdivided once, so I'm at 27000, roughly. Posette has a little less, around 21500. I will probably not give her detailed genitals, just the "camel toe", so that she will look real enough, but not "porn proof". Big disclaimer in order here: it is not at all decided yet that she will be released to the public. I am going to rig her for Poser, though (or at least, I will try), use her in renders and give her to some assorted friends for testing. Then I will decide. At the beginning, I thought I might make her free, eventually. But some people do this for a living, so I'm not quite sure that would be fair.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

I finally decided to do the big mesh overhaul that I had put off for so long. Here's the result. Much better flow. I will do a little more sculpting and then post a render.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

How about splitting the difference. Make the low res none poser ready mesh for free. And the smoothed poser ready mesh for a price. This might work to your advantage.

The wit of a misplaced ex-patriot.
I cheated on my metaphysics exam by looking into the soul of the person next to me.

That would be an option. But, actually, I'd rather concentrate on the mesh right now than to think about what to do with it when it's eventually finished. I guess I didn't make it quite clear, but my primary concern here is to learn modelling, not sell products. No offense meant.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

Here is a render of the re-wired head, after some more sculpting.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

While not beautiful on a par with Top Designer fashion models, she does look like she could be pretty -in a homey sort of way. If I was twenty years younger, and unmarried, I'd be asking her for a date by now. I dare say she'll make some male figure a lucky man.

  STOP PALESTINIAN CHILD ABUSE!!!! ISLAMIC HATRED OF JEWS

LOL! Don't get carried away there. :-) But thanks for the compliments. No top model? Well, wait until she gets a texture. And lashes! Oh, and brows! Never underestimate the brows. :-)

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

great job on reworking the mesh. I'm wondering if you're planning to do one level of subdivision on export from wings3d and do your rigging on it? And post some wires of the body?

divinerain

Thanks, DivineRain! I'm not sure on how to do the rigging yet. I was planning to follow Quinlor's tutorials (quinlor.de). He seems to know what he's talking about. For rendering in Poser, I need one level of subdivision, but I'd like to try and do as much work as possible on the undivided mesh. I'll post some wires of the body later. It looks quite horrible right now. An older version can be found in my gallery.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

Here are the current wires for the body. I am planning to make some changes, though. For one, I think they are unnecessarily dense in some regions. Also, they don't flow so nicely with the body masses everywhere.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

And here is the smoothed body mesh without the wires.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

She's shaping up well.

www.youtube.com/user/ShawnDriscollCG

She definately looks like somebody I could have children with. A little skinny maybe, but still sensously desireable. Pity she won't have more complete genitals, but maybe that could be rectified by someone like Hellborn or Travelar (Hint, hint).

  STOP PALESTINIAN CHILD ABUSE!!!! ISLAMIC HATRED OF JEWS

Thanks for the nice words! dphoadley, I am definitely going to reduce the skinnyness a bit. The present body shape is more or less a first sketch, without using any particular references. I will also add more detail to the genitals, no worries. I want her to look nice and fairly realistic everywhere. I'm just not intending to include any detail that only her lover or her doctor should see. ;-)

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

She's b eautiful the way she is; she's your project, not mine. You should do her any way you want. Remember the old addadge: "Too many cooks spoil the stew!" Have fun, and good luck. Whatever way she turns out, she'll definately be a welcome addition to the Poser family.

  STOP PALESTINIAN CHILD ABUSE!!!! ISLAMIC HATRED OF JEWS

Oh, I will definitely do her my way. Don't worry about that. What I was trying to say is that I agreed with you on these two points - at least partially. :-)

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

Have to agree w/ dphoadley & SHONNER; she's looking G-O-O-D ...!!! Hopefully you're referring to the waist & hips when you say you're gonna reduce the skinnyness a bit. It would be nice to have a realistic looking figure to work with. (Don't really need the "in depth intimate details" either!) ;-) OK, now for the begging, er, uh, suggestion.... Maybe a Lo-Res version for free & the full version for sale (kinda like DAZ does w/ Vicki, Mike & Aiko). That way the serious artists can have a new (more real life looking) character to work with & the low budget, low pc powered hobbyists will have a chance to use her in simpler renders. (yeah, i've got a P3 w/ less than 1GB of ram & no hobby budget so there's my ulterior motive) Whatever; you're doing an awesome job in the modeling & I think it's great the Poser world may get a new figure that actually looks like a real person.

Very nice, clean, well organized mesh. I think it will bend well when properly rigged.
The head looks just great and the body, too. If it where my model, I would make the chest a bit wider, it looks a bit out of proportion to me. But it may be the look you are after, people vary a lot.
Keep us posted about your progress.

Hey, quinlor, thanks a lot! Yeah, I have to work on the body proportions a bit. I find the chest too narrow myself, so I'll fix that. And I think the waist is a bit too low. I want her to be a natural beauty with fairly average proportions, not chubby, but also not extremely skinny - someone you might find next door, not on the cover of a magazine. I hope she's gonna bend nicely. I tried to keep posing and expressions in mind when I worked on the mesh, although it's not easy if you've never done it before. Maybe I've made some horrible mistakes. :-) Anyway, looking forward to using you nice tutorials.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

Here's a render of the head and torso after some modifications. I tried to make the proportions more natural and also started with some mesh modifications and shape correction. But I will certainly do a lot more soon, so I'm not posting any new wires right now.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

She's looking great so far.. I don't know about you but I would make the face have more polygons. So she is capable of more facial expressions. But hey, this is your so do what you see fit. Keep up your excellent work.

She's looking great so far.. I don't know about you but I would make the face have more polygons. So she is capable of more facial expressions. But hey, this is your so do what you see fit. Keep up your excellent work.

She's looking great so far.. I don't know about you but I would make the face have more polygons. So she is capable of more facial expressions. But hey, this is your so do what you see fit. Keep up your excellent work.

Thanks for the nice feedback - why three times, though? :-) My idea, actually, was to keep it as simple as possible first, then later add more detail as necessary. I've no experience whatsoever in facial animation, but from what I've read, one should be able to get by with very few polygons, actually, if the mesh is constructed with animation (or just expressiveness) in mind. There's an excellent book on these things, "Stop staring", by Jason Osipa.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

What the heck - here are the wires. :-)

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

L-rd grant me one wish!! I want that woman!

  STOP PALESTINIAN CHILD ABUSE!!!! ISLAMIC HATRED OF JEWS

Hope she's not a Shikseh.

  STOP PALESTINIAN CHILD ABUSE!!!! ISLAMIC HATRED OF JEWS

the render looks great, nice lighting and skin. What I've been noticing are the arms are a bit thin, the whole arm, this could lead you to model the wrists too thin.. edges from under the arm could be pulled down some, and her back might look better if it was widened a tad. In side view her body looks too thin. And I noticed her eyes are pretty close to the bridge of her nose n forehead.. pushing the eyes in would make her look more realistic and it'll help get the curves for the cheeks in that view.

divinerain

dphoadley Thanks! But stop drooling now, please! ;-)

DivineRAiN Agreed, on all accounts! I've already made her back considerably wider and pulled her eyes back, but that's probably not so easy to notice in th 30 degree views. But the arms are definitely too thin. I will try to fix this and then post another 3-way view of her.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

Maybe I should mention that she does not have a texture yet. The render is done with face_off's shader with some generic procedural textures plugged into it.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

I think the mesh density is sufficient for good expression morphs. If you want her to be able to show wrinkles on the forehead or around the eyes in some expressions, you will need extra cuts, but anything else should work.
Insane amounts of polygons are only needed for far out character morphs, and it dont make much sense to go so far outside the structure of a mesh anyway, it will destroy the expression morphs.
A small nitpick regarding the anatomy: I think the ribcage extends a bit far down on the sides.

Message edited on: 01/30/2006 13:14

quinlor: Thanks for supporting my point of view! :-) Actually, I was planning to try the approach I've learned from Osipa's book, namely to do the extra wrinkles with displacement maps. In Poser, this may require some rather complicated material setup, so I might end up adding those extra cuts after all. We shall see.

I'm not sure if you're right about the rib cage, but I will check my references.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

Wow I'm glad I found this forum thread. I've been following your project along since the beginning and I am very impressed with how it has come along. I'm going to keep up with your current creation until the end. Keep up your good work! Take care, -James

Here's another update. As before, this is a Poser render with face-off's shader and some simple procedural textures. I will post the meshes a little later today.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

Mmmmmh, wires!! As you can see, I was not lazy. Some small, but important changes of the face mesh, lots of sculpting, and some major reworking of the torso. I think she's actually starting to look like a person now. Well, more like a fairly realistic mannequin, due to the lack of hair, skin detail and such, but you get the idea. :-)

Message edited on: 02/01/2006 15:03

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

She looks quite sexy as well. I'm so impressed by your creation. It makes me hope that one day I will be able to model something like this! When you get a chance will you add some hair to her to let us see how she looks? James

jhusthead: I did not think I could do it, either. I mean, before I started this, I'd never modelled anything more complex than a wine glass, for crying out loud. But, as it turns out, this was exactly the right project for me to learn modelling by, because it keeps me motivated. A sports car or a space ship just wouldn't cut it for me.

So my advice would be: if you think you're stubborn and crazy enough, just start a model and fight your way through the initial jungle of disappointments. Then keep at it. Personally, I expect this particular girl to keep me company for most of this year. It's been 3 months since I've started and her arms and legs still look like rubber tubes. And I haven't even begun thinking about texturing or rigging her.

About hair: yeah, maybe it's time for that now... :-)

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

odf: Thanks for the encouragement! I remember one time in the past we were talking and you mentioned to me the web site where you found this tutorial from. Do you mind giving it to me again? -James

jhusthead: Sure, it's secondreality.ch.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

Thanks I appreciate it.

Here's another update. Changes focused mainly on the shoulder area.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

Did you make changes to the face as well? -James

**jhusthead** - It's funny you should ask. I think the face stayed the same in the last two versions. But I've recently made some changes, so I'm posting a render of what the face currently looks like.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

Wow. This model is great.

Here's another update. I'm still deep in the modeling stage, so there is no texture, no UV map, no rig. For the render (done in Poser 6), I experimented a little with the lights and with modifications to face off's phantastic skin shader.

I'll try to post the current wires a little later today.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

The upper back and the shoulder look really great in this version. It's getting better and better.

Message edited on: 02/17/2006 13:16

Only a few words can be said about the image above. It is a totally breathtaking beautiful change from your last post now that some different lighting and face-offs product has been used! I was wondering what was happening because I haven't seen you online in a while. It's good to see you back with another dosage of your awesome character. Have a nice weekend, -James

Here, as promised, are the current wires.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

... and, as per popular request - from jhusthead :) - here she is with some nice Koz hair.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

Cool, I was wondering if you were going to try some hair on her. She looks much more beautiful and lifelike in that picture. And she looks great with short hair to. Take care and have a nice weekend, -James

Here's another update. I did some small but important edits on the front side of the torso and played a little more with lights and shaders.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

I can't really tell anything different about her. What did you change if you don't mind me asking? -James

jhusthead - I made her breasts a little smaller, the areolae larger (or is is areolas?), got rid of that prominent V-shape between her clavicles, changed the shape of the belly button, reshaped her pubic lips and, last but not least, did some sculpting on the whole area between her upper abdomen and her thighs. It's probably not so easy to see because of all the lighting changes. I really like the lighting in the latest render and I think I will stick to it for the coming updates.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

Now that I look at the photos before and after your last update I can tell the differences between them. The most noticeable change is the V shape in the pelvis area that looks much better now in my opinion. I can also tell a little bit of the difference on the areolas surrounding the nipples. But without you explaining to me in context I probably wouldn't have noticed any of these things. Take care, -James

Hey, odf! LOL! She eess french(p52). Her upper abs seem masculine to me still. I (personally!) would widen and pull out the tops and blend into the ribs. Pull her hipbones out too. mho Most of the rest can be dealt with in morphs and displacement. Those eyes are indeed piercing! Very different. Happy for ya!

Hey Richardson! Being a little lazy with the updates. I've actually followed your suggestions before you even gave them. :) The lower back still needs work, though.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

Here are the wires to go with it.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

you've done some really good edits, I like the skin shader and lighting too. Hope you don't mind the pic I'm adding here. When I was looking at yer model (side view) and noticed a few things like the curve of the back, the rib cage (in the front), and her chest seems deflated. Plus she seems to be a little hunched over instead of standing straight. And I thought that since he uses lots of references it wouldn't be such a bad idea (or cause anyone to model things too far off) to reference his model a bit.

divinerain

Thanks, DivineRain! You are, in fact, quite right. I've noticed the problem with her posture when I started shaping the legs, so I made some changes. And I made some more after I read you posting. Here are the current wires. Probably not perfect, but I think her back line and posture look much better. I've got some better loops, too, although certain things still bug me.

By the way, is "He" Stephen Stahlberg? Do we not use his name anymore? chuckle

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

Hi odf! Her hip structure seems much better. Dropping the "crack" a good plan. So much flesh there to catch a shadow, anyway... Her legs seem filled ouit some too. Good stuff. Locked out knees and elbows will cost you later (same in mine). Course there are jcms to help reshape them in a bend. The wire line off the shoulderblades will make erector spin tough, too. Seems she'll have a hard spot at the side of her ribs when bent side to side. I'd try to catch the lower back rib line (dip above waist) as in last post61 Left. I'm still in the black as to what to do with shoulders... how much mass. How to keep the crease low...A realism killer. ,r

Hi richardson! Thanks for the tips! I have no idea about the rigging. I figured I'd first try to get her static shape right with some nice flow, then make adjustments later if she doesn't pose well. That also means that UV mapping is out of the question for a while. :-) Great idea to "catch the dip", though! Following the natural lines of the body always makes the sculpting much easier - well, unless you do it all in ZBrush anyway. :-) I guess the same holds for the shoulder blades, so that's one more item on my list. If it's any consolation, I think everyone fights with the shoulder. I think I've even read some statement by "Him" recently on that.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

LoL yea, him! The side view looks a lot better. Locked knees and elbows, add me to the list. Damn... I forgot about that.

divinerain

Here's a current render.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

And another one.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

I just realized I hadn't posted an update in quite a while. So here is the complete model in its current state, rendered in ArtOfIllusion (AoI). This is a little more recent than the one in my gallery. I've figured out how to get AoI to render Catmull-Clark surfaces, so some ugly defects from triangulating disappeared. I've also made some progress on the feet and tried out a little fresnel effect. Otherwise, no textures or bumps, just geometry and light. :) There are some mesh changes, too, so I need to post updated wires soon. But not tonight. Time for my bedtime dose of Angel. :)

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

Very nicely done! Cool work!

"Few are agreeable in conversation, because each thinks more of what he intends to say than that of what others are saying, and listens no more when he himself has a chance to speak." - Francois de la Rochefoucauld

Intel Core i7 920, 24GB RAM, GeForce GTX 1050 4GB video, 6TB HDD space
Poser 12: Inches (Poser(PC) user since 1 and the floppies/manual to prove it!)

shes coming along gorgeously odf!!

This is really promising. Are you going to add some serious muscularity morphs like those in V3 so that we could create a very realistic female body builder?

Time for some current wires. It's been a while since the last face closeup, so I'll start with that.

PXP - No, I'm currently not planning on any serious muscularity morphs. Hell, I don't even know if she's ever going to be released. This is strictly a personal project, you know.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

And here are some renders, again with ArtOfIllusion.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

More wires...

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

...and the renders to go with them. That's all for today, folks! :)

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

whatcha doin?

divinerain

You mean right now? Trying to figure out a funny bug in a Java program. Considering if 4pm would be a good time for lunch. Yawning a lot. Listening to the crazy lady outside talking to her dog. Things like that.

Or do you mean, modeling-wise? Well, I've been working on the head again. Also on the neck, chest and shoulders, but mostly on the head. Tried to get a better skull shape, experimented with facial features (make her real pretty and cutesy, so the guys stop complaining :P), things like that. Then went on to soften the knees and made another attempt to get the feet into shape. I'll post an update on her legs shortly. For now, here's the current head.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

right now and modeling-wise. It's midnight here, whatcha doin now? Figure out the bug? Gonna have to keep a mental note on toning down my conversations with my dog and cats, but it's probably too late.. neighbors prolly think I'm already crazy. The modeling aspect is looking good. Did you work on the area under the eyes? Dunno if it's been edited or lighting, but the profile view looks a little different. Looks like you've got a better curve from under the eyes down towards the nose. The only thing about her face that I can find to nitpick is the width of her lips. They seem too wide.. maybe test with a smile expression where the lips will be stretched to the max width-wise. Kryoboy had posted a pic with lines in the body topology thread a while ago, I tried looking for it but didn't find it.. the width of the lips didn't line up with the pupil like I remember it being taught to me high school art class.. instead it was between the inner eye n pupil. I don't think there's a set rule for it tho.

divinerain

Well, I just watched "Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind". Have you seen it? Interesting movie! It's not gonna make my top ten, but it's really not bad. Best Jim Carey performance I've ever seen, beats the Truman Show by far, I think. Even Kirsten Dunst wasn't completely annoying. :)

I decided to stop hunting bugs for today. Trouble is, I've checked thousands of examples that ran okay, so I'll have to figure this one out before it disappears with the next change I'm planning. And it's a terribly complicated example, so there's no way I can work it out by hand. I hate this.

Hey, is this turning into a blog? :) Time to get back to modeling: the most important thing I did is change the wires to give me a better grab of the cheek bones. I also pushed the bridge of her nose in and pulled the tip up, and I lifted the midsection of her mouth. Later I noticed that her profile looked somewhat strange, so I tilted the whole head and changed all the angles slightly. Lots of additional tweaking, too. I don't remember everything.

I agree that the mouth is rather wide. Maybe I'll change that later, but it doesn't really bother me too much at the moment.
Oh, and I'm at Renderosity Time -2, so it's not quite midnight here yet.

Message edited on: 04/03/2006 01:05

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

Oh, here are some current wires, so you can see what I changed.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

na, I haven't seen it yet. Liar Liar is probably my fav Jim Carey movie atm. He's a real goofball, funny. Watched The Man which was pretty good n funny.. with Samuel L. Jackson. Pretty kewl that the movie took place in Detroit. And finally Saw 2. My daughter is driving me up the wall with Grease and Mean Girls.. they get played an awful lot. eww.. g2g..

divinerain

Here's a little update. Hard to mention all the changes I've made. Feet still need work and the legs were more shapely once. *sigh* DivineRain - Hmmm, I guess I'm getting a vague idea of your daughter's age here. :)

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

yer doing such a nice job on her.. I think the legs are fine.  The forearm might be thinning out too much in front view, the wrists and hands could be a little thicker in that view. 
Have you worked out the feet yet?

divinerain

Still working on your figure?

Just a point will this ever be done?

The wit of a misplaced ex-patriot.
I cheated on my metaphysics exam by looking into the soul of the person next to me.

not bad , the head seems a bit small.

for some free stuff i made
and for almost daily fotos

I'm currently taking a break from modeling. I'm still interested in finishing the figure, though.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

Good to know. Thanks for the update!

@diolma: This is a pure educational/practice project. I've got no idea of where I'm heading with it. :)

I had some goals, though, when I started this:

• She should look attractive, but like a real person, not a stereotype.

• She should have a fairly low poly count (the original model has around 6500 quads, but I do one subdivision for rendering in Poser and AoI, because they don't handle subdivision surfaces that well).

• The mesh should reflect the surface anatomy as closely as possible given the low poly count.

• She should eventually be able to pose fairly naturally.

• The mesh should support natural looking expression morphs and, if possible, also a limited range of character morphs. The latter is not high on the priority list, though. Also, I was definitely not aiming to support morphing her into an animal or an alien just by mesh alteration.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

I think she is really grogerous. I would love to make some clothes for her.

Hello thread! Long time no see.

I've recently got back to working on her, so here's my latest test render from Poser. The hair is by Kozaburo and the skin shader by BagginsBill, so I can't take credit for those.

I just realized how great her abdomen looks in those old renders. Maybe I should try and get some of that definition back. I simplified the torso mesh in the meantime (will post wires soon), but I'm wondering if maybe I overdid it.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

I am not an expert on anatomy, but I am an appreciator of the female form and I think she's quite realistic! Bravo!

Attached Link: Bored yet?

I posted another test render in my gallery, so I thought I'd just link to it.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.