Refining the head, Rigging and Writing

I've been working on the overall shape of the head and have refined the model a fair bit though after a meeting with my project supervisor he recommended I bring out the cheekbones, work on the eyelids and shape of the eyes. The head should hopefully be finnished soon, and I will also start work on the upper body, I'm going to look at the basic XSI female body as a starting point for the body though I may also start another one from reference. Here is some of the progress I have made with the head.



I've created a curve based neck for a smoother and more natural movement, while I've only got a quick envelope test you can see what it does


I've started on the first quarter of my dissertation, currently its a little brief but I'll start making notes and improve upon the base of what I've got, I'm looking to focus on comparing motion capture technology to keyframe since motion capture has come a long way in recent years.

More on topology

While initially I was planning on editing the basic mudbox head I started noticing it might not be the best way of approaching the modelling, my main concern was the 6 point star (also 2 minor complaints I had with the mouth area) and so clear-cut mouth area.


To make sure the model would deform as I wanted it to I decided to make my own, from photo reference of Imogen Heap and a quick design to base the modelling on. After completing the modelling based on the 'Joan of Arc' tutorial (adding in additional detail on the eyes, mouth and other areas to improve the deformation) I will edit the form in Mudbox, but for now this is a WIP image.


I'll be rigging it once I'm done modelling, one point to work on is having a curve rather than a bone for the neck to increase movement rather than a single static bone (considering that this is going to be mostly focusing on the head). Once the facial rigging is done I'll create the body and simply parent the head to it (in order to make sure I've got the head ready to animate A.S.A.P.). I'm aiming for a more painted feel to the character looking at the GTA IV concept art, team fortress 2 and the latest Prince of Persia title (though the more you look at Elika the more you see the outline dosen't quite compliment the style as well)

Topology time

I'm working with the basic head in mudbox and photos of Imogen Heap to create a head model, from the topology of the head it looks like I will have to reorganise the polys in XSI before it is suitable for animation. Also there is not a clearly defined mouth or eyes, more a suggestion of the space they take up.

Starting to feel a bit of pressure now, with the workload, but as long as I keep busy it shouldn't matter.

...maybe realism isn't the best idea...

After having a look at image metrics (who are really bridging that gap between CG and reality) with my project tutor my project has taken a turn to using a slightly more stylized approach in a sense of not trying to emulate reality and land in uncanny valley (see Beowulf, visually pretty, but you might as well have zombies acting).

I think I will pick up the modelling of a 'realistic' head later on after my degree.

One thing that is apparent with image metrics is the stillness of the heads (for their approach to realistic facial animation, rather than their work on computer games) when they use video to create an animated head, so to avoid trying to emulate them I will be using the upper body of a character as well as moving the head around at a greater degree. The video I will be using for reference is 'It's good to be in love' by Frou Frou, I'll be directly referencing parts of it and filling in others to get about 30 seconds of animation in.