Light Penatrates the skin

So, this update is subtle but is going to help me with other stuff. I was working with some different lighting schemes for different angles and more dramatic type lighting, but the way the skin was absorbing the light I didn't really like it.



If you look under the nose of Ed here you'll see that the shadow is a lot more darker now, which is actually correct since I don't have any lights hitting that spot so it should be pretty dark. His eye area and surface detail are also now getting blown out as much. I also added some other maps to the shader to control the light and bring up the detail some. This is my first skin shader that is not a blinn with 3 maps for a video game so I'm learning as I go :).

Adding Insignias

Added texture to the uniform, his shoulders I'm not quite getting the feel of the fabric yet. My maya file corrupted and I lost some work :(, but I had a back up so... I just had to redo some stuff.

I can't find a clear enough image of the insignias on his collar there, it has some design in it, so if anyone is in to that kind of stuff (I promise I won't call you a fan boy) and could point me in the direction for some good reference please give me a shout (there is a wiki for all the patches and stuff, but it didn't cover his collar). And the buttons were lost in the crash, I'll have to remake those.

Lighting it up

Uniform model has been added, but not textured yet! So please no freak outs on the colors and the shader of his uniform (I haven't even laid out the UVs yet). Also it's a little snug around the neck so Going to shape that out a tad bit, shoulders are also curving off too much but that's an easy fix.

So working on lighting the face, 4 lights right now and render times are up to 15 minutes a frame, I took one of the lenses out of his glasses (back lense) but think I may throw that back in, I liked the reflection of the light reflectors in it. And I think I may throw in another light reflector in front of him to give his eyes more life.

Anyone have any thoughts on the specularity of his face? To specy?

For the fan boys

Alrighty made one quick adjustment for the Adama fan boys before I could get called out on it :). What was the change? Only a fan boy would know :P.

Looks like I have to watch the lighting, the wrong angle totally kills his pock marks.

And I put on the glasses...

Due to popular demand, the glasses are on, begging the question, "Is the uniform to follow?". I enlarged his pupils after looking at photos he has less white space in the eyes as I had. Brought in the sides of the head a tad to fill up the hairline. Oh and added crappy eyebrows, ya... I'm gonna have to redo those, Maya fur just isn't working for me at this point. He could most likely benefit from a eccentricty map and a specular reflection map as well.

But he's getting close to finish, oh and i should fix up his lighting it's flat right now, had it this way to help me work on hair.


Okay, so did another quick render didn't work out so I combined it with the on up top to fake some sort of eye highlight, and brought the saturation down. Looks like the light is penetrating to far into his skin along the shoulder so I'll have to dial back the light, or change up the subsurface scattering map.

Shave and Hair Cut....

Yup, hair sure is tedious, takes awhile to render too, tho my settings are a little high. So have the hair plugs in (most of ehm), and now I just have to shape the hair line add body to where it's needed etc. It needs a lot more work.

His chest texture is going to remained smudged until I can find a good head/neck texture somewhere, if you have one please MSN me :). I think I need to revisit his forhead wrinkles they look to thick to me. That will be in the polish stage. I would like to have the hair done tomorrow with the eyebrows under way.

State of Ed

Adjusted the skin tone and lighting, adjusted some modeling, fixed a problem with the spec map pointing to the wrong spot.

Rip into it

Okay, holidays are officially over and the plague that I contracted in Edmonton seams to be abating and I can breath now, tho I'm still holding my breath for some reason (This is all literal btw bad cold, couldn't breath through my nose at all).



I still have a list of stuff I want to fix, but I think it's hammer at the head time, so rip into it, MSN your feedback.

The eyebrows are going to be done with maya fur, so that is the last thing I'm going to work on, right now they're just place holders, until I get the geo locked down. Same with the skin poor details, they'll be added when the modeling is hammered down, right now just some surface noise.

Lets add some texture to this

So, the ears aren't totally done (i need to find some side shots of him...). I started adding some texture to the model. I added surface noise to give his skin some overall texture for the render, but its not really on there, his limps are looking lumpy because of it.

Eureka! I found it!

I hate passwords there are far too many passwords in this world. It's like hey, your trying out our crappy insignificant website and/or piece of software and now we require you to enter a password for it... Any who my password protected virus checker/spyware thingy decided to delete my cookies and next thing you know I can post blogs because I have zillions of passwords that I use from email to crossing the street....


So adding the fine details still, working on the forehead vertical wrinkles. The model is looking kind of lumpy in some places and I still haven't worked on the ears :).

More detail, more head shaping

Little more detail on the cheek, and rounded out the back of his head better and brought it in. Moved the ears to the right spot, and sized them, but they're still not shaped yet :).

New View

Still haven't touched the ears, they just move around a lot and get smoothed by accident so I like to do ehm at the end. I reshaped the temple area quite a bit, and curved out the head. I'm starting to put in some fine detail, I haven't worked on the acne scars yet, just starting on the forehead wrinkles still really soft and doughy.

Time to get serious

Okay, all the resumes/workshops/mixers/job fairs are done, and it's time to start focusing on the portfolio.


So an Orthographic view provides a very flat camera viewing angle, Perspective View I think simulates a 35mm camera lens and matches the type of lens used in the picture I provided below. I changed a lot of the head structure, starting to add details around the eyes and cheeks, adjusted the area around the mouth but it's not done yet.

Workshops don't help the reel but help the resume

Was gone all day today, but started on him tonight, changed the right cheek.

Okay, got an hour in.

Cleaned the head up, getting rid of the lumpies, even tho they do sort of age the head, I think it looks sloppy. Adjusted some facials features, started to define the cheeks, which will require a lot more work as I have to get all the planes on the interior of the face pointing in the right direction.

Well bed time, apparently there is a 6:45 am in the morning now, who would have thought someone would go invent something like that?

Is it just me or does it look like the side profile of the head is getting uncomfortably close? Personal bubble violation!

Plugging along in my own little world

Still just building up the fat, getting finer in detail as I'm going along. I'm still using a mirrored brush which of course gives the model too much symmetry, this can really be seen in is forehead area right now. I will start adding some asymmetry soon.

Some issues that need to be worked on are in the temple region, the eyebrows, eyelids, the back of the jaw, the brow line, the nose, the side profile from the eyebrows to the bottom of the chin (need to find a good side profile reference image)... Well lots of work actually, I think my total time up to this point is about 5 - 6 hours.



I guess some people would actually like to see what I'm aiming for, so here's a reference picture.

10 Seconds to Ultra Violet protection

Well a little more then 10 seconds :).

Lets see here I started to build up his facial features, gave him a nose, started forming the ears, played a little with the lips, and roughed in the eye shapes. I'm not planning to do anything in particular with this head, just use it for a still, if I was going to animate it I would have modeled him with his eyes closed.

Uh Negative, I am a Meat Popsicle

Facial Muscles have been added, next is to give him a nose and add some fat build ups.

Edward James Skullmos

Alrighty, my first project is going to be a head of Edward James Olmos. Besides being in Blade Runner (one of my top 5 movies of all time, with a top 5 scenes of all time), he has a face that just smacks of character and is quite a challenge.

Below is the start of his head, a rough sculpt of his skull. Next I will start adding the muscle groups in the face. Why model it this way? 2 reasons;

1. Its fun, and it's like a study of anatomy.
2. I know that the underlying structure is in the face, the muscles and bones are there, which I feel adds to the overall model.

An Talented modeler I worked with at EA got me into this technique, I don't do it for every head but I will for this one. I know he has ears (part of the base mesh I made), and a neck and what not, or much detail on the back of the head (He's gonna have hair). But this is how I start :p.





And if I blow expect to see all these posts deleted haha