WIP- Female Head and Hair

[DragonFist]

I am working on an animated short. This is a head model for one of the characters. I have a lot more work to do but I am currently working on the hair. I want to get something that comes close to photoreal. I don't expect to achieve perfect photoreal as I am a one man show and doing a long animation. I can't afford 3 hour render times. But I want to come close and make artistic choices later once I have gotten something pretty close. I don't think I will be using Sas for a number of reasons, but even if I do, I need something that will "stand-in" for reflections and such. So I am attempting to do Polygon hair and thing I have done ok but am not satisfied with the results so far. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Thomas M.]

I guess the basic model ain't that bad. But first of all: The way you present your model isn't very great. The lighting is really bad to see details and gives you an unpleasant feeling. Never use frontal lighting for this kind of stuff. That gives me the creeps. Get rid of the skytracer background by adding a white background image in the compositing window and move your camera a bit down, so we are actually looking into her face. If you are going to do an animation, you should care even more for a still life.

For the model itself I can tell you that the skin looks pretty dead and the hair looks more like a feather boa woman wear around their neck (at least in the 1920s). The skin needs to be softer. Try to find the FakeSkin plug in (flay). That helps a lot. And close her mouth. She's your baby, so you should try to present her in a way that everybody starts to like HER, and not your work!

Hopefully I'm not too harsh, but in general I don't like this sissy talk going on in some of the forums as that doesn't help you in any way (except from giving you a nice ego, but that doesn't make your work better). If you want good opinions about your model, I'd propose to post only the head in different angles without hair. do this kind of special effect in the very end. as long as the base isn't right, don't go any further. Next step for you should be to paint a nice skin map and find the right settings for the surface. Well, that's it for now. Keep us informed about your progress.

Good luck.
Thomas

[DragonFist]

Thank you for the comments. I have no problem with constructive criticism. It it very much a work in progress and I have other scenes for my work on the skin (which I will likely post for help with that as well) It is a learning process.

Anyhow, yes, the hair sucks. I have tried three or four different ways of doing it and I end up with all sorts of cleaning items from mops to feather dusters. This is exactly what I wish to handle but have not figured it out on my own.

I am piqued by the lighting comment though. The lighting has only been set up sot that I can see the model and hair as I work on it. I have a two light set up based on a tutorial. I have no previous experience with video or photo lighting and any help with that would also help.

Thanks again. I have engaged on this out of passion, not knowledge or experience. But I am aware that there is much I don't know and wish to learn.

Sincerely,

Shawn

[Thomas M.]

Shawn, never trust tutorials! ;-) Before you go on your animation journey, learn the basics about lighting. 3 point lighting is by far the worst advice anybody can give you. If you can set lights, then there are times you'd like to use a three point lighting for beauty shots, but you need to know how. It's easy for me to tell you now because I do have a lot of experience (and as a photographer the right background) as far as lighting is concerned. My quick advice: Spot light y=25m Z=-25 X=0. Point it at your face, no other lights for now. That should look pretty o.k. Ambient=0. Although there will be pretty dark shadows this helps more than starting to work with a beauty lighting. Learn more about light. most stills and animations suck because people do know nothing about composition and lighting.

Anyway, good luck.
Thomas

[DragonFist]

Cool, thanks.

Now, about that hair;-)

[Thomas M.]

Sasquatch?

[DragonFist]

Sas has too many limitations for my needs (No reflections is a big one, I may be using FPrime which doesn't see it, etc.) There has got to be another way that looks good. I have tried polygon tubes and subpatches, but have not yet found something I am even close to happy with. I may have to go with Sas, but I would rather use polygons or some other geometry that I can deal with within Layout.

[parm]

It seems to me that for your purposes poly hair is the way to go. But to give it half a chance of success. Give the choice of hairstyle some more thought. Loose free styles do seem to end up looking like over used cleaning tools.

A more constrained style, like a bob for instance, or perhaps, a tied up style, (pony tail, or Bun), would work better. Maybe, even combine it with a few well placed sparse instances of sas to give the impression of loose fly away hairs.

Or, design some sort of head dress, that has a little bit of hair appearing from beneath it.

Parm

[DragonFist]

Thanks. That helps a bit. I was hoping to pull something of the above without Sas (it is based on a real person and I wanted to pull off her look) but what you say makes sense. Too bad there isn't a way to pull off the Sas look without Sas.