model hyperrealistic hand 03

7/31/2019 Model HyperRealistic Hand 03

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Autodesk MayaVideo Podcast Notes

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AutodeskMayaVideo Podcast Notes

2AUTODESK MAYA VIDEO PODCAST NOTES

Hand Modeling and Sculpting Using Maya and Mudbox: Part 3Podcast and Notes by Jeff Unay

Were now fnished with the primary and secondary orms o the hand. Up to this point, weve avoided adding any heavy

detailing. The model does, however, have wrinkles in the knuckles, a variety o ault lines and orms in the palm and tendons

running along the top part o the hand. These are all things well be putting in to the models edgeloops when we go back in to

Maya to retopologize the hand. We want these all to deorm realistically when the model is rigged and animated.

!Now, well import a more detailed hand. When you compare this version o the hand with the previous, youll notice it contain

more skin detailing, with smaller sized wrinkles. And with that, theres more defnition in some o the secondary orms, tighter

wrinkle lines and more line breakup. Its still not fnished. In order to fnish the skin detailing, to give us the most control over

it, well need to separate this detail by put it on its own layer.

!Both o these versions are Level 4s o the lowest res mesh we frst began with but saved o as their own separate .obj fles.

This doesnt mean weve now lost all levels because we still will be utilizing that low res mesh.


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Lets import the low res now. This is where we will begin adding in the extra fnal detail to the hand.

With the low res, subdivide it up 4 levels. Once this is done, all three meshes now have matching polygon counts. They also

share the same vertex ids since theyre all just variations o the same exact mesh.

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Well frst import the version with no fne details as a layer. Do this by selecting your mesh then going to File > Import as

Layer. Have Vertex ID clicked on. Unclick the checkbox Delta to Base Layer then hit Ok. Youll notice a new layer has been

created. You can click the Eye icon to the very let o the slider to toggle the layer on and o. You can also adjust the slider to

the right to adjust the percentage o how much o the layer is seen. Experiment with this as you wish. You can even go beyond

the typical 0-100 range. You can add in a negative number or a number beyond 100. Here I test to see what 200 percent looks

like.

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Here you can see that 200 percent o that layer is too much.

This will give us a good test case or trying out an assortment o layer brushes in Mudox.

The frst brush well go over is the Mask brush, which works when adjusting the visibility o a layer.

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The red color is the painted masked areas. This color is visible i you have Show Mask clicked on in the above right hand corner

o the screen. I you click it o, you will see the result o the masking, just not the red color.

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In this pic, masking is applied to the active layer while the Show Mask option is clicked o.

As you can see, working with layers when sculpting can be an extremely useul workow. You now have the ability to ade

areas in and out as you like. Now lets say you have painted a number o areas on your mesh that youve masked, but would like

to reset the mask to zero. To do this, click on the Mask Brush, and in its brush options, set the Strength to 100.00.

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Then click on Invert Function, then hit Flood.

Lets look at the Freeze Brush. This brush work with the active layer. You can paint an area on you mesh that you would like to

not be aected by any brush strokes you do on that layer. You can use this in a number o ways, as a good way o preservingyour work or can even be used as a modeling tool.

I you would like to reset the entire Freeze mask youve painted on that layer, apply the same resetting technique as we did or

Mask in the previous steps.

The Erase Brush is yet another brush that works with the active layer. This one will completely erase an area that you brush

over rom the active layer.

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!Its important to understand that all brushes weve reviewed so ar work in a non-destructive way. But this brush is destructive,

removing any inormation rom that layer.

In addition to layer brushes, you have additional options in the layers tab. I you click the area on the dropdown menu, youll

see more options. One option I requently use it to Flatten all layers in to one.


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The next step to fnishing the detailing o the skin o the hand is to import the most detailed version as a layer. This will give

us the ability to independently adjust the detailing rom the rest o the sculpt. This will give us 3 working layers. The frst layer

is the base model, primary orms. The second layer contains the mid-level model, the secondary orms. And the third layer

contains the highest detailed model, the tertiary orms. And by basically breaking up the model in to these layers, we now have

ultimate exibility to then go on and add all o the fnishing touches.

!Have a play with adjusting the transparency o the second and third layers. You can create a wide variety o hands just by

putting these two in to layers. Here, I have the tertiary layer at 200 and have masked out areas o it in various values. This

workow Im showing is what makes Mudbox one o my most avorite 3d packages! Now I can adjust just the details or I can

keep the details but adjust the primary and secondary orms. Pretty neat! Its just something that you cant do in clay. In the

image below, you can see the secondary orms hidden while the primary and tertiary levels viewable.

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Now lets add another layer to sculpt our veins on. We'll name the layer "veins". Lets add veins to the top part o the hand,

to each upper and middle phalanges. When designing these veins, I'm reerencing a ew veiny hand photos and averaging

amongst them. There's just an infnite variety o vein patters on the hand, but I'm just trying to achieve something that eels

natural, not necessarily matching perectly to one photo.

!In this image below, I've isolated the veins layer and the base layer.

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And by refning the veins by viewing it this way, it can really ocus in on making the veins look natural, working on their

transitions and smoothing them out where needed so they don't look too lumpy.

Now that we have worked on the veins, lets add in that last bit o skin detail, the hair pores and all other imperections. We'll

create a new layer properly named "noise". To add this level o detail in, we'll use Stamps.

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Ill use a stamp to create the hair pores. Stamps are alphas applied to the tip o your brush and every time you move your

brush, the stamp samples along the mesh. Its very useul when detailing your models.

!So here is all layers together, noise (@125%), veins, tertiary detail, secondary orms and primary orms. But wait, whats a

hand without fngerprints? Only once we added those can the hand model be considered done. To add fngerprints, well use

Stencils.

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First, well mask out the tertiary layers details to the tips o the fngers. This will give us a clean canvas to paint on, or rather,

project on. Fingerprints are pretty high-requency details so to get the best results, well need to subdivide the mesh up one

more level, to level 5. By using the Faces Brush, select the fnger tips and subdivide.

Under the Stencil Tab, you can import a stencil. Ive imported a black and white image o a fngerprint I ound online.

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Its a pretty low resolution image, but it should work fne considering how subtle a detail it is. The stencil image can be

translated, rotated, scaled, ipped and inverted to ft as needed. Well use all o the above to get a variety o dierent

fngerprint results while using the same image.

Heres the fnal hand model ully equipped with actual fngerprints.

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Now lets return to Maya. Here we will begin to redesign the topology to better match our sculpted, high resolution mesh. The

frst step o the process is to import the high level 4 hand and the lowest res level 0 hand. I will then make the high res version

live (makeLive) and begin to draw NURBS curves along all o the deep wrinkles. These wrinkles are what we will reer to as key

lines o the hand. These curves will only serve as guide curves or which I will trace on to the low res. Ive started on one o

the knuckles o the index fnger.

!Ive now moved on to tracing the key lines o the palm. The idea is to not trace every single wrinkle in the design - that would

be unnecessary - but rather the ones that we will use just or deormation purposes. This will, in the end, be a pretty complex

model in regards to the way it deorms. This is all I really care about. I you have a beautiully sculpted model with perect

4-sided polygon aces and has completely uniorm spacing o aces, etc. BUT it doesnt deorm correctly, whats the point, right?

These drawn in lines will allow us to cascade the wrinkling when the hand creates a fst or bends a fnger, etc. The straight-orward/popular approach is to have a patch-like layout o the hand and then just use displacement maps to show the detailed

wrinkling on the hand. This may work or some cases, but i you need those wrinkles to go in and out, cascade, bunch up, etc.

realistically, you will hit a wall. And in the end, you may just have to revisit the topology.

Here are some o the key lines o the palm that I will put in to the mesh.

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Work-in-progress image o the topology. You can see there will be a bit o cleanup. Trust me, itll be worth it in the end.

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!The above image shows the key lines row o aces colored yellow. I've colored them yellow just or visualization purposes

during the cleaning up stage. I I don't do this, I run the risk o accidentally removing some o these key edgeloops.


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And here is a urther pass at the topology o the palm and also a subdivided version. I will use a subdivided version o the hand

as my fnal model. This will then give me the resolution that I'll need to create hand/palm/fnger blendShapes. The last step to

completing the model will be to take the subdivided version and shrinkWrap it to the highest res version. This will give me back

any orm changes that I may have lost while creating the topologyit's inevitable that that will happen so this is a critical step in

the process.

We've come to an end o Podcast 3. Now we'll move on the part 4 where I will fnish the topology, snap the new hand topology

to the high res and then begin creating shapes! Thanks or ollowing along and I'll see you in part 4!

!

model hyperrealistic hand 03

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