Week 5 Part 2 - A Reflection (no pun intended...)

 This is a post describing the trails and tribulations (and occasional moments of honest achievement!) throughout these hectic 5 weeks, also including those final screen-shots describing the mapping of materials for the skull and neck areas and a small environment adaptation before rendering...

(Just a quick update of how the front-view of the face looked mid-way this week)

I was pleased that I was able to get to this point before carrying onto the next section and not spot any pinching or discordance with the material-mapping itself

I had to adapt the 'Multi-Sub Object' modifier's default settings when using it on the skull and neck

As they were considered, by Max anyway, to be one single object, I needed to find a way in which the 'Multi-Sub' could distinguish its 'ID Tag' setup with the one given to the skull/neck object (this was classed under 'Polygon Properties' as 'Material' 'Set ID' 1)

And so, by way of going down into 'Polygon' level amongst the Modifier List, I could highlight the sections of the skull I wanted - up until where the next was extruded where I could use another material...

When the skull was highlighted, I specified that it be classed as 'Material ID' 2 and assigning this comparative to the settings on the 'Multi-Sub Object' modifier

When highlighting the material needed for the neck, this was classed as 'Material ID' 3 and again, this was distinguished within the parameters of the 'Multi-Sub Object' modifier

(The materials themselves were just small thumbnails grabbed from the original reference PNG that is used on the front-view of the face - a section of hair just above the fringe and a skin tone taken from the neck area!)

 

Once the 'Multi-Sub Object' was primed and ready to be dropped into the scene, all I needed to do was to advance back up the 'Modifier List' to remove the 'Polygon Selection' red-highlight and make sure the 'Material IDs' were correct

Once the material was applied to the 'Skull_Object' as a whole, the requeset areas went to the correct materials - the benefit of the 'Multi-Sub Object' modifier without needing to 'UVW Unwrap' for just two simple, continously-tiled textures

 The final application of a 'UVW Map' meant that both material would need to comply to the settings but this wasn't as much of a problem as I first thought (the hair itself when under the mapping of 'Box' actually creates a semi-realistic feeling of natural flow of a hairstyle, I feel)

The Conclusion

The whole process over the past 5 weeks had been a very rapid learning process. Of course, Max itself has a fairly steep learning curve (what 3D modelling program doesn't!), but it rewards users who devote time and attention at every step a enhanced end result

Of course, from the very beginning, my original reference photographs were not as 'straight' as they could have been - the front-view certainly- and the resulting topology was rushed (even though, by my own addmission, I felt it would suffice according to possiblities of modifications later on!)

The next step of extruding the face itself didn't confuse me as much as it should have, but I certainly became aware of my inaccuracy of the scaling of the reference images when trying to gauge how far out the material would be extruded and discovering the gridlines for the nose meant I couldn't rely on either 'plate' too much without measurements going awol quickly...

It was this first stage which was to cause me to run into many concurrent difficulties, many of which have been expressed to a fair degree over the half-dozen or so posts over the weeks - it is such a dissapointment that due to the problems, the model itself isn't as I hoped it would have been (I intended to animate it and get it to speak subtle praises about its designer!)

The one aspect I'm glad worked out much as expected (what with the scenario I was experiencing where I had limited resources to work with) was the facial details I captured with the material - the UVW Unwrap tool was invaluable and, although it perhaps wasn't used to its fullest extent, the tool still meant that I could retain that extra nuance of personality into the model (especially with the inclusion of details that I spent a good deal of time on: the eyeball textures and faux-set of teeth visible behind the mouth itself!)

Given more time, it would have been entirely plausible for me to create an entire UVW Unwrap of the complete skull and features from reference images that I would spend more time on getting as accurately-scaled and well-defined as possible and, ultimately, creating a 3D model that would have been such an accurate and life-like representation of myself, that it would be a real worthwhile achievement in a timescale of just over a month!

Oh yes, here is the final rendered image - the background colour tint relates to improving definition aroudn the edges and my personal colour preference that is evident in the initial reference images...