PROJECT 2 (ANATOMY AND CHARACTER SCULPTURE)

Week 6 - Week 10 (8/1/2020 - 21/2/2020)
See Zi Yi (0340094)
Anatomy and Character Sculpture
Project 2

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INSTRUCTIONS

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PROGRESSION

In Project 2, we were tasked to continue developing and refining our character from Project 1. Since Project 1 is a continuous assessment, I continued refining my mesh from Project 1 which is my character's body. 

Week 12 (16/06/21)

Consultation 

Fig. 1.0 Week 12's Progression - Without Outfit

Fig. 1.1 Feedback is given by the lecturer

Feedback: Overall, the form is there, and improvement is evident. However, some minor adjustments should be made.

Front View: The front view is fine, but the upper arm should not be flipped outwards too much, hence pull it inner. There should be a bulge on the middle part of the feet. 

Back View: Adjustments should be made on the shoulder.

Fig. 1.2 Week 12's Progression - With Outfit

Fig. 1.3 Feedback is given by the lecturer

Feedback: 

Front View: The bottom of the waist should have a slight curvature downwards. The same goes for other angles. 

Side View: Skirt should have a slant when viewed from the side.

Fig. 1.4 Close up of the character's face 1.0

Feedback: 

Do not merge the eyeballs with the face as adjustments such as the closing of the eyelids would be difficult to be made later on. To solve this issue, mask the eyeballs, Ctrl + W to change the PolyGroup, click once, and split it under the Geometry tab, and delete hidden. Only the eyesocket without the eyeballs would be seen as the final outcome. Then, insert the sphere again as the new eyeballs. Use the DamianStandard brush to refine the face features of the character to make it more evident. 

Fig. 1.5 Close-up of the character's face 2.0

Feedback: No feedback was given on this. 

Fig. 1.6 The hole

Feedback: To solve this issue, add a sphere to fill the hole and simply Dynamesh it/ or just hit Ctrl + W and click Dynamesh. If the hole is still evident on the surface, use the Pinch tool to pinch the hole together. Smoothen it for a final round of refinement. 

Problem Solving Progression

For the eye's issue, I have solved it by first masking the eyeballs off, and used the Move tool to extrude it inwards. 

Fig. 1.7 Masking the eyeballs

The picture below shows the character's head with only the eye socket.

Fig. 1.8 Removing the eyeballs

Then, I filled the eye sockets with eyeballs. 

Fig. 1.9 Filling in new eyeballs

Pupils were added on by using the Inflate Balloon under the Deformation panel.

Fig. 1.10 Inflating part of the eyeballs to create pupils

For the hole issue spotted on the upper arm, below are the steps I went through to resolve it.

1. Fill in the holes with spheres.

2. Merge the spheres with the body mesh.

3. Duplicate the mesh and rename the duplicate to high_fullbody, and rename the original mesh to low_fullbody. 

4. Select the low_fullbody mesh and Dynamesh it to form into a seamless mesh.

5. Perform ZRemesher on the same mesh too.

6. Subdivide the new mesh a few times for better detail holding.

7. Project the high_fullbody onto the low_fullbody mesh for the details to be projected on it. 

8. Use the Pinch tool, the Clay Buildup Brush, and the Smooth tool to refine the hole.

Below is the hole. 

Fig. 1.11 The hole

This is how the upper arm looks like after step 1 to step 7 were executed. It is evident that the hole wasn't fully closed.

Fig. 1.12 Progression of solving the hole issue

This is how the upper arm looks like after step 8 was performed. The Pinch tool was used to close the hole thoroughly, and the Clay Buildup was used to fill the hole for the final refinement. The Smooth tool was used at last to smoothen this area. 

Fig. 1.13 Hole issue solved

22/06/2021

Progression

For the following week, I made progression on the skirt of my character. I tried exploring the tools on my own before looking upon tutorials. First, I tilted the skirt as advised by Mr. Kannan since it's supposed to tilt downwards.

Fig. 1.14 Tilting the skirt

Then, I explored with the transformation panel to adjust the foldings.

Fig. 1.15 Adjusting the foldings

But the results were unsatisfactory hence I looked for tutorials on how to sculpt a pleated skirt. I came across one Youtube Tutorial and I followed the steps. I first removed the horizontal axis of the mesh with ZModeler by holding the Alt key. 

Fig. 1.16 Removing the horizontal axis

Then, I masked parts of the skirt and extruded them out. 

Fig. 1.18 Extruding part of the skirt

Here's the first attempt at my pleated skirt.

Fig. 1.18 Outcome of skirt on the character

Consultation 

Below is my work shown for consultation after amendments:

Fig. 1.19 Week 13's Progression - Without Outfit

Feedback: No feedback was given.

Fig. 1.20 Week 13's Progression - With Outfit

Feedback: The skirt is way too thick. A different method should be used to sculpt the skirt by using planes and a swirl alpha. Play with a lot of textures and alphas.

Problem Solving Progression

First off, I started off by creating two planes, one on the top and one on the bottom. Then, I masked the patterns needed. 

Fig. 1.21 Masking the planes

Ctrl + W to assign a new Polygroup and click Shift F to show it. 

Fig. 1.22 Polygroup of the planes

Isolate the part in the middle by holding Ctrl + Shift and click on the unmasked area twice. Then go to Modify topology and select Delete Hidden.

Fig. 1.23 Retaining only the needed part of the planes

Use the CurveBridge Brush to connect the top and bottom together. 

Fig. 1.24 Connecting the top and bottom planes

This is how it looks like when it's completed. 

Fig. 1.25 The outcome of the first attempt

However, I realised it does not resemble my character's skirt well enough as my character's skirt has a more uniform pattern. Hence, I made another attempt on the skirt. I repeated the same steps to sculpt it.

Fig. 1.26 Masking the planes

Fig. 1.27 Polygroup of the planes

Fig. 1.28 Retaining only the needed part of the planes

Fig. 1.29 Connecting the top and bottom planes

I added thickness to my skirt with ZModeler too. 

Fig. 1.30 Adding thickness with the ZModeler's Extrude > All Polygroup

Here is the outcome of my second attempt.

Fig. 1.31 The initial outcome of the second attempt

I am satisfied with it hence I proceeded to Zremesh it to retopologise my mesh. 

Fig. 1.32 Mesh before being retopologised with ZRemesher

Below is the result of my retopologised skirt.

Fig. 1.33 Mesh after being retopologised with ZRemesher

I started to use the Clay Build-up and DamianStandard brush to clean up my mesh.

Fig. 1.34 Refining the skirt

To create details, I masked the bottom part of the skirt and extract it out. 

Fig. 1.35 Creating minor details for skirt

Consultation 

Below is my work shown for consultation after amendments:

Fig. 1.36 Week 14's Progression

Feedback:

Hair: Use the DamianStandard Brush to add more lines to it, so it doesn't look too soft.

Cape: Add patterns on it so it doesn't look too empty. Mask it > Inflate (Deformation)

Top: Folds at the lower arm area.

Skirt: Swirl it with the DamianStandard Brush.

Boots: Add a bit more to the back heel. 

Below are the rest of the progression made on colour study.

Fig. 1.37 Colour Study Progression 1

Fig. 1.37 Colour Study Progression 2 

Fig. 1.37 Colour Study Progression 3 

Fig. 1.37 Colour Study Progression 4 

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REFLECTION

Week 11: It's saddening when your work gets rejected given the fact that you have spent literally one whole day on it. And unfortunately, that happened this week. What happened was that I have used the wrong method to sculpt my character's hair. Clumps of hair should be created instead of using strands of hair. This shows the importance of using the correct method to make things work. As the amount of time spent is irrelevant to the standard of the output. However, I am glad to receive some feedback on improvising my character's hairstyle so changes would be made anyway. I would call it a beautiful mistake, perhaps?

Week 12: It is slowly nearing the end of the semester, and I am still left with quite an amount of work to be completed, such as the costume design, coloring, and lighting. Besides, several incidents happened throughout the process such as accidentally poking a hole into my character's body out of nowhere lol and merging the eyesocket of my character with its body... Now I have to spend extra time to resolve these issues... However, looking at the good side of it, I am glad that my character's body is almost there, and there are only left with minor parts to be tweaked. As for the costume design, I am still at the block out phase of it, hence I need to pace myself so I can complete my work on time. I think one challenging part of my costume is that it's pretty flowy in nature, and creating a natural-looking flowy texture is quite a challenge to me. I think there's where texture studies come in important, where the understanding of the fundamentals is essential to creating a believable texture to the eyes. 

Week 13: Next week would be the deadline for the assignment submission. I need to quicken my pace to catch up with the progression. 

Week 14: The lecturer has extended the deadline. So we can have more time to work on it. What a great relief to all of us. I feel more motivated to do better for this module. 

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Final Submission for Anatomy and Character Sculpture Project 2

Below is my final submission for the Anatomy and Character Sculpture Project 2 which comprises all the final outcomes of the attempts in a PDF format.