Prof Face Texture adjustments

Once i had the basic texture right, i decided to collapse the symmetry so i could make the textures unique on each side of the face. You can see in the image below how his forehead wrinkles are mirrored, and it doesn't look great.

 

Upon doing this, i decided to redo all of the textures to make them more subtle and fix any problems i saw. Once i had done this, i went through a bunch of settings in the renderer to try and fix them. Here are a few renders of the stages i went through whilst fine tuning:

And here is the stage i am now happy with.

Prof Face Texture

I have now done more texturing work on my professor, unwrapping and texturing his head.

I've used a SubSurface Scatter Skin material, and have painted and plugged some mats into several diffuse channels, a bump and a specular channel.

Although i'm not completely finished, i'm quite pleased with the results so far:

Eyebrow and ear tufts

Following on from my previous hair experiments today i tackled the prof's eyebrows and his side burns. Because these need to come out of an area of his skin i made this hair by using a modifier on his head model itself.

I was a little worried about how this would work in relation to his morph targets for facial expressions, but a little experimentation showed that it would be no problem (although the featured expressions are by no means final)

The last step for the prof is texturing his skin, something i am working on right now.

Hair experimentation

I've been experimenting with several different methods of hair for my characters. Ideally, i would like to use an actual hair tool for their hair, as this would yield the best results. It also has a massive impact on my render times, which had put me off using it. 

Initially i tried making the hair out of a poly, and was going to paint on the hair, which gave a sort of cartoony stylised look. I only painted the two side bits before i decided that i didn't really like the result. 

Instead, i have gone back to the hair tool, beginning with my professor, as his hair is the most complex. I drew splines along the surface of the hair mesh, then used this cage to create the hair on, giving me a lot of control over the hair's pathing. You can see the process in the image below:

 Using this tool adds a minute or two to my render time, but i think the results are well worth it.

Unfortunately, this only gives a sort of shell of hair - the hair originates at the start of the splines, and gives the illusion of a head of hair, it does not come out of his whole head. This means that in some places you can see his scalp through his hair, and is not great for his sideburns or eyebrows. As such, i am planning on using a different hair creation method to cover these gaps, so come back soon!

Texturing Process Breakdown

I've made some more progress on my texturing of my professor, so i thought i'd do a little breakdown of my process here.

First i start by unwrapping the model, by selecting a set of faces, and applying a basic unwrap mode to it (e.g. planar or cylindrical), or by using my QucikUnwrap script to get a basic unwrap. I then finesse the shape in the editor, using a checker texture as an aid. The unwrapped UVs are laid out to fit on the sheet.

 A texture is sourced, from my own clothes if possible. Using a photoshop filter and clone stamp the texture is made to tile. It is then duplicated to fill the chosen area of the sheet.

 At this point I apply the texture to the model, and look for any problem areas. In the case below the texture was warped where some UVs were not welded together properly, and was easily fixed.

 

 Once the texture looks roughly right on the model, I "paint" some seams on, by using the dodge and burn tools to give the impression of a edge.

 Then, by editing our brush settings, I create a brush that paints on some stitches, to give some detail to the seams. You can see the brush settings below:

This process is replicated over all the other relevent areas of the model.

Finally, once i'm satisfied with the texture, i flatten it, and desaturate it to turn it into a bump map. On review, i normally edit the levels, and paint some more contrast onto areas, such as the pocket below.

And there is one textured model. At present i am working on half of a model that i have applied symmetry to. Once i am ready to collapse the stack, i will do so, and fix any parts that need to be non-symmetrical, such as the flies on these trousers.

Unwrapping and texturing

At the same time as doing my block animatic, i have been unwrapping and texturing my models.

The process i use to unwrap involves breaking the model down into easy to unwrap pieces, since i have a script which helps me to get a quick, rough unwrap.

I then go in and, using a checkered texture, even out so all the faces are roughly the right size.

I then texture in Photoshop, making any adjustments to the UVs as needs be.

Here's the first shot of a textured model, the front of the professor's jacket. The textures are taken from my own jacket, which has exactly the right kind of look i wanted for the prof. You can see where the arms and collar have been detached as separate objects.

Blockout Animatic

Been working on my blockout animatic over the past few weeks. This has involved a lot of setup in my scene - rigging, lighting and skinning. However, since i need to texture before i start animating properly (a process in which i break my models into pieces to texture, then put back together at the end), the skinning i have put on my characters is just really quick default skinning, as i know i will have to repeat the process later.

In addition to this, the facial expressions i have made for the blockout are very basic, quick ones. It was not a specific requirement  that i make the facial expressions for this blockout, but since i think it helps the animation read better, i have done so.

This is the blockamatic:

Setting up master scene

From my work on previous projects i have done i have decided it would be a good idea to set up a sort of master scene early on. I used to rig characters in their own scene file. This caused a lot of problems with conflicting names when importing more than one rig into the same scene. In order to avoid this problem, i made sure to give a prefix of either PROF, PRIEST or GIRL to all of the models and controls so that they never get confused. In addition to this i have set up some nice scene layers for easier scene management, and chosen to skin the models in the master scene once i have made sure they are the right scale compared to one another.

First shots of my characters in my scene:

And here's one of my scene layers. I like using these prefixes because it helps avoid confusion and is better ordered.