Character

To create my character I first created biped from the biped selection in the systems rollout, this was to give me the basic shape to model around, it also made sure it fits the biped perfectly for when i animate my character later. I then selected a box primitive and placed it around the bipeds torso.


I've moved the bipeds arms up to make it easier to work around and also changed the opacity of the material on my box, this was to make it easy to see the biped through the model. I changed the box into an editable poly so i can change the shape. I used vertex selection to move verticesto appropriate positions.



I then began to cut and extrude segments from the main box to created arms and legs, I then used vertex selection to move vertices to the right positions. I repeated this to create the hands of feet, then the more difficult and fiddly bits like the toes and fingers. I only did this for one side of my model, I deleted the main box polygons on one half of the body and applied the symmetry modifier to insure a symmetrical body(this also saved me a lot of time with those damn fingers).




I now have a basic shape for my character, without a head. I went to the modifiers tab and applied turbosmooth, this took my basic square model and smoothed it making it look more human (a weird looking human but a human none the less).



I left the head until last because i wanted to spend the most time with it, due to extra detail needed and such. i began by extruding several segments from the neck, this is so i have layers for the mouth, eyes etc... i then extruded more segments from the front and back of this head section, then the side's of the head section. this was to fill out the head.



I then moved vertices around to create the shaped of the head, I'm switching between turbosmooth and editable poly selections to see how the finished product is looking.




I deleted the section in the eye sockets and filled the gap with some sphere primitives, I then created a material using a jpeg of an eye and applied it to the spheres. I aligned the eyes with the holes and edited the area around the eyes to remove gaps.



With the basic model done I'll move on to creating the clothes, to do this I made a copy of my basic model, i removed turbosmooth and then turned the model into an editable poly, this allowed me to have a full object instead of having half an object with a symmetry modifier. i then deleted the hands, feet and head polygons to create a basic clothing shape.



I then deleted the polygons along the inside of the legs, then using target weld I connected the vertices to close the gap and create a gown looking object. I then edited the vertices to create the sleeves and widen the base of the gown, i also re-applied the turbosmooth modifier to create cloth like look. I also used the Shell modifier to give a thickness to create a more cloth like effect. I added some white and black textures the the gown to add some color ( not really colors i know)



I then placed the newly created clothing object over my character, I made some edits to the front of the gown to make it look more like a coat. I then applied a skin texture to the rest of model and a black texture to the legs to looks like trousers.




I look at the hair and fur modifier to add more detail to my character but due to render issues I decided to leave my character bald for the time being.


During the character creation process I made many saves at different stages, I had to go back to earlier stages amny times during my character, this allowed me to not have to start again when any little problems arose. I also followed the same principle as when i created my enviroment, every 10 saves I made copies over my 3 devices. This was because the character creation was more difficult and time consuming so more caution had to be taken when file placement.