I'm trying to create realistically proportioned base meshes of humans. CG cookie has a game characters course, which doesn't quite do it because the characters aren't realistic. The sculpting course doesn't quite do it because a base mesh has good topology and animates, and using tons and tons of sculpting before a stable base mesh also makes it harder for myself to find a reliable method without having a perfect memory.
I've bought 2-3 courses from Blendermarket and none of them really teach me the fundamentals I need to do something on my own from scratch, so where can I look?
https://cgcookie.com/courses/modeling-realistic-characters-with-blender something like this?
I think it's about expectations. It's not about watching a course and after watching it knowing how to do it. No course you watch will have you all set and done for creating realistic characters. It's about years and years and years of grinding and practicing, making mistakes and learning from them. Watching the courses and getting the knowledge in is just the first step, you then have to love it and start making realistic characters all the time.
Ugh! Just show me a friggen base mesh! A dozen videos and no one shows how to accurately model a base mesh! I'm not looking for a tube person, I'm looking for a human, and I'm looking to understand how to create it from scratch with human proportions and proper topology for joints and fingers for animation.
So there's this video https://cgcookie.com/lessons/separating-pieces
which isn't a bad idea, using the skin modifier. But, where are the ribs? Where is the proper joint topology for animation? What's the right way to attach an arm to a chest? How many vertices in each loop? There's no edge flow topology in this.
In the CORE: Mesh Modeling Fundamentals Course Files, there is a human_basemesh.blend file, with a male basemesh. You can examine that one.
There is also an old, 11 part Course on CGCookie Classics, starting with: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8qbY70F8po&list=PL3GeP3YLZn5hCYXZp2yACPZWn-wQik6fD&index=149
that goes through the whole process of creating a female (basemesh).
It think the question has been answered multiple times,
Great courses have been shared, good advice has been shared, the only thing missing is the practice and only you can provide that.
My advice when creating a basic human base mesh is to stick to all quads wherever possible, if you need them only use them away from joints. Back of the hand, forearm for example. For joints use a minimum of 3 edges loops, for an elbow joint for example, one edge loop around the centre of the joint and one either side. Much like adding holding edges on a hard surface model. Same goes for all other joints.
The number of vertices is not precise, the number you need depends on the level of detail you want to add, the size of the human you are creating and what you feel is enough for the models purpose.
You can start a human, or any character however you like, you can use reference images and use vertex modeling, basically adding vertices outlining the reference and building up from there. You can use default objects to block out your character first and use retopology techniques to gradually refine the shape. A good and fairly easy technique is to use the skin modifier, the skin modifier plus a subdiv modifier allows you to add one vertex at each joint and another in between where you want to add more shaping of muscle areas such as biceps and calf muscles. Applying the skin modifier and the subdiv modifier gives a pretty good base mesh to refine where needed, joints for example.
There are many techniques, often several techniques can be combined. That's where practice comes in, to find the right technique for you.
As already mentioned, no single video or course is going to give you the result you desire, again with practice, the result you desire will come from you.
I'm not sure what you're looking for, but if you just want a base mesh then I'd recommend downloading human base mesh from blender.org:
https://www.blender.org/download/demo-files/
It contains realistic and stylized. Also they do add to it sometimes. So keep an eye on the version number. You will need to be on blender 4.2 or newer to use it without problems.
The video Martin linked to doesn't answer it. In the video, they explicitly said they're using a pre-made base mesh, then immediately they're going to jump into sculpting. I'm trying to do the opposite of that, I want to **later** jump into sculping, if I find it necessary, then early on, create an accurate base mesh from scratch with reasonable proportions.
I'm still not finding what I'm looking for, which is to learn how to construct an animation ready mesh from a sculpt. The portrait video only does the head/neck. The creature video by Kent too doesn't do a human. The character modeling video doesn't do an actual full retopologizing tutorial.
There simply is no video on CG-Cookie that defines the proper topology for a full body person that I've found, even though I've put a few hours into working on and studying retopoloogizing from here.
Hi Sid,
You might not be able to find a very Course, that teaches you a very specific thing. But: "...the fundamentals I need to do something on my own from scratch"
Being able to re-topologize a creature and looking at existing basemeshes of humans, should get you there already. A few hours of studying re-topology, might not be enough.
If you are good enough at modeling, you can model a bicycle, even if there is no "bicycle modeling" Tutorial available.
And that Course on YT I linked to, does the whole body, not as a re-topology, but that was not what you were asking originally.
Exactly as Martin says. You don't have to wait to be exactly showed click by click, step by step what to do. With the knowledge gained you can set off to do the things you want to do. They teach you the broad so you can do any specific. It's just that you have to spend time learning first.