Maya Character Development #3: Hair, Body Fixes, Accessories

To model the hair, we're going to extrude from a copy of the scalp in object mode, I'm going to select the side of the body and hit command 1 to isolate it and then in face component mode selects the faces for the scalp. Her hair comes down to here, others might go lower or higher. Others might also have sideburns to break this part of the body off of the main form. We need to hit two buttons edit mesh' detach, which makes it separates, but still part of the same model. So we then hit separates and separate if we click away and then back on, it makes an actual separate object. We can now hit command D to duplicate and we should put that duplicates into another display layer, create a new layer, double click to change its name, we'll call this hair hit, save and hide. So now there is still one copy of the hair left select the body select, the scalp and the modeling toolkit hit combine right click for vertex and we can select around these vertices and use a tool called merge. Edit mesh' merge by default. The threshold for merge is point zero, one which is small enough. The only vertices that are practically on top of their neighbor are considered that close, and so, if we merge at that very very small distance, only those vertices get merged into a single point. Then we can re, select all of these edges and go to mesh display soften edge, so it looks like it was never broken off. Now we can hide the body once we re add it to the lair and bring back just the hair. If we go to the front view the eye and the teeth can be added to the body layer and this hair is going to be non symmetrical, the pivot is already in the center, so we can go to edit duplicate special option box where we previously set It to instance, and negative ones, scale duplicate special and we can select both of these to go to the modeling toolkits and combine select the vertices select down the center hit R and we can non-uniform scale them together to make sure they're really right. On top of each other and once again go to edit mesh merge, hit W double click, this edge mesh display soften, and now we have the full scalp before we bring back the body. Now is a good time to select the entire scalp and do one short extrude. Instead of moving these arrows, try increasing the thickness. If we go back to the front view we can see. This is a bit too far out, so we can reduce the thickness a little bit to perhaps point one five and then hit W two commits. We can then select this entire inside and delete it. Instead of trying to select all these points, we can select just these few and then hit shift period to increase our selection. You going to the object mode, edit duplicate special, remove the negative one scale, so it is not a mirror and then rotate on Y negative 90 degrees. We can see it from the side if we bring back the body and duplicate its as well. We can see how the hair and body look together. You. The next stage, is about vertices around, to try to imitate the form here to allow this to rise up a little bit I'll bring this down. I can see it went way too far out here in the back, so I can bring all these points in and I'm just working very roughly here in this view I'll be more careful and more precise back in the perspective view where this is to try to Get the rough overall form I'm going to select these edges to do a connect with only one segment, so I can bring this out and I'll select around all these edges to soften you Here I am shaping the back of the hair, so it flows the way. This character's hair flows, you we think of the hair, like sculpting mashed, potatoes, looking for the primary forms and trying to shape the mass for those forms, don't think of hair as individual strands. Think of it, like an interestingly shaped helmet, you and once we feel we have something like the rough form down. We can then look at the big clumps in our reference and extrude out those forms you and there we have a full hair form with the appearance of overlapping areas of hair that are just extruded and pulled geometry. This flatter area in the back is where the strap for the goggles will go and the goggles will cover this flatter area in the front. You I'd like to enhance this shoulder to get some of the detail in the reference you and I think, one more line at the bottom of the jackets, maybe two to really push the way it breaks before it hits the cuff here at the bottom, you for The final hand, we're going to want each of these joints to have at least three divisions so that the fingers can bend one way to do that is to select each of these existing joint lines and use the bevel tool to expand them into three. We go to the modeling toolkits, hit bevel and change the segments from one to two. We might increase the fraction to 0.7, so they're just a little bit more spread apart and then hit W to complete the bevel. Then we can again select this centerline and drag it up a little bits and then for each of these outer lines we can, in the top view, move them away from that central line. So there's a slight angle and in the bottom we can move them a little bit closer together, move it around and it looks pretty good and then we select these lines go to mesh display soften edge. You, okay, let's make the scarf we'll start like with the face with the create polygon tool under mesh tools, so that we can trace the basic shape using as few vertices as we can, so that we don't have too much to manipulate. If we want to change the proportions, the scarf will be a separate object in part because of the non symmetry, but also just to make it easy to animate separately. If we desire right click for vertex component mood, hit W and move the vertices into place, spacebar our way to the perspective view, and you can see that the normals are reversed, just as they were with the face, the Grays on the wrong side. So we can go to mesh display and reverse the normals. Now we want this form to curve around her neck, and so we can draw a lines that can then be used to bend the form as the scarf should be. You hitting F, makes our object. The center of the orbits, making it easier to work and hitting return after each multi cuts, finishes that cuts and makes the next one ready to go back here. In the front view, we can continue to define the form you and, of course, in the end, we want to have quads you now that the form has been drawn. We can go back to the channel box and the display menu and bring back the body pivot. For the scarf is down here, he'll be easier if it was centered in the object, so we go to modify center pivots drag it forward. If we once we can get rid of the history so far and while we're at its, we should also do that. For the nice big history on the body and if there's any left on the hair edit delete by type history now I don't want to move this scarf up or down or side to side, because it's in the right position in those dimensions. But I could move it forward and back selecting all of the vertices of this particular branch of the scarf and drag this forward and rotate its you. This scarf form is going to be extruded. It'S not going to be just 2d, although we could leave it to D. I like to have a bit more volume than my forms drag this back. You remember this is going to be extruded, so I don't actually need this side to be completely outside of the mesh, because the extrusion certainly will be selecting the front. Selecting the other side. Here'S a vertex. I forgot to deselect easy to put back you. I don't want to lift it too much because it was in position, but I could put it a little bit verticies back you now to complete the back of the scarf. We can select those edges, hit, extrude, pull them out a little bit and then hit W to pull them out of lots, drag them up and scale them together and then bridge them you. We can select this hole and go to mesh fill hole. Then, with these edges selected, we can hit connect, perhaps with three lines: pull it back a little bit. This can be moved forward and rotated and even pulled out a little bit. She more closely hug the contour of the neck you and we can take the one on the side. Pull it in. This is all move and rotate you now that we have the fitted form. We can select all of the faces and do an extrude Fitness here using the extrude tool, and we can give it us a little bit of offset perhaps point zero five. You I'm redefining the knots that the scarf gets tied into this round, shape here in the center, and then that will get another extrude. You so now to distinguish between these sides of the scarf the branches and the knots we're going to extrude the knot and the branches where they come off of the main body of the scarf extruding. This detail outward scale it in a little bit and then deselect. The branches and because the knot is meant to be on top not again, we want this transition to be smooth target. Well, these vertices back in and then in object mode. We can soften the edges and then harden the lines that are meant to show the distinct forms. Work should be done to smooth these edge loops and create cleaner curves, but that is essentially a way to create this new form. You we have a lot of history, edit delete by type history, save and file, save seen as the next number up. We can select our scarf and put it in a new layer, so it can be hidden. Now, let's make the goggles. Once again, we go to mesh tools for create polygons and with as few clicks as possible to find the form, so it can be extruded. You modify center pivot, select the vertices and rotate in object mode move it forward and bring back the body and the hair make sure that it's sitting on top of the hair can select half the vertices to rotate that way and the other half to rotate opposite. You and now we can start to cut these cross lines and then build the lenses going to the modeling toolkits. We can use multi cut to cut across the form you and we can backspace away any of the extra vertices you next we can start to cut in these lenses. You selecting the entire form. We can extrude you selecting just the lens's. We can extrude again with a very small offset, so we don't get a 90-degree angle, modify center pivot mesh display soften edge. You select the inside edges and hardened edge you. By stretching this form, we can make it appear as if the strap goes into her hair, and then we could build a strap here in the back of her hair in the object mode edit delete by type history on the selected mesh, and now we can do A new mesh tools create polygons seven clicks on the top seven clicks in the bottom, I'm just making sure I have an odd number, so I can have a line down. The middle Connect, connect, connect, connect, connect, drag these out, and this and this for a rough approximation in object mode. We can reverse it. Center-Pivot drag it over, hide the reference rotate, it 180 degrees on. Why drag it into place, adjust and extrude you and there we have the full Amelia Earhart model.