How do you guys make models?

[Jolly]

Okay the title is a bit misleading I do not want to know how to make models specifically but I wanna know how you guys make them so good looking, not in a sexual way just the detail. Looking at so many great modders work in the community and how they make it look so much like ( For example a luke model) Mark Hamil.

 

If you gave me a computer and told me to model, I would not be able to do anything that good, even a simple body, it would be uneven and look ugly. Do you use some kind of tool, how do you do it step by step, I am curious. 

 

Pardon this post for not being very clear, I do not now how to word half the things I mention it seems.

 

Cheers. 

[Circa]

Moved to modding discussion.

 

I'm no modeler, so I won't really pretend like I am. The tools used though, are ones like 3DS Max or Blender.

[Cerez]

I don't know, I marvel at this myself. I think it's a bit like drawing or painting. When you start, you have no idea what you're doing and your drawing/painting is really primitive. As you continue to try, you start to gain an understanding of the medium and start to see beyond the technical details to feeling the shaping of the work itself.

 

When you get to that advanced stage (after a lot of practice), it allows you to focus on details that consciously you'd never think of trying to create. At that point you're sculpting with your full creative potential and can create things you didn't think you were able to.

 

At least that's how I would roughly sum it up. That's what people mean when they say "living and breathing" something. You really need to dig deep into it.

 

In any case, the choices made are made on the fly and in the moment -- they are not really conscious choices. You need to feel it rather than trying to reason your choices, and just follow what your intuition's telling you.

 

Trust your intuition, and as your skills improve, so will your work.

[Omicron]

Moved to modding discussion.

 

I'm no modeler, so I won't really pretend like I am. The tools used though, are ones like 3DS Max or Blender.

And XSI Mod Tool.

 

Honestly, look it up on google, there are hundreds of great tutorials there for starting off and the step by step process. The people who you've seen here have been modelling for years; it is't something you can learn overnight, it all takes practice and starting off with really small simple things, and gradually over months (and years) building up to much more complex and hard models like people, realistic objects and all that.

[Boothand]

I mainly use 3DS Max.

You often use just big boxes for the main shapes, and try to determine how to make it anatomically healthy, as a foundation. The rest is usually a matter of adding loops, for example a loop around the width of the leg, torso or arm. This gives you vertices to pull in or out. So a big part of it is just learning where you need loops and where they can be spared.

 

Another thing to keep in mind is that characters are usually modeled symmetrically. So you really only make one leg, one arm, half of the face and so on, for the most part.

 

Just to give you an idea of a starting point:

 

 

 

 

Detail in faces is also usually a matter of making the basic blocks, and then looping around the mouth and eyes and over the nose etc, to give you more points to pull in and out.

With such starting points, it's not unusual to make high-poly sculpts (Mudbox or Zbrush for example), using very subdivided versions of the models. That can be used to extract texture detail directly from the small details in the sculpt, and it can help shaping it properly, so that when you remove the subdivisions again, you're left with a more accurate shape.

[Futuza]

Hi speed modelling:

 

Very detailed Blender tutorial:

 

Noob to Pro:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro#Table_of_Contents

[CrimsonStrife]

or you're like me and more or less extrude poly by poly, and sculpt in details later. But then again, I am a masochist.

[Futuza]

or you're like me and more or less extrude poly by poly, and sculpt in details later. But then again, I am a masochist.

As long as the end result is a pretty model, it doesn't really matter.  Unless of course, your method is slower.  

[minilogoguy18]

I do it similar to crimsonstrife, start with a single quad on the bridge of the nose and extrude out the model from there, the face takes the most time, after that the torso, the rest comes quickly after that.

[CrimsonStrife]

I do it similar to crimsonstrife, start with a single quad on the bridge of the nose and extrude out the model from there, the face takes the most time, after that the torso, the rest comes quickly after that.

 

Thats pretty much exactly what I do.

[Psyk0Sith]

Whatever technique you use, the most important skill you need is anatomy knowledge. Beginners should probably rely on image planes in the viewport to build their models (lack of anatomy knowledge or any art training), over time you don't need to rely on them as much, especially with the poweful sculpting software we have now. I'll setup image planes when i need accuracy or build a simple base mesh (to get proportions right) then it's off to zbrush and gets detailed in there.

[Archangel35757]

Here's an example of starting out modeling a head using image planes:

 

http://jkhub.org/topic/4260-jan-ors-head-hi-def/

 

As @@minilogoguy18 stated... I started out with a single quad polygon at the center-brow of the forehead and pulled edges (Shift key + mouse drag a selected edge) down the centerline of the nose on one side only-- since I'm using a symmetry modifier. For the eyes I start with a sphere.

[CaptainCrazy]

Making a high poly model first then using retopology is a great way to go because you retain the high details and bake them into a lower poly version.

[Milamber]

I tend to start from the foot, not quite sure why.

[Asgarath83]

I tend to start from the foot, not quite sure why.

Rotfl, i am not a modeller, but a rigger. when i rig a model... i start ever by feets

[AshuraDX]

I do it similar to crimsonstrife, start with a single quad on the bridge of the nose and extrude out the model from there, the face takes the most time, after that the torso, the rest comes quickly after that.

that's the way I usually start aswell

[eezstreet]

While this may not be a modeling technique per se, you can use AO baking for the models textures, which produces a nice effect. A large portion of producing a good looking model involves the texturing process, so you need to keep that in mind.