I'm James Taylor, back with another Maya character modeling tutorial. This time we're doing a bodybuilder, and I'm starting with my reference
in Maya, and I'll start the creation process with a cylinder that's going to be the torso.
I'll create 8 subdivisions around the axis, and 4 or 5 subdivisions on the height.
Then I'll adjust entire rows at a time, using my Move and Scale tools, so that I match up my cylinder to the reference in my front
and my side views. I rotated the rows, and that's just to mimic the flow of the spine. And the placement of the top and bottom rows are
particularly important, the bottom is the waist, and the top is going to be the clavicle and neck area.
With the top area, I'll grab all those faces and extrude it out, and then extrude it out again, but I'll make it much narrower,
this is going to be the neck shape. And with that, the torso shape is done for now.
I need to think ahead to connecting the arm, so I'm using my Insert Edge Loop tool to add an edge ring to the upper torso,
and then or turn my attention to creating the arm. The arm is another cylinder, and I have 6 subdivisions on both its Axis and Height.
Then I can edit it row by row, to match my reference. I start in the side view, and I need to tilt my forearm. So I can hold down the 'd' key to
move the Pivot temporarily, and rotate the forearm into the correct place. This makes things a lot easier.
Now I can go in and just move all of my verts row by row
to match up to my reference. I do the side view first, and then I turn to the front view.
And because I rotated the entire cylinder, its going to make using my Scale tool much easier
than trying to move each row individually. OK, next is the leg, also a cylinder, and I will also
rotate and scale this one into place. It has 6 Height subdivisions, but it has 8 axis subdivisions.
So, a little bit different than the arm. Like the arm, I can scale and move entire rows individually,
and again, because I rotated the entire object, my Scale tool will scale along the object's normals, and not the world's.
I use my Insert Edge Loop tool to add another row to the upper calf and to the ankle area,
and I'll move that top row down. It doesn't sit on the waist, and I tilt it just a little bit.
And if you look closely, you'll see that tilt the leg in quite a few different places using my Rotate tool,
and the reason that I don't use perfectly level rows is because it mimics the organic shape of the body better.
Now that all my shapes are blocked out, I can focus on attaching everything. I'll get rid of all the caps, on the bottom of the body, of the top of the
arm, on the top of the leg. Then I select all my pieces and just Combine them together.
Next I use Duplicate Special, with Instance and a -1 X axis scale,
that creates a mirror image of my object, and I'll switch to my Legacy Default Viewport Renderer, just to get rid of that black normals issue.
Now I can focus on combining the body parts together. Now, this top row on my arm
I'll get rid of that, because that's not how we are connecting the arm and torso.
If I look at my final product, we see that there's a row under the pectorals that runs down the side of the arm, and then we see that the next
row up on the chest goes all the way around the arm, all the way to the back, the one above it runs around in a ring the same way.
So I want the arm to be a continuation of the upper torso. First, I move that will ring in the upper torso down.
and then I extrude the top two faces from the upper torso out, and snap those to the arm's outermost verts.
This going to become the new shoulder, so I move it around and repositioning it. And now we need to connect things under arm, so we
remember that the pectoral flows into the side of the arm, and if I try and make that connection happen by default now using the Bridge tool,
I see that there's a mismatch, in the number of subdivisions.
I select the edge row that runs down the side of the body, and I Bevel it to split it into two.
Those extra subdivisions will help when it comes to connecting things up. So I'll use my Bridge tool to connect the back row on the arm,
on to that back subdivision that I just created. And I'll use Bridge to connect under the body to the side of the arm.
I can also use these extra rows to help define the anatomy a little bit better. I take some volume out of the front, and add some into the back.
This matches the way the Lats actually sit on the body. The Lats are towards the back of the body, not the front. Ok - let's finish up connecting here.
I'll use the Insert Edge tool to add another row, right in that big open area there,
and I merge those verts, to the verts on the front and the back of the arm. Then I'll use my Multi-Cut tool to connect across the chest, and now
we're trying to define the pec area better. To fix the hole, I just use the Fill Hole tool, and delete that triangle edge that's left over.
Then I'll use my Multi Cut again to cut across that next row. So, basically adding a whole other row in there. And now everything is attached, so I
have to go through and polish the anatomy and make things look better, and also flesh out a few gaps.
I'll use my Insert Edge Loop tool to add an edge ring across the chest and across the back,
and then I connect those to the corresponding points on the arm. I'll be left with two triangles
in those arm areas, that I need to resolve. Looking at the finished product, we see that there are
two rows of quads running up the arm, into the upper torso area.
So I specifically need to create this group of quads here on the model.
I'll connect these points on the outside of the shoulder using my Multi Cut tool, and delete these two edges,
just to move some quads around. Now I'll use my Multi Cut again to create another V in the opposite direction, and I'll cut across the center of that V.
I'll delete a few edges, and now I get a bunch of nice quads - I get that shape that I saw on the finished model.
Now that I've got the topology figured, out I can focus on the anatomy.
I adjust verts in the upper chest and shoulder area,
I'm looking to capture more of the anatomy so I'm looking my reference while I do this,
but I can only get so close with my low res mesh. I know that the sculpting will capture a lot more of this details, so I won't go too crazy.
I use my Insert Edge Loop tool to cut some rows into the front and back. And on the back, I use this new row to define the shoulder blade area,
and the spine region. With the spine, we have to remember that the spine is recessed
into the back - it's the next row over that we pull out to create volume for the shoulder blade.
With the chest and torso, I'm going to adjust a bunch of verts in this region
to create more shape for the abdomen and the pectoral area. You'll see that as I move my verts around,
I have to make space for those verts, so that things don't get to crowded. In general,
good topology is spread out evenly. So when we're making changes to our anatomy, we must remember that.
And now I'm making of the changes to the neck. A note about the neck - the base of the neck is lower in the front than it is in the back.
OK lets view our model smoothed. So press the 3 key to turn Proxy Smooth on. That will dramatically change the volume of my mesh.
I see that after I smooth, I have to go back in and adjust everything to fit my reference again. Anytime we smooth, we lose a lot of volume on
our mesh, so we go through and double check it. This will become very important when we start sculpting. Next up is the leg connection.
Just like on the arm we have a pair of rows that go all the way around the waist
and into the leg. The differences in this case, I've added two extra faces for the genitals on the front, and on the back we see that we get this
corner that turns upwards. Because the way we created our cylinders
we should have a pretty good match between the body and the leg. So I'll adjust the bottom row on the body,
and bring that down to about the area where the leg is. Then I need to worry about matching things up, so I bridge from the back of the body
to the front, and I create three subdivision on that new face, using Connect Faces or Insert Edge Loop or whatever.
Now there are three rows at the bottom of the body, and we see that that corresponds very neatly
to the inside of our leg. We see the we also have some verts that are very close together on the side of the leg. I'll use my Merge Vertex Tool
and just merge verts to start connecting these together. And then I cut another row up above, into the torso, using my
Multi Cut tool. So we're defining those two separate rows that we saw on the completed
version of the model. Now I will Add a Division to this edge here and then merge it down, and then close that off
with Fill Hole. Then I can connect those two edges in the center, and pull that out, and we start to see a little bit in the anatomy in this
area taking shape. So I'll tweak the points under the body,
making adjustments based on my front view reference, and overall I'm just tweaking to try to match the anatomy. Now I'll turn back to the back
of the body, and look and making that connection here. I'll merges those two verts on the outside
together and that's similar to what I did to the corresponding verts on the front.
Now I'll just add a division to this face here, and that leaves me with a five sided face
but when I pull it down and out, we see that corner start to emerge.
I'll just Bridge to fill these areas, and we can see that corner,
now we have to get rid of the five sided face. I'll make a few adjustments here, and then I will connect diagonally on that bottom corner there.
Then I will connect across the bottom row on the butt, I'll make a few more changes to fit the anatomy a little bit better in this region,
and then I will Collapse that edge right there,
and delete that bottom corner edge. And suddenly, we see that were left with all quads, and we have that right angle we were looking for
And now that the body is complete, I'll spend a little bit of time polishing the anatomy.
I'll add subdivisions in areas like the hip, where I need more definition.
And I'll adjust adjust positions globally,
trying capture a little bit more of the anatomy. And while we're doing this,we need to have a good handle on anatomy. We should be looking in the
anatomy books - I would recommend Sarah Simblet's Anatomy for the Artist - we should be looking
looking at photo reference of bodybuilders or whatever on the Internet,
until we have a REALLY good handle on anatomy, we always want to be looking at reference of it,
so we can make the most accurate characters possible.
All right! Let's make a hand now. I start with a cube, and I have 4 subdivisions (in this case it's along the depth)
I want those 4 subdivisions to line up with my knuckles.
And I have 2 subdivisions along the height, and then I'm going to adjust the hand to match it to my photo reference, the same way that I did it at the
beginning, with the rest the body parts. One thing you'll see me doing here, is I'm making
the knuckles uneven they don't sit in a straight line, in any direction.
Then I just grab those faces and Extrude them. We'll see that in my extrude options in the channel box, I can extrude faces
separately, so I will select that option, and that'll pop the fingers apart separately.
I'll make changes to keep them relatively square, and similarly, I'll flatten them out
in this direction, and then I want them to taper slightly
I'll adjust their lengths so that they're just about proportionally correct. I'm not focused on anatomy yet, but more focused on just getting the
topology correct. (That said I realize we are watching watch video here that is all changes to the anatomy) Back to topology!
I'll use my Insert Edge Loop to cut in the knuckles for the fingers, and I can taper the tips even more at this point.
Now I'm shaping the fingers.
I don't want to add enough subdivisions so that I can animate yet. I'll save that for later. These 2 faces here are the base of the thumb.
I'll cut those out, and now grab the faces of the index finger, and I will Duplicate Faces there.
The thumb is almost as long as the index finger; it's longer than we think it is. So I'll reshape the index
finger into the thumb, and then I will Snap the pivot point of the thumb to this corner of the thumb.
Which I will then Snap to this corner of the opening that I just created. I'll reposition the thumb to a little bit more natural pose,
and then I will start connecting things up, using my Bridge tool. Now first, I do have to Combine these,
so I will grab both objects and use my Mesh > Combine.
Then I will Bridge these two outer edges together.
next is the inside corner, I'll Merge those two verts I snapped. Then I Bridge the remaining two faces on the front. Now I can turn around
to the back of the hand. and I will Bridge the top two edges - so, from the top edge of the hand to the top edge of the thumb.
That only leaves me with two more edges. So I Bridge or Fill Hole, and now the thumb is connected and I can worry about anatomy.
I'll adjust my points to try and create a more smooth transition from the hand on to the thumb.
And now that the topology for the hand is done, I can worry about connecting it up to the wrist. So that means that I will delete the
cap on the hand, and Combine the body and the hand together. Then I'll reposition the hand so that it matches the arm,
and so that they're scaled to fit my reference a bit better.
Now I run into this problem, where I don't have the same number of verts on the hand, as I do on the wrist. But there's an easy solution for this.
I just merge those top three verts on the hand, and I do that on the front AND the back, and now I've got
the same number on both sides of the wrist, and I can just merge my verts.
Now that everything is connected up seamlessly,
I can focus more on matching the hand to my reference.
I'll model the fingers in the most relaxed pose, which means they'll be slightly bent. And I'll use my Soft Select tool to do this (hit 'b' to turn it on
and to turn it off). Now, there's multiple schools of thought here - some people want to keep the
fingers rigid and straight because it'll make it easier to setup.
I'm more concerned with getting correct looking anatomy and a nice looking character, so I'm going to tweak it to match my reference instead.
And with the hand out of the way, that just means the foot is left to do. So I create a cube for the foot,
and subdivide 3 times along its length, and I'll add a single subdivision down the center line.
Now when we're modeling the foot to match our reference, on the side view reference, typically the back foot is going to be a better reference of
what the foot actually looks, like just due to the perspective of a camera lens and stuff like that.
In modeling the foot, we want to remember that the foot is very narrow at the ankle, it gets much wider at the toe, and its slopes down very
steeply from the top of the ankle to the toes. So the foot is not at all flat,
but that's a really common mistake that a lot of people make. The foot also rounds out underneath, so I'm scaling those faces down to
create that roundness, and I push these faces up to create the arch on the insole. Then I want to start thinking about toes. I know they come out of
these front faces here. I Connect up and down to create some slots, and I bevel so that I have 5 of them, now, unlike the fingers
I'm not going to Extrude separately here. I'll just grab alternating faces and then Extrude
them out one by one, it's just another way of accomplishing the same thing.
I adjust the position of the toes only in the smooth view, so I can get a better idea of what's going on.
And generally with that toes, they curve inwards, towards the big toe, and this reflects the fact that most people wear shoes. And I'll remember
that the second toe is usually about as long, or a little bit longer, than the big toe. I add a single set of subdivisions down the middle,
and subdivisions on the toes aren't as important for animation, so I'm not real worried about getting my topology set up for that.
I'm mostly focused on capturing actual anatomy in this area.
Now the last thing we have to do - we just gotta Combine these. So I delete the faces at the bottom of the leg, and move the foot into position.
Now I need to look at the verts between the foot and ankle, and try match things up. I have to cut in an extra set of verts on the sides of the foot,
and then when I have a matching number of subdivisions, then I can just merge together the body and the foot.
I make the back of the ankle very narrow, I make the front of the ankle relatively narrow,
and these 2 ankle bones are going to stick out from the sides. And when positioning these, I'm going to remember that the inside ankle bone is
higher than the outside ankle bone. And I'll just tweak the shape of the foot to get that bony shape in the back.
And at that point, the foot is connected!
I can make a few other a adjustments here, and then the last thing that I do is, I'll just rotate the foot outwards,
to better reflect the standard kind of posture that we usually have our feet standing in.
You'll see that when I do this, I also rotate the ankle and the row of verts above that slightly,
Here I am easing the transition between areas, so that my topology stays relatively straight and well parameterized And this is our result!
We have a body that looks a lot like our photo reference; that's well topologized, so it's going to work well for animation, and for sculpting.
But we still have a big area that we haven't touched, which is the head. And the head is an extremely complex area, because of all the
interacting muscle systems we have there. And we have to build our model to match those muscles, at the
same time that we're trying capture a likeness. This is no easy feat!
So my next video is going to go over the process of not only creating good topology for a head, but also nailing a likeness. That's this is the single
most difficult challenge for a character artist, but you must be able to do it if you want to work professionally.
My next video is going to show you what you need to know!
Until then, thanks for watching, I'm James Taylor.