Phase 2

Commencing Modelling:

Creating a Mesh:

Now that our reference planes (photographic images) are loaded into 3DS Max we can begin to commence our modelling.

In order to prepare for this step I configured the viewports within 3DS Max to show two perspectives rather than the usual four. This was done to allow more control over the images and to be able to to make the images as large as possible on the screen.

Instead of creating a shape to work from as a starting point. In this project we are going to begin to draw our topology from scratch into 3DS Max.

So, I began to draw in each of the quads that we had created in our original photoshop drawings.
we do this by selecting Shapes - Spline - Line.

In Line mode the vertices are drawn into my 3D environment simply by looking closely at the four corners of each quad, clicking on each corner point. Once you have a complete square you close the spline and this created my first polygon.

To achieve more efficiency throughout the drawing process in Line mode you can turn on SNAP mode so that it allows the spline target to snap to existing corners that have already been made which helps the accuracy greatly and will ensure we have a solid mesh once completed.

(It is important to R click on Snap Tools and always select vertex as I found i had a few problems getting this method to work correctly until I did so. Everytime you re-open 3DS max it defaults away from vertex, so it is important to remember to do this so that the snap tool works effectively.)

Spline Drawing process Test: (Just to check my polygons were being created)




Using this method is a very good way to attempt to get an accurately defined topology of the face.

This method was continued until I had a completely filled in left half of my face, ensuring all points and squares had been created and joined together.

Splines Drawn:



During this process I modified a few shapes in order to ensure that all of my lines were 4 sided shapes, but my initial topology drawings were quite good so I was able to stay reasonably close to them.

The nose and lips were left at this stage as they will be modified in more detail later.

I completely enjoyed this part of the process. I am quite traditional and the drawing of the lines was quite a good way for me to visualize how the shapes would form for the 3D medium.

Once entirely happy and sure that i had connected all the lines that I needed to, it was now time to convert my lines into one surface.

This was done by selecting one of my squares. Going to modify panel. R clicking on the shape and converting it into an editable poly. This creates one square. Then within Edit Geometry - there is an option to attach and select all of our lines. So this is done and all of my lines that I drew into 3DS max become on complete mesh surface.

If you select 'edged faces' in the viewport it will show us all of our topology lines we have created.




Next I wanted to weld all of my polygons together. A little time was spent ensuring all the shapes looked consistent and that I still had a good flow.

In the selection mode we select vertex which shows all of the individual points to appear in our mesh.

I then selected all of the vertices and within the edit panel selected WELD which attaches all of the points within the mesh together so that I had one solid shape to work from.



This now provides me with a platform to move on and begin structuring my face...