Week 12 - Nanosuit Design (Final Report)

Week 12 - Nanosuit Design (Final Report)

Considering the nature of my choice of research task, the final task had been modified from las weeks goal, which was to create a smaller version of the creature. It had instead been changed to the creation of an armored sci-fi character, in which the armor would be influenced by the musculature anatomy of the human body.

The reasoning behind the change is that the smaller creature would not involve as much anatomy practice as a human character, and by creating a human character I would be combining Final Project with Independant Study, which meant that I could have more time to polish one project rather than work on multiple projects of lesser quality.

Throughout the past twelve weeks I have been continually building up my skill in anatomy and character design to this final point in which I have designed a full high quality character. 
The pipeline for the character is as follows

• Sculpted in ZBrush,
• Retopologizing in 3ds max
• UV Mapped in ZBrush and Photoshop
• Textured in ZBrush, exported to dDo, touched up with Photoshop,
• Normal Maps exported with ZBrush
• Rendered in Maya 2014

The final results can be seen below:

Click on Images for Larger Size

As promised, I have also completed the rendering of last week's creature design.

---Click and Drag the above turntable---

Throughout the Independent Study Project, I have learned numerous valuable skills that have helped me in the field of character design. Due to the nature of these skills, I will be listing them in a per-project format as each project was tailored learning specific knowledge and therefore specific skills were learned during each project.

Sculpting the Human Anatomy (Male & Female Ecorche Models)

The main area of skill that was increased during this project was the ability to understand the human form. By using Scott Spencer's Digital Sculpting the Human Anatomy book as reference, I was able to go through the form and purpose of each individual muscle group and learn it from the ground up.

By learning the shape of each muscle, it has also helped me improve in the rigging and animating areas of 3d art. Topology should heavily rely on the musculature anatomy of the character, so bettering my knowledge in anatomy has helped me improve the skill of retopology for animation purposes. This has especially helped me around the shoulder area, as the character I created last trimester had topology issues around this area.

Furthermore, I learned correct human proportions, Fat storage locations, genetic predispositions and the differences between male and female anatomy.

Sculpting Lion Anatomy

This project was a much smaller task, so I focused on  primarily on speed sculpting, and learning the basics of quadrupedal creature anatomy. Rather than sculpting both Lion and Horse, I decided to stick with just the lion due to the great similarities between each anatomy.

Creature Design


The creature design was a great way to combine all the anatomy knowledge and sculpting skill that I gained during the previous projects. I learned some great creature design methods from Rodrigo Vega (http://iririv.deviantart.com/art/Tutorial-on-creature-design-110577241) and exercised them by combining certain animals to create a new one. In this case it was that of a shark, hermit crab, and a fish.

Character Design

The final character was a result of countless hours of sculpting, texturing and retopologizing. During the process of the character design, I have learned many things about texturing. I learned about specific brushes in ZBrush that were tailored to painting between mechanical parts. I learned how to properly automate texturing in dDo. I learned how to apply materials in Maya, and specific methods of hard surface sculpting in ZBrush.

 The project took exactly 50 hours of work, and I still plan on improving it for final project. 
I am very happy with the amount of sculpting and texturing skill I have developed. You can see the amount of progress when I compare the last character I developed (for ANI203)

The above character was mostly designed in 3d Studio Max. I sculpted the entirety of my final character in ZBrush this time, and I have found it is a huge time saver. Despite spending about the same amount of time on both my previous characters, the final character is far more improved.

In conclusion, I believe that this trimester's independent study unit was extremely valuable to my career; more so than most units I have completed at Qantm. I am very happy with the amount of anatomy knowledge I have learned, and I look forward to applying it to future characters I design in the industry.

Week 11 - Creature Design

Week 11 - Creature Design

I was originally going to be sculpting the anatomy of a horse this week, but I have instead decided to sculpt a creature as I believe I have already learned enough about quadrupedal anatomy from the lion sculpt I did last week. Furthermore, the anatomy of a horse is quite similar to a lion so I would not be learning nearly as much as I would if I sculpted a creature.

The creature i have sculpted this week is a six legged crab-like alien.
I have decided to use Rodrigo Vega's method of combining certain animal attributes to form a creature that might actually exist in a certain environment (http://iririv.deviantart.com/art/Tutorial-on-creature-design-110577241)

In this case, I have used the idea of combining a fish-type animal with a crab-type animal.
During the planning phase of the creature design, I chose to gather two folders of references; one full of real -life animal references and one full of concept art. I then created a simple base concept to work off, and progressed the design during the sculpting process.
The results can be seen below:

Concept Art

Animal References

Concept

(note, the Red circle is where the third leg will be placed. It has been removed for visual purposes)

ZBrush Sculpt

As this week's independent study project merged with Final Project, I have left the final half of the creature's retopology up to my project partner, Ashley Seric.

I will be posting the final, low poly render in next weeks submission.

The general idea for final project is that there will be a few large creatures (the one I just completed) among a swarm of smaller creatures, so my goal for next week is to design at least one small creature.

Week 10 - Lion Anatomy Part 2

Week 10

Lion Anatomy - Part 2

This weeks task was to complete the other half of the lion's anatomy. The results can be seen below:

As there was no research task for this week (other than gathering references), I have decided to specifically focus on gathering and learning about strange insects and a few other creatures for creature design purposes.
I believe this is important as insects are a great way to get ideas for fictional creatures. Things we don't see with the human eye can appear very alien, so they are great references for fictional aliens.

Megalara Garuda
Known as the 'King of Wasps'

I really like the look of this insect as its eyes have a smooth glass-like film over them, making it look a lot like a jet pilot's helmet.

Silkmoth

I love the design of this moth as the fur on it and the colour of it resembles that of a bird.

Hyalophora Cecropia

This is North America's largest native moth.

It looks pretty neat, but what's even more interesting is it's caterpillar form which can be seen below:

And here is it's Pupa.

I think the pupa is a great reference image for when designing alien insect larvae.

Japanese Spider Crab

The japanese spider crab can reach up to 3.5 meters from claw to claw. This animal would make some great references for sci-fi mech walkers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSf5a3TY-O8

Bee Fly (Anastoechus Nitidulus)

These little guys are completely harmless. They feed on flower nectar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVkPmrWxXsQ

Gasteracantha Cancriformis

Commonly referred to as the 'Spiny Orb Weaver', Females are 5–9 millimetres long and Males are approx 3 millimetres long. Due to the nature of it's spiney back, there are a few physical variations of this animal, which can be seen below:

Archaeognatha

This looks like a great reference for insect/alien faces. I can see a resemblance to the 'prawns' from District 9 (2009).

Chondrocladia lyra

This animal is not an insect, but it is definitely worth looking at. It is a meat eating sponge. It lives 3.5 kilometers below the sea. Once the animals barbed hooks catch on to any animal stupid enough to come near it, it envelops its prey and slowly digests it.

Week 9 - Lion Anatomy Part 1

Week 9

Lion Anatomy - Part 1

Learning the anatomy of animals is just as important as learning the anatomy of humans, as 

correct anatomy is essential in generating believability in organic models

Increasing my knowledge in animal musculature anatomy and biomechanics will improve the quality of future creature designs. Learning the way muscles control limbs in existing animals can allow one to apply anatomical principles to fictional creatures, enhancing their quality and believability.

My personal goal is to be a character/ creature artist, so it is crucial that I continue to improve my skill in this field and one of the best ways to do this is to learn anatomy from reference.

I have chosen to learn the anatomy of a lion and a horse, as these animals provide good examples of quadrupedal biomechanics.

This weeks task was to sculpt the front half of a Lion ecorche model.
The results can be seen below:

Some of the references I have collected for this weeks task can be also seen below:

http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/Science/data/images/MmBib/VetAnatImg/xlarge/0042x.jpg

http://img0.etsystatic.com/000/0/6220374/il_fullxfull.220607920.jpg

In regards to designing fictional creatures, I have learned a great deal from an online tutorial created by Rodrigo Vega. 

The tutorial can be found here:

http://iririv.deviantart.com/art/Tutorial-on-creature-design-110577241

As a brief summary of the tutorial, combining anatomy of existing creatures is a great way to create believable, fictional creatures.

Rodrigo's primary example is that of a Lion-Rhinoceros hybrid. One method is to draw an outline of two creatures, and then find a halfway point between each outline.

Rodrigo also provides some good information in regards to distorting a creatures proportions.

"When animals get larger usually their heads won't grow much, so their heads look proportionally small. In larger animals, the feet are also quite small, and the hips and elbows proportionally large, giving the legs the shape of an inversed triangle instead of stick-like as in small animals."

Another method of design is to take a few keyword elements like "Large horned herbivore" and then think of how that creature would evolve to suit its alien environment. The less elements that are added to the description, the less obvious the interpretation will be.

Rodrigo's main point throughout the tutorial is that the more creature anatomies you learn, the better you will become at designing fictitious creatures.

Week 8 - Female Body (Skin)

Week 8 - Female Body

This week's prac exercise involved sculpting over the female ecorche body so that it has skin. This took a lot longer than expected, as I discovered that there a re a lot of subtle features that need to be in place to look appropriate and femenine. Comparitive to the male model, the anatomy was much more difficult to sculpt without the model appearing masculine. Nevertheless, this extra time was useful as the model will be used to help aid my final project. The results can be seen below:

Research

As I have already completed the research I planned to do for the female anatomy study last week, this week I decided to focus on what makes females attractive or unattractive.
I believe this is especially important for video games and animated films, as a lot of characters must be made attractive for marketing purposes.

Below are my findings:

FEMALE

Ideal Face
The ideal face of a woman has high cheek bones, big eyes and a thin jaw.
Naturally, hormones change the appearance of the face throughout the years. The majority of men seem to select features that are characteristic of a woman who is 24 years old. It is hypothesized that this is related to the percieved age of optimal fertility.

However, Professor Victor Johnstone's research at the University of New Mexico found that men preferred two distinct traits which can be found in younger girls;
- A shorter distance between the eyes and chin - normally found in 12 year old girls.
- Fatter lips similar to that of a 14 year old girl.


(http://www.viewzone.com/faces.html)


Body Proportions
Most men seem to prefer large breasts, wide hips and small waist. The first two of these traits are linked to reproduction, and the third is linked to health.

Genetic bone structure is ultimately the cause of hip wideness, but estrogen also plays a big role as it encourages fat to be deposited around the hips, glutes, thighs and breasts.
If more fat is stored in these locations, there will naturally be less fat around the waist.
An overweight person will have more fat around the waist which makes men percieve them to be less healthy and therefore less attractive.


Dr Devendra Singh from the University of Texas have found that the optimal waist hip ratio:
0.67 to 0.80

A larger waist was viewed by males as meaning the woman was more faithful and kind and a woman with a smaller waist was judged as being more aggressive and ambitious.

Dr Michael Cunningham of Elmhurst College found that if a male is judging a female in an interview for a job, a woman with expressive eyebrows and dialated pupils has the edge and is likely to be considered more competent. However, expressive eyebrows and dialated pupils are not judged as attractive if the same man was looking for a mate.

Pyschology professor Nancy Etcoff also found that women appear more competant when wearing makeup.

 

(http://www.neatorama.com/2011/10/14/makeup-makes-women-look-more-competent/)

Professor Michael Cunningham also found that attractive women with mature features, such as small eyes and a large nose, received more respect from men.

Family Affects Preference
Psychologist David Perrett found that young men and women prefer faces that most resemble their mothers and fathers. 
Family members often share similar judgements when interpreting a person's personality based on their appearance.
This does not relate directly with beauty or attractiveness, but it demonstrates that some aspects of evaluating facial characteristics may be learned.

http://psychcentral.com/news/2007/12/19/friends-family-find-similar-faces-attractive/1684.html

Attractiveness Facts

• Attractive people earn more salary and get more promotions than average looking people.

• One main feature that is indicative of healthy genetics is the symmetry of the face.

• Recognition of beauty fosters better mate selection and healthier breeding.

• Beautiful people usually associate with other beautiful people.

• Beautiful people prefer date people who are a little more attractive than themselves.

• Beautiful people and less beautiful people judge beauty in the same way, although less beautiful people often consider other factors as equally important.

• People consider facial characteristics similar to their parents to be more attractive.

• Members of a family or relations judge facial characteristics as implying personality traits in the same way.
•  

• Studies find couples often resemble eachother in facial characteristics.

• Attractive people are viewed as honest and helpful while unattractive people are viewed as rude and unfair.

• Women find a man more attractive in experiments when other women are pictured smiling at him.

• Females find extremely masculine faces more attractive during their fertile periods.

• Studies find less attractive men are more faithful and loving than handsome men.

• Women looking for a mate like small eyes, a big nose and a large jaw.

• Males in experiments prefer facial ratios similar to a woman of 24.8 years old.

• The ideal figure of a woman is a waist to hip ratio of 0.67 to 0.80

(http://www.viewzone.com/faces.html)

Week 7 - Female Ecorche Body

Week 7 - Female Ecorche Body

This week's task was to gather reference material on the musculature anatomy and proportions of the female human body, and to find out what the differences are in relation the the male body. 

This week's prac exercise also involved sculpting the male ecorche body into a female ecorche body. I have completed my goals for this week and the results can be seen below:



Differences between the Male and Female Body


Bone Structure

In regards to the differences between male and female genders, the most noticeable difference is the way in which our bodies are designed; Men are designed to do physical labour whilst women are designed to give birth and nurture.

This can be seen in the bone structure. A females hips are usually the same breadth, if not wider than the shoulders, whereas a man's hips are usually smaller than his shoulders. 
This is because the female pelvis is designed to give birth, and the male pelvis is not. 
See image below:

Hughes, T. (2013). Female Pelvis [Online image]. Retrieved August 14, 2013 from: http://tarynhughes.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/the-mysterious-female-pelvis-in-yoga.html

Due to the enlarged pelvis, the hips are wider, and the thighs are larger in proportion to the rest of the body.

Musculature Structure

Women have lower levels of testosterone and higher levels of estrogen, which equates to a number of physical outcomes; the most notable being smaller muscle mass in relation to men. Smaller muscle mass equates to a number of distinctive traits.

1.) The neck is thinner.
2.) The trapezius is less prominent (more of a horizontal angle)
3.) The pectoralis is much smaller.
4.) The waist is thinner.
5.) The lats are much thinner.
6.) Muscles on the face have less mass, thus giving softer features.
7.) The arms are much thinner
8.) The shoulders have less mass, thus giving a sharper appearance (whereas male shoulders are more rounded)
9.) The sternomastoid and collarbones are more visible.


Fat Storage

The common areas of fat storage in females are around the thighs, and in the breasts. 
After a certain weight (or should I say, overweight), fat tends to be stored around the stomach as well. As stated previously, these fat storage locations are caused by the hormone estrogen.

Women also tend to have a higher body fat percentage than men. This can be attributed to the fact that they have breasts made of adipose tissue (fat), and also that they have more fat producing hormones than men. (Testosterone is known to reduce fat, and women have less testosterone)
See image below for example:

Frank, E. (2013). Body Fat Picture Descriptions of Women [Online image]. Retrieved August 14, 2013 from:

http://www.vitalitypower4u.com/ericfrank/nutrition-and-dieting/body-fat-percentage-pictures-of-men-women/

Week 6 - Completed Male Human Body

Week 6 - Completed Male Human Body

This week's task was to turn the ecorche body I have sculpted into a standard male body with skin. Not only have I completed this, but I have also caught up on last week's work, which was to sculpt an ecorche head, and sculpt the skin of the head. The tasks can be seen in the videos and images below:

Human Head Ecorche:

The use of Scott Spencer's Digital Sculpting the Human Anatomy book also helped me tremendously, as it allowed me to use another ZBrush ecorche model as reference. The model was great, but the assistance of other reference images by the 1700's painter, Nicolas Henri Jacob was also needed to accurately portray the musculature structure of the face.
Jacob's paintings can be found here:
http://doyoubelieveinvagic.tumblr.com/post/47138609937/almondseed-traite-complet-de-lanatomie-de

Human Body Ecorche and Skin models:

Bodily Shape:

When designing characters for games or movies, the body of the character is just as important as the face. The most obvious influence on the way the male body appears is the bodily composition of muscle and fat tissue. The way fat is stored and the size of certain muscles can convey very different archetypes.

Fat Deposits:

Men typically store fat in the abdominal area above the waist, unlike women who store it below the waist around the thighs. The reason why fat storage is different in men is due to the hormones Testosterone and Estrogen. Men with lower testosterone and higher estrogen typically store more fat in the chest region. A common way to describe this bodily composition is 'man boobs' - the scientific term being gynecomastia.
Gynecomastia is not only caused by obesity, in fact there are many men who are afflicted by this disorder who have low bodyfat levels. Gynecomastia can also be an unwanted side effect of Anabolic Steroids, as steroids commonly unbalance the natural testosterone and estrogen levels.

Muscle Size:

The amount of muscle a man has on his body is subconsciously taken into account when viewing a male. Generally, the more muscular and lean a man is, the more 'manly' and 'attractive' he appears. However, when a man is considered 'too muscular' by the majority of viewers (for example, Ronnie Coleman), there is generally no attractiveness associated with the person. They might even be seen as 'gross' by a lot of people. 

When designing characters, the amount of muscle a man has is very important when trying to create his demeanor. A 'nerd' archetype would not have huge biceps; he would either be thin and frail, or obese. These two body types would be chosen as it would suggest that the person spends his life sitting in front of a screen doing little or no exercise. The obese nerd archetype might suggest that the character eats junk food, etc..

Likewise, in order to portray a warrior character, one would not choose a skinny bodily composition. A bodily composition with abundant muscle would be chosen - with either very little body fat, or a decent amount of bodyfat. Being muscular and fat at the same time might subconsciously convey the idea that the warrior is strong like a bear, etc...


References

Scott Spencer, (2010), “ZBrush: Digital Sculpting Human Anatomy”. Indianapolis, Wiley Publishing Inc.

Week 5 - Male Human Head

 Week 5 - Male Human Head

Unfortunately, as of yet I have been unable to get ZBrush working.
Every tool I load seems to be permanently shaded in a very dark grey, and I am unable to sculpt anything due to this.
I have tried reinstalling, cleaning the registry, etc, etc to no avail.
Once I finally get it working, I will catch up on the weekly work and continue as usual.

Nevertheless, here are a few example heads I have sculpted previously:

As I was unable to complete the prac session of this week, I have spent some more time on researching the way faces are constructed.

-------Facial Structure-------

The structure of the human face is highly important when designing characters (especially cartoon characters) as it subconsciously connotes certain traits about a person.

The most prominent example of this is the how the sharper facial features are, and the larger the jaw is, the more manly or 'tough' a man will appear to be.

The image below is a good example of how these traits can be used in a stereotypical way in character design.

Raymundo, N. (2012). Mr Incredible [Online image]. Retrieved July 2, 2013 from http://www.1upuniverse.com/other-cartoons/disney-and-pixars-the-incredibles-review/

A more subtle example of this effect can be shown in the following image:

Lonewolfe (2011). Handsome Male Face [Online image]. Retrieved July 2, 2013 from http://www.politics.ie/forum/education-science/197606-scientists-confirm-we-really-tiny-part-neanderthal-3.html

The centre image is the original face. 

I have edited the left and right to convey less/more masculine facial features

The face on the right has a more triangular shaped jaw, with sharper edges and a flatter chin. The eyebrows are slightly thicker and the cheekbones proturde higher and sharper. The neck is also thicker, conveying more muscle mass.

The face on the left has a smaller, rounder jaw, thinner eyebrows, smoother cheeks and a thinner neck. These are generally considered femenine qualities. Whether we consciously know it or not, we percieve men with these qualities to be physically inferior than men with more masuline features, regardless of how "masculine" they actually are.

The reason some people have more or less masuline features can be for a number of reasons:

Genetic predisposition:
There is no doubt that genetic predispositions play the biggest role in governing the shape of our faces. However, the following reasons below act upon these genetic predispositions to also give the face it's shape.

Testosterone in the Womb:
According to Livescience (Welsh, J, 2012), a research team has found that the higher the levels of testosterone are in the womb, the more masculine certain body features will be.

"The researchers found that low digit ratio (higher testosterone) corresponded to this "robust" masculine face with a more prominent jawline and smaller eyes, even before puberty hits. For comparison, boys with higher digit ratios (less testosterone) have smaller chins and larger foreheads and eyes, what the researchers refer to as a "more childlike/female appearance."

Prepubescent boys with low digit ratio have smaller and shorter foreheads, thicker eyebrows, wider and shorter noses, and larger lower faces — all features of a characteristically masculine face"

Welsh, J. (2012). Manly Fingers Make for Strong Jawline in Boys. Retrieved July 2, 2013 from http://www.livescience.com/18484-finger-length-masculine-faces.html

Bodyfat levels:
The higher level of bodyfat a person has, the rounder their jawline and cheeks will appear. People with low bodyfat levels have sharper jawlines and cheekbones.

See images below for examples:

       Image 1                               Image 2                              Image 3   

 Image 1: http://www.menshairstyletrends.com/designer-stubble/

 Image 2: http://menshair.about.com/od/haircaretips/ig/Male-Face-Shapes/Oval---Barry-Watson.htm

 Image 3: http://www.r6-forum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=163261

Wear and Tear: 

Despite our the incredible healing abilities of humans, our faces still get old. The amount of times a person has smiled or frowned in their lifetime will have a great impact on the shape of their wrinkles. Skin can also age quicker when a person is exposed more to the sun. Facial Scars can also connote a 'warrior-like' personality of a character.

 All of these traits can be incorporated in character design, especially when you know the type personality of the character you are designing. For example, the following character below is a veteran spec ops soldier.

Jukes, K. (2010). Master Chief Redesign [Online image]. Retrieved July 2, 2013 from http://vi.sualize.us/master_chief_redesign_kolby_jukes_design_3d_model_zbrush_game_picture_5SfR.html

You know that his job has taken its toll on his body and mind simply by the scars, wrinkles and expression on his face. The shape of his facial features are also very sharp and masculine.

-------The Perfect Facial Shape-------

 In regards to the most aesthetic male face, I personally believe there is no perfect face beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and perfection cannot be achieved in this imperfect universe. However, one of the closest have come to unraveling what makes a face beatiful is the  Marquardt Beauty Mask. 

Marquardt, S. (2012). Human Beauty and the Golden Ratio. Retrieved July 2, 2013 from
http://www.goldennumber.net/beauty/

This mask intends to outline the perfect geometrical features of the face based on the Golden Ratio. The Golden Ration (1:1.618) is found in Renaissance art, Ancient Greek Architecture, Trees, Shells, Pinecones, and virtually every aspect of nature. It is believed to symbolise mathematical perfection and harmony, so naturally, humans being part of nature, it would make sense that the human head also abides by the golden ratio.

This would usually seem a bit far fetched, however, there are a surprising amount of celebrities that fit this mask perfectly. 

 

Although not a perfect answer to the 'beauty' question, the Marquardt Beauty Mask does provide some interesting information into how we percieve the beauty of the human face.