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Not written a 3D modelling tutorial for a while, but well here's the start to a tutorials on modelling humans. The aim here is to provide knowledge in to making detailed human models for games and CG. I've modelled to the detail I'm modelled before and ran in on my old computer under the NeoAxis game engine and it ran fine with plenty of other models in the scene, so unless your computer is complete rubbish, the rest should work fine in computer games.

This is what I've done so far:



Create a box, like so - cut through the centres each way as shown in the screenshot - it would probably be a good idea to have symmetry turned on, if your program can’t do that, not to worry, only work on half of the model, copy the geometry later, paste, mirror/invert it then weld it together. (I am using Silo 2, a fairly cheap yet a very powerful 3D modelling tool)

Make these cuts.

And these ones.

Face Extrude, scale in, extrude again - like in the above screenshot

Face extrude there - it will be the shoulder. Though at the moment your character is very boxy, don’t worry, he’ll start taking shape later - with box modelling this is the beauty of it all, you start off with the basic shape, like if you were drawing shapes to represent your character on paper, and as you draw more and more it starts to look more like the real thing. Polygon modelling I find is more sketchy and takes longer, not to say it’s not an acceptable technique because there are people that prefer it.

Go into edge mode (or point mode or both, which ever you prefer using) and start shaping you mesh - no needs to add detail yet, just move parts you already have.


This is what I have - it’s not perfect, but adjustments can be made as we go along, Now...we need to work on those muscles, references for this tend to be good, well anyway - muscles.

Make more cuts. If you can’t make n-gons (like on the shoulder) delete the polygon in the way - you can remake it later.

Add these cuts- some may find the middle cuts a bit difficult dependent on your application, the tris can easily be made by welding 2 points.

Adjustments

More cutting

Move some of the edges to the side to make way for the selected cut. You’ll also notice I extruded the neck up by 1.

Make a cut here (Perhaps adjust your lower part of the mesh too)- we’ll be working on these muscles.

Add in these polygons and adjust them - you’ll need to adjust the surround polygons as well. You can make those polygons in different ways, you can draw the polygons, you can extrude them - for me symmetry got in the way of extruding them, so I drew them with the knife/cut tool.

And now to work on the shoulder

Now you can fix the shoulder’s polygons and adjust like so.

Make a few adjustments now - you need to make sure your model looks as it should as you go through.

It may not look dazzling at low polygon - but if you’re going for low polygon then a texture will make it look better - however you can subdivide it, though adjustments here and there will be required for a subdivided model because what looks good low poly isn’t necessarily the same for high poly.

In this case, it didn’t take that much tweaking - deletion of polygons (beneath the shoulders, on top of the neck and beneath the belly) Of course NOW is probably the time to get your image reference and start adjusting your model so that it looks realistic.

Of course to finish the torso you’ll need to detail the back, add more detail to the front, then start the arms off...of course I’m not writing this tutorial in one go, so I’ll add those.


That's what I've got so far, now, when I model I use a special work flow, now, I am a fan of Hwasup Song's work and his 3D models provide great reference and give you something fantastic to aim for (we'd have a lot to do before getting anything like that) - though for this tutorial I didn't pay attention to any references, though you'd ought to. But I might set up my work flow like this:

(Large Image: Click to View - 1366x768)

Hwasup Song's website is located here.

Now I mentioned my original model working in a game engine - well hopefully this will give you an idea of what I want to achieve with this tutorial:

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y173/seppuku05/Seppuku/NeoAxisScreen1.png

Great tutorial, it'll surely help a lot of people! Looking forward to the coming ones!

Seems really high poly, but other then that, it looks really good!



I think that really depends on what type of game you are making, and what is happening.

Also, if you are looking for other ideas of what tutorials to make, could you make one on how to model a gun?

I agree with Alucard94, it will help a lot of people.

Maniac I don't think this is really meant for games Or well it depends on how much you subdivide it I guess.

from reading this-

I thought it was ment for games, which it could be used for, but probably not most games.

I suppose, you'd use the lower poly version of the mesh for your games, but if you were doing an RTS I can see it being a resource hog, so I probably wouldn't recommend the detail, but hopefully this method will help the modeller decide the amount of detail they put in. But the model I had running in NeoAxis ran smoothly with a scene with different shader effects, terrain and a horde of enemies (not of the same poly count, but NeoAxis' built in Zombie model) on a 6 year-old computer.

However, it is definitely good practice to keep and eye on your polygon count.




I did a very basic one for a specific user a while back (they were very new to 3D modelling, so you can imagine how basic I aimed for) but if I get the moment I'll do one. My aim is to get my tutorials back on the road and have them directed at independant and hobbiest game makers. So guns will obviously be an important tutorial to do.



Thanks, once I've finished the torso I'll move onto other body parts of course and perhaps aim around getting the user to follow reference images (not the blue print type ones, but like the ones in my work flow) Further tutorials, well I'll give them a shot.

Should work for both games and CG, however, for CG you subdivide and perhaps add extra detail, but for games you don't need to subdivide, if you click on my NeoAxis link you'll see a model I made that followed the same process that's about 2000-3000 polygons and did'n't use any subdivisions and ran fine ingame on a 6 year old PC. But I did have a high detailed version of the exact same model.

Next part:

I've got the next part to the tutorial done for you, also you'll notice I've got 2 different results this time, just a demonstration that you don't have to make your model muscular, as there are fat people in this world too.


I’ve started on the back, you should be able to work to that - I’ve used cuts and welds her

Work on the spine a bit.

From here we’ll need to work on the shoulder blades a bit:

Makes some adjustments to the back.
Have a look at it smooth and you can see that back looks better already.

We need to connect the edges from these loose points, plus it will give a poly flow that we’ll need.

Try to create an edge flow like this, you’ll probably need to delete an edge or 2 first.

There’s more you can do on the torso, but for this tutorial, I think this is enough. You now should be able to follow a muscle reference and apply more muscles in the back and front. So make some adjustments on your model and make sure your torso looks right and then you can move onto other parts of the body.




It should look fine now, so for now this is what we’ll do for the Torso, you can add bits if you so wish, it’s up to you - it might be worth experimenting, not all people are muscular and not all people are male, though female modelling is different, but it’s worth experimenting with, because you might find you know how to model more than you thought. Using this mesh, I’ll turn him into some one a little more overweight - of course I’ll need to edit the geometry of the belly and other parts. but this is what I have:

Of course, MAKE sure you keep your tutorial model in a different save file to any experiments, it may seem obvious, but it’s an easy mistake to make when you’re carried away.

Not perfect, but you get the idea.

LEGS:

Now we start the box modelling process again, but this time for the legs.

The interesting thing when I see people new to modelling attempting to make legs is that they extrude straight from the bottom polygons totally forgetting about the pelvis and it often makes the models look strange, it’s a simple mistake to make. But it’s so easy to get that pelvis in, all it take is moving that one edge and using the side polygon as your extrusion point.

Lets get more of that shape. Now this model may end up looking a little rude, as it’s good practice for the 3D modeller to model the buttocks, it’s not pornographic, nor is it that detailed, something you’d see on those perfume adverts where the posers run around butt-naked.

Start rounding off the legs, so it looks smoother.

And anything else that needs to be rounder, remember, remove any triangles you make.

Add this cut and use it to start shaping the buttocks.

Add more detail so the buttocks will look more real - you can keep doing this - if you switch to Subdivision, you’ll notice it looks flatter. so for high-poly and low poly versions your adjustments will be different.

Or in high poly there

And move on with the legs.

You will notice 1 problem, the leg mesh and torso mesh aren’t attached. We’ll need to attach them, this is where a bridge command usually comes in handy, and perhaps weld/merge or cut, the count of edges on the loop isn’t always the same, so you’ll need to do some editing and then clean up.

On my model, the edges line up nicely, except these few, now I need to solve the problem, I can either cut the bottom polygon up, or weld the upper vertices together.

I went for the cut with the edge flow you see there. You’ll notice how there’ll need to be adjustments, and of course, that part of the belly looks flat - all it takes is repeating the muscle process and you’ll have your belly.




And the Fat Guy:





That's the main part done - you'll need arms, hands, feet and a head now. Unfortunately Hands, feet and ears are quite fiddly and one of my weak points, but that will be rectified once I get to them.

Mmmm faaaat...
Great tutorial once again!

Hehe, thanks.

As for fat, well a lot of models aim for perfect bodies, well I thought I'd step in for the little guy...well, the fat guy...damn my cliched speech.

I fully agreed Seppuku, it seems almost everyone are doing "perfect" bodies and whatnot, why not just make a huge fat bastard with a chain instead? Although I see the reasons for "perfect" bodies but still, fat = fun, well, not in real life too much but ...

I only skimmed it so if you mentioned you'll fix this later or something, just ignore me.


No offense sepp but in the time Ive been on these forums and seen your models, the one thing I've noticed is that you seem to have troubles with proportions. With this tutorial specifically the abs should be tweaked to not look identical and shouldn't be as big / as far apart.

Other than that, its looking great, keep it up.

Yup, well you model what you need, I mean there are fat guy models out there and this tutorial aims to show you how your mesh can be configured for muscular and for fat men

Plus fat models can be good for getting different kinds of detail - and I suppose in some ways is easier, simply because you have less detailed muscles as they're covered by flesh. Though this is my first 'fat' model, if you will, the rest have been muscular men, or thin women.



I know, I realise it's somethng I need to work on, so this is really aimed at getting the geometry for people (So I've not stuck to try and getting the proportions right for this tut) - I'm made notes here and there about using references images, adjusting the model to make it right for what you want and even linked to a great website to look at how another 3D artists works his models and is a good aim for 3D artists to try at achieve (as on my last WIP I used his images as references, hence my modelling improved (and the crits of a guy on another forum)) and I'll stick to using his work as reference until I've ironed out all of my problems.

And no offense taken, it's perfectly acceptable constructive criticism and you're right.

Cheers