Week 5: Model and scans

I have a very strong traditional art background and I want that to continue to be a key art of my creative process. Digital technology has it's many advantages but I find it to mathematical at types and it reflects the work. It is easy to create symmetry and perfect shapes but for me creating a character requires imperfection and flaws which comes form working with your hands in the real world. 

Last term we were introduced to the 3D scanner which was interesting to learn but never utilised. This term I want to take a 3D scan of a model and use this as a base for the digital mesh.

There is the model which I will scan. It is made from wire and super sculpty and is about 15cm in heigh. It took 3 days to model him but it was well worth the time. Although he isn't spot on correct the the character sheet, he possesses Furgul's character and is a clear indication as to what I want to create digitally. Hopefully the scan can give me a good base to work from, retaining his base shape.

I made sure that the pose he held could be later rigged and that the model surface would scan easily. Last term the deer model had a lot of hair and antlers which didn't come up well in the scan. This is why I didn't model a beard, eyebrows or hair. These can be created digitally but will not be done for this term. 

Furgul Character Model:

Scans:

The best way to achieve the best scan was to use a planar scan which creates four scans, rotating at 90 degrees for each scan and then knitting the faces together as best as it can. This did mean that the mesh produced often had two layers of faces which required a large amount of clean up.

This scan was done as 0.6 resolution meaning that the scanner took information every 0.6 mm resulting in a very dense mesh. Although this collected a lot of information it resulted in a mesh which would take a long time to clean. It was imperative that I ended up with a clean mesh as I plan to take the geometry into TopoGun to re-topologies  it.  

This scan was instead completed at 1.0mm so is far less denser and easier to clean but looses it's detail. however the main shape of Furgul remains so the scan has achieved its purpose. 

A clean mesh:

This is the final clean mesh which can now be taken into TopoGun. The hands and feet had to be remodelled in maya as the scanned geometry was far too incomplete to give fully formed digits. The scan however was able to give the dimensions and good reference for the rebuild of the hand and feet so the scan was not wasted. So far this mesh, even though still very basic retains much of the character and is a stronger building block than modelling form image planes.

Clean mesh in Smooth shader mode: