Cooper Face

Preface. (A little something about creating your own rotoscopes.)

"Why doesn't my 3d render look like the picture I used as a reference?"
Sound familiar? (if not.... then feel free to move on to step one).

Rotoscopes are very handy things when it comes to modeling. They are the modeling equivalent to tracing in drawing. That said.. if your rotoscopes don't have the right "stuff" then your model probably won't either. What is the right "stuff"? Glad you asked...

Simply put when it comes to rotoscopes, it would be really handy if the world had no perspective. Of course that's not the case, so we are left to figure out the differences when we model. However there are things we can do that can take as much perspective as possible out of our rotoscopes.

You probably wonder why I worry so much about real world perspective.... "what's the big deal" right? Well it has to do with the fact that you model in a window that has no perspective. true its "3d" but the viewing angle is "orthographic". Yes you can toggle this view to perspective, but it is not advisable to try to model with this perspective turned on. things become harder to position correctly. Its a very subtle thing, but it can make a difference when it comes to modeling. Faces get fatter, longer, you name it...

As much as you want to don't get your camera right up in the face of your model... Camera's have wide angle lenses This will introduce artificially inflated perspective. Add to that the perspective that will get added when you take the model based on these unnaturally "fat" rotoscopes into a view with a perspective camera and the results are... "chipmunk cheeks", "Neanderthal foreheads".

So step away from your model as far back as you can get. Better yet get a telephoto lens and keep on backing up.... further.... fuurrrrther. There. OK now how do you model a face that will have all of 3 pixels of detail to model from? If you are asking that you backed up to far.

The point is that in order to make a good rotoscope you'll need a good camera (i.e... lots of megapixels). Shoot it in good "even" lighting, against a dark background if the model is light skinned and a light background if the model is dark skinned. And try as much as you can to eliminate perspective by getting as far back as possible (but still close enough to capture detail).

You will also want to make the rotoscope dark by tinting it with some dark color that contrasts with the shading used in the 3d program. I just tinted mine with a dark gray-green color to match the Animation Master default background. This allows me to see my splines well against the rotoscope.

Finally if you don't have a camera to photograph rotoscopes with... draw them. Even if you cant draw, draw something and us it. Its a lot harder to get it right in a 3d environment if you don't have a road map to work from.

Getting the pics in...

Once you finally have a rotoscope to work from, just import it into AM by right-clicking in the modeling window and selecting...

"New / Rotoscope".

Then pick the image you want to use.

Once you've positioned your rotoscope in the modeling window... turn off its pickable state by clicking on the little hand next to the eye in it's property window. If you brought the rotoscope into the wrong view its OK. you can change the view by selecting the correct view in its property panel.

Notice that I also set some transparency to the rotoscope so that it is easier to see the splines on top.

bring in a front view rotoscope and a right or left view rotoscope and line them up so that they are positioned correctly in there respective views. In other words make sure that the eyes meet and the mouth and nose are at roughly the same location in each view.

if you could see rotoscopes correctly aligned in the birds eye view they would look like this.

This isn't showing any view you could actually use... its just to show that Rotoscopes can and should be positioned so as to allow body parts to line up correctly when toggling between views while modeling.

Step 1.
In the left view, draw a spline line (shift A) along the profile of the face. Just draw it from the top of the brow to the upper lip for now. Try not to make the spline to heavy, but give yourself enough points where you need them.

Notice the concentration of points near the nostril? They're there for a reason. They will allow the nostril to curve nicely upward into the nose.

If you don't add enough now you can add them later, so don't worry about the details yet.

Step 2.
Extrude for splines to the left. Sculpt the splines into the shape of the nose and upper lip.

Then pull the points up to create the nostril.

Chances are you'll have to break and reattach points to get the kind of contiguous splines you'll need.

Step 2 a
Notice the creases inside the nostrils. No one will notice these unless you're going to fly up the model's nose. So use all the "nooks" and "crannies" you can to hide odd spline intersections.

Once you become used to this, you'll find yourself naturally modeling this way.

Step 3.
In the front view, draw the ring that will become the eye opening. Again give yourself enough points to create a nice curve.

In the side view, pull the points of the eye opening to create an approximation of the curve of the eye lid.

Step 4.
In the front view, extrude the eye opening to create the eyelid. Just do 3 extrusions for now.

Break the points near the nose and attach them to the points that create the bridge of the nose.

Notice the 5 point patches near the nose. The circles on the brow show that 2 of the splines end in hooks in order to keep the mesh manageable.

In the side view, pull the points of the eye lid to create an approximation of the curve of the eye.

Step 5.
Continue to model the brow and cheeks by drawing spline rings and attaching them to the mesh. Then sculpt the shape from the sides.

Finish the ring that will make the mouth opening. Extrude it once to create the lower lip.

Step 6.
Extrude the ring that makes the hole of the eye inward to create a nice round eyelid. 3 extrusions should do it. Sculpt the little round tear duct in the inner corner of the eye as well.

Make sure you pull these rings back into the head enough so that the eyeballs don't have a space between themselves and the lids.

Step 7.
Continue to model the cheeks in the same fashion and flesh out the lips more.

Notice the hooks in the cheek to simplify the mesh. And sin of sins the 3 point patch near the nose. Sometimes they don't crease. You just have to play with it, but try to avoid them when possible, or hide them in nooks if you can.

Step 8.
Another 5 point patch and some hooks and your half way there.

Notice the spline in the cheek. I added this to allow for dimples when he smiles. They might require more mesh, but that can be added later. If your model doesn't have dimples, then leave the spline out.

The five point patches around the mouth should not cause any problems, but if they do you can use hooks to bring the bottom lip line up to the mouth crease. This will give you less control over the crease, but it wont render with any artifacts either.

I've shown the face with a smile to show that the five pointers are fine in this instance. The one in the crease looks rough, but it renders fine.

Notice the extra spline creating the dimple.

Step 9.
Now the not so tricky part. In order to use the copy/flip/attach tool that Hash so generously gave us, we have to make sure that the middle spline Line is completely flat on the x axis.

Select the middle spline and open up the transform/scale option under its temporary group. Enter 0% into the x axis and click in the modeling window. That should have given you a completely strait spline if it didn't then try again.

Step 10.
Now select the whole half of the face and right mouse click (Cmnd Mouse click on the Mac) to bring up the context menu.

Select Copy/Flip/Attach and .....

....

You're done for now.