Modelling a human head with NURBS curves

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

I figured this was a topic that never would be discussed, but a post recently about an application called "Plasticity" for artists got me thinking.  On a Plasticity Youtube channel I saw a bust of a human head  that became a Zyborg eventually.  I thought that was cool.  Then I started thinking how I would create a human head.  A body would be fairly easy although time consuming.

 

I am not an artist, but I was able to come up with this.

 

If you absolutely had to, your job depended on it, it is possible.

 

 

 

 

 

[Steve S.]

@VIRTUALENVIRONS

 

No doubt you are very good with nurbs in Vectorworks. I’e seen numerous things you have done with Vectorworks and Cinema 4D.

 

But it was interesting when you mentioned CYBORG in relation to Plasticity.

 

I’ve been playing with Plasticity for awhile and seen quite a few YouTube video tutorials on it and can’t remember seeing one on the human body using Plasticity. NOT THAT I DOUBT that you saw such. I am sure that video is out there. But it is just that of all the stuff I happened upon, the videos are far more along the lines of hard surface stuff like hair dyers or cars of laser rifles or what not, and not so much along the lines of extremely organic shapes such as the human body. Yeah there is likely a IRON MAN HELMUT made with Plasticity out there, and that I could definitely see Plasticity being used for such. But I just don’t know how many people are modeling human heads with the ears and eyes, nostrils and mouths, using Plasticity

 

If you take a look at the videos I posted in the other thread, at the start of one of them, you will see things typical to what I think most people are using the program for.

 

For very organic creatures, I would think most would use something like ZBrush.

https://www.zbrushcentral.com

 

Scroll down the page at the ABOVE link

 

Then look at the PICARD that the guy BELOW made using ZBrush

 

https://www.zbrushcentral.com/t/captain-picard/466222/2

 

Realizing that these figures are SCULPTED in ZBrush and not scanned

 

But honestly, I can’t see any need for even using something like Vectorworks for such. I mean, doesn’t Vectorworks have some plug-in for showing people walking around a fly through of a rendered city modeled with Vectorworks? Or am I thinking of some other program

 

Anyway, I think Plasticity’s strong suit is ALONG OTHER LINES rather than very organic human shapes.

 

Again, I should mention that in no way is Plasticity a threat to Vectorworks. They're basically different animals though they do overlap. One of them is an architectural program with loads of resources and architectural specific tools. The other one is a nurbs based CAD modeler that is very adept at what it focuses on, once you get to know the program.

 

My whole thing about Plasticity is that I think it would be a great complement in being able to work in a manner where we could have a real-time link from Plasticity to Vectorworks and that's all.

Edited November 29 by Steve S.

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

Hi Steve,

You have written quite a manifesto and I see lots of valid points based on what most users know about Vectorworks NURBS modelling. It is difficult to respond to a manifesto though.  You hit on so many points.  I find in this scenario the best thing to do is simply reply with visuals.

 

Have a look at these images, modelled in Vectorworks/Rendered in C4D.  Question....should there be a link from Plasticity.....or to it.

 

regards.....Virtual.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

@Steve S.  HI Steve.  I did not mean to sound flippant or condescending in my response post, if it did I apologize.  I can sense the honest conviction you have in your posts.  I used manifesto as a compliment.

 

I do believe that forum discussions whether Vectorworks or not are better served with a "quid pro quo" format, perhaps supported by a few brief points.  Otherwise the point is lost.

 

Let's talk about product design.  The model below was done in Vectorworks.  When I showed this to Rhino 3D, they said they would make this in SubD first and then transfer to NURBS surfaces, but how accurate is that?  Objects like this are often hand sculptured with clay, scanned and imported.  

 

This model was done with NURBS curves separated by only a few mm for accuracy.  A SubD or Plasticity version of this would be a concept design only.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Steve S.]

@VIRTUALENVIRONS

 

I’ll try to keep this one to a MINI TREATISE.  No more manifestos. LOL

 

So the short answer is, that Plasticity does not do SUBDIVISION OBJECTS as many other programs do.

 

With most or many programs, doing subdivision is akin at least in some respect to polygonal modeling where the underlying structure is made up of a lot of facets. As such, some of these programs have dedicated toolsets just for dealing with the subdivided structure.

 

On the other hand, with Plasticity, when the subdivide command is used, it DOES NOT REDUCE YOUR SOLID TO A BUNCH OF FACETS.

 

With Plasticity, when the subdivide command is first invoked, it converts a planar face to a SPLINE SURFACE WITH CV’S (control vertex). As you continue to invoke the Subdivision command, it just ups the DEGREE of the spline surface or spline curve, meaning — IT JUST CONTINUES TO ADD CONTROL VERTICE TO THE SURFACE OR CURVE.

 

So with Plasticity, after you invoke the subdivision command, you continue to work on your SOLID or SURFACE or CURVE with the NORMAL TOOLSET. And your surfaces and curves retain the mathematically defined curvature of a spline.

 

So in one way, you could say that Plasticity is working quite the opposite of a typical subdivision program, in that where most subdivision tools are reducing faces to facets ----- on the other hand, with Plasticity, subdividing is just giving you finer and finer control over smooth spline based surfaces and curves.

 

With Plasticity, there is no need for a SUBDIVISION TOOLSET because you’re never resorting to a faceted underlying structure.

 

With Plasticity, there is no subdivision model that needs to be converted to nurbs

 

So with regards to making a mouse —— Plasticity does not follow the same workflow or method that Rhino does

 

PLASTICITY IS a nurbs based solid and surface modeler that allows for PRECISE input

 

So now the question is ——— how would a person model a computer mouse using Plasticity

 

There are at least a handful of Youtube videos showing Plasticity being used to model a mouse. All of those I’ve seen, are being done with SURFACE MODELING. Surface modeling built around lofted splines, patches, and using the XNurbs tool.

 

Some of these videos are as old as a year, which is kind of ancient with respect to Plasticity, because the program is constantly being updated with significant new tools. None the less, the year old Part One and Part Two by Kuechmeister Swagger is a good place to start if you want to see a way to use Plasticity.

 

Opps. Looks like I messed up again. Cause this ain’t no MINI Treatise. No mini happening here.

 

Well ————— next time I’ll try to contain myself with a shorter DECLARATION.

 

By the way, VERY NICE WORK on the older sports car !!!

 

And with respect to such as cars and commercial product design, there is this thing of CONTINUITY (G0, G1, G2, G3) and ZEBRA ANALYSIS amongst other things, that plays a big part in such design.

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

Hi Steve,  thank you for shortening your responses.😀

 

Ok, lots of stuff.  I am going to stay with product design though.  BTW, this is all uncharted territory, more the "old sports car" than anything else.

 

I am sort of familiar with surface, quads, etc.  If you notice there is a send to C4D function in VW's.  Nemetschek Germany contacted me over ten years ago to help implement that function.  I also wrote the tutorials for Cineversity after the function was implemented to explain its use.  

 

To be clear, I like Plasticity, Rhino, Blender, etc, and if you champion any of these, there is lots of stuff online.  Having said that, I have stuff.

 

This post is fun and informative, 

 

So, if you are still interested, let's step it up a notch.  So this would be a Vectorworks strength for Project Design, but again "uncharted Territory".  

 

Got any thoughts on this.

 

 

 

 

 

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

@spoidyjan  In my original post I wrote "If you absolutely had to, your job depended on it, it is possible."

 

Thank you for asking.  This was something that was lost in this thread, as no one asked.  The short answer is trial and error.  In many respects I cheated, took short cuts, cursed at the screen at lot, etc., but produced a set of curves that can make a head.

 

It was very tricky and involved a lot of VW's functions.

 

Would you like a set of the curves to play around with.

 

 

[Jeff Prince]

A human head, or similarly complex surface, is a lot easier to model using SubD.  Big you won’t likely hear that on this thread 😉

 

[bcd]

Nurbs are very cool but Nurbs Precision ≠ Perfection.

Ask a circle.

[bcd]

Goa Head.vwx

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

The curves.

 

FORUM HEAD.vwx

[Steve S.]

EASIER with subdivision compared to nurbs for detailed organic shapes ------ Yeah, you certainly read that is the case.

 

https://graphics.pixar.com/library/Geri/paper.pdf

 

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that it is easy to do

 

Maybe it depends at least in part on the program or AMOUNT OF DETAIL you are looking for. In my case, I’ve never been enthused about doing subdivision or polygonal modeling. In short, for me to get good at this type of modeling would involve more time than I would want to commit to.

 

I read that with ZBrush, a program that does subdivision, that some can spend weeks or more developing a character.

 

I know one thing about it, after just sneaking in under the deadline to buy a PERPETUAL license for ZBrush, that it is the most different interface I can remember using. Not easy for this older guy to retain how it works. So as I have been in the habit of doing with a number of programs lately, once I start to understand one aspect of a program, I make my own video explaining/showing how to do what was just figured out after watching the Youtube videos, which helps me to get up to speed with it, IF I HAVE NOT USED THAT PARTICULAR PROGRAM FOR AWHILE.

 

I take the time to very descriptively name these SHORTER videos I make, so that I can easily find a video for something I am having a hard time with. Otherwise, I may have to spend hours looking through loads of Youtube videos for a particular thing I am having a hard time doing.

 

Now I will say that I DID NOT buy ZBrush for the purpose of becoming a character modeler. I purchased it for its ability to paint a texture onto a 3D surface. A texture that I can design myself without having to develop procedural textures.

 

Some might think, why not make the texture in Photoshop? It’s because I would rather make and assess how the texture looks as I modify it, and do this in real time on the 3D model — that is, in ZBrush, since it has this capability

 

ABOUT DOING A CIRCLE.  I hear what you are saying and it makes all the sense in the world !!!   That's why I would use one of Plasticity’s circle tools to make a circle.

 

Good thing is, that Plasticity uses the same geometric modeling kernel as Siemens NX, SolidWorks, and Onshape, which are three well respected Mechanical CAD programs. So you would figure that Plasticity is likely going to make a pretty good circle being as it is using the same kernel.

 

By the way, the  geometric modeling kernel that Plasticity, NX, SolidiWorks and Onshape all use, well it’s the PARASOLID kernel. The same one Vectorworks uses.

[Jeff Prince]

3 hours ago, Steve S. said:

EASIER with subdivision compared to nurbs for detailed organic shapes ------ Yeah, you certainly read that is the case.

 

That's a pretty insulting and uninformed thing to say.

[Steve S.]

@Jeff Prince

 

So you make a statement that subdivision is easier.

 

I try pretty hard to stay neutral, by quoting what I read off the internet, AND BY TRYNG TO LIMIT MY OPINION other that what I personally experienced using ZBrush, a big player in subdivision.

 

Now I post an article from probably the largest studio in the world, confirming that subdivision is easier than nurbs, AS YOU SAID —— and for that, you feel insulted ???????

 

So did the article by Pixar insult you?

 

Would you have rather that I would have not posted the article from Pixar showing how one of the most highly respected  companies in the world agrees with you ??

 

My saying that I agree with you is NOTHING in comparison to an article from PIXAR confirming what you said.

 

So there is no doubt you did not get what was being expressed.

 

Everything I read - if you want to do character modeling, that the top of the heap is ZBrush, a program owned by the same parent company as Vectorworks. So my OPINION is that it is not easy to use. But I am a nobody in that particular world of modeling. That is why I started off by posting what others have said. What the true experts have said.

 

But in a weird way, it sounds like you would rather have a rank amateur (myself) in that particular world of modeling, agreeing with you, rather than having Pixar make your case. Sounds weird. But that is what it sounds like to me.

 

If there was malice in my heart toward you as I wrote what I did, I would apologize. But there was ABSOLUTELY NONE in saying what I did. I tried to remain neutral by using someone else’s EXPERT words, by posting the article by Pixar. Which confirmed what you were saying.

 

How anybody could be insulted by that is way beyond me

 

 

Edited December 6 by Steve S.