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Creating
a Cartoon Head using Softimage
XSI
By Siddharth
Bolurker
Hey guys, lets have a look at a tutorial on
creating a Cartoon head using SOFTIMAGE XSI. Its gonna be an
intermediate level tutorial, so I'm just gonna go over the
steps involved in the process. I`ll be using Softimage XSI for
this tutorial, so if any of you want to try it out, you can
get it done using the SOFTIMAGE XSI EXP CD, freely available
for download at http://www.softimage.com/.
- Start with a Primitive Cube with about 4 subdivisions on
the XYZ axis. Start simple... that's the best way to
approach your modelling. Even better, if you have any
reference images to model from.
-
Delete one half of the cube and mould it
into the basic shape of a head by just moving the vertices
around.
-
Further refine the shape of the head by
adding and deleting extruding ploygons as shown in the
diagram below. Delete the polygons around the eyes, extrude
the ones around the nose and push the polys around the mouth
area to create the mouthbag.
-
Create the other half of the head by
using the POLYMESH > SYMMETRIZE tool,
and viola!!!!!
-
Create the hair by just drawing and
simple curve, select the polygons on the head and use the
EXTRUDE ALONG CURVE option to create the
hair, type in some scaling and rotation values in the
extrude ppg to get some randomness in the hair. Thats the
beauty of Polygon modeling inside XSI 3.5!!!!! Also
everything in the ppg that has a green divot can be
animated, so anytime you need to animate the hair growing
out , just go in and key the start and end of the
extrusions; as simple as that!!!!!
-
Create the ears for your model by just
subdividing a couple of edges on the side and the extruding
them out along with scaling to shape them, u can then add a
edge to shape the rim of the ear, just something very quick
and basic. You can also go ahead and extrude the polys at
the bottom to shape the neck.
-
And now for the brilliance of Subdivision
surfaces inside XSI , just with a couple of clicks of the
'+' key, you can turn your scrappy low polygon model, into a
nice smoothed one [And believe me, the speed of XSI
subdivision surfaces absolutely ROCKZ!!!!]
-
This is what my model looked like once it
was finished, still a work in progress though. Maybe I'll
write about how I went about finishing the model in an
upcoming tutorial. Till then, CHEERS!!!!!
About Siddharth
Bolurker A graduate of the
International Academy of Design [Toronto], he`s been a die
hard SOFTIMAGE user and has worked in the Indian
animation industry with prominent companies like Prime Focus
Ltd., Paradox Studios Ltd. and Infinity Post Pvt. Ltd., before
settling down at his current gig as the India Product
Specialist for Softimage Xsi.
With character animation as his area of
interest, other things he enjoys doing is collecting DVD`s of
the latest animation flicks and getting his hands on the
latest PC gamez to hit the stands. You can catch him at siddharth44@hotmail.com.
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