3D Kingdom -- Free ....

Hey everybody, because I got alot of mail from people asking me how to model a head in 3dsmax I have decided to write my knowledge down.

I am sure that you have searched the web for good tutorials on how to model a head or whatever, but all you can find are confusing tutorials that only explain half the truth, and most of them are for professionals. With this tutorial I have tried to help the newbies. You do not need much knowledge of 3dsmax to follow this tutorial as there are pics of every button we will use.

There are only a few people who know how to create a head (or character) in 3dsmax. Therefore these jobs are very well paid. (especially character animation and texturing). I hope that after reading this tutorial there are a few more :)

The best thing is: When you have finished this tutorial you have a basic head model. Save this head, as you can model every type of head (man, woman, girl, baby,...) out of this one, just by moving some vertices.

Alright, enough stupid talking lets start:

As creating a head in 3dsmax is a very complex theme. This tutorial is divided into different parts.

1. Before you can start to model a head you need some reference-pics from the front and side. I have found these two pics somewhere on the net for free download. Right-click and select "save target as..." and save them on your disk. (Best thing to do will be to create a separate folder in your "3dsmax\scenes\" directory as you will get alot of files.)

Click to enlarge !

2. When downloaded start 3dsmax. Now we have to set up the viewport so that we can start modelling.

Change your left viewport to right-viewport! (as we have the right side of the face as a reference-pic)

How? Right-click on the word "left". A menu should pop up. Go to "views >" and then click on "right". Nothing has changed! You can only see the word right instead of left.

3. Deactivate Home-Grid in right view.

Now the lines in your right-view should be gone. We don't need them; they will just confuse you. Therefore deactivate the Home-Grid in every view (Top, Right, Front and Perspective)

4. Next step is to load the reference-pics in the viewport-background.

How? Click somewhere in your right-viewport so that it is activated. Now press "Alt"+"b" or click on "views" and then "viewport background..." Now a new window should pop up.

Click on "Files..." and load the "nprofile.jpg" you have downloaded before.

Activate "Match Bitmap", "Display Background" and "Lock Zoom/Pan" and click "ok"

Now you should see the pic in the viewport. When you zoom in or out or just move around the pic should follow your commands.

5. Redo step 4 with the "front-viewport" and load "nfront.jpg"

Alright, we have set up our viewports.

Its time to save!!!

6. Now we can start modelling:

Click somewhere in your right-viewport (so that it is activated) and press the min/max toggle so that your right-viewport takes the whole screen.

Next we are going to create a line which follows the head-profile. Therefore: go to create-spline-line, activate: initial-type=smooth and drag-type=smooth

Now start at the neck and create a spline like shown in the picture (first pic) below. Click it to see it bigger) (Try to use the same amount of vertices, and try to place them like shown.) (By clicking the right mouse button you can stop creating the line)

Click to enlarge !

7. Create a second line. (shown in the second pic above.)

8. We have created the profile. Change to your front-viewport and create a line like the one shown in the first picture below. (First you have to press the min/max toggle button again, so that you can see the 4 viewports again) We only create one half of the head!! When this half is finished we can mirror it and weld them together. So we only have to do half of the work and the rest 3dsmax will do for us :))

Click to enlarge !

Change back to right-viewport, Select your last created line, click the modify-button and select vertex.(pic on the left) Click the move-button and restrict the movemet to x-axis (pic below). Then move the vertices as shown in the second picture above.

9. In the modify menu of the last created line scroll down till you find the attach-button. Click it and then click on the other two lines to attach them. Now click the attach-button again (so that it is deactivated). The three single lines are one spline. Activate your perspective-viewport (rotate and zoom as long as you can see something like the first picture below.) (Shows the top of the head). Now we have to activate 3d-snap (the small pic above) Right-click on the 3d-snap button and select "endpoint" in the new opened window.

Select the vertext shown in the second pic below and move it to the nearest point. When you come close to this point you should see how it snaps and a blue line starts to jump around. (Look at the third pic to see the final result) - That happens when you activate endpoint-snapping. 3dsmax places the points exactly above each other. That is very important when we want to add the surface modifier later, as this modifier can only generate polygons out of 3- or 4-point-splines.

Now you can only see one point, but attention there are still two points, they have just exactly the same x,y and z value!!!! From now on, when you want to select a vertex you must not just click on it. You must draw a small rectangle around the points (move your mouse-cursor near the vertex press the left-mouse-button and create a small rectangle around the vertex), so that you can be sure that you have selected all the points on this special coordinate.

10. Time to save!!

11. Alright, we have created our basic spline-cage for the head!

12. Time for a break!! Go away from the computer for at least half an hour and drink some water!!

13. Alright, we have created our basic spline-cage, but we need a few more lines! for example the eyes, the nose, the mouth... We are going to start with the eye:

"Deactivate 3dsnap"

14. Select the line, go to the modify menu and scroll down until you find the button "create line" - click it. Now go to your front viewport and zoom in so that you can only see the eye. Then start to create a line like shown in the first pic below, (it does not matter where you start, but the last point sould be on the same position as the first point. You will then get a message "Do you want to close spline?" click on yes.

Next click the "create line" button again, so that it is deactivated. Now select all the vertexs you have just created (second pic below).

Now right-click on one of the selected points and select "smooth" in the pop-up-menu. You should get round curves. Lastly, move the points so that they fit the eye perfectly (pic3)

15. Change to the right-viewport and move all the points so that they fit the eye (restrict movment to x-axis!!)

The pics below show the eye from right and top (click to see larger!)

Click to enlarge !

16. It is very important that you place the points as correctly as possible, as the final-result will depend on that.

Alright. Next change from vertex to segment is the modify menu(pic below)

17. Select the new segments in your top-viewport, click the move-button (restict movement to y-axis) and move the segments (while pressing the "shift"-button!!) about 6 units. (Pressing the shift-button is very important as you will get a copy of the original "eye-spline".

18. When done select the segments from the first spline again (in top viewport)(pic1 below). Then change to front-viewport, and scale about 200% (dont forget to press the shift-button as we want a copy again) (pic2)

Last. Change from segement to vertex in the modify menu and move the new ones as shown in the 3pics below.

19. You should now have 3 new splines!! As the surface-modifier can only create a surface when there are 3 or 4-point-splines we have to connect the three new splines! Therefor change to your perspective-viewport, select vertex in the modify menu (it should still be activated from step 18). Now activate 3d-snap (explained in step 9) and click on the "create line" button.Move your mouse-cursor over the first point (1pic below) - You should see a blue line (That means, that 3dsmax will add the vertex exactly above the vertex your mouse-curser is pointing) - Left-click and move the curser to the next line. You should see a line which follows your mouse-cursers. Alright, when you see the blue line again, left click and go to the last vertex. When the blue line appears again left-click and then right-click to end drawing the line. Thats it!! (Click the pics below to see full-size)

Click to enlarge !

20. Connect all the other vertices like above.. At the end you should see something like this: (When finished, deactivate 3dsnap and "create-line".)

Click to enlarge !

21. Now select all the vertices again (like in step14 pic2) and apply "smooth". When you add the surface-modifier you should see someting like this:

Time to save!!

(Hint: Go to: "file" - "save as.." and click on the "+"-button. 3dsmax creates a new file with "01" at the end. Everytime you want to save - click this button. You get ultiple files (02, 03, ...))

Part I - Part II - Part III - Part IV (F.A.Q.)