My First Model. (scan, 3DS Max, Mudbox)

[DaBuzzi]

Hi Everybody,

I'm David, 32, Rotterdam, Holland. I'm an animator, mostly with 3DS Max, but I also love to be busy with tactile things, rather than just the computer screen.
3D Laser scanning has been on my wishlist for many years, and with the discovery of this software it's been made possible. Thanks!
My main purpose with the scanning is to make clay figures digital and animate them with 3D CGI. This way i have the pleasure of playing with clay and the power of computer animation.

The Forum is also great; so many tips and tricks.My father and I want to build an automated system for laser and model turning. I'm sure we will follow one of your examples as I see some great results in scanning in the Gallery.


I just wanted to post my first results:

A couple of months ago I made a small clay model of a head, baked in the oven, and this was my first suspect for scanning. After a evening of trying a very simple setup and getting a kinds of results but the right one, the next morning I got a good scan and assembled the figure. Done by hand, with only 4 scans, the result is just oke. It had problems aligning and I had to do it by hand for the most part.

After, I imported the OBJ into 3DS Max and started to retopologize the model (rebuild the polygons to make it a workable model for animation and further modeling). WRapit is a nice plugin for that, works very fast: within hours I had a completely redone model. So now I have a base model, If i want I could just add a MeshSmooth and it would follow the surface of the orginal model even beter. But...

I imported the basemodel in Mudbox (digital clay) and started to add extra detail. This gives, for me, the ultimate freedom: play with clay, scan, remodel, and then digital clay. It's very fast, very forgiving and you can add detail and paint interactively. Also for making morph target (needed for facial animation).

Well, I'll post new results when I have some,

greetings,
David

[DaBuzzi]

Pics of 3DS Max and Mudbox.

[hal]

Hello David and compliments.

I'm glad that David can help you into your work.
Yur workflow seems very fast and accurate. Good work.

Looking at your images, I've a couple of suggestions: try to print the calibration markers on a more rigid sheet, like a papaer board or a card. I see that your calib sheet is too much weavy. This can create bad scan results. After calibration, I suggest to remove the markers and scan on a flat and clear surface.
The other suggestion is to do more scans all around your object. With only 4, I understand hy is hard to align. you need more overlapping areas (at least 1/3 of common mesh's area).

Have a fun with David, David (sorry for the silly joke with your name )
Mattia

[maxem]

hi david
nice work and its nice to see someone with the same workflow of david-3dsMAX-mudbox. Not to take away from the david software but i have have a question about the Wrapit plugin. I have been using 3dsmax 2011 graphite modeling tools to do my retopology and its quite tedious. I have not found a demo version of Wrapit to try before buying and was wondering how stable it is? Does it crash or have bugs and does it really work as advertised? I would appreciate your honest opinion because it really looks like a great tool for 3ds max. I was almost gonna convert from mudbox to zbrush just for their retopo tool.
I apologize for such an off topic question but I think retopology is a great tool when used with david software, and hopefully the makers of David software are to busy working on David V3 to read this .

[DaBuzzi]

Hi Hal & Maxem,

thanks for your comments. I appreciate the tips.
I do have to make better markers. I was thinking on printing them on black because of the laser reflections, but completely removing them is a better option for camera settings and all. Any advise on paint or paper that reflects the least?
The weavyness causes distortions in its 'lens correction' I guess, so a solid marker board would be best. But I do need multiple sizes, as I want to scan clay models, but also a bit bigger things like products or a head.
Definitely need more scans. 4 was too little, but I was surprised by the bad alignment, they do include part of the left/right face. But I see at others they have better luck with auto-align the more scans they have. We'll try again.
I'm waiting on you guys to make a David Laser joke...

Maxem, I do like Wrapit. It was the first time I used it, and later found the Graphite method on youtube...does that work? I'll try that also. But what Wrapit does, is snap the polygons around the model, to the nearest surface point it can find. The nice thing is, is that you can shift-drag a edge-loop and it will immediately snap in the right place. Also, after a Turbosmooth, it will follow the original surface even better, and better... I didn't buy it, nor got a demo...
I did have trouble installing it, but it runs when I put the plugin in the folder, and don't when I remove it It didn't crash yet. Just make sure you place your model correct before starting, i made the above under a 45degree angle..grrr...

Thanks again,
David ...no pun intended!

[milz]

Definitely need more scans. 4 was too little, but I was surprised by the bad alignment, they do include part of the left/right face. But I see at others they have better luck with auto-align the more scans they have.

Hi DaBuzzi

You need enough overlapping points in your scans
i have mostly good output with 8 scans at 45 deg.

mfg milz

[DaBuzzi]

Hi,
thanks for the picture. 45 degrees it is.
The thing I am thinking about is that a frontal scan of the face gives the best result for the front. I'm afraid it will be overlapped by the scans under an angle which are less correct (because the front part of the face is now scanned from the side) and that those polygons are used. I would like to keep the frontal scan polygons and use the rest to fill it up by additional scans. Understand what I mean?

But oke, In 2 days i'll make a new scan, and keep your tips in mind....

[maxem]

hey dabuzzi thanks for the info. I got to play around with Wrapit plugin and it does work nice and has more features than Graphite modeling. Graphite modeling is only capable of snapping to the HighPoly mesh via the viewport angle, like when in Wrapit you select "S" in the 'Wrap' section but i really like the "C" selection that snaps via closest vertex/mesh distance. That option is not available in graphite modeling. Oh and of course the auto QuadGen is awesome!