My Opinions.

I think my head model turned out pretty well in the end. I tried to ensure I didnt pronounce the features too much and make the model look to sharp, which I think shows in the end result. The cheeks look slightly over pronounced now though, so I would go back and change these if I had the oppotunity again.
I enjoyed creating the model, as I have always loved computer games, and have always wondered how people are created in games, and this has gives me a really good insight. I'm fairly confident I could create an entire person now if I wanted to.

As for the materials, I do like the end material applied to the model, although I prefer the material I used when I just applied it to the face near the beginning of modelling.

Overall though I am happy with the end result, but if I got the opportunity to try it again, I would definately change up a few things!

Animating.

I decided to animate my model slightly, just for fun, to see what I could do with it. I only produced 2 quick Animations, which I have saved in a seprate file in MAX.

Firstly, I attempted to make my model smile. For this I just extended the edges of the mouth up and out slightly. It came out a little crude, but as I said, it was only a quick animation.


I also animated a wink. For this, I did a few modifications to the model. I started by closing the right eyelids, to create the wink. I also kinked one side of the mouth. And finally twisted the head slightly. This gives the impression of a wink in real like, if you get what I'm saying!

Finished Render.

Here is a render of the model after a couple of adjustments.
A Specular level and gloss have been added to the map, along with the map being adjusted slights, so that the lips fit better, and the eyebrows sit lower on the face. You can also make out the mole on my cheek better along with some skin pores.

Specular Level.

I decided to add a slight Specular level to my material to give it a natural glow. i also gave it a slight gloss, as natural skin does reflect light ever so slightly.

Here is a screenshot of me adjusting the levels to get them just right.

Complete Model.

Here is a few images of the complete model, with and without hair.
I tried to get the hair to work as well as I could with the model, however, I found it extremely tricky to be able to style the hair correctly. The tools didnt seem to want to do what I wanted them to do at all. I ended up trying to style the front, and the tools ended up styling the front and the back at the same time, which was annoying as I had to go back and adjust the back, then the front, then the back again etc.

As you can see, the haior colour is also off. This was another aspect I found tricky to get right. You are supposed to be able to model tip and root colours, however, neither seemed to have a great effect on the result, and this was the best colour I could come up with, without my hair looking black or grey.

As for the model itself... well I'm relatively pleased with it, but it could be alot better. I think it bares some resemblance to me, but I don't think people would know it was me if they weren't reading my blog!
Im happy with the Face Map, however. Spending time in photoshop, and using skin from various photos paid off, and it gave me a realistic looking texture. I included my hairy neck, which if you know me you'll have noticed! This ties in really well with the hair modifier on the back. I actually quite like the model with hair from a rear view!

I think I may tinker with the map a little bit though, to get it looking more like me. At the moment, I think my eyebros are sitting too high for a start! I don't like the eyes either, but I'm not sure how I can get them to look more like my own eyes. Currently, my model looks quite shocked due to the eyebrows and eyes.!

Here are some renders of the model. Hair only renders in a perspective view, which is another thing I don't like about 3dSMAX. It makes my model looked distorted and stretched. My nose looks pointy, which it isnt in the regular views.
Anyway, here they are!...

Hair.

I tried using the hair and fur modifier to give the model some realistic looking hair.
I originally thought that it was impossible to style hair in 3DSMAX, but I soon discovered it was possible. However, the tools are a little crude, and don't really give the result you want. It seems that if you style one side of the head, it affects the other side, and this goes for brushing, cutting and scaling the hair, which was rather annoying. I kept thinking one side was done, and was looking good, only to discover the other side now looked like someone had gone wild with a set of clippers and mauled my hair.

Hair only renders in perspective views, which was another pain, as it distorted my model.
Here's some screenshots of me modelling the hair.

Face Mapping.

So that I could make an accurate material for my model, I exported the UVW Unwrap as a png. file.

I then opened this in Photoshop, so that I could start piecing together my face.
i applied a dark background layer so that i could see the mesh, and put the mesh as the top layer, so that I could work in between these 2 layers with all my different face parts.

Here is a screenshot of the first few steps.
As you can see, I have taken my neck texture from my original photos of my head, and started making the mouth.


Here, I have added in the eyes and the base of my nose.


Now I have filled in the gaps between my mouth nose and eyes. I used the texture from the cheeks to fill in these parts, along with my upper lip under the nose.


At this stage, I though it would be a good idea to add the material to my model, so that i could see if i was on the right track.
As you can see, so far so good!


For the ears, I didnt apply my ear texture, as I though it would be too hard to match up the highs and lows with the mesh. Instead, I used a part of the neck for the ears.


Here is an update on the model.


Here you can see I have started to fill in the rest of the head. Instead of adding my hair to the map, I instead just used skin, and carried the skin over where my hair should be. This would give me a better base for which to apply a Hair modifier later on.


Here is my material face complete.


And here it is on the model.