3D anime model notes

Turn on 3D snap

To make vertices coincident, drag over each other with 3D snap.

Set up your model with ½ spline and a reference copy with the surface modifiers.

The first level is using editable splines. They are best drawn with straight segments, or smooth. Start with the mouth, move up to eyes, etc. Use cross section as needed.

Use a frozen plane so you can work without seeing the inside/back of the head, etc.

The default setting for line interpolation is 6 steps. If you set it to 0 the lines will be straight, which might be easier to work with. When we add the Patch modifier, this setting will not matter.

Start out building your spline cage with straight lines. Later, convert vertices to smooth.

 

Your next level of the stack is Surface ... here we used patch topology of 3, threshold of 1.0. You do not want to change the threshold after the Patch modifier is applied.

The threshold setting needs to be low if there are very small patches.

If threshold is less than 1.0, the patch topology should be 2.0.

Note

You can skip using the surface modifier and just use edit patch. The spline surface roll-out will then appear and you can make the same settings as in surface there. Note the depth of the eyes sockets:

Finally we have our editable patch layer. All the “juice” is in these settings. You will want to press the Patch Smooth button once. This sets handles in an absolute position relative to patches. Clicking repeatedly is not effective unless the model is changed.

 

If you have to you can even lay a MeshSmooth on top of all this, but you probably will not need it.