day 3 of owning LW7 and UGHHHHHHH HELP
 

I want to model a face, but sheesh, I cant understand one single head modeling tutorial on the net! How in the heck do you know WHERE to draw the 'polygons' (is that the correct usage?) How far apart is correct? How do you know which direction to go???

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

Tropeano

well to start off you should download Philips head tutorial in the Free Video Training

He explains everything that he uses so you wont get stumped,

dont worry everybody has been at your stage,

i spend my first month with lightwave making balls resemeling planets and throwing the camera around to make a nice SciFi movie.... hehe... never realy got any results. but i learnt some basics :D

Yeah, it took me months before I was making anything cool. I would seriously suggest starting with simpler projects until you really get a feel for the program and the way things work, then step into something more complicated like head modeling.

Welcome, BTW. :)

check this out for starters
http://www.simplylightwave.com/movie...mhtml?tut_id=8

then there is a good coffe cup tutorial here
http://www.simplylightwave.com/movie...mhtml?tut_id=9

that should get you going, then as suggested by former poster, start out by modellig easier objects at first, modelling heads or any other organic objects for that matter is imo the most difficult to model.

As a new owner of Lightwave, I would recommend getting yourself a copy of Dan Ablan's book, Inside Lightwave. Its a good starting point plus it has a nice little head modelling tutorial which practically holds your hand through each stage.
With regard to your questions - the numbers of polygons you use depends on the modelling technique. With box modelling you will find that you need relatively few polygons to create quite complex objects. The drawback of box modelling is that it takes quite a while to learn and get used to.
How far apart points should be depends on the level of detail you are working to. Bear this in mind though - if you have too many polygons then you will end up having to re-arrange many points just to correct one small area - You have to strike a balance between the detail and the difficulty in altering the mesh. If you have too many points and polygons to deal with, then it becomes really difficult to make corrections to your model as you end up having to pull around many different points to get the model looking just right. There's no real "rule of thumb" as different people have different mesh densities - but you just need to learn how to balance detail in the model with number of polygons you can get away with.
How to know which direction to go - have a look here:
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=38469
Hope that helps.

BH

I am a bit past that point myself although not by much, and IMHO Timothy Albee's Essential Lightwave 3D 7.5 is the best book out there. I also have Dan Ablans and I only read Albee's recently so maybe I liked it because I already knew what he was talking about, but it's definitely worth looking into.
Good Luck,
Fardak

Sorry to rain on your parade, but you should get familiar with LW first before modeling a head. Get familiar with the basics: interface, viewports, selections and tools. Then, as many have said, try modeling simpler objects like the mug tutorial on this site. If you have questions, refer to the manual or look around on the net.

Modeling a face/head is not easy as it may seem.

I see that - I am doing better now that I am learning the basics. Thanks everyone.

Here's my .2c, I did start with books and more books.... I got to the point that a missprint or author mistake foced me to finalize whatever I was doing, because I could understand what I was doing.... Just click here and there, use this numbers here and those there...
I start understand after the free video tuts from here, than I bought some and later start using my imagination and chalenging my self....
I still not ready for modeling a car or a body part, but for sure if now I go back to the books I will be able to get the most from it.
Jumping farther than you can reach, you will fall.

Ablan's book is a GREAT reference. But you should DEFINATELY have a grasp of the tools. The User manual PDF is also good, but doesnt give you much of a place to start.

A cheaper alternative, I would also recommend The visual Quickstart guide to LW 7.5 by peachpit press. It will give you a pretty good introduction to all the basics, (polygon building, UV maps, particles, animation) and will only set you back $20

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...books&n=507846