Arguably the single most important aspect to modeling is topology. This overview Blender video tutorial takes a look at the topology of the human head, examining each of the main edgeloops, poles, etc.
Support the site – Download includes:
- High resolution .mov Video
- .blend file at the state of the tutorial
Subscribe to our Blender RSS Feed to receive our latest articles and education from Blender Cookie.
52 Comments
Wow! Awesome topology overview. I hope to see more of them in the future along with more in-depth texture tutorials. I’ve watched a lot of videos over the years, but I’ve always had to reference other peoples topologies while modeling since none of the tutorials I had gone through in the past had really taken much time to explain it. They typically would mention it as a smaller part of the larger tutorial. Your video has cleared up a lot for me. In fact, I’ve watched a lot of Gnomon and Digital Tutors vids in my exploration of 3d, and I consider you guys approaching that level of useful instruction, but for blender. Thanks so much for your hard work. I’m a huge fan!
I agree that topology is very important. This video is a very good reference for a lot of different kinds of modeling. This even works well with car modeling.
Can you list the names of the artist that you mentioned in the video please?
As always I really think you are doing an awesome job
I would LOVE more tutorials like this. I rarely come across videos that explain topology even though it is a very important part in 3D modeling. The great thing about this tutorials are that they can be used for any application with out a problem since they talk about theory in general.
I will eagerly away future tutorials on topology and thanks for the tutorial!
Another great video.
A lot of tutorials mention having good topology and some pointers to get it right. Something I haven’t seen is a demonstration of how bad topology or badly placed triangles affect an animated model. Maybe you could do a video of two animated heads side by side that can highlight the problems you get with bad topology.
Hey, Jonathan (or anyone else), once again, awesome tutorial. One area where I still haven’t seen a really consistent edge loops in anyone’s models is the ear. Your models are among the most consistent I’ve seen. I’m wondering if you have a basic flow concerning the ear that could be used for a base mesh and could just as easily be adjusted by adding edge loops for detail (kind of like how you demonstrated with the eye). Personally, any time I do a character model, I can usually figure out some way to make the ear work but I’m looking for more of a systematic approach.
Wow, this is great! With this video and the other face-modeling videos you guys have, it’s perfect for those who want to try and enter the Blending Life 2 contest on Blender Artists.
Great job guys!
Great video and nicely timed for those of us looking to develop skills during the contest
This is a true tutorial, not just a mechanical How-To.
Having an engineering background, I always have these fuzzy spots in my brain because the majority of tutorials just don’t really educate. They don’t explain “Why.”
A robot can be programmed How-To do a task, but as a lowly human, in order to understand a concept, I always want to know why. The reason why it’s done a particular way.
Knowing “why” is what provides those “Ah-Ha” moments.
Well done!
I’m just delving into 3D, so I have a mountain of fuzzy spots that need the “why’s” explained.
Thanks for this great tutorial Jonathan! I just realized how much I still have to learn, even when it comes to basics like this. I’ll definitely enter Blending Life 2 now, just for following your other tutorials and getting familiar with the topology aspect of modeling. Also, like Will, I’d love to get a clearer view of the ear’s topology. Thanks again and see you in the next tutorial. =)
Great info. I agree with the others about the ear topology, that is something very difficult to get down, and a tutorial about it would be great!
Blender-tuts.com has a ton of wireframe references. Go here: http://blender-tuts.com/category/topology/
I also managed to understand already that there’s more to modeling than just clicking here and there to add vertices and faces and that topology is crucial to how the model behaves or how the light affects the look of the model in relation with its topology. Thanks for this nice explanation, the color-distinguished loops was a good idea.
Thanks Jonathan for this great complement to the Head Modeling Series. It helps a lot to better understand the overall structure “topology” of the human body. As Tobey said, the coloring loops is a great idea
@Jon – Thanks for sharing this link with us
Here are artists named by Jonathan :
Pasco(e)… – Sorry, I’m not sure of the name and how to spell it right
Steven Hägg-Ståhlberg – CGsociety Portfolio
Francisco Cortina – Cortina’s Website
Thanks a lot Jonathan for those very clear explanations. It really helps for a better understanding of topology.
This video is a great idea and I’m looking forward to watching the next ones on other parts of the body.
Blender cookie is becoming a fantastic education base for Blender.
Congrats to you and the whole team.
Bernard
Really nice tutorial (as always), Jonathan! I’ve been wondering about this for a while now. Just a fast question. Is topology as important in other kinds of models and not just in character models? If so, it would be a nice thing to see a tutorial about too.
@Solineoz, Jon: Thanks for the interesting links. I was especially surprised to learn about Cortina’s involvement in the character development for my very favorite movie, FinalFantasy: The Spirits Within. I’m also planning on studying the wireframes recommended by Jon to learn more about the topology approaches of the masters.
Hey, I enjoyed the tutorial quite a bit.
One thing about the poles that you could add is that a pole can be a 3-pole or a 5-pole.
Your first mesh had a 3-pole in the corner of the jawbone.
Thanks again for another great tutorial.
Thanks for the tutorial Jonathon! Very informative and it provided me with some solutions to some issues that I have had during my fledgling attempts at 3-d modeling with Blender.
WOW! Truly amazing Jonathon and thank you very much
The most comprehensive info I have found on this subject on the net. Will be back soon to follow up.
Finally a tutorial devoted to the underlying concepts of totpolgy! More like that!
Like someone mentioned above:
I would like to see a comparison of good and bad topology (and other things you can do wrong when preparing a model for animation/games) on animated models.
Thanks for this tutorial cleared up a lot about edge loops and topology! A good reference are the open movies projects of Blender Foundation. Now they are working in Sintel, the main character .blend can be found here: http://download.blender.org/durian/sintel_model_stage2.blend
@Paulo Bardes- Thanks for sharing this link with us. It’s really nice to see the model of Sintel.
Btw, I can’t open the .blend file with 2.49b (it crash every times), but it works fine with 2.5’s build.
Question: How can I compare 2 rendered scenes as in the 2.49b in the 2.5 version.
In 2.49b you had to render your scene then press “J” for previous, press “ESC”, change your settings, re-render and compare with the “J” key.
Hope you’ll understand what I mean
Man, I’ve been dreaming of this feature’s re-implementation ever since the switch to 2.5 a0. The double render buffer was one of the most useful and frequently used options for me. Didn’t manage to find out more on it on the web…
@everybody: also check out jonathan’t DVDs and all of the good ol’ head modelling tutorials. They’re all part of “The Essential Williamson” – they’re essential.
And once again I want to recommend you guys to try Jonathan via Mavenseed. Feed him one of your models and watch in awe what he spits out!
So true, Jonathan is a kick-arse teacher. I downloaded the source files for this tutorial and studied Jonathan’s mesh a bit. It was very helpful concerning the ear. Also thanks Jon for the wireframes link. It really helped.
The topology videos are awesome!
Yes, the ear! That was great. I stillx remember it like it was yesterday! I took a while to connect it to the head mesh properly, and just through this series I learned so much…
I enjoyed this video, as I always wanted to find out about general rule for topology.
Thank you Jonathan.
But the edge loops are really taking to long to set up!!!
And everyone seems to work the same ways : No triangles, edge loop around the eyes etc…
So that is why modelling is so difficult and only a few can really enjoy doing this tidious and tiring process…..
I wish there was a tools that you could just sculpt without worrying about these “topology rules”,
and then the right topology would be created automatically…
Would not that be great!!!
However…
Respect Jonathan.
I think this is one of the reasons 3D artists tend to specialize in one area or another. Personally, I love modeling and the challenge presented by creating good topology. I can’t think of anything that is much more fun. On the other hand, I absolutely loathe rigging and texturing, whereas some people love each of these.
Then you may want to have a look at 3D-Coat as well. Of course sculpting is one more thing to learn.
Hello. So i have straight forward question. How do you connect the lower part of the neck (the one, that going to blend in chest) with the lower chest mesh resolution? Cause, we don’t need the chest mesh that dense as the head has. In this particular case. And the general question is how to connect a high dense mesh with a low dense mesh without getting a bunch of triangles, which will unnecessary wrinkle up the object.
Thanks.
Great tut Jonathan! This is an awesome overview, for both newbies who might also want to enter Blending Life 2, and to those who have done it before but who needs to clear out the cobwebs and refresh their memories
Great tutorial!
In my early years of 3D, topology was something I completely ignored and back then, most documentation and tutorials were focused only on the technical aspects of using the softwares and rarely included many tips about creating good meshes. As a result my early attempts usually ended up being a big polygonal mess. Not that I do much better now, but at least I know why
Anyway, I’m curious about one thing. Do you reuse the same topology every time you model a human face or do you improvise a new one? What would be the reasons for changing the topology?
Also would you say it is OK to just copy a good topology from existing models? A contest like blending life requires us to make our own base mesh. So should I try to be original in my topology just for the sake of being able to say it’s my own?
I would not say that I reuse the same topology each time I create a new head, as little bits are liable to be different here and there. However, my topology always stays close to the same general layout. The only real changes come as I adapt my topology to become better and better.
This also applies to “copying” topology from old models. It is fine to do this as topology is just the structure of the model. It is the forms, anatomy and expressions that make your model unique. Just because many houses use the same general rules for their structure during construction does not make them the same house.
Is this the head from your head DVD? I thought about downloading this video to get the head model to study, but also thought of getting your head DVD as well. And thanks for doing a tutorial like this. Most tutorials are about what buttons to press and not the underlying principles which are a lot more informative and can be applied to any 3D package.
This is a totally different, and frankly, much better head than the one on my Female Head DVD. This one is several years newer and much more accurate. If you are looking for a model to study I would recommend this one, although the Head DVD still provides all of the modeling techniques and processes.
Thanks for clearing that up. I downloaded the head tutorial and looking over the model has definitely help so far. I think these tutorials will help people who get frustrated stick through and finish the contest this time around. Thanks again.
Here is a good place to see: http://www.subdivisionmodeling.com/forums/showthread.php?t=907
Your tutorial is easy to follow on the other hand I would like to share with you and other viewers what I found on the net after crusing around the net I for few days I found works of non blender related tutorial as here:
http://www.phungdinhdung.org/Realistic_face_modeling_by_PhungDinhDzung.htm
is there any pdf file can I download?
Not at this time, there is not.
that is Awesome tutorial:) thumbs up it really helped me to understand what each vertise can do:) this principal can be applied even to 2D drawings, thnank you very much, hope to see more tutorials based on topology and poles:) this site is Number ONE!
VERY VERY VERY NICE !!! Thanks for this tutorial ♡ !!
Thanks for this tutorial… just by following the topology layout, the model shape falls into place as you go. The right thing for the blender hobbyists like myself.
This is exactly the kind of tutorial that sets Blender Cookie apart from any other Blender e-learning website I’ve seen:
it’s not just a technical how-to,
but an insight into what’s important in our workflow.
Because we can all learn how to extrude faces and model by ourselves,
but only experienced 3D artists, such as Jonathan, can teach us good practices and common pitfalls.
Really nice, thanks
PS: even though the edge flow for the rest of the body is already covered on your female body tutorial, a recap would be welcome.
Amazing tutorial. I’m using this on 3ds max because it works for any 3d software, of course im learning blender too. I hope more valuable theory like this.
Hello, thank you for this tutorial, has been very clear, very interesting, even for a beginner like me. If we follow the muscle flow, the animation that will result afterword will be more natural in its movements. I wish to see more, also how to make the topology of the ear, since i do not know how to make the perfect ear. =[) Thank you very much. Ciao
I, my country can’t get access to vimeo’s
any chance to stream on other site?
Hmm nevermind, just registered and everything seems fine now. Thank you.
Amazing! very useful for me to explore blender. Thx.
Simply Brilliant.
More More More
(Little house of horrors Laughs)
This is very helpful. I hope to see more Topology videos soon. Because I think that is where most of my problem lies is in that topology. Brilliant piece though. I am going to practice now lol