Hand Modeling

For this project we had to model our own hands. First as a low poly in maya, then we had to take it into mudbox for some high poly sculpting and finally we had to take it back into maya, and using maps we created in mudbox, we would make our low poly model look more like a high poly model. I believe this is used a lot in games, as for obvious reasons, models cant be crazy high poly.

First off the low poly modeling.
Using photos of my own left hand I modeled a low poly model. The most challenging part, I found, was making the wire frame neat. It was important for the next step that our low poly was clean and clear. This was so when in mudbox and subdividing the polys, they are all of equal size. It was quite a brain challenge to figure a way to make sure there were only polys in the model to. Triangles will forever more be a shape a strive to get rid of.
I think learning how hard it can be to get rid of tris it will effect how I begin to model in the future. A lot of problems I faced could have been avoided knowing what I know now.
Here is how my low poly model turned out:

After this part was done, we went on to take it into mudbox. I really enjoyed this part as this was where I could make hand look good and not have to focus on the cleanness of the model. This was my first experience with mudbox and although it took a bit of time, I eventually found it really easy to use (especially with my tablet.) I enjoyed it more and more as I worked up to the higher division levels of polys as you get to a detail level that would be very difficult with physical clay.
I also enjoyed the texturing part in mudbox. Some of the tools were really cool and aloud me to get a realistic skin effect.
Here is the final look out of mudbox:

I was quite happy with how this turned out. I would have liked to have done some more work on the nails and some other places here and there but over all I  didn't think it was too bad.

After making and saving out maps from mudbox, I was back into maya. I applied the maps from the high poly model to my low poly model. This was much more difficult then I expected. They definitely did not work straight away, they required a fair amount of editing. This was probably the hardest part of the project and I would have liked to have had more time to make them work better, but unfortunately I spent a lot of time getting the low and high poly models look nice.
Here is the end result of the whole project:

Over all I am pleased with this project. Looking back there are a few things I would like to change, but for a first proper modelling attempt, I think it was ok. I would have liked the maps to have turned out nicer, but of course the final maya version will never look as nice as the high poly mid box one.

I really enjoyed learning to model, and although I ultimately want to pursue animation, I am happy I have a basic understanding of modeling in both maya and mudbox. I would like to do more modeling in the future and I am extremely looking forward to a character design project we have coming some time after Christmas.