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Measure by heads rule

ZBrush Usage Questions
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#1

Hello everyone, its me again. Was digging through character creation in 2d and 3d and got stuck at character height.
Short question: how artists handle height in 3d world, especially when you need to stick to real world scale?

Long question: i read that artists use measure-by-head method as a thumb rule. I was trying to find a way to represent it in real world measurements, but google gave me only one answer, which was sounding like this: 8 heads can be either 1.7cm or 1.8m, its just a proportions. But on other site, i read that artists use heads to make characters shorter or taller.
I understand how its working when you sculpt, i understand how to change proprotions and so on and so forth. Only one thing i don’t understand - how to convert it to real world scaling.

I intent to make male and female, and of course female should be shorter, at the same time i don’t want my male to be oversized hero like man. I read that 7 / 7.5 heads are good for realistic looking persons. And i thought to use 7.5 heads for male and 7 for female no problem with that. But i need to make them in realworld scale after i sculpt them, because i will animate them and do fx. So, i tried to google and digg around some 3d forums, and found nothing but the thing i described above.

Realworld scale is important, because i model my assets that way. Imagine you modelled a gun in exact mm scale, and then you import your character from zbrush and you find its either VERY big or small. I tried to do some maths, and found that average male head height is 24cm, which multiplied by 7.5 would give me exact 180cm, and female heads are about 22 (which if you multiply again by 7.5 would give you 165cm exact). I personally don’t intent to make every character with different heights, i just want to understand how it works.

It’s strange that just googling 8 heads rule or something related to it doesn’t give proper info rather than just: males are taller than females; 8 heads are for heroic characters; 7/7.5 heads for realistic and NOTHING is said how to convert that into realworld units.

So i decided to write here again, in hope that someone would explain how things work.

P.S. i apologize for asking such a basic questions, but really, google didn’t save me. He-he.

Thanks!

#2

As we discussed in your previous post on this topic, thats’s because heads don’t represent any real units. It’s just a quick and dirty well to sketch out a figure that would be roughly accurate. It’s also a rule for establishing proportions, not exact measurement. The heads could be 1m tall, or 1 mm tall–all “heads” care about are how many of those “heads” tall the character is. So if you were aiming for an idealized (not realistic) or heroic figure, you might chose to make an 8 head tall character. If his head was 1 mm tall, then the figure would be 8mm tall. Even though the figure is only 8mm tall, it will look mostly right proportionally, even if idealized.

Heads are a subjective measure–an artist’s shortcut for making a figure look mostly right in the absence of any exact measurements. If you have exact measurements you need a figure to be, then use those measurements instead.

You can study more about human anatomy and artistic proportions in educational material aimed at traditional artists. “Heads” are commonly referenced in the subject of establishing proportions. Searching for “Artistic Human proportions” returned quite a bit of material on this subject. It’s part of the study of human anatomy.

#3

Thank you again, @Spyndel ! Well, i will try your way of googling, maybe i’ll find anything what suits my needs. At least you described me how that works. I was thinking of that wrong way and you corrected me. Thanks!

#4

No problem, happy to help.

In case I wasn’t clear though, the concept of “heads” is a general artistic concept, not a Zbrush concept. It sounds like you’re ready to start studying anatomy. :slightly_smiling_face:

#5

@Spyndel
Oh, i forgot to make clear one thing:
You said if character’s head will be only 1mm tall, then if i use 8 heads rule his height will be 8mm tall. Does it mean i can do same math for example: i need to make 167cm figure, and i will use realistic 7.5 heads proportions. So i divide 167 by 7.5 = ~22cm tall head. What i am trying to understand if just ‘scale’ entire model uniformly to the point of 167 or any other centimeters will work or no. I actually downloaded a scan of female, measured her height and head height. Her height was 165cm, head height was 23cm. I took her head and duplicated it to 7 heads. Her entire mesh was a bit taller (not even 7.5) than 7 heads.
If you divide 165 by 7, you will get 23.5cm, which is pretty close.

Like, i just want to understand: if i launch zbrush, start to sculpt and and someone tell me that this character should be around 165-170cm, will i need to just scale it uniformly using scale master and export options, or i have to do something else? Like as i mentioned some time ago, i know anatomy ’ a bit ’ , and height changes by limbs become longer or shorter, not uniformly. So, uniform scale just scale, not a height adjustment.

Pff. Character artists are post human ultra wise beings.

Anyway, thank you very much again!

#6

Nvm. I think i will just make bounding box of needed measurements, and then import it in zbrush and just sculpt proprotionally within that bb. Don’t want to spend too much time on this, want to sculpt something already. Thanks!

#7

Watching the Scale Master documentation may answer a lot of questions for you.