This is the section where I let all if you into all those trade secrets I know about Max that I have built up in my vast time using it.........er........
Well that's not entirely true, I've only actually been using Max about a month now after being a hardened 3DS4 man. But this puts me in quite a good position because many of you will also have moved over from 4, and if your anything like me, will have found it quite strange. But as I, and the other artists in the office, have had to learn it quite quickly I might be able put some helpful tips your way.(You lucky people, you v'e never 'ad it so good...)

What a hunk?

Now I know what your all thinking, "hang on, there are already tutorials on this!". Quite true, my friends, but the ones that I have seen only show you the making of the face. Also they did not look particularly realistic, but admit idly were only done quickly. This head, on the other hand took two days to finish and I spent my time getting it to look as good as I could.

Those wonderful things called....... Patches.

Wow, these things are great! If you have not looked at patches yet prepare to do so now. Patches are small grids of mesh controlled by a lattice, a bit like the one in the deform tool on 3DS4. A patch is moved and distorted by changing the shape of the lattice, either directly or by means of a bezier vertex at each corner. They can look a bit mad after you've played with them for a bit, so I find it much easyer to see what I'm doing if I turn the lattice off, you can get by fine without it. You should also know that if you right click on a vertex you can change it from curved bezier to a bezier corner. This allows you totally independent control of each patch even when lots are joined together. Patches can be joined together by the usual vertex welding method, but the best way is to grow a patch off of an existing one. This is done by selecting sub-object edge, picking an edge of your patch, then select add quad or tri patch this adds a patch to the existing one and blends then together seamlessly. This technique forms the basis of this tutorial.

O.K ramblers, lets get ramblin'

I'll change this picture soon so you can see what the hell is going on!

First you need to have a picture or sketch to work from, at least a front and side view. Then you will need to make a spline layout of you head. Just use the line tool to create the front and side views. The bottom vertex of your side view should curve round to meet the bottom vertex of the front, arrange the vertices to give you the line of the jaw. Place as many lines as there are important features on your face eg. sides of the nose, outline of the lip, curve of the cheek bone and so on. Put all of these lines in 3D space exactly where they will be on the finished head as these are going to be you template to work from. Rotate the outline head in a user viewport and you should be able to visualize the fleshed out version quite well.
IMPORTANT:Do not proceed any further if you are at all unhappy with the shape of you template, if it does not look as much like your sketch or photo as you can get it, then go back and tweak it until it does! Time spent now on the outline will save you headache later on and you will know what kind of head you will end up with.

The start of the patching up.

The diagram looks to have jumped quite far on doesn't it? Well once you've got the hang of adding patches together, it's quite an easy step to do the rest. Start by creating a small patch by the chin. (You don't have to start here,but it's an easy place to begin) Go into vertex mode and move the vertices and bezier handles so that your patch matches up with your outline. Ajust the handles so you have a nice round chin type shape. Then switch to edge mode and select the left hand edge (the one leading to the cheek area). Click on add quad patch, go back to vertex mode and position the versifies again to match up with the outline. To get to this stage took me around 7 patches, but use as many as you feel you need to get the shape right, you can always optimize the mesh later. When you need to join a patch to 2 edges, add it as normal to one of them and then weld the remaining vertices together.

A nose by any other name.....

The nose and lips were made in just the same way as the rest of the head, just by adding patches together. But I found the nose especially to be quite difficult. You will need to spend some time to get it to look just right. Tri patches can be useful here, they are not only made up from triangular faces instead of quads but when added to another patch are also triangular in shape. Great for filling in those annoying gaps. I ended up using 2 or 3 on the end of the nose.

Half a head is better than one......I think?

Carry on adding patches until you reach this stage, no other techniques are needed and no special rules apply. The biggest tip I can give is to take your time. You will know as you are building it if that patch you just added is right or not. Building patch heads is slow but rewarding, if you've made it to this stage and it looks good, you'll be feeling pretty jazzed and won't mind carrying on!

A neck of the gods me thinks!

These two shots show the laying out and patching of the neck. Just the same as you did for the head, draw out front and side views of the neck with splines. Then carry on adding patches from the line of the jaw down.

Straight down the middle, it went straight down the middle......

Now comes the time to mirror the sucker! Turn off sub-object and mirror the head with a clone option. You can now attach the two patches together under your edit patch modifier. You will now need to weld together all the vertices floating about down the middle of your head. You could select all of them and do them all at once I suppose, but I did them one set at a time just to be on the safe side. And there you have it a whole head! Now don't you feel better?

Now for a splash of colour....

You will have noticed that he now has eyes and ears too. Nothing too flash, the eyes are just spheres with hemi-spheres for the lids, you could do them in a more realistic way, but I quite like the comic book look this gives him. The ears are made from patches, I racked my brain trying to come up with a quick and easy way to make good looking ears, but I couldn't. If you can please let me know! A quick splash of flat colour and we're almost home.

Look at those curtains dude!....

Aaaarrrrrggggghhhh!!!!!! Hair! who needs it eh? Bloody not me that's for sure. I tried for ages to build a cool and realistic bouffant type hair-do but it was too much, so I copped out and opted for the long haired student look! All made from patches again, quick and dirty but looks O.K