Build a human hand

Description: In this tutorial you are going to build a human hand with CINEMA 4D XL's Hyper NURBS. You will be using templates provided above in the project download. Note: there is no project with that download, just the templates.

Looks daunting at first

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Step 1: First, we are going to import some hand templates to help us with the modeling. Go to four way view. (pic.1)

Step 2: Select Edit=>Configure from the File Menu. Then, select a left view from the View Menu. In your background box, search the path to side.tif. Repeat for the front view. Double check that your maps are the same size in your horizontal and vertical boxes

Modeling the Palm Step 1 Add a cube to the scene.

Step 2: Double-click the cube icon in your Object manager and add 4 segments in X.

Step 3: Slide it down in you view windows and set it at the base of the hand with your move tool.

Step 4: It's probably a good idea to save now. Save you scene file as HAND1.c4d.

Step 5: Click-drag the orange point on the top of the cube and drag it down to fit roughly within the base of the hand. Repeat for the side point.

Step 6: Make the cube editable

Step 7: Toggle on your polygon selection tool.

Step 8: Activate your Live Selection tool

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Step 9: Use your Navigation tools to click-drag yourself into a position to select the top poly faces. You will extrude these poly faces to start forming the hand.

TIP: Be sure to keep an eye on your Active Tool box in the lower right of your interface. It lets you know the current settings for your selected tool. For this selection we want "only select visible elements" toggled on. This will ensure precise selection of our faces.

Step 10: Select the 4 poly faces on the Y axis (green arrow).

Step 11: Right click (or command click if your rockin' a MAC) to bring our modeling tools. Select extrude.

Step 12 Click-drag until you reach where the thumb begins... roughly.

Step 13 O.K. Lets take a breather and SAVE as HAND.2

Step 14 We're going to get a little organic now so we can start properly shaping our hand. Create a hyperNURBs deformer.

Step 15 To make this smoothing deformer work on our cube we must drag n' drop the cube onto the hyperNURBs deformer in the Object Manager window. Open the Hierarchy.

Step 16: Extrude the same selected facets until they reach the split between your pinkyand ring finger.

Step 17: Activate select points, select your live selection tool.

 

Now we're cookin' with gas!

Step 18: In your front veiw start pulling points around to shape the hand in a more realistic shape. Start by pulling your topmost points to line up with your fingers using the live selection tool to select the points and your move tool to put 'em in place. (Ensure that select visible elements is turned off!)

Step 19: Select the outside point and use the scale tool to scale in Z. This is going to round the palm and give us a better hand shape.

     

Step 1: Now we will extrude a finger from one facet using the same tools we used to build our palm. Select the index finger facet with your Poly select and Live selection tools. Right click and extrude it so it meets the tip of the finger.

Use the move tool to position it.

Step 2: Now we will add sub-sections to this finger so we can add some shape to our model. Right click and select Knife tool. Click and drag across the finger to create a sub-section. you must be in points mode for this tool to work.

Step 3: Cut a few more sub-sections so you have a some points to work with. Step 4: Now move around these new points to shape the finger just as you modeled the palm. Using your Live selection and Move tools.

Step 5: As you can see I've tried to match the template as closly as possible without excessive geometry.

Step 6: To build the other fingers we will clone the polys from our first finger and attach them to the hand with the Bridge tool. First select the polys and clone them.

Use these settings

Step 7 This will copy the poly we've selected. Use your Move tool to slide the new polys up and over the middle finger knuckle.

Step 8: We will need to delete the poly facet facing the finger so we can bridge the points on the cloned finger to the rest of the hand. Select it and hit Delete.

9. Activate Points select. Right click or Command-click in teh Editor window to bring up the structure tools and select the Bridge tool.

This let's you draw lines between points and attach them. Click on a point and draw a line between two unattached points. Nothing will change save for them being highlighted, but when you draw a line between neighboring points a poly facet is created.

Step 10: Continue linking points until the finger is fully attached.

Step 11: One thing you may notice is a little discoloration in the new facets, that's because the normals somtimes get reversed. It's showing us the wrong side of the facets! To fix this, in Poly select press A. This selects all polys and right click>Align Normals.

Step 12: Now just put those points in place and repeat these steps for the rest of the fingers.

Step 13: The thumb can be formed from carefully place extrudes. Using the Move, Scale and Rotate tools build the thumb relying on your skills learned so far.

Important tools are these young Jedi...

Step 14: Now you are free to use your own hand as reference material, feel free to try different shapes and deformities of hands ans see what you can create.