Unsure where to post this, not sure if it should be a WIP but i’m just looking for some quick advice on one thing…
On this snake head how would you go by making the mouth look good and realistic? What i’m after is just a thin crack. Just pushing it in a moving stuff around seems damn near imossible… so i’m just asking if you have any good trix for stuff like this?
I think I just found out why this was so difficult. Apparently the X-symetry is somehow thrown off a bit in some places. That’s why when I move and subtract etc. the mouth always looks a bit off and “jagged” in some places. Don’t know how this happend…
I’m new to this too.
Lets maybe try pushing the mouth deeping inside. Go to masking options, then choose mask by cavity. Hopefully this will make a mask with the internal part of the mouth masked. Inverse the mask to where the outside is masked, and the inside is not, might blur it if needed. Then try using displace brush, regular brush, even move brush, to make it deeper. Also mess with lazy mouse, hit L with an brush. Clear the mask, or save the mask as a alpha with the create alpha button in the mask area. Then clear the mask. (that part might not be needed, but it would gaurantee more of a seem) Keep in mind the shape in the middle of the upper lip.
Now, with the regular brush and decent size, hold control down and draw a new mask over the upper lip, to mask everything but the lower jaw. Start off aways from the lip and get closer slowly, to not accidently go do far. And try different angles to see if makes the selecting easier.
With the upper part masked. Try making a move brush that’s large enough so if you clicked the front bottom lip that it would reach the corner of the mouth or so. Then click there, and litterally drag up like you are trying to close the mouth. If near the corner of the mouth gets pinched from the mask, either blur the mask before hand, or when done and cleared the mask, use smooth. Make sure smooth is around 10-20 strength, no default 100.
Or, while the top is still masked. Try the pinch brush. Make it large enough to where if you click a bit up from the upper lip, that the fall off would reach the lower lip. Now if you click the upper lip, you’ll notice the unmasked bottom mouth will start pulling to where you clicked. Try to do this with one pass using the mouse and lazy mouse turned on. Click from one corner of the mouse, then drag to the other side. Undo until you find the right strength that just about closes the mouth in one pass or, do it many times until it does.
Always use x symmetry if needed, and stop at the top of the mouth. If it the model wasn’t symmetrical, and you want it to be, go to deformation undertools, and with no mask, click smart resym (make sure x sym is on). This will rearrange as much as it can with an average of both sides.
Also, save the mask of the upper lip. Again while it’s on, go to create alpha in the masking window, you’ll see it generated in the alpha pallete with the brush. Make sure to select no alpha later to not mess up the brush. But when you need to reselect the upper mouth, on any brush, select that alpha, then go to select by alpha, it it will mach up, even if you moved things around. Don’t forget to export the alpha, as it won’t save with the tool unless it was the one alpha currently selected.
A lot of work is going overboard sometimes, then smoothing it back. And don’t forget to switch between low divisions in the geometry, shift-D, to high division, “D.” As when you switch to really low poly mode, you can make large movements more accuratly. Or even see if you can close the mouth point by point with a small move brush, then see how it translated to the high division. And like if you needed to reshape a head, in low poly you can do that with a more smooth transition from where you pull and push, but in high poly, you’ll often get to much of a round edge from the brush. And trying to rearrange a mouth can get a bit bumpy if you are too high poly, while low, it pretty much stays smooth when you go back up to high.
It takes practice to come up with the right technique. YOu can spend an hour just trying to do something simple, and then after you area done, you might have learned a way that could have taken minutes.
Hi!
First of all, thanks for a great reply! I haven’t tried it yet, but I have already learned a few new things. Really appreaciate it! 
I think the pic I posted was from subD level 2. I will attach a pic of subD level 1 with the wireframe visible. The base mesh is made with Maya and I have thought about taking it back to Maya and make the cavity of the mouth there. However I think I have to add a bit of geometry then, which might make the edges too sharp… but i’ll try and expiremnt a bit.
After I found out that the x-symetry was a bit off I could fix things a little better. However one problem I got left is that it sort of looks badly anti-aliased(don’t know if that’s a rendering issue or if it’s just unsmooth).
Anyway, i’ll try the techniques you suggested and see what I end up with. Again. lot’s of thanks for your great post!
I just made a quick test remodelling the mesh a bit in Maya, extruding in some faces and making a real cavity inside the mouth. Do you think this approach could work well?
Perhaps I should add that this is a more unedited base mesh, at subD level 3. That’s why it looks a bit more “square”.
