POOR MAN'S DIGITIZING 

Occasionally, I experiment modeling  with a poor-man's digitizing method; I make a sculpture, draw my polygonal control, or pre-subdivided, mesh on it, photograph from at least two angles and bring the different views into the modeling program. Then I build my mesh over the background images. It works pretty well, although  camera lens distortion can cause problems in having every point line up in each view unless you use a long (zoom) lens . But it gets  me a good deal of the way there.

For this modeling example I used a point by point construction method, which I wouldn't recommend unless you had decent reference material in the background panels of your modeling window to help keep you on track. There's also the danger of painting yourself in a corner, polygon-wise (as I did in a few spots) so plan out ahead of time the best you can.

It's not a bad exercise to plot out control meshes on a real world model to help determine its construction. You can use one of your favorite store bought models if you don't want to sculpt it yourself. It really aids you in visualizing what kinds of poly configurations will best describe a particular area of geometry, which is sometimes difficult to do while staring at a 2d monitor.

Instead of a step by step illustrated tutorial, I recorded the process in one of those time-lapse AVI's that's all the rage these days. Aside from being able to share the workflow dynamically with others, they really are a good way to watch your own process and learn how to avoid certain pitfalls.

(This AVI doesn't seem to download with the Netscape Browser. Use Internet Explorer)

Download model construction AVI (4.5 mb)