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Introduction to Polygonal modeling in Maya.
Chapters:
-Introduction.
-Working in Maya.
-Quick Overview of Maya's UI.
-Maya's Polygons shelf and the Tools that we will be using.
-Modeling the Character.
-Finalizing the Character and optimizing the scene.
-Conclusions.
Introduction.
Maya is application for creating compelling 3D digital content, including models, animation, visual effects, games, and simulations.
Maya is a great tool because of its limitless possibilities but yet simple to use.
In this tutorial we will learn how to model a simple character with acceptable topology in Maya.
We will cover the basics of Polygonal Modeling in Maya, as well Maya friendly interface. We will also have a short discussion about other types of modeling in Maya, and prepare our model for integration with other applications.
Working in Maya.
Creating models in Maya is divided to three types: Polygons, NURBS, and subdivision. These surfaces are different object types with different ways of modeling. Each has its own strengths, and different artists prefer working with different types.
-Polygons let you model a surface by building up and reshaping a number of simple surface facets.
-NURBS let you easily create smooth, curving surfaces with high-level control.
-Subdivision surfaces let you edit surfaces at a high level with minimum overhead data, while still letting you work with subsections of the surface as if they were made from polygons.
In this tutorial, we will learn the basics of Polygonal modeling.
Quick Overview of Maya's UI
This section is a brief summary of Maya’s main interface.
1) The status line lets you:
-Change the menu set.
-Access common functions.
-Control the selection mask
-Set various options.
-Change the contents of the sidebar.
2) Shelves hold commonly used actions and tools, allowing them to be accessed by clicking an icon. You can also put custom scripts and panel layouts on a shelf.
In this tutorial, we will mainly use the "Polygons" shelf.
3) The quick layout buttons let you switch to one of a few common panel layouts quickly.
The layouts we will be using in this tutorial are:
-The first button (Perspective view).
-The third button (Perspective view with the Outliner)
*The Outliner shows a hierarchical list of all objects in the scene in outline form, and can be used to delete unnecessary data and helps to organize and better understand the scene.
4) The Channel Box is the primary, fastest, and most streamlined tool for editing object attributes. It lets you quickly set keys, and lock, unlock, or create expressions on attributes. The information displayed in the Channel Box varies, depending on what kind of object or component you have selected. If you haven’t selected an object, the Channel Box is blank.
In the bottom of the Channel Box there is the Layer Editor, which is used to create and manage Layers in order to keep the scene organized.
5) The Panel is the workspace of the scene and has six menus:
-View: shows or hides Camera Tools from the panel (Will not be discussed in this tutorial)
-Shading: The Shading menu provides a number of ways to look at your scene. The quality can range from a simple wireframe display to a smooth- shaded view.
-Lighting: Use the items in this menu to select which lights or groups of lights to use in your scene. (Will not be discussed in this tutorial)
-Show: Use the items in this menu to show or hide specific object types in a panel. (Will not be discussed in this tutorial)
-Renderer: The Renderer menu allows you to decide if to use default view or High Rendering view, which will give you a preview of how the scene will look when rendered (Will not be discussed in this tutorial)
-Panel menu: The items in this menu let you set the contents of this specific panel as well as the overall layout and panel contents.
*To navigate in the panel: use Alt+Left Click to Rotate, Alt+Middle click to Move and Alt+Right click to scale.
Maya's Polygons shelf and the Tools that we will be using.
Let's begin by clicking the "Polygons" label in the Shelves:
This shelf includes the most common tools in Polygonal modeling, as well as the basic shapes (Cube, Sphere, Pyramid…).
The tools that we will be using from this shelf:
-Polygon Cube: Create a polygon cube on the grid.
-Extrude: Extrude the selected component (We will extrude Faces).
-Split Polygon tool: Select a point on the edge to start cutting the face.
-Mirror Geometry: Mirror Geometry across the axis.
Other Tools that we will be using and are on the Tool Box:
-Select Tool: Select components.
-Move Tool: Move components.
-Rotate Tool: Rotate components (Faces and Edges).
-Scale Tool: Scale components (Faces and Edges).
And from the status line:
-Snap to grids: Snapping components to the grids' lines and points.
We will also be using following tools from the MJ Poly Tools, which is a plug-in that can be downloaded from here http://www.mediafire.com/?5y5hxajzbzz:
-Edge loop split: Loop split the selected edge.
Modeling the Character.
Let us begin by creating a cube (By clicking the "Polygon Cube" button and dragging the cube on the grid).
As you can see, not only that our cube is transparent but it is also not in the size and position we want it.
So, first let's make it less transparent:
In the Panel menus, go to Shading->Smooth Shade all. That should "fill" all the faces in the scene.
Now, select the cube and in the channel box slide down until you see "INPUTS" and under it the name of our cub (The default is polycube1).
Click it and it will open a menu with all the cube's options.
First, let's bring our cube to be a perfect cube by changing its dimensions to 1x1x1. To do that, just change the Width, Height and Depth values in the cube's options to 1.
Now, that our cube looks nice and perfect lets bring it to the position in our panel. Select the cube and click on "Snap to Grids" in the statues line and snap it to the center of our grids. Then since we will start from the torso, lets vertically higher it a little by selecting it and using the move tool (Use the green arrow only).
Now In the "INPUTS" cube options, change the "Ubdivisons Width" value to 2, this will split our cube right in half. Now, bring the view camera into a "side" view by going in the Panel menus to Panel->Orthographic->Side (Or navigate to this position) and than scale it until you reach close enough to the cube. Click on the "Single Perspective View" button in the quick layout menu if you want to come back to the normal type of view.
Now the fun begins: Long right click on the cube in order to open a menu. Without stop pressing the right click, select the "Vertex" option in order to switch into "Vertices mode". Now we can move and edit the vertices of the cube.
Now, select the Vertices and start to shape it to look like the Lungs and neck area in our body. When you finish, long right click again on the cube and click on "Edge" (Like we did with the vertices), select one of the horizontal edges and go in the statues line to MJ poly tools-> edge loop split. This will create another line of edges in our cube.
Switch back to Vertices mode and shape it to look even more like that area and when you feel you shaped it good enough, long right click on the mesh and select "Face" (Like we did with the Edges and the Vertices) and select the bottom faces. When you do that, click "Extrude" in the Polygon self to extrude the faces out. Use the move and Scale tools (They show up when you use the Extrude tool, but you can also select them manually) to move the new faces down in order to create the belly and the upper lower part of the torso (You can even switch to vertices mode and modify it more if you wish). When you done, extrude twice more the bottom faces in order to create the connection with the legs and the lower lower part of the body.
Now, pick the most top faces and extrude, use the move and scale tools in each time in order to create the neck and the beginning of the head. Repeat the process until you have a fine neck.
Now let's start with the head: Extrude the faces of the neck up and then again up and switch to vertices mode, move the vertices in order to create the back of the head.
Select the front three faces of the new "half head" and extrude those forward a couple of times and use the scale and move tools and move the vertices in order to create the front of the head. When you done, use the edge loop split in the on the middle edge of the neck and pull the front new vertices forward in order to create the trachea and give the neck more volume.
Tweak the vertices of the head in order to reduce spaces between vertices and make it look more realistic.
Now, go back to perspective view (Click the Click on the "Single Perspective View" button in the quick layout menu) and look on the front of the model. (It doesn't matter if both sides of the models aren't match because we will delete the left one and mirror the other.). Pick one of the edges on the side and use the Edge loop split tool to add a split. Select the mesh by long right click and selecting "Object Mode" and use the scale tool to add more width to the model (Using the red cube). When you think the torso is wide enough, switch to Face mode and delete all the faces in the left side of the model (By selecting all the faces in the area and pressing "delete".)
Then, select all the vertices of the head and the neck and use the move tool to move them horizontally (Using the red arrow) from the right side of the torso.
Select the front right edges of the head and move them more in order to create the nose area. Now, select the two side-middle faces of the head and pull them right in order to give the head more volume (You can move the vertices in this area to reach the same affect or too improve it).
Now, select the top right faces of the torso and extrude them right in order to create the beginning of the arm.
Use the move and scale tools and move the vertices in this area in order to create nice shoulder. Once you done, extrude again in order to create the elbow. Use the move and scale tools and rotate tools to position it right (Don’t make it too straight).
Extrude again and repeat the same process in order to create the wrist area. Adjust the Vertices in order to make nice base for the palm.
Extrude twice the wrist faces and modify the vertices in order to create the middle of the palm. When you think you are done, select the front left face of the palm and extrude it forward-right in order to create the thumb. Pull it until it is long enough and add two more loops splits along it and adjust the vertices in order to give it the shape of the thumb.
Pick the top two faces of the palm, each one separately, and click extrude, but instead of pulling them out, select the scale tool and scale them in then pull the new faces up a little bit.
Now, select the side right edge of the palm and delete it, then select the two right lower edges of the palm and add new splits.
Now click on the "Split Polygon tool" in the shelf and add splits manually by connecting the vertices of the bottom right vertex and the bottom right vertex of the new left and right (respectively) squares we have created to the middle of the close edges and then to the begging of the splits we have creates in order to great the base for the fingers. Then, delete the two edges that connected the squares to the main edge and connect the main edge to the other main edge in the lower part of the palm. Then, reconnect each square to the main edge but keep that there will be no triangles or more than 4 sided shapes (Look at the pictures).
Note that if you created extra vertices while using the "Split Polygon Tool", you need to delete it while in the Vertices mode.
Let's leave this area for now and go back to the main torso to edit a bit our topology.
Pick one of the horizontal edges on the torso and add loop split. Delete all the new edges that go through the neck and the head (Don't forget to delete the vertices too).
Connect the new edge to the right bottom vertices of the neck from both sides and then delete the other edges that connecting these vertices to the torso. Now, connect the edge that was between these edges to the vertices you have connected the vertices of the neck to. Now, pick the right front and back (not the middle) edges of the neck and pull them left in order to create nice neck shape.
Let's go to the legs now: select the right bottom edges of the body and extrude them down, use the move, scale and rotate tools in order to create the beginning of the leg.
Extrude twice more the bottom faces in order to create the knee. Move the vertices in this area in order to create nice shaped knee. When you done extrude again. When you think the leg became long enough, add split along the new edges and make the bottom of the leg flat. This will be the base for the foot.
Move the edges and vertices in this area and when the shape is ready extrude the front faces forward to begin the foot. Shape it to look like an entirely flat foot and then pull the front top vertices down to create the slop. Once you have defined it, add a loop split and bring its vertices near the most front ones in order to create the base for the foot fingers.
Now, let's create the fingers for both the foot and the palm. Just select each face and extrude it like we have extruded the thumb and follow the same process to get the results (The foot fingers don't need more than one extrude, for the palm fingers I suggest three extrudes).
Now, when the base forms are finished, add more splits and geometry and use the move, scale and rotate tools to improve the topology and shapes of the character. Just make sure not to include any triangles, it is recommended that the character will be an entirely quad mesh.
When you done, select the model and use the "Mirror Geometry" tool in the shelf in order mirror the model. The tool will unify all the vertices automatically.
Finalizing the Character and optimizing the scene.
First, select the model in object mode and snap it to the center of the grids.
Now, in the statues line go to Modify->freeze transformations. This will reset all values in the channel box. Now, again in the statues line go to
Modify->reset transformations. This will return the model's pivot point to the center.
Now, click on the Persp/Outliner button in the Quick Layouts menu and in the outliner select everything that doesn't relate to the mesh (Next to the mesh there is a blue plane, select every thing except of it and the cameras.) and delete it.
When you done, you can return to the normal perspective view and then go to
Edit->Delete by type->History. This will delete all the history of the scene.
Now, save the scene and go to File->Optimize Scene size. Say yes to everything and everything irrelevant in the scene will be deleted. Now save the scene and you have done!
Conclusions:
We have come to the end of our discussion.
We have learned how to use the common modeling tools in Maya in order to create simple character with acceptable topology. Although we haven't even touched Maya's great modeling and sculpting capabilities we covered most of the basic techniques.
I hope after reading this tutorial you better understand Maya's interface and basic tools.
Maya is a great tool with many possibilities and you may want to spend time with it to find your own method of working. With little bit of exploration and experimenting, you will find out that Maya is more than just another modeling software.
For any comments or questions please PM me or post in this thread.
Thank you for reading and I will see you in the next tutorial: "UV Mapping with Maya and UVlayout."
Anetherond.
Chapters:
-Introduction.
-Working in Maya.
-Quick Overview of Maya's UI.
-Maya's Polygons shelf and the Tools that we will be using.
-Modeling the Character.
-Finalizing the Character and optimizing the scene.
-Conclusions.
Introduction.
Maya is application for creating compelling 3D digital content, including models, animation, visual effects, games, and simulations.
Maya is a great tool because of its limitless possibilities but yet simple to use.
In this tutorial we will learn how to model a simple character with acceptable topology in Maya.
We will cover the basics of Polygonal Modeling in Maya, as well Maya friendly interface. We will also have a short discussion about other types of modeling in Maya, and prepare our model for integration with other applications.
Working in Maya.
Creating models in Maya is divided to three types: Polygons, NURBS, and subdivision. These surfaces are different object types with different ways of modeling. Each has its own strengths, and different artists prefer working with different types.
-Polygons let you model a surface by building up and reshaping a number of simple surface facets.
-NURBS let you easily create smooth, curving surfaces with high-level control.
-Subdivision surfaces let you edit surfaces at a high level with minimum overhead data, while still letting you work with subsections of the surface as if they were made from polygons.
In this tutorial, we will learn the basics of Polygonal modeling.
Quick Overview of Maya's UI
This section is a brief summary of Maya’s main interface.
1) The status line lets you:
-Change the menu set.
-Access common functions.
-Control the selection mask
-Set various options.
-Change the contents of the sidebar.
2) Shelves hold commonly used actions and tools, allowing them to be accessed by clicking an icon. You can also put custom scripts and panel layouts on a shelf.
In this tutorial, we will mainly use the "Polygons" shelf.
3) The quick layout buttons let you switch to one of a few common panel layouts quickly.
The layouts we will be using in this tutorial are:
-The first button (Perspective view).
-The third button (Perspective view with the Outliner)
*The Outliner shows a hierarchical list of all objects in the scene in outline form, and can be used to delete unnecessary data and helps to organize and better understand the scene.
4) The Channel Box is the primary, fastest, and most streamlined tool for editing object attributes. It lets you quickly set keys, and lock, unlock, or create expressions on attributes. The information displayed in the Channel Box varies, depending on what kind of object or component you have selected. If you haven’t selected an object, the Channel Box is blank.
In the bottom of the Channel Box there is the Layer Editor, which is used to create and manage Layers in order to keep the scene organized.
5) The Panel is the workspace of the scene and has six menus:
-View: shows or hides Camera Tools from the panel (Will not be discussed in this tutorial)
-Shading: The Shading menu provides a number of ways to look at your scene. The quality can range from a simple wireframe display to a smooth- shaded view.
-Lighting: Use the items in this menu to select which lights or groups of lights to use in your scene. (Will not be discussed in this tutorial)
-Show: Use the items in this menu to show or hide specific object types in a panel. (Will not be discussed in this tutorial)
-Renderer: The Renderer menu allows you to decide if to use default view or High Rendering view, which will give you a preview of how the scene will look when rendered (Will not be discussed in this tutorial)
-Panel menu: The items in this menu let you set the contents of this specific panel as well as the overall layout and panel contents.
*To navigate in the panel: use Alt+Left Click to Rotate, Alt+Middle click to Move and Alt+Right click to scale.
Maya's Polygons shelf and the Tools that we will be using.
Let's begin by clicking the "Polygons" label in the Shelves:
This shelf includes the most common tools in Polygonal modeling, as well as the basic shapes (Cube, Sphere, Pyramid…).
The tools that we will be using from this shelf:
-Polygon Cube: Create a polygon cube on the grid.
-Extrude: Extrude the selected component (We will extrude Faces).
-Split Polygon tool: Select a point on the edge to start cutting the face.
-Mirror Geometry: Mirror Geometry across the axis.
Other Tools that we will be using and are on the Tool Box:
-Select Tool: Select components.
-Move Tool: Move components.
-Rotate Tool: Rotate components (Faces and Edges).
-Scale Tool: Scale components (Faces and Edges).
And from the status line:
-Snap to grids: Snapping components to the grids' lines and points.
We will also be using following tools from the MJ Poly Tools, which is a plug-in that can be downloaded from here http://www.mediafire.com/?5y5hxajzbzz:
-Edge loop split: Loop split the selected edge.
Modeling the Character.
Let us begin by creating a cube (By clicking the "Polygon Cube" button and dragging the cube on the grid).
As you can see, not only that our cube is transparent but it is also not in the size and position we want it.
So, first let's make it less transparent:
In the Panel menus, go to Shading->Smooth Shade all. That should "fill" all the faces in the scene.
Now, select the cube and in the channel box slide down until you see "INPUTS" and under it the name of our cub (The default is polycube1).
Click it and it will open a menu with all the cube's options.
First, let's bring our cube to be a perfect cube by changing its dimensions to 1x1x1. To do that, just change the Width, Height and Depth values in the cube's options to 1.
Now, that our cube looks nice and perfect lets bring it to the position in our panel. Select the cube and click on "Snap to Grids" in the statues line and snap it to the center of our grids. Then since we will start from the torso, lets vertically higher it a little by selecting it and using the move tool (Use the green arrow only).
Now In the "INPUTS" cube options, change the "Ubdivisons Width" value to 2, this will split our cube right in half. Now, bring the view camera into a "side" view by going in the Panel menus to Panel->Orthographic->Side (Or navigate to this position) and than scale it until you reach close enough to the cube. Click on the "Single Perspective View" button in the quick layout menu if you want to come back to the normal type of view.
Now the fun begins: Long right click on the cube in order to open a menu. Without stop pressing the right click, select the "Vertex" option in order to switch into "Vertices mode". Now we can move and edit the vertices of the cube.
Now, select the Vertices and start to shape it to look like the Lungs and neck area in our body. When you finish, long right click again on the cube and click on "Edge" (Like we did with the vertices), select one of the horizontal edges and go in the statues line to MJ poly tools-> edge loop split. This will create another line of edges in our cube.
Switch back to Vertices mode and shape it to look even more like that area and when you feel you shaped it good enough, long right click on the mesh and select "Face" (Like we did with the Edges and the Vertices) and select the bottom faces. When you do that, click "Extrude" in the Polygon self to extrude the faces out. Use the move and Scale tools (They show up when you use the Extrude tool, but you can also select them manually) to move the new faces down in order to create the belly and the upper lower part of the torso (You can even switch to vertices mode and modify it more if you wish). When you done, extrude twice more the bottom faces in order to create the connection with the legs and the lower lower part of the body.
Now, pick the most top faces and extrude, use the move and scale tools in each time in order to create the neck and the beginning of the head. Repeat the process until you have a fine neck.
Now let's start with the head: Extrude the faces of the neck up and then again up and switch to vertices mode, move the vertices in order to create the back of the head.
Select the front three faces of the new "half head" and extrude those forward a couple of times and use the scale and move tools and move the vertices in order to create the front of the head. When you done, use the edge loop split in the on the middle edge of the neck and pull the front new vertices forward in order to create the trachea and give the neck more volume.
Tweak the vertices of the head in order to reduce spaces between vertices and make it look more realistic.
Now, go back to perspective view (Click the Click on the "Single Perspective View" button in the quick layout menu) and look on the front of the model. (It doesn't matter if both sides of the models aren't match because we will delete the left one and mirror the other.). Pick one of the edges on the side and use the Edge loop split tool to add a split. Select the mesh by long right click and selecting "Object Mode" and use the scale tool to add more width to the model (Using the red cube). When you think the torso is wide enough, switch to Face mode and delete all the faces in the left side of the model (By selecting all the faces in the area and pressing "delete".)
Then, select all the vertices of the head and the neck and use the move tool to move them horizontally (Using the red arrow) from the right side of the torso.
Select the front right edges of the head and move them more in order to create the nose area. Now, select the two side-middle faces of the head and pull them right in order to give the head more volume (You can move the vertices in this area to reach the same affect or too improve it).
Now, select the top right faces of the torso and extrude them right in order to create the beginning of the arm.
Use the move and scale tools and move the vertices in this area in order to create nice shoulder. Once you done, extrude again in order to create the elbow. Use the move and scale tools and rotate tools to position it right (Don’t make it too straight).
Extrude again and repeat the same process in order to create the wrist area. Adjust the Vertices in order to make nice base for the palm.
Extrude twice the wrist faces and modify the vertices in order to create the middle of the palm. When you think you are done, select the front left face of the palm and extrude it forward-right in order to create the thumb. Pull it until it is long enough and add two more loops splits along it and adjust the vertices in order to give it the shape of the thumb.
Pick the top two faces of the palm, each one separately, and click extrude, but instead of pulling them out, select the scale tool and scale them in then pull the new faces up a little bit.
Now, select the side right edge of the palm and delete it, then select the two right lower edges of the palm and add new splits.
Now click on the "Split Polygon tool" in the shelf and add splits manually by connecting the vertices of the bottom right vertex and the bottom right vertex of the new left and right (respectively) squares we have created to the middle of the close edges and then to the begging of the splits we have creates in order to great the base for the fingers. Then, delete the two edges that connected the squares to the main edge and connect the main edge to the other main edge in the lower part of the palm. Then, reconnect each square to the main edge but keep that there will be no triangles or more than 4 sided shapes (Look at the pictures).
Note that if you created extra vertices while using the "Split Polygon Tool", you need to delete it while in the Vertices mode.
Let's leave this area for now and go back to the main torso to edit a bit our topology.
Pick one of the horizontal edges on the torso and add loop split. Delete all the new edges that go through the neck and the head (Don't forget to delete the vertices too).
Connect the new edge to the right bottom vertices of the neck from both sides and then delete the other edges that connecting these vertices to the torso. Now, connect the edge that was between these edges to the vertices you have connected the vertices of the neck to. Now, pick the right front and back (not the middle) edges of the neck and pull them left in order to create nice neck shape.
Let's go to the legs now: select the right bottom edges of the body and extrude them down, use the move, scale and rotate tools in order to create the beginning of the leg.
Extrude twice more the bottom faces in order to create the knee. Move the vertices in this area in order to create nice shaped knee. When you done extrude again. When you think the leg became long enough, add split along the new edges and make the bottom of the leg flat. This will be the base for the foot.
Move the edges and vertices in this area and when the shape is ready extrude the front faces forward to begin the foot. Shape it to look like an entirely flat foot and then pull the front top vertices down to create the slop. Once you have defined it, add a loop split and bring its vertices near the most front ones in order to create the base for the foot fingers.
Now, let's create the fingers for both the foot and the palm. Just select each face and extrude it like we have extruded the thumb and follow the same process to get the results (The foot fingers don't need more than one extrude, for the palm fingers I suggest three extrudes).
Now, when the base forms are finished, add more splits and geometry and use the move, scale and rotate tools to improve the topology and shapes of the character. Just make sure not to include any triangles, it is recommended that the character will be an entirely quad mesh.
When you done, select the model and use the "Mirror Geometry" tool in the shelf in order mirror the model. The tool will unify all the vertices automatically.
Finalizing the Character and optimizing the scene.
First, select the model in object mode and snap it to the center of the grids.
Now, in the statues line go to Modify->freeze transformations. This will reset all values in the channel box. Now, again in the statues line go to
Modify->reset transformations. This will return the model's pivot point to the center.
Now, click on the Persp/Outliner button in the Quick Layouts menu and in the outliner select everything that doesn't relate to the mesh (Next to the mesh there is a blue plane, select every thing except of it and the cameras.) and delete it.
When you done, you can return to the normal perspective view and then go to
Edit->Delete by type->History. This will delete all the history of the scene.
Now, save the scene and go to File->Optimize Scene size. Say yes to everything and everything irrelevant in the scene will be deleted. Now save the scene and you have done!
Conclusions:
We have come to the end of our discussion.
We have learned how to use the common modeling tools in Maya in order to create simple character with acceptable topology. Although we haven't even touched Maya's great modeling and sculpting capabilities we covered most of the basic techniques.
I hope after reading this tutorial you better understand Maya's interface and basic tools.
Maya is a great tool with many possibilities and you may want to spend time with it to find your own method of working. With little bit of exploration and experimenting, you will find out that Maya is more than just another modeling software.
For any comments or questions please PM me or post in this thread.
Thank you for reading and I will see you in the next tutorial: "UV Mapping with Maya and UVlayout."
Anetherond.
