Learning Maya after using Max - Work Diary
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Hey guys, this thread is more or less just a work diary for a project i'm working on to learn Maya. you're more than welcome to pitch in as i go on with it or if you feel im doing somthing wrong or you have a better way of doing something, id appreciate the feedback.
ok so the project idea is quite simple, i have used 3ds max for about 2-3 years now during university however i have decided for several reasons that i want to learn maya and use that instead. this thread isn't going to be a comparison of the two softwares i just thought it would be worth mentioning my background in 3d abit.
so im not completly new to 3d softwares and fingers crossed should pick up how things work relatively quickly.
for this first project i'm combining 2 things that i love, lego and game of thrones in the form of a small project making both a character and an environment, i am going to make jon snow and the courtyard at castle black.
ok so the project idea is quite simple, i have used 3ds max for about 2-3 years now during university however i have decided for several reasons that i want to learn maya and use that instead. this thread isn't going to be a comparison of the two softwares i just thought it would be worth mentioning my background in 3d abit.
so im not completly new to 3d softwares and fingers crossed should pick up how things work relatively quickly.
for this first project i'm combining 2 things that i love, lego and game of thrones in the form of a small project making both a character and an environment, i am going to make jon snow and the courtyard at castle black.
Replies
so to start off i needed a reference sheet to work off, note that whilst i will be following the shape of the lego mini figure as closely as possible on this occasion i am not going for mathematically perfect, and just using my own judgement on what i think looks best.
ok so to start of with a created a basic head shape using the cylinder tool, cutting off the top and bottom faces, and extruding the edges of the cylinder and then altering their scale as i went, this is how i would have worked in max however i found it tricky having to use the extrude tool on edge mode instead of being able to just pull new geometry from the open edge itself.
having struggled to get it to work how i want i opted to change my approach and created a new cylinder, i then added all the edge loops i needed and scaled them accordingly, for the the top and bottom of the head piece ( where the hole is ) i used the extrude tool but with 0 thickness and just the offset to create what would be an inset in max ( as i couldn't figure out an alternative tool that would do this )
this whole process got me used to a few of the basic tools i am going to be using a lot of, i also figured out how to make my own custom shelf during this stage as well as.
For the Next stage i created a basic leg shape
to create this i used a combination of cube and the cylinder tool, i started from the bottom, shaping the cube to fit the foot, created an edge loop and extruded the leg up, i then shaped the cylinder to the right size and made sure the geometry lines were in a sensible place, i then deleted the the unnecessary faces for both the cube and cylinder and attached them using the combine tool. i then cleaned up the mesh using fill holes and multicut tools.
i then shaped two cylinders to a rough size for the hole shapes at the back of the legs.
You need to upload them to an image hoster first, e.g. imgur.com and then paste the corresponding links here.
And I already subbed to your thread.
Due to the shape inside the hole at the the top of the leg, i had to alter the cylinder shape used to cut out the hole in the leg
This is where the boolean tools came in handy and fortunatly they work in a very similar way to the ones in max, so it is quite simple to create custom shapes using this method.
Once i had made the main shape to cut out of the leg this was then used to create the hole in the leg mesh.
Although this made the shape i needed quite the mesh was not optimized well at all, this then led to a lot of issues i found as you can see below.
this issue occurred not only on the file i had been working on but for the 2 previous save iterations i had made, i couldn't figure out what was wrong with the mesh or what caused it and so i was forced to backtrack and start again from an earlier save.
So after I remade this section again the mesh came through much better 2nd time around
Once I cleaned up the geometry and flipped the faces from the cut, i also added in some extra edge loop for animation purposes i was quite pleased with the finished mesh
Although still not perfect due to a lot of circles on a square shaped mesh i feel this will be good enough for the purposes I need it for.
EDIT - after working on the torso (below) i noticed that the legs are actually slanted which allowed me to work with a new tool that i havnt had chance to use yet, mayas version of the FFD modifier, the lattice tool (which took a while for me to find in the deformation tool set)
although this did the trick it did alter the circular shapes at the back of the leg, which means i am more than likely going to have to go back and do that again once i figure out a way to just alter the outer face using the lattice tool instead of the whole mesh.
I then rounded off the corners using the bevel tool which took me a while to figure out (i found it confusing as there is also a chamfer tool in maya, and the chamfer tool is what i would have used in max to do this)
i then added in some extra edge loops for animation, brought the bottom of it down as it levels off and created a cylinder for the head to sit on, i also placed a cylinder where the hole for the arm will go later on
the next step was to extrude out the faces and shape it into the lego hand, to do this i made a side profile face of the hand and extruded that out and deleted the centre of it. i then used this to boolean cut the hand mesh. you can see this below?
once id done this i cleaned up the mesh and added the wrist cylinder into place.
i didnt even know how to approach it as its a rounded shape but its also got sharp edges and it is set at a slight angle to fit on the side of the torso.
the first thing i did was to create a sphere for the shoulder part of the arm, i shaped it accordingly by using scale tool on the edges. i then deleted the bottom half of the sphere and pulled the geometry down to the elbow point.
from here i used the fill hole tool to cap off the bottom of face and used the extrude tool on it but i did not alter its position, by just clicking the extrude tool on and off again it created the extra geometry i needed. i then moved this into position as best i could
i then rounded off the elbow joint using the bevel tool on the edge loop. tinkering with the settings on this tool until it moved the geometry to have the right curvature.
once this was down i was happy with the basic shape, i added in a lip where the hand would enter the arm and tweaked the edge loops around the elbow to make it tighter on the inside of the arm.
Then using a duplicated version of the torso i boolean cut the arm to remove the excess geometry that was colliding into the torso
at this point i moved on to the clip that connects the legs to the torso
as this piece was identical on both sides i only worked at getting one half of it right and would go on to mirror it later on.
- to create the flat piece that sits just above the leg i made a cube and boolean cut the leg out of it to give it the curvature it needed. i then took another duplication of the leg to create the sphere part at the bottom, i deleted the unneeded verts and welded the sphere to the cube.
- i then added edge loops to create the space for the part that protrudes up into the torso and extruded a cube up. to get the curved edges and cylinder in the middle i used 5 cylinders to cut out the shapes.
- i then angled a cube to make the final cut on this protrusion as you can see below, then i cleaned up the geometry.
i had to research how to mirror geometry from the pivot point as the mirror geometry tool just wasnt doing what i wanted it to do, i found out that by using the duplicate special tool i could mirror the geometry however i wanted based off the pivot point which was ideal for what i needed, once mirrored i attached the two pieces together and welded the verts.
i added in some extra geometry and tweaked some other parts to make the mesh look much less clunky.
so here it is, my semi finished lego mini figure character.
now i need to turn it into jon snow by adding; a cape, longclaw (sword), a hair piece and planes for the eyes, mouth etc. once these bits are done i am going to focus on unwrapping and texturing him before moving onto the environment.
considering i have only been working on this project for a short while i am pleased with my progress on how maya works. some of the tools in maya continue to frustrate me however as they don't appear to work in the same way as they do in max but are named the same. this has led me to have to redo several things already, however these have only been minor set backs.
i would love it if anyone who has read this far could leave some feedback on my work, good or bad, its always good to know what other people think and hopefully i can learn from it