Helpful techniques and tricks for beginning Environment and Prop Artists

kevingamerartist

Hi all,
So I have a question about constructing objects for Environment and Prop work. What are some useful techniques in Maya to use for modeling objects?

I know I use the Bevel and Edge Loop tools to model, but are there any other useful ones that I might not be using that would be helpful?

Any feedback on this is greatly appreciated. Thank you

DireWolf

https://gumroad.com/erikjakobsen_art

Highly recommend.

AdvisableRobin

http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/store/product/955/Environment-Modeling-for-Games#.VYwgfHpVi40

An overview of some great techniques using curves as well as some really good meta-art topics and technical bits and bobs. If you have any inkling into procedural texturing/Substance Designer check out Allegorithmic's youtube channel.

Also I can confirm, Erik the Viking is amazing, great series.

oskarkeo

off the top of my head:

ctrl+delete will delete verts and edges when you have an edge loop selected. So many wasted hours reselecting verts to remove them.

3 on the keyboard - subdivision preview. pretty much what it says on the tin. 1 on the keyboard to return to cage.

j on the keyboard gives an incremental snap. fantastic when you need to rotate things by 45 degrees in the gui. similarly, hold x to snap to grid, v to snap to vertices.

For most modelling tasks, the Modelling Toolkit (2014 and later) has you covered, worth familiarizing yourself with it.

Sage

check out arimus 3d for some good examples that you can apply to any software.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSLLdTBwLMfTKWS56tOiQpw

Mant1k0re

Nice link, sage, thanks!

As someone mostly interested in modeling architecture and big structures, I always thought it a pity that there is so little tutorial available covering that topic.