Floating Geometry in Maya?

nervouspixels

Hey I don't know if there is a thread already on this, but is there an easy way to make rivets/bolts small little sci fi recceses in maya by floating geo? as a side note how do you float geo in Maya in the first place? :poly122:

peace out!

throttlekitty

It's as simple as a new object, such as a screw head, duplicated and placed around your other model as needed. I usually create these sorts of models away from my actual model, then duplicate and place the copies. Having a sensible object pivot makes life easy; especially if you can get away with snapping to your 'base' model, or using the align tool.

If I need to float the sci fi recesses stuff, I find it easiest to make a copy of the geometry from the base model that I need, and work that into the shapes I need; again, as a separate object. (something like duplicate object, select faces, extract, trim fat, then work on shape)

Also be sure to assign these to groups and layers, keep it clean, yo.

nervouspixels

Hmmm so its basically just geo that you put around your main model? Its never merged/combined into the rest of the model? I guess in max they just have a fancy function to display it merged? I guess it will be baked off as seperate maps then combined in photoshop? Is there a way I can get a fancy render of the high poly with the floating geo in maya? I know fancy render and maya should never be used in the same sentance :>

PredatorGSR

I don't believe there is anything special about floating geometry, even in Max. It just means geometry that isn't integrated into the mesh. For example, if you have a pistol grip that has a bunch of diamond shaped bumps on it, instead of modeling that kind of detail in, you create a flat sheet and model in the diamonds, and then place it an inch away from the grip. It 3d view, it looks totally fake, but when you actually bake, the normal map baker can't see height, all it sees is angles and lighting info. So it generates the normal map from looking straight on to the face, and from that angle, it can't see that the floating geo isn't part of the mesh and looks the same as if it were modeled in. I don't think Max does anything differently than Maya in this regard.

It is baked onto the uv map of the low poly, so if all the hp pieces are selected it will bake them all as part of the same map, or you can bake them separately and combine them in PS.

If you want the fancy renders, you need to model the stuff into the actual mesh. Floating geo is a method that is used to save time in production, if you want pretty portfolio renders, it is probably not the best way to go.

nervouspixels

I guess I'm thinking about how Racer445 made the screws and a few other elements in this tutorial

http://eat3d.com/blog/metalliandy/creating-next-gen-sci-fi-prop-day-1

it looked as though it seamlessly blended with the rest of the model. Not sure if it was a max thing or if you could the same thing in maya, or my eye balls aren't working properly?

3DRyan

If you are making it to be shown in an engine, you'll almost certainly have floating geo. It helps save polys.

Firebert

it's just how it displays in the viewport of maya versus max. still bakes the same if you have good normals, geo, and low poly smoothing. end result is most important.

Eric Chadwick

nervouspixels wrote: »

I guess I'm thinking about how Racer445 made the screws and a few other elements in this tutorial

http://eat3d.com/blog/metalliandy/creating-next-gen-sci-fi-prop-day-1

btw, that's metalliandy's tut, not racer445's which are here:
http://racer445.com/

nervouspixels

hahaha thanks Firebert as long as its not that easy. I think its racer445 demoing in the Tutorial no? his name is on there? and this one which is the same thing

http://cg.tutsplus.com/tutorials/autodesk-3ds-max/project-workflow-creating-a-next-gen-sci-fi-prop-day-1/

anyway thanks everyone I'm informed!

peace out! put your polygons where I can see em'

Eric Chadwick

Oh whoops, yeah. me bad.

kyle.rau

nervouspixels wrote: »

? Is there a way I can get a fancy render of the high poly with the floating geo in maya?

been searching the forums for a while and this thread is close to what i was looking for. i was wondering the same thing, how do you go about rendering floating geo? i'm assuming they don't cast shadows, and their back faces are culled?

thanks

Rhinokey

look at the pic on the right you can see that the screws on the side are floating cause you can see them extrude past the edge of the model on the far right.

kyle.rau

yep they are. in the tutorial, mostly all of the small details are floating. this is what i mean

simple maya floater set up



in viewport, no lights or anything, just regular viewport settings



and then a simple 2 light setup render...
disabled shadow casting of the floating piece, but you can still see the edge part....



how do you max users usually render these?

ZacD

only use infinite lights?

kyle.rau

a what?

ZacD

directional lights? I dunno the max terms. The one that isn't a point or spot light.

kyle.rau

oh lol. i was like wait.....have i never noticed this so called infinite light? i think directional would work........i'll give it a try

SHEPEIRO

infinite IE no fallof... but yeah they will need to be directional aswell like zacD says to avoid slight differences in angle from float and bG to light