Cut out a shape in maya

Samuraigun7

So i am modeling this knife and i was wondering how to cut out the dimond pattern out in maya because i cant do it because it crashes anyone can help me?

here is the model

Pola

Use a normal map?

Samuraigun7

Well i am making a high res model and then i will be bakling a normal map on it

Pola

Right, but this is a planar surface, you can overlay the normal detail in photoshop. You could alpha the pattern to the shape you want though I don't know if you can bake that way. Try a displacement map? If you have access to a sculpting app it'd be better to make a projection of the highres onto a a flat surface there.

There is also a thread that is stickied in the technical talk section about modelling certain shapes so you could try there too if you haven't already.

malcolm

If you have Maya 2012 you can model the bumpy part of the knife starting from a plane, then draw a spline, project the spline onto the model and then cut the model using the spline. I just tried it and it worked out quite well, no crashes.