BA3: Digital Modeling

Portal Companion Cube, Pt3

Since having our taught tutorials on how to re create the Portal weighted companion cube with Mark at uni we have been briefed on our second  project which is based upon UV mapping and texturing.

Having built my door  (blog post to follow) since stopping the companion cube tutorials I felt a lot more at ease in conquering the companion cube task with regards to actually building it and making the shapes. I also felt a lot more used to the controls and felt confident to get stuck in. 

I will label this post as both BA3: Digital Modeling AND  Material & Rendering Fundamentals  because to finish the companion cube I had to both finish the building (modeling) and also use a UV map (as well as hypershades). 

Part 3, Step 1: Building the larger outer squares for each corner. Selected a new cube from the polygon shelf and made it big enough. Hit space bar to bring up the viewport and used reference images to ensure size was correct. I then hit “crtl+D” to duplicate the square and moved it into position on each of the corners

 

Part 3, Step 2: To get the circular shape in the middle of all 6 faces of the cube I used the boolean tool. I selected a cylinder from the polygon shelf and rotated and resized it so it went directly through the cube and came out either side. I then selected all 4 of the large outer squares and combined them so they became 1 mesh. I then selected the outer corners, held shift and also selected the cylinder. I then chose boolean and the option “difference” to create a “difference” where the two selected objects crossed path, thus creating the circular shape needed. I duplicated the cylinder and rotated it for every side of the cube whilst repeating the boolean command. 

Part 3, Step 3: Now the cube has the circular shape in the middle of each face, I needed to add the smaller circle for the heart UV to be placed on. I selected the cylinder from the polygon shelf, rotated it and resided it so that it was aligned neatly with the reference image. Once I had that I built I could open the UV projection map and determine where I wanted the heart to be projected onto my shape.  

 

Part 3, Step 4: Finding out which of the 2 circles seen on the map was the front (ready for the heart) by right clicking, selecting faces and click dragging across the 2 until I saw which one also highlighted the faces on the front of the cube. I was then able to use the scale tool to select the other parts of the shape on the UV map and make them small and tucked out the way (bottom left of the UV map). I then resized the section needed to use the whole of the space. Finally, I selected the whole of the front circle, ready to “UV Snap shot” and transport to Photoshop. 

 

 

 Part 3, Step 5: I opened the UV Snapshot into Photoshop as well as the heart reference image. I then created a new layer, painted it the signature grey colour, cut out the heart and copied/pasted it onto the layer. This was all on top of the UV Snapshot to ensure it was the right size.

Part 3, Step 6: With the heart UV saved, I was able to open the hyper shades. The guide I was following told me to use Mental Ray shaders (which I will look into another day).   

  Part 3, Step 7: To achieve what you can see below, I had to chose the Mental Ray options under hypershades, select  the sub section materials then select  the shader which was called Mia_Material_X_Passes. This opened my main shader (seen on the right of the diagrams). I then went onto the Maya sub heading, selected file and opened the heart that I had just created  in Photoshop. I then had to join the picture to the shader. Once this was done, I middle click dragged my custom shader onto of the circle shape on the actual cube itself on the main Maya interface. I was then able to duplicate the cylinder with the heart on and paste it all the way around the shape. 

Part 3, Step 8: Now for the final hypershades and then lighting and rendering. My next step was to select the rest of the cube and use the hypershade to colour the main cube dark grey and the outer corners light grey like the background of the heart.

Once everything was selected I was able to places cameras and lights onto the cube. I used a base image/plane from the polygon shelf and made it huge and low enough for my cube to sit on top of it. The tutorial I was following also showed me how to make a shiny reflective surface for the cube to sit on. 

I used a hypershade, mental ray and middle mouse clicked it over to the floor. I then put the diffuse and glossy down to 0 and pushed the specular up to around ¾ of the way.  

Now onto the lights and cameras. I selected the render option for my shelf and selected the camera. Using the panels > look through selected option I was able to place the camera at the right angle looking down on the cube. I could then use the resolution gate to determine how much of the cube would be in the camera frame. Here is what I could see. 

Part 3, Step 9: I was able to place some spot lights and using the special perspective tool to place them, I had to edit some of the settings to ensure they lit up the cube correctly. I was then able to render the cube and determine whether or not I needed to  move the lights.  

 

Part 3, Final Outcome: As you can see above the lights needed tweaking but eventually I got an outcome I was happy with. Learning how to use the lights and camera now will be a great help when it comes to rendering my door for my 3d modeling project. I am really glad I have only just finished the cube because its fresh in my memory! I am really happy and proud of the outcome.