More Maya Tutorial Sessions!
We have started another series of Maya tutorial sessions at uni, this time focusing
on the idea of building and creating something from scratch in Maya that is fit
for immediate insertion into a game engine. Many 3D artists begin their life
building a crate. Our tutor thought it would be much more fun to re create the
weighted companion cube from the popular game series Portal.
I believe the plan is to go to the session every week and have
a step by step guide into learning how to build the companion cube in Maya, every week
becoming more confident in our abilities to use Maya and learning new
techniques that we can apply to our current BA3 project to build a door/window.
Portal Companion Cube, Pt 1.
Part 1, Step 1: The first thing we covered was how to set the reference images
and load them into Maya so that we had a cross referenced image to follow for
the model. Here you can see the initial reference image of the companion cube
and then how we put it directly into Maya.
I had Maya set up orthographically so I could see the reference image as a
cross over image, then also how it would appear from the top, left and right
hand side. Obviously being a cube it looks exactly the same!
Part 1, Step 2: The next step was to ensure that Maya was set so that we were
working in Polygons. Once this was done we could select a standard cube polygon
shape from the polygon “shelf” in Maya.
This opened straight into the same space as the referenced companion
cube image. With the reference image open we could ensure that the cube was the
same width and height of our reference image.
Part 1, Step 3: Now that we have our initial cube shape open and our reference
images there, we could start “carving” the shape into the cube that we needed.
It was easier to hide the reference image for this part. We sub divided the
cube into 2 more so that every ‘face’ had 4 square components to it. Then we
right clicked and selected “face” from the menu.
Part 1, Step 4: Here you can see that, having right clicked and selected faces,
I can select any face of the shape that I want. Holding shift and left clicking
allowed me to select the top 4 faces of the cube. I then used the “extrude face
options” menu by double clicking the extrude icon on the polygon shelf. The
allows me to extrude and thicken certain faces of the cube and set it to the
amount that I needed.
Part 1, Step 5: Having selected the faces and gotten the extrude tool option
menu open I was able to set the tool to do what I needed it to. What I needed
to make the companion cube look correct was to create an edge and sink the
faces you can see highlighted…It’s hard to explain. I basically needed an
overlap so that the cube appeared to have an edge. As you can see, by setting the offset amount
to 1 and thickness to 0 I have created an edge seen around the top of the cube.
I repeated this step for all 6 sides using the “G” shortcut key.
Part 1, Step 6: Now to “sink” the faces so that the edge created in step 5
appears to rise and create a more 3 dimensional shape. I had to re select the 4
face on each side of the cube and open the extrude options menu again but this
time I set offset to 0 and thickness to -0.5. By clicking extrude, I was given
this which I was then able to copy onto the other sides by reselecting the
faces and hitting the “G” key.
Part 1, Step 7: Okay, so now I have a cube that has proper edges and extruded
faces which all add to the 3 dimensional element and make it look more like a
companion cube than just a standard cube. The next step is to use the bevel
tool and create an extra area to extrude where you can see the ‘cross’ on every
face. First of all, I needed to right click and select “edges” as opposed to
“faces”. This then lets me select the edges (blue lines) as opposed to full
faces on the cube.
Part 1, Step 8: Now that “edges” had been selected, I could select the lines
that intersect every face of the cube. By holding shift and left double
clicking Maya selected the entire edge
around the whole cube. This is shown below highlighted in orange.
Part 1, Step 9: By selecting “edit mesh” on the tool bar at the top of Maya, I
was able to select the “bevel” tool, double click and open the options tab.
This is where I needed to manually input the width as 0.02 which made the edges
I had previously selected duplicate into what you can see below.
Part 1, Step 10: Having selected the new “cross” section on each of the
faces(highlighted in orange below) I was able to use the extrude tool/options
again so that the orange section “sank” making each of the 4 squares stick out.
Part 1, The Final Outcome: Here is what I was
left with after the first Maya tutorial session on creating the companion cube.
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