Alien
 

A recent project of mine. Any ideas and comments are welcome...

er... i think he needs a body. :) what are you going for here? - he just kind of looks like your run of the mill green alien smoking a cigarette...is that what you're after?

I'm working on a body now... I'll post it here soon.

A part of the body...
I had some ideas that didn't work too well so I decided to go with this one: An insect-alien.
I don't know how to make the hands (Edit:and feet) ... Ideas and comments are welcome.

not bad so far for as new as you are. I didn't even get that far when I first messed around in maya.

I would suggest doing the Free Franky tutorial on this site, it will give you a good basis of how to start creating your own characters from head, to body, to legs, feet, arms, and hands. Very easy to follow.

Keep at it! :beer:

'I would suggest doing the Free Franky tutorial on this site'
I did that tutorial already, and almost every other free tutorial on this site. Unfortunately I'm 15 and I don't really have money for anything that isn't (free) :(.

By "I don't know how to make the hands (Edit:and feet)" I meant ideas for a design, not for how to build it...

ok, I thought you just didn't know how to make them.

and the tutorial I am talking about is free. http://www.simplymaya.com/movie_page...tml?tut_id=138

there are quite a few free tutorials on this page that are very helpful with maya. After using them you'll have the basics down. http://www.simplymaya.com/movie_page...html?cat_id=23

Progress
 

A claw I made for the hand...

not so bad for a starting maya user
15 huh, didn't know you could give maya as a birthday present for the kids ;) :attn:

Keeps me busy...:attn:

Some More Progress
 

Ive attached the claws and worked on the legs a bit...

Interesting design, you planning on animating him at all?

Why's he smoking a cig? or is it a case of why not!

Could you show a wireframe?

Finally someone my age:( (These old farts'll keep ya working on your project till its perfect;) ) nice model so far, i like the spiky nether regions

"or is it a case of why not!"
It's exactly that case. I'm still learning Maya and I decided to experiment with some lighting effects.

The wire-frame you asked is attached. It's a bit high poly because of these claws (1600 together) and more.

Edit: BTW, I'm not planing to animate him yet because I don't know how... And I'm still learning some other stuff. Experimenting with fur and hair now :) .

Creating UVs
 

I was looking for tutorials for fur and it says:
"Applying fur to a polygon or subdivision surface model is similar to applying textures in that the geometry needs a specific arrangement of UVs so that the fur looks correct when applied to the model."

I'm comletely new to creating/ mapping/ whatever UVs, so I looked in Modeling > Mapping UVs > Creating UVs.

This is what's written there:
"In Maya, UV texture coordinates (UVs) can be created for polygon surface meshes using the following UV mapping techniques:

* Automatic UV mapping
* Planar UV mapping
* Cylindrical UV mapping
* Spherical UV mapping
* User-defined UV mapping
* Camera UV mapping - see Planar UV mapping"

Can someone please explain what's the difference, and what method(s) should I use for polygon/subdiv modeling?
Thanks in advance,
Benny

Edit: I do know how the UV coordinates system works...