Thick Materials
 

I'm (just like 75% of the people here) new to Maya 6 and pretty nwe to 3D, so wait for 1000 other questions in the next months... but now I have a doubt, and I was hopping to get some advice.

I'm using Maya to design some Furniture and metallic products, and I wanted to know if there's any way to asign a specific thickness to what should be, for example, a pretty curved wooden board, or car parts.

Can this be done, or should I just design both sides of the board and place them at the required distance the one from the next one?

another newbie question, if I'm designing a simetrical body -chair, car, face- how do you make the reflected surface as a linked part of the original side? I mean, how do you do, so that the changes on one side are reflected on the next one?

Thanks, y'all

Welll im not sure sure how to answer the 1st part of your question but I can have a go at the 2nd.

There are a couple of different ways depending on what you use (NURBS or Polys).

In Polys you can model the first half then duplicate it and combine the two pieces, then stich the seam.

In NURBS it is a little more difficult.

If you want to have two pieces and have the changes that you make to one apear on the other side in real time you should do the following.

Select the 1st half, goto Edit --> (Duplicate Option Box) and make the 'Instance' box checked. Then duplicate. Then any changes you make to the 1st half will be mirrored on the 2nd.

I hope this helps.

sure it helps. I'm working with subdivisions, I'll let you know how it goes.

Ok, just post back here if you need anymore help and i'll see what I can do. If I can't help there is usually someone around here that can. :D