Getting the Bends
 

Mirror cutting is a handy features for bending objects along whichever axis you want. A typical use might be to creat something like a picture frame. To use, select an object then select Polyons>Mirror cut>options box. You'll need the option box to select the settings for the tool. For bending purposes you'll want the combine meshes option selected. The manipulator handle for this includes movement and rotation option. You're actually moving or rotating a cutting plane which defines where the mirroring will occur. In the example a below a simple elongated box is mirror cut to create a 90 degree bend. To ensure a perfect bend, 45 degrees was specified in the appropriate channel box field.

Hey,


Tx for all the Tricks and Tips.

I need to create pipes and I use curves to create the pipes and then extrude them. I was wondering if I can use mirror cutting on cylinders too?

Keep up the good work!!!!!

mirror cut should work on any polygonal object. You can even apply multiple mirror cuts to a single mesh. Mirror cuts act like deforms in that effects are cumulative. Also to "lock in" the effect you should delete history on the object to remove the mirror cut influence. Below are some sample mirror cuts on various polygonal objects including a torus, a cone, a cylinder, a simple head shape, and an extruded poly profile (sort of a guard rail shape).

mhcannon thx for the quick reply.
I will play around with it.

F key for framing in Outliner window
 

In addition to using the ' f ' key to frame a selected object in the viewing window, you can press ' f' while in the Outliner window to to frame the selected object's node. This is very helpful when working with a character that has many joints and parts, or objects that are grouped many times.

The "a" and "f" short cuts work in most editors as does the alt + mmb and alt + rmb.

a = frame all
f = frame selected
mmb = middle mouse button
rmb = right mouse button

Modeling in Black and White
 

If you've used landscape generator such as Bryce or Vue than you'll be familiar with this techinique. These programs use a grayscale image to generate terrain height. You can do a similar thing in Maya by coverting displacement maps into polygons. To do this you will have to assign a grayscale texture to the displacement channel of an objects shading group (NURBS or polys only). Once the displacment map is assigned, simply select Modify>Convert>Displacement to Polygons. This creates a new object that has the displaced geometry. As this is math intensive, it may take a while to compute. In the example shown, the original object was a simple NURBS plain with 16x16 U and V division. The image inset bottom left is the grayscale image that was used.

WARNING
Depending on the resolution and complexity of the grayscale image used, the resulting polygon may be a heavy mesh (see HUD inset).

Beside creating geometry that might otherwise be diffucult to model, the method saves the renderer from having to calculate the displacement and allows accurate interaction with geometry.

Modeling in Black and White (cont.)
 

For those curious, this is the shading group for the terrain displacement in the previous post.

Pretty simple network...

Adding items to the shelve
 

I know this is know by the most of you already, but since I haven't seen it in here yet:

You can add items to your shelve by holding ctrl+shift when clicking in a menu.

*Hope this qualifies as a good hint/trick :blush:



Thanks, Mitchell

Help for those "Senior" moments
 

If you've ever had a "senior" moment in which you couldn't remember which menu a tool or option was there is hope for you. Under the help menu there is a "Find Menu" option that allows keyword searches. This will show you all the menus that contain the keyword searched. Of course if you can't remeber where the "Find Menu" is, well....

5th Panel... sort of
 

This is a work around to the limit of four panels view sets. If you need more than four, you can create tear off panels. In any of the standard viewports, select the camer you want to make into a new panel viewport. Then select Panel>Tear off copy...

Once the new floating panel appears you can safely switch the original viewport to a different camera.

Help!!!!!!!
 

hey Guys!! how'z ya?? I need your Help guys .. i m new user of Maya ... i was using 3d Max frm 2 yrs ... now i wanna switch on Maya ... Because Maya's charater amimation is too advance than Max... thats why .. now guys .. i need yr help ... who can tell me ... how should i do in start .... gimme some tips n tricks n basic tutorials ...

Thank YOu

Ragards

Heres a big tip for ya,, Buy the videos on this site;)

<<Heres a big tip for ya,, Buy the videos on this site>>

Thanx buddy ... Yeah i m using dat videos ...

Poly Extrusions on Curves
 

Most modelers are used to extruding profile curves along a path curve, but many forget that you can do the same thing with polygonal faces. Try this out, create a curve, select the faces you want to follow that curve then open the Extrude Faces Option Box and make sure "use selected curve for extrusion" is selected. Set any other extrude options then apply.

In the this example a simple torso was created then the base faces of the arm were extruded along a path curve simulating the arm bend and distance. If you have history on, you can even modify the extrusion result by editing the CVs or EPs of the path curve.

P.S. To all, hope you read through this entire thread. Run a search on the forum if you looking for particular topic. If you're having problems with a tut then come back and ask a specific question, but please try to keep this thread related to tips and/or tricks. Oh... and a reminder anyone may post a tip or trick. :)