Help modelling an umbrella opening and closing?? Any tutorials??
 

Are there any tutorials out there on how to make an umbrella from scratch?? It would be a godsend!!

I haven't even started modelling this yet, as I was going to do it using my regular 3D CAD software.

But I think Maya is alot better to use, because I want to show the components of an umbrella moving.

I have an initial question before I start.

I'll be needing to use parent and child components because there will be just one object in the umbrella that I will actually move, and everything else will follow (like in an umbrella).

Other components will be attached to the one moving element using 'Hinges' , so that all other components follow it when it moves.

The hinges will be fixed but will have a flexible movement.

I've never done anything to do with dynamics or animation before, although I can probably model it without too much difficulty.

Is it going to be difficult??

1) Is it enough to make the one moving element a parent and everything else children. And how do I control the movement of all the child components.

set driven key for the opening for sure, smooth bind for a rougher result but you could use softbodies for the folding in some way maybe. what cad software do you use out of interest?

I use 3D Microstation. An architectural program.

I'm modelling it in Microstation at the moment, but I thought it might be nice to try and do it in Maya as well, to learn a bit of dynamics, because I don't know anything.

I can manage the modelling in Maya (just about), but I haven't done anything to do with animation.

Maybe there's a tutorial around that deals with the same issues as animating an umbrella???? Perhaps I should start trying out something a bit easier first.......

I love microstation, lovely app, very powerfull, ive played with the new yet to be released version, its very very cool. If you prefer modelling in microstation if you have the upgrade lisence for maya 6.5 you could import it i think, i saw somthing about CAD file supported in the maya 6.5 information.

I like microstation too, although it does have its problems.........such as performing tasks on solids, and surfaces, which can only be modified a certain number of times.

I love Maya because you can take a surface and distort it, stretch it,.....in fact do almost anything with it.....which you can't with microstation.

I have Maya 6, but it isn't too difficult to model it in Maya again, it's just the dynamics/animation side that I'm trying to get to grips with.

Also, I find it difficult to navigate in Maya. One of the best things about Microstation, is the way you can snap to an object then move the cursor to any area on the scene by pressing 'O' for origin, and then move the cursor with a device called 'accudraw', which is a brilliant invention.

This means you can snap and move anywhere on the screen. You can't do this with Maya.

Also, snapping one object to another object is alot more precise in Microstation.

If someone combined Maya and Microstation, it would be absolutely brilliant!!!

Also, if anyone could recommend any good books to learn Maya I'd be grateful. (not complete newbie)

arf, i think micorstation is great, its network rendering sucks but the scene management is amasing.

Maya is very good though i think the modelling is less intuative than alot of apps.