My first simply maya project
 

Hello everyone I am new to Simply Maya community and a novice Maya hobbyist.

I have been working on the SM Dragon tutorial and wanted to post my current WIP.

I started the model yesterday after watching the SM tutorial a couple times (went most of last night as I was so focused I forgot to go to sleep :) ).

Lighting is simple 3 point setup as per Mike's lighting tutorial.

Completed the nurbs rough mass in about 2 hours and have about 20 hours invested in the poly mesh so far. Most of the time is because folds and creases are a struggle for me. I always seem to be one edge to short (LOL).

I also struggle to keep the details to just where they need to be and as a result I honestly agonise for like 30 minutes for each new edge I think about adding.

I focused on trying to make the image as close to the image planes as I possible can using this as a training aid on using the contour lines provided on the original image. At this point I focused on the jaw line, the browe ridge, the startings of the lip details (have some tweaking to do here - lips are a challenge for me!) and the overall radial flow around the eyes and mouth.

This is really my first attempt at a real organic model. Please let me know what you think of my work so far. I would welcome any suggestions.

I also have a question. In the course of working on this I pulled some vertices off the axis of symetric and I appear to have gotten myself in some odd local coordinate system mode where I cannot seem to get the boarder edge back to alignment with the axis of symetry that is why I don't have a combine image to post. :(

Anyway great tutorial Kurt!

Looking good :) Keep it up!

Day 1:

What I learned -

(1) Mental ray - Subd renders - Base mesh must be 100% quads

Try as I might I just could not avoid a couple triangles without adding rows of narrow polygons that would have created creases.

Solutions: Either manually build the mesh to be all quad, or take the model into poly mode and do a level 1 smooth on it. Save the original model as a low poly mesh for binding later.

(2) Use of scale to align rows of vertices.

(3) The basic use Polygon Edit / Polygon tools

(4) Ran into a short panic attack after inadvertantly switching from global to local coordinate system then not knowing how to get back. Caused me to struggle to get the edge along the axis of symetry figured out for half a day! Ah the joys of newbdumb!

(5) Use of basic 3 point lighting

(6) Simple Maya community is a really cool and helpful lot. Thanks!

Two thumbs up for the tutorial! Good job Kurt!

Next I will start the teeth. I am planing to do a seperate jaw with teeth in it rather then extrude them from the main head mesh.

Then I plan on doing the ear flap things (since they really make the creature look cool!) and then I will finish up with the horns and add so asymetry.

If anyone sees any glaring problems with the anatomy (or anything else) please feel free to add a comment.

I am a newb with Maya and I don't consider myself an artist. I have read a couple books on modelling and I am really enjoying diddling with Maya.

Cheers!

Looks great so far, keep up the good work!

Excellent progress...keep it up!

Day 2:

- Added Teeth and Tongue.

- Improved skull details (jaw line, browe line, skull crest

- added some muscle detail

- learned new tool - nonlinear deformer>bend

To do:

- ear flaps
- nostril
- horns

Really nice progression especially for your first organic model... Im very happy to hear that your learning so much from the tut.

Keep it up and i'll check back when you have new sections.

Day 3:

Added the ear flaps.

The tendrals are extruded from the head and the skin/membrane is a nurbs plane.

OMG! There has to be a better way to align the nurbs plane to the tendrals! What a pain in the butt! I would rather have my tonsels removed through my anus then have to align that nurbs plane again! It took me like 8 hours!

To do:

- nostrils
- horns
- refine beak
- refine skeletal and muscle structures
- add asymetry

Day 3 (cont.)

- Added Nostrils
- Refined the ear flap tendrals

I strayed from the reference image a bit in that I added the flare to the nostral.

The nostril flare just felt right to me.

The size and placement of the actual opening matches the reference image though.

To do:

- horns
- refine break
- refine skeletal details and musculature
- add asymetry

Day 3 (cont.)

Added:

- nose tusk
- tweaked the beak
- tweaked the nostril


To Do:

- head horn
- refine skeleton and musculature
- add asymetry

very good job!

Day 3 (cont.)

Complete!

Added:

- head horn
- addtional folds and musculature
- improved the skeletal / muscle contours
- went around the entire model and cleaned the topology

The model is complete for the most part. Just minor tweaks and possibly some changes to accomadate better musculature / anatomy.

To do:

- tweaks

Fun Facts:

- The Base Polymesh has 2200 polys (not sure if thats bad)
- The Polysmooth (level 1) head has 8700 polys
- There must be a hidden triangle in the base mesh because mental ray complains about non-manifold geometry when I try to render the subd version.
- I would post a wireframe on shadeded view to get feedback but I don't know how to to do it.

Looks really good for your first model.. much better then my very first organic attempted.

Thanks Kurt!

Aside from aligning the evil ear flaps from hell! The model came along swimmingly!

Thanks for a great tutorial I learned a great deal. I think I like polygons better then nurbs now! I tried several models using nurbs but always gave up as I could never seem to get the tangency between patches right. I also had trouble avoiding to much geometry.

I still struggle with trying to keep the model light. I need to spend some time learing how to build lower density models. I am not sure if the 2100 poly's I ended up with for this head is good or bad.

I did learn a great deal about handling 3 sided poly's in the tutorial I went back through the model and I think there may be 2 or 3 little ones hiding someplace. But I cleaned most of them out so the model is 99.9% quads and no n-polys.

hmmmm. What to do next?

I don`t have tim to read all what you have write, I would like to ask you one qestion, do you have complet wersion of that tutorial???