Help on Tutorial by McKinley...
 

Hi everybody,

I'm trying to follow the tutorial by Micheal McKinley to effectively complete the modelling of an Audi TT... I hope the author is reading, since he might want to provide directly the clarifications I'm looking for... ... Wishful Thinking ;)
Basically, I would like to better understand how to project on the different views of my workspace the images to be used as reference during the whole modeling process.
It's not clear, as well, how it was possible for the author to obtain such well outlined images... I mean, they look very well shaped... with a clean contour.
Would it be possible to obtain some tips on how to obtain such a precise effect in Maya?
I guess some planes have been created first, to which the images have been then applied to. Then, maybe, these planes have been assigned to a specific layer, to avoid that they are selected during the modeling... I have a rough idea, nevertheless some good tips would be really appreciated, also to understand how to safeguard the proportions of the images.
I would like to obtain the effect visible on the picture attached to this message...
Thank you in advance to everybody,
Avoosl

well as it happens, mr mikey is a mod here at SM and Im sure he will be only to happy to help you out when he see`s this post

There's at least two methods to use reference images in your workspace.

1. By using the Maya's built in image plane. Go here and take a look at the free video tutorial:
http://www.gnomononline.com/modeling.html
Some people are having trouble using the image planes as they might slow down Maya's performance.

2. Another method is to use nurbs planes positioned and scaled correctly. Then you create shaders with the reference images in their color channels and apply them to the appropriate planes. After that you create a layer and assign the planes to it and change it's mode to R (reference), so you don't accidentally select or move the planes. If I recall correcty, the monster tutorial on the VIP area shows this method better than I can explain :)

Re: Help on Tutorial by McKinley...
 

Hi, wuthoqquan

Those image planes are all poly planes with images mapped to them.

In order to get the images looking like they do, I added an alpha channel to them in Photoshop. In an alpha channel, black is transparant, while white is opaque. This is gone over in detail in the soon-to-be-released shark vid.

And, yes, I put the images on a layer so that I wouldn't select them while working. :)

Let me know if you need any clarification.

A preliminary thanks to both of you...

Anyway, I would like to know, if possible, how to obtain a result as "clean" as the one shown in the picture above, extracted from the Tutorial by Micheal McKinley...

In that picture, the planes look more like detailed shapes (clearly outlined) than simple planes... hope I managed to point the spot light on my goal...

Thanks again...
Avoosl

oops...

You've been faster than me... :)

Thanks a lot!

Hi everybody...

sorry... but I'm stuck again with this tutorial...

I'm at the point where I should model the top of the canopy with the Birail Tool. Well, all I've got so far is the following error message:

// Error: dpBirailSrf1 (Dp Birail Srf Node): First profile does not intersect rail curves. //
// Warning: dpBirailSrf1 (Dp Birail Srf Node): Birail surface not created //
// Warning: nurbsTessellate2 (Nurbs Tessellate Node): invalid input NURBS surface. //
// Result: dpsBirailSurface1 dpBirailSrf1 //

How to solve it?

I'm attaching a picture of the current stage of the modeling. It might help you to understand the cause of the problem. In my opinion my curves resembles a lot those shown in McKinley's tutorial. I've been very accurate in tracing them with the CV Curve Tool... nonetheless, the Birail tool does not work! :(

Hope to get help from you out there...

Thank You!

The birail is a very finicky control. More than likely, the problem is that the ends of your curves are not snapped exactly together. While it looks like they might be, zoom in close to make sure.

Thanks again for your help... on the same topic, I noted that the "Snap to Point" option can be very useful to ensure that the last points of your Birail curves overlap eachother...

*Another Question*

Do you have any suggestion on how to connect the different parts of the vehicle alltogehter? For example, is it possible that in order to connect the main body of the AudiTT with the canopy, I have first to combine the two objects (Polygons -> Combine) and then use the "Merge Edge Tool" to merge only two border edges at a time?

This may be OK if you do not have many egdes in the connection zone but what if you have much more complex objects to combine? Even the connection of the top of the canopy with the canopy takes a lot of time if you have to complete it in such a way... I'm sure I'm missing something!
Is there, let's say, an automated procedure that help completing this exercise...
If this argument is already covered by other tutorials, any links would be really appreciated!

Thanks again,
Avoosl

The way I combine that stuff is still a little bit of work, but I don't think it's too bad.

First, yes, you select both and Poly > Combine like you said. Then, what I do, is point snap the vertices together at the edges. If you have a lot of verts, this can take a little while....

Once you have them all snapped together, you can select ALL the vertices (even other vertices that you DON'T want to merge) and go to Edit Poly > Merge Vertices > Options. In the options, set the slider to .0001 and apply. This will make only vertices that are snapped together merge together, while leaving the rest alone.

Still a little bit of work, but this is how I do it. :D

Thanks again... I'll try that this evening! Anyway, it sounds already much less time consuming than the "Merge Edge Tool" :)
Thanks for the precious tip!

By the way... I would really love to read an indepth overview on the texturing of the final model. I think it would also help a lot in the learning process of Maya... but this is another question, sorry!

Mmmh... can't you really step into this aspect of the tutorial?

Oops.... that was stronger than me! Sorry... ;)

Bye!

Texturing is very subjective. What I've done instead is gone over HOW you texture, so that you can texture anything you want. For polys, look at the Poly UV Mapping tutorial (gonna change the name of it one day so people understand that means the same things as "Poly Texturing" lol ). For nurbs, I have "Nurbs Texturing." These are of course all at my site. Link in sig.

Hey! Where did you get this car tutorial??

my site. Link in sig. :D

You da man! :D