Introduction to Maya - Modeling Fundamentals Vol 2
This course will look in the fundamentals of modeling in Maya with an emphasis on creating good topology. It's aimed at people that have some modeling experience in Maya but are having trouble with complex objects.
# 1 23-11-2009 , 07:39 AM
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transforming alarm clock

this is going to be a digital alarm clock (based on the one i have in my room right now from back in the day)

user added image

alarm clocks have the purpose of waking us up (or more in my case it reminds me that i'm awake because i only know it goes of when i'm awake)

but sometimes people just hit the snooze button and don't get up when they should...

but wait... why are there so many border edges??

because of this:

user added image

it was bound to happen sometime..

i'll make an animation for this transforming too
right now it's just a bunch of boxes... well it started with a sphere that got cut up and then bridged... add a few more boxes and here we have our robot

i'd rather the forearms be fatter than what they are now but i couldn't fit them inside the clock




that's a "Ch" pronounced as a "K"

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# 2 23-11-2009 , 10:58 AM
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"i'd rather the forearms be fatter than what they are now but i couldn't fit them inside the clock"

Just cheat like in the films - as long as you cant see it no one will ever know


# 3 24-11-2009 , 03:22 AM
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just wondering... doesn't 'scale' attribute count as a transform node??? if it does, why not use it to get the desired scale?

i like the idea of alarm clock n robot n all, really really superb concept. let's see how the story turns out... i am really interested in its animation!! if it's not a problem, i'd like to be involved in the animation phase of this project... user added image :bow: as i am a grt fan of transformers ...

# 4 24-11-2009 , 07:43 AM
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i could do a set driven key to scale the forearms, but i think i'll leave it as it is.

the left arm will be a gun (i'll just make it expand, it originally was going to be like a gattling gun, but i'll just change that design a bit) and the other just a normal arm... with blades

but yeah, you guys have valid solutions


effacer, if you can find a solution to my parent constraining problems then you would already be helping user added image

but seriously, it would be cool if you helped out.
heck we could even make a competition and see who can make the coolest looking transform once all the detailed modelling bits are done user added image


at the moment i'm trying to make sure that the robot will transform into a clock but i'm having trouble with the constraints... bits and pieces keep flipping 180 degrees even though maintain offset it checked and the transfroms are frozen and history been deleted.
it's bizzare because it only does it for some pieces (i think the pieces that have been duplicated at some stage)


EDIT:
actually never mind about that, turns out i didn't freeze transforms on the groups

EDIT:
actually never mind about that, turns out i didn't freeze transforms on the groups




that's a "Ch" pronounced as a "K"

Computer skills I should have:
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Last edited by Chirone; 24-11-2009 at 08:22 AM.
# 5 24-11-2009 , 09:05 AM
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this should act as some form of tutorial for me so dont spare on the details of your workFlow

# 6 25-11-2009 , 03:14 AM
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seems like u got ur problem fixed. :attn: user added image
i'll be more than happy to help u, Chirone. user added image :attn: i'll be just a 'message' away.

n i do like the idea of 'who'll be the best transformer-er'!!! and if u like the idea, let's put up another competition of 'who'll rig it the best way' too.
anywayz, i'm getting a really good feeling about this! user added image :attn:

# 7 25-11-2009 , 09:25 AM
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effacer, are you saying you'd like all the pieces so you can try rigging it when i'm done with them?

haha murambi, no pressure right? :p

i'm making everything up as i go, but yeah, i'll go into some detail about how i'm doing things if you want, i'm kind of going backwards to the whole model -> texture -> rig workflow and going model+rig - > model -> rig
... if that makes sense... i'm just rigging as i go along

to start with, here's what i'm calling a proof of concept (never actually heard that term until last year now it's being said everywhere...)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzWobN6vXoY
this was proof taht i could manage expressions, parent constraints, and set driven keys

i'm still in the pre production phase, but i don't expect it to last too too long

...so... because i've never actually used expressions and i didn't know how to use them on parent constraints it took a while to figure out... ok it didn't take THAT long, but still took a little longer than wanted

so to catch you up with what i've done murambi (and anyone else interested, and i suppose for my own documentation in case i ever have to repeat this)

the model

first i started with a sphere, i probably duplicated it four times and deleted 3 quarters of them.
combined them, then selected their border edges to use bridge, and then fill hole (since what i ended up with was a round square frame)
took the giant bottom face and extruded downwards making the base of the clock

so now that i had the base mesh for the clock done i wanted to cut it up.
i figured it's better to make sure all the pieces are going to fit together before i start detailing anything

i tried to transform it in various ways, i had a way of doing it in my mind, and since i can't exactly cut up my alarmclock and put it back together and cut it up again to see a different transformation i thought i'd just go straight into maya (and also because playing with an imaginary clock wasn't as useful as seeing what is actually happening)

it changed from the original design a fair bit but meh... not worried so much i guess

the rig
made a skeleton for it and since it's hard surface i dont need to worry about soft skinning, i can just parent everything to the bones and detail the bits later on

now... there was a slight problem... if i attached IK to the skeleton i didn't think i could fit all the pieces into the shell because of all the restrictions IK gives
so i couldn't just parent geometry to the bones.. had to use parent constraints

i then used parent constraints to constrain geometry to geometry
so now each piece of geometry will have two parent constraints (at this moment i kept making lots of mistakes like parenting the wrong things and having to delete the constraints, which i ended up doing in the hypergraph, because edit > delete by type > constraints would kill all the constraints including the ones i wanted still)
part of the transformation is changing the weights of the constraints from 0 to 1 (you can go outside these boundaries but i dont know why you would want to and i needed to know the limits for later)

first i decided to just set a keyframe on them to try the transform, but you can already guess what the drawbacks of doing it that way would be.

so i could either use set driven keys to change the constraints around or i could try expressions

decided to go with expressions because i thought it would give some flexibilty later on if needed... probably also because i can't remember how to edit set driven keys...

what i did was i made a custom attribute on each geometry piece that would link the two constraints together so that they were always 'opposite' of each other (in other words they would always add up to 1... i dont know what you would call such relationship...)
so i opened the expression editor and i had no idea how to set the expression on the constraint itself... i did spend a few minutes thinking of other solutions when i didn't know how and some time seeing if the answer was on the internet, but then i figured the script editor would tell me how to write the expression

and it did

so i used the script editor to tell me what i needed to change or link up and all went fine (do you want me to go deeper on how i did this?)

then i made a curve, added an attribute and used set driven keys to make the animation you see in that youtube link

anyway, now that i've figured out how to do it i'll just make a rough transformation so i can model the pieces based on the animation




that's a "Ch" pronounced as a "K"

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# 8 26-11-2009 , 05:50 AM
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Originally posted by Chirone
effacer, are you saying you'd like all the pieces so you can try rigging it when i'm done with them?

i'll be glad to :attn: .. but actually wht i meant was if rigging is done, there will be not much variety in animation/tranformation. so better make it available for rigging too, so that others can come up with more ideas. (however, i like UR concept user added image )


Originally posted by Chirone

probably also because i can't remember how to edit set driven keys...
[/B]

just key over the required attributes, ie overlapping the keys. or just del the keys (break connection) from the driven and start over the set driven again. user added image


projects of my company
3D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPTmThoCrIY&feature=related - project - disney diwali (india based company)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSAfzqMBHqs&feature=related - project - 2 medhak (Public Service Ad)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMLR2L-swZo - project - ace bank commercial
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZogNsf8k-xU - project - company Profile
2D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82xV3bII9bU - project - (a fren named jimmy)
# 9 14-12-2009 , 06:17 AM
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effacer:
you could make your own and we we can battle or something user added image

i think you can edit set driven keys in a graph editor, i can't remember, memory is a bit fuzzy with things i've only done a few times

anyway, here's an update

doing some details on the body and arms
user added image

ignore the box on the right arm where a hand should be. i haven't bothered working on the hand yet
user added image

closer look at the left arm. originally it was just going to be 4 cannons that pop out from the big cylinder and it wasn't going to be indented like that. but due to space issues there are more parts on the left arm that will 'pop'
user added image




that's a "Ch" pronounced as a "K"

Computer skills I should have:
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# 10 15-12-2009 , 01:18 AM
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goddamn it!! superb!!! u blew me away chirone.. impressive.
ok i'll, once i get free time to do it... u can expect sum frm me in early 2010.


projects of my company
3D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPTmThoCrIY&feature=related - project - disney diwali (india based company)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSAfzqMBHqs&feature=related - project - 2 medhak (Public Service Ad)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMLR2L-swZo - project - ace bank commercial
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZogNsf8k-xU - project - company Profile
2D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82xV3bII9bU - project - (a fren named jimmy)
# 11 16-12-2009 , 11:54 PM
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Looking good so far, any updates on this yet?

Will be interesting to see it transforming, hope you do plan to do at least a playblast of it, if not a nice shiny render!

Also I like the way you've used different colours in your posts for each of your pictures, nice to see something different from the usual AO renders!

# 12 17-12-2009 , 01:37 AM
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second that. yeah, this could be cool. looks promising

# 13 19-12-2009 , 12:20 PM
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changes:
the two sword-like attachments on its right arm have been altered, looks more like the inspiration for it.

the left arm now hides a larger gun...

a spine, hips and legs have been added.

the spine is rather spine-like... and you'd wonder how such thing could hold up those heavy looking arms (the left arm itself must weigh heaps givin it has 9 guns)
unfortunately since the arms are right close up to it when it's an alarm clock it has to be that skiny
i planned on making something come down from the chest, not sure how that will work out.

legs are looking a bit... funny i guess...
couldn't figure out how to do the legs since my block out was just two scaled cubes... but i went to my toy of astrotrain and copied his legs with modifications to make them fit into the alarm clock shell. quite blocky looking, not sure how to change it or if it should be changed

i think i'll get rid of the piston thingys on the arms... the legs just don't have room for identical pistons and i think it would probably look really bizzare to have pistons on the arms and no where else on the body.

also the spine pieces were originally going to have little arm-like things that held onto plates left over from the clock (see first pictures) but i think i might change that after wondering about what the face looks like
the shell that covers the chest reminded me of scorpion, sub zero, and reptile from mortal kombat so i might make the face kind of like scorpion's

user added image

effacer, thanks. would be nice to see what you can do

dango, here's my update! user added image
i'll render it transforming, and i'll do it slowly and dramatically enough that you see it happening

ben, thanks!




that's a "Ch" pronounced as a "K"

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# 14 20-12-2009 , 06:30 AM
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looking very good just out of curiosity is it possible to make the transformation one attribute??

# 15 20-12-2009 , 07:39 AM
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what do you mean?




that's a "Ch" pronounced as a "K"

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