Two main types of modelling, NURBS and Polygonal. NURBS objects have a lot less detail due to being comprised of curves, rather than straight lines. Curved patches and curved lines. Polygonal model is made of straight lines and flat square faces. Practically a NURBs object can create a curved surface easier due to having less detail. POlygonal surface has a lot more flexibility. NURBS tend to fall apart when it comes to complex models like character models.
Typically start off with a very simple object but add detail and refine into shape you want. Tend to start with primitives which are basic shapes that can be used to create detailed models by editing the shape. Under the Create banner at the top of screen, you can access the Polygonal Primitives where you can create a polygonal primitive shape, which appears at the origin of the viewport. Also have these buttons mirrored in the Poly Modelling shelf that us located also in the top left of the screen. If you press on the little dotted line that is located in the top of the create, polygon primitives menu. Tears off and you can have a windowed menu that can exist wherever you want.
Interactive creation is a button that allows us to create the object, turning it off allows maya to create it from scratch, based upon the parameters that we give it. Can change the details by clicking the little box next to the object. Use interactive creation to be more active and precise. Click and drag on the grid and a object will appear, the further you drag, the larger the object will be. In the attribute editor, under PolySphere#, you can change aspects of the model like the radius, divisions and so on.
Cube, can create by itself or interactively. Left click and drag to create shape, left click and drag again to change the height. Attribute editor, PolyCube1, can change the creation paramters here. In channel editor, you can also change the attributes of the cube. Can chane by typing in number or highlight, middle click and drag to act like a slider.
Cylinder, subdivision caps in the attribute editor, PolyCylinder#. Creates a capsule end on the object. Cones also have a Round Cap we can create.
Tourus drag out to set the radius, drag again to set diameter.
When modelling, need to take primitive objects and need to manipulate them into the shape we want. Do this by manipulating the components. 3 types of components in maya. Click on object and right click to bring up a marking menu. The 3 important components you want to look at are Vertex, Face and Edge.
Vertex mode shows the points that make up the object. Can select these by either marque selecting or regularly selecting them.
Edge mode shows the lines that are between the vertices.
Face mode shows the geometry that is between the edges, usually 3 or 4 sides. Can select, move and manipulate any combination of these in maya.
Number of tools for selecting the components. Can select them one at a time or by holding down shift you can select multiple components together. Can click on one component and then shift double click on another to select the ones in between the two. Edges are special case as you can select and edge and double click on it to select what is called an edge loop. Important as they define the outline of an object. Shift + double click lets you select multiple edge loops. Can do a vertex loop by selecting one vertex, clicking on one adjacent and then double clicking that with shift held. Same as vertexes can be done with faces.
Can grow or shrink your selection by pressing shift and > / < to grow or shrink them respectively.
If we want to get organic deformations of objects we use something called soft selection. May also need to model symmetrically and maya has symmetry tools too.
Selecting and moving out components can come out quite hard and unrealistically however we can fix this sometimes by using soft select. To enter soft select mode, press B on the keyboard.
You can edit the settings of soft select by double clicking on the tool you want to use in the left hand side of the screen e.g. double clicking on the move tool.
Can edit things like the falloff radius, how the falloff works by altering the graph and the falloff colour so you can see how greatly each area is impacted by the radius.
B + Left Click Drag whilst on the selected component lets you alter the falloff radius also.
To turn on symmetry, go to the tools on the left and double click on them. Has symmetry settings roll out. You can turn on symmetry for that tool in each axis, turning it on lets you see the cursor reflect on both sides of the model.
Tolerance allows you to fudge it a little bit. Also has a falloff tool.
Also across the top of the screen, in the status bar is a setting for symmetry also. Can also combine this with soft select.
May want to combine objects into one. Sometimes it's easier just to have one object. Could create a hierarchy. Could select all the objects. Then in the Mesh menu, could select both the combine and separate tools.
In the outliner, creates a new object (named after the last selected object) which is an object that contains all the other objects. Can alter any smaller part of the object by clicking on it in the outliner or can alter the whole thing by clicking on the combined object.
Maya creates what's called history. In the attribute editor can see for example, chair, chair shape and the polyUnite (this is the combine tool essentially). You can delete all the history by clicking edit, delete by type, history. This will remove all the previous components in the attribute editor and will also remove the polyUnite. The object is still technically separate however there is now just one combined object also.
Can add or subtract objects, almost like cutting tools.
Create the shape of the object you want to remove from the object. In this case we were making vents in the tv so we made rectangles. Create one and duplicate it to make 6. Need to group them together with combine to make one object. Select the object you want to cut a shape out of first, then select the cutting tool (the rectangle shapes for vents). Then go to mesh, boolean, difference to subtract that shape away from the object.
Also have Union which combines objects together, difference which subtracts the shape, and Intersection, which shows only the pats that intersect (this will delete everything that doesn't intersect).
Reshape models using sculpting. Can be found under he modelling shelf, under Mesh Tools, sculpting Tools. Also can be found under the Modelling Shelf, Sculpting. Have more detail in the mesh so you can sculpt it smoothly.
Sculpt tool - hold B key, left click and drag to change radius. Left Click and drag to sculpt the shape. Can also double click on the little box to bring up the options. An edit the size of the radius, the strength of the sculpting tool. If we have a pressure sensitive tablet then you can make so the stylus reacts like a pressure sensitive tool. Can also turn on symmetry. Can stamp by image, can use image for things like reptilian skin.
Smooth Tool - Smooth down geometry
Relax Tool- relaxes geometry, moves the detail apart on the surface so not too close together.
And so on, many different tools that have many different effects