P5

Maya How To Guide

Basic Square Corridors

Step 1 - 

To start, you need to bring a cube shape onto the scene (where your modelling) from the polygons tab, this is the make the corridor frame. Next is to stretch this to make it the height you want for your frame, to do that click the scale tool (the blue square with the grey square in it's bottom left corner), you can move the squares to push in and pull out certain sides. At any time during the making of your corridor, you can hold down Command/alt and click and drag anywhere to look at your work from a different angle, and you can use the mouse scroll to zoom.

To move the first part of your frame around the scene, use the move tool (the square with the blue arrows coming out of either side) to drag it around, either by using the arrows coming out of the sides of your polygon or by using the square in the centre of it.

Step 2 -

Before you start the rest of your frame, you need to make sure of two things; you need enough room in your scene to work with both the polygon and the frame, and you need the right options in your bar at the top. In order to get the correct set of options, check the very top bar of Maya for a little drop down menu box, and make sure it has 'Modelling' selected. 

  

After that, select the Insert Edge Loop tool and select how wide you want the top bar/portion on the top of your current polygon - we're making the entire frame using one shape and the edge loop tool.

Step 3 -

After you've selected how you want your top bar to be, you need to actually make it into a bar. To do this, you need to hold down right click on the polygon and select 'face' to change from object to face mode. Next, select the face you want to make into the bar and go to the same bar where you selected your polygon from and select the extrude tool (the orange cuboid extending from the grey squares) to drag it in or out to the length you desire. Repeat this process twice more so you make an entire frame.

After this you have your whole frame, you just need to turn it into the corridor. Still in face mode, multi select the faces you want to extrude (select one, then hold down shift and click on the rest), and then use the extrude tool again and drag it out as long as you want your corridor to be.



Step 4 -

At this stage, our corridor is open on both sides, if we want to close it we need to do a bit more editing. Rotate the corridor so you have access to the side you want to close and can see one of the bottom inside edges (the ones that meet up with the other end of the corridor at a corner work best) as this is what you'll be using to figure out how wide you want the wall to be. Select the edge loop tool again and click and drag along the edge mentioned earlier to figure out the size of the wall.



Going back to face mode, select the face that you want to pull up and use the extrude tool to drag it. You may want to leave the other end open so you can add props, lighting, etc a lot easier. By this stage you should be done, and now your corridor is ready for props and accessories.

 


Prop Chair

This method of making a chair works for both upright and fallen positions, the adjustments need to be slightly different. In this version, I will be making an upright chair and will show an example of a fallen one I made at the end.

Step 1 -



First, you need to bring in a cube from the polygon menu, and use the scale tool (blue square with grey square in the corner) to adjust the seat of the chair however you want. If you want the chair standing upright, it needs to be flat and risen upwards using the move tool (grey square with four blue arrows) to make room for the chair legs, if fallen it needs to be taller and thinner, with room for both legs and a back on either side.

Step 2 -



For the legs, either cylinder or cube polygons will work, but you need to scale and move them so they fit how you want to the seat (I usually have mine almost on the edge of the seat, but not quite otherwise it looks a bit unnatural).  Repeat this as many times as you need legs so the chair doesn't look uneven, I'm using the standard four.

Step 3 -



After adding all of your legs, your chair should look roughly like this, only according to your design. Next is to add the sticks for the back, and again this works with both the cylinder and cube polygons, although they may need to be thinner than the legs so make sure you scale them alright. They don't all need to be spot on in terms of length, the bottom end is going in the seat and the top ends are getting covered by a panel, just make sure the bottom end doesn't poke out underneath the seat.

Step 4 -



After adding the back poles, there's not much left of the chair left to model. For the back panel, bring in a cube polygon and shape it so it's wide and long enough to cover the top of the poles and still look proportional to the seat. You will need to move it upwards to make sure it fits.



And now your chair is done. The one lying down will look a bit different (see picture), but remember if you're making the chair to be a prop in an environment you'll have to build the chair in the environment itself.

If you wish to change the colour or *texture of any object you create like I've done for the fallen chair, hold right click and go to object mode, then do it again to go to 'assign new material'. From there, select the settings you wish to apply and they will simply appear on the object.

*Textures

Textures in Maya are what gives your props and objects different colours, effects and well, textures. Depending on what your prop is, you may want it to look different from the rest of your scene so it's more distinguishable and you can tell it apart from the rest.

Step 1 -

If you're going to texture anything, you need to have at least one polygon in your scene, so bring one in and model it if you haven't already. In this example, I'm using two to show how textures can change your entire scene.



Step 2 -

Now that you have a polygon in, you can texture it. First, make sure you're in object mode when selecting your polygon by holding right click and hovering over it, then releasing right click. If you only want to change the texture or colour of one face, then go into face mode using the same method, and selecting the one(s) you want to change.



Step 3 -

If you've noticed the drop down menu by now, you would've noticed that there's a bunch of 'assign material' options at the bottom. By holding right click again, move down to the bottom of the menu where it says 'Assign new material', and release right click.



When done, you should get this menu. From here, select the texture you wish to add to your polygon and it will simply apply.

Step 4 -

Changing the texture isn't the only thing you can edit this way. Once the texture's applied a new menu automatically pops up, with different sliders and options.



From here, you can change the colour of your polygon (the default is grey, I've changed my sphere to purple) and if you're not happy with the texture you originally chose you can swap that in the small drop down menu at the top. One thing to note is that the colour you select compared to how the polygon looks sometimes ends up a bit darker, so if you want a bright colour you may have to select a pastel colour instead or play around with the sliders below until you get your desired effect.



This menu still allows you to see your scene, so you can compare the polygon you're editing to everything else. This can help if you're trying to coordinate everything, or want your prop to look a certain way in the lights/setting.