In the last several afternoon sessions on Maya, we learnt how to work from a simple box model, shape, extrude and scale it into an organic form; such as a Tyrannosaurus Rex which we constructed. Below is the first design stage. I spent about an hour or two creating the body and then a further fifteen minutes on the left arm and leg. Using the mirror options in Maya, the symmetrical body can be created on just one side and then mirror 'flipped' to the opposite side. In addition, there is a feature which allows you to do this but work in real time mirroring; acting at the same time as you control the mouse.
At first I followed along with the plan image that was handed to us. However, without sounding impolite, the sketched image was slightly inaccurate (as far as we know of the physique of the carnivore). From being a massive enthusiast of dinosaurs growing up, I have collective knowledge of the form of the body which came in really useful for time management building the shape.
Above you can see I shaped the box into the head at first and then worked my way down along the body extruding. Underneath is the basic body build. I found that using the hotkey bar was really helpful for getting to some features faster as well as the shortcut on the keyboard 'g' which repeats the last command.
Here I deleted the flat bottom face from the hip to extrude the leg cleanly down. Once I had reached to the heel, I then filled the hole and formed the claws. Similarly, I did this with the arms but bent them round constructing the forearms and talons.
By the end of the session, I checked all of the perspective views and saw that the front angle was completely out of proportion. The shape of the T-Rex was actually really lean and streamlined for hunting. To amend this, I pulled on certain vertex's to align the head and hips etc. to that of several reference images on Google.
With the basic body created, I decided to add some teeth in. I did this by creating a square-based pyramid, duplicating it and then placing them at different angles flowing with the mouth which came out alright.
Underneath is the first complete design stage. I found it very simple to work from just a box and structure the model.
In the second and third sessions, we were given a finished model to follow the smoothing process and then for UV unwrapping.
Above is the smoothing process which was very straightforward; after highlighting and selecting the entire model. This basically adds more polygons into the ones already formed and curves out the shape even more.
Here are the claws and limbs which look a lot more life-like with the smoothing action applied. I turned on 'see wire mesh' at the start which I think really helps inform you where the faces are flowing on the models.
The final stage in the modelling, to make it ready for texturing, was unwrapping the UV's. In the image above and below is the process, selecting the items, isolating the segments (such as the legs, torso and tail etc.), to highlighting the parts and finally 'unfolding' them. This can be seen in the UV Texture Editor like the T-Rex has been skinned and flattened out.
This task was slightly time consuming as selecting certain areas did not work for me but I managed to complete the UV's and by clicking on a certain setting in the UV editor, the best projection layout was made.
Below is the complete handed out model unwrapped and ready for texturing. Although I think this took longer than it should have over the three sessions, I have learned several new techniques for better time management which will most certainly help for the future.
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