CGS 3220Lecture 2

Introduction to Computer Aided ModelingInstructor: Brent Rossen

Graham Clark

Lesson 1 – Create a Garage

Overview Setting a new Maya Project Creating primitive objects Moving objects in 3d space Duplicating objects Changing the shape of objects Using the Maya View tools Naming objects Saving and incremental saves

Setting a new Maya Project

Launch Maya Set the project

File > Project > Set Name your project

“Garage” Click, “Use Defaults” File > New Scene Save, this will

automatically put it in the “scenes” directory

Creating primitive objects

Creating the Garage For this scene, we will be building a garage with

several boxes and wires The room itself will be a primitive polygonal cube Primitives: the basic shapes used in 3d modeling

Found on the Create top menu

Creating Primitive 3d Objects Cont… Create the Cube

Create > Polygon Primitives > Cube

This cube will be used as a large surroundingroom.

A cube is placed at the origin

The Procedural Model

This cube is what’s known as a Procedural Model, that title has quite a few implications, here are the important parts for you.

Procedural models can be broken down into nodes

Node: a generic object type containing specific attributes that allow it to accomplish a specific task.

Procedural Model Cont…

In the case of our cube, it currently has 3 nodes Transform

Positioning information of objects, when you move, rotate, and scale your objects, numbers are changed in the transform node

Shape Contains all the component information that contains the base

shape of the object Input

Contains the options that drive the creation of the object, such as radius, or length, width, height

Procedural Model Cont…

The input node can be edited in the Channel Box

Channel Box is found at the right of the screen and allows you to make changes to attributes as well as later animating attributes

The channel box is opened by clicking this buttonfound in the upper right

Changing the shape of objects In the channel box

Click polycube1 under Inputs if it is not open

Change the width to 25, hit enter after each

Change the height to 10 Change the Depth to 25

The cube is now shaped more like a room You could have also used the scale

manipulator to do this You may need to zoom out to view it all

Using the Maya View tools

Four view Panels To start, you will only see

the perspective window Click the space bar to

bring up all four views, another way to do this is click Panels > Saved Layouts > Four View

This shows the cube using the perspective and 3 orthographic views

The Views

View panels are used to see into the 3d world Perspective: shows the view as though you were

looking through your own eyes Orthographic: shows the view looking down a

particular axis you’ll notice things don’t get smaller into the distance,

it’s as though everything was just squished up against the view plane

The Views Continued…

You’ll often need to use several of these views to help determine an exact location

Naming objects

In the channel box, click “pCube1” and type in the name “Garage”, press enter

Naming objects is often overlooked, but it becomes very important

As your scenes grow they can become overwhelming, be sure to name and/or group all of your objects

Moving the Garage

We’ll now use our first manipulator, the Move tool

Select the Move Tool in the tool box interface on the left or by pressing w

Working in 3d

Each dimension is defined by the cardinal axes: x, y, and z x – length – red y – height – green z – depth – blue

When you select an object, and turn on the translation manipulator, it will point in the positive direction for each axis

The center of the world is called the origin and has [x, y, z] = [0, 0, 0]

Moving the Garage Cont…

Click+drag the green manipulator to move the cube along the positive Y axis until the floor is flush with the grid

The yellow axis is the active axis on a manipulator

More about the Views and 3d Space Moving in the perspective view can be

thought of in two ways: Either you are moving a camera around an object Or, you are spinning an object in front of the

camera Generally option 1 is the accepted thought,

but option 2 can be a very useful view when programming in 3d.

Edit the Views

Perspective Alt+LMB: tumble Alt+MMB: track Alt+RMB to dolly

Orthographic Alt + MMB: track Alt + RMB: dolly You can’t tumble in

orthographic views

Both MMB Wheel to

incrementally dolly Ctrl+Alt+LMB to box dolly

– left to right zooms in – right to left zooms out

Undo-redo for views: [ ] F – frame selected A – frame all

Moving inside the Garage

In the perspective view click Shading > Smooth Shade All

To feel like you’re inside the garage, move the perspective view until it is inside the cube geometry

But everything disappears! That’s because of the Normals and Backface

culling, let’s fix that

Menu Sets and creating

Change to the Modeling Menu Set In Maya 8 the Modeling Menu Set has

been divided into the Polygons and Surfaces menu sets

Normals and Backface Culling Backface Culling: a polygon with its normal facing

away from the camera will not be displayed with this on. Backface culling is generally a good thing (saves system

resources) so we’ll leave it on and change the normals A Normal: a vector representing the direction a polygon (or

sometimes vertex) is facing Reverse the Normals

Select the cube, (Modeling Menu Set) Edit Polygons > Normals > Reverse

Turns the cube inside out

Making Crates

Now it’s time to put some stuff in our room

Do the same as for creating the room, but let’s use the hotbox this time, Hold SpaceBar > Create

> Polygon Primitives > Cube

Rename the box “Crate1” so it’s easy to find later

Transforming the cube

This time, let’s use the move (W), rotate (E), and scale (R) manipulators to put the box at an odd angle in the corner of the room

Also, use the side and front view to make sure it is flush with the floor

Duplicating objects

Instead of starting from scratch each time we want to make another crate, let’s use the duplicate command Edit > Duplicate or Ctrl-d Notice the boxes are

automatically numbered after the number we started from

Let’s make a few more boxes

Saving and incremental saves Now is a good time to save, File > Save or

ctrl-s Name your scene GarageStart

.mb (Maya Binary) will be automatically appended .ma (Maya Ascii) is useful when moving between

versions Incremental saves

Incremental saves will save a new copy of your scene each time you hit ctrl-s

Starting Incremental Saves

Why use it? Sometimes Maya crashes, and every once in a while that

will corrupt your file. File > Save Scene > Options Box

Check Incremental Save Check Limit Incremental

Saves Set the Limit to at

least 5 depending on your system’s resources

Every Garage Needs Some Shelves Create a cube, reshape it like a shelf, and

place it against the wall, near the bottom Rename the cube “Shelf1”

Edit > Duplicate > Options Edit > Reset Settings Translate Y: 1.5 Number Copies: 4

Undo-Redo

If they don’t look exactly right, ctrl-z or edit > undo and you can try again

Shift-z will redo the action

Make the Lamp

Create > Polygon Primitives > Cone

(w) move the cone up near to the ceiling

Rename the cone Lamp Go to the cones Inputs

Radius: 2 Height: 1 Subdivisions Axis: 10 Subdivisions Cap: 1

Adjust the Vertices

RMB on the Lamp and select Vertex

This mode allows you to edit each vertex into any shape you choose

Let’s move our vertices to create an inside to the lamp

Hotkey 4 will give you wireframe, hotkey 5 goes back to smooth

Electrical Wire for the Lamp

To create the wire, let’s use a nurbs cylinder

Create > NURBS Primitives > Cylinder Radius: .1 Spans: 6 Height Ratio: 50

About NURBS

We’re using a NURBS cylinder because surfaces are good for creating smooth geometry

NURBS Curves Non-Uniform Rational B-Spline – you lay down

control points and smooth lines are created NURBS Geometry

Surfaces defined using NURBS Curves

Adjusting the Wire

Move the wire to the ceiling so that the bottom edge touches the top of the lamp

Select the component mode button (F8), and be sure the vertices button is enabled

You can now see the control vertices of the wire

Adjusting the Wire Cont…

Adjust the Control Vertices (CVs) until they look like a wire Rename the cylinder, Wire Adjust the smoothness (1 – rough, 2 – medium, 3 – fine) Click the component button or F8 again to get out of

component mode Save your scene!

Conclusion

That’s our first lesson in using Maya, and we’ve already made a room with real-ish objects.

Go ahead and try this at home or in the lab. Play around with creating, duplicating, and

transforming objects. Make a room of your own. Try a real room, that gives you plenty of details to work from.

Next time, a bit more in depth about modeling objects and adding details.