Introduction

This session was about recapping some techniques in software that we learned last year. This was to help us get back into a creative mindset before starting our Creative Media Project brief.

Polygon Theory & Primitives

A polygon is made up of vertices, edges and faces. Polygons make up all shapes in 3D modelling.

Polygons make up Primitves.

Primitives are the most basic shapes in 3D modelling. Shapes such as cubes, spheres and prisms, which are used to create compound shapes to form a more complex 3D model.

Box Modelling

Box modelling is the technique of creating a final 3D model from a primitive shape.

Lightsaber Task

The task we were given to help us remember some of the basics of 3D modelling was to box model a lightsaber.

Here is the lightsaber that I modelled:

As you can see, I wasn’t able to finish the full model before the end of the session, but what I was able to produce shows that I can use the extrude, scale, and multi-cut tool to create more complex shapes from a basic primitive. However, I did encounter some problems when extruding the parts that come off of the central cylinder of the lightsaber.

In this screenshot above, you can see the problem with the model.

And this screenshot shows the main problem – the mesh. I think the reason why I had problems with some of the extrusions was because my mesh wasn’t consistent the whole way around my model. Next time, I could improve on this by making sure to fix inconsistencies in the mesh or delete extra geometry as I am going along. I also had similar instances like this where the model did not look consistent all the way around.

I was then able to fix these problems by using the bridge tool:

you can see that even though the mesh isn’t perfect, the model now looks consistent.

Here is another part of the mesh where I found a similar problem that I fixed with the bridge tool.

Conclusion

Over all, this lesson helped me to jog my memory and get used to 3D modelling in Maya again.