Intro.
In this lesson, i imported an orthographic image to work off, and then box modeled a lightsaber, using the extrude and multi cut tools in maya.
Importing an image.
to import an image, go to the view menu (in the left of the screen) and select image plane, and then import image. Images in maya are often used as a reference to work from, or as part of a 3D project that doesn’t always need to be 3D (for example, a poster hanging on a wall in a room.) For this lightsaber model, we imported an orthogaphic image to work from. An orthographic image is a scale drawing of a 3d object that is represented from multiple 2D views. In the image below, you can see the front, side and top down view of the 3D object on the right, and a 3d drawing of the object on the left.
The extrude tool.
The extrude tool allowed me to manipulate the faces of a 3D shape that i had selected beforehand, and so i could change the size of the faces, before then “pulling” a shape out of them using the coloured arrows (red, blue and green). this allowed me to create parts of my lightsaber that were raised, and was the main tool i used to construct my 3d model, paticularly the ribbed section of the lightsaber that you can see in the screenshots.
Edge loops.
one tool that i used was the edge loop tool. this is a tool that allows you to split the faces of a polygon into subdivisions by creating edge rings, which are rings that act as an extra edge that go all the way around the circumference or width of your 3d shape. this effectively creates more faces for you to extrude and create new shapes from. Below is a gif showing the edge loop tool in use. you can see how this tool can be used to create a face that could be extruded into a cube that comes off of the cylinder.
The multi cut tool is a tool used to create edge loops, but you can create cuts in whatever shape you’d like, not just straight lines that either go horizontally or vertically. below is an example of the kind of edge you can create with the multi cut tool.
an issue that i had was where i created edgeloops to make a button, which i then flattened out the faces of to make it look suqare and like a cube. this created issues with modelling some circular parts of the lightsaber – as the faces of the cylinder were becoming warped. i think to fix this, i should have modeled the button after modeling most of the rest of the lightsaber.
the button i used the edge loops on.
you can see the bit where it’s not conforming to the shape of the cylinder.
Conclusion.
over all, in this lesson i learned how to use edge loops and add in images to maya – and got a lot of practise with the extrude tool, greatly improving my confidence and ability with using it.
Hey Alex, its great that you are noting up and adding screen shots to blogs, well done. However I would like you to add a more detail to your notes going forward and explain certain tools. So for example, the edge tool enables me to add in loops around my model and creates more sub divisions. This in turn creates more faces and allows me to extrude and pull them out. Here you can see I have used this technique to extrude and make a switch on my lightsabre. Try and get into the habit of adding that level of detail, and returning to blogs at home if you need to quickly tweak and refine them at all.