Introduction
In this lesson we were introduced to the Duplicate Special tool, as well as the combine and merge (target weld) tool.
combining
when combining two or more objects together, they become the same mesh, but the geometry of the objects is not changed at all. you can see that the combined geometry is seperate by using the smooth mesh preview.
merging
when merging multiple objects, the geometry of the objects is altered to attach the meshes together. once again, smooth mesh preview can be used to see that the meshed objects are now one object that acts as one mesh.
here is an image showing the difference between merge and combine.
combining and merging in maya pracitse
To start, we created a cube, scaled it up and gave it subdivisions in its length, width and height to create these extra square faces that we could delete and use to add another object onto.
we then created another cube, moved it above the bigger cube and deleted the bottom face. from there, we scaled and moved the small cube to roughly the same size as the hole in the larger cube, and combined them together by going to the mesh menu at the top of the screen, and then selecting the combine option. below is a screenshot showing this.
to mesh the two together, we used the target weld tool in the modelling toolkit to connect the vertices of both cubes to make them into one shape. below is a screenshot showing the vertices that i was joining together.
using the duplicate special tool.
once an object has been duplicated (using ctrl + D) and moved, the keyboard shortcut shift+D can be used to copy and repeat the way that the 1st duplicate was moved. this can be used to make a staircase, as shown below. the spiral staircase follows the same process as the regular staircase, just the 1st duplicate step is rotated slightly.
modelling a picket fence
i created a picket fence using the duplicate, scale, move, extrude and combine tools in maya. it was good practise of the skills i learnt this lesson.
creating a propellor using the duplicate special tool
we created a horizontal cytlinder with a blade coming out of the top. to duplicate the blade with the correct spacing, we needed to divide 360 by the number of blades that we want to create. in this case, we needed 3 blades, so the value that i put into the rotation box for the z axis was 120. i left the other boxes clear, because i only needed to duplicate the blades going around the cylinder.