After a successful first two weeks, starting with basic blackouts, then moving on to more advanced techniques (such as extrude and poly-cutting), week three draws to a close after introducing some more considerations.
First up, Cleanup! The more detailed the models become, the more chances of some unusual, or even illegal geometry appearing. Everything from "Hanging Vertices" (Vertices that are simply abandoned and have no purpose, yet still exist), to "N-gons" (polygons with sides greater that 4), to "non-planar surfaces" (a four sides polygon that has its edges and/or vertices not aligned in the same geometric plane). Luckily Maya has tools to help find these and show them on the model itself.
The exercise for the week was to "fix up" a badly modeled object, and try to get as many problems dealt with as possible. I managed to track down all the issues, and fix them, though I will admit that some took some creative thinking!
The main theme this time, it's all about applying details and "edge flow" to our objects. Edge flow, something I always was a aware of but never gave it a name is the basic concept that all edges have a certain degree of "hardness" to them. No edge is ever perfectly square (unless you're looking at a knife blade of course!), so the use of beveling and edge loops can add a degree of subtlety and enhance the appearance of a model.
Additionally, Maya has an option to render surfaces as "hard" (where it takes the edges literally), or "soft" (where it interpolates the lighting between edges for a smoothed effect). Here's a good example on the Hammer... The ground down section between the handle and the head I made "hard" to emphasize the grinding angles, but the head itself in general is "soft" (the face of the head appears as a smooth curved surface, but in reality is a few sections).
Next week, we cover UV mapping... Finally adding some color and texture :) We also create a final scene for turn-in... Watch this space!
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