In-Class Exercise 5 - Part 3

For the last part of the session I had to experiment with the parameters of different procedural maps on some plane polygons, I created 8 planes in total and gave each one a different procedural map effect using the same advanced menu in the colour settings for a basic lambert material.

In-Class Exercise 5 - Part 2

For the second part of this session I had to apply a bitmap to a series of primitive shapes. In order to achieve this I first created 6 different primitive shapes and arranged them in front of me, then I assigned a new lambert material to all the shapes. In the lamberts settings I went to the colour settings and opened the advanced options to enable me to use a image file for the material, using the 2D file I previously downloaded and applied it to my shapes. The cone shape turned out a bit strange as the image seemed to be at an angled and spiraled around the cone primitive, however I was assured that later on in the session I would end up understanding how I could rotate the bitmap to better fit more awkward shapes.

In-Class Exercise 5 - Part 1

For this practical I had to create a cube primitive and assign a new material to it, then edit the new material so my cube resembled a shiny metal. After creating my cube I had a look at the basic materials I could apply, in the end I used a blinn material as these are good for metal textures. I then went into the materials setting and changed the colour to look like gold and tweaked the specular shading settings to increase the amount of light reflected on my cube and make the reflected colour look a bit more gold like.

Star Destroyer - Turrets

I am very happy with how the turrets turned out, I used a reference image to see the exact shape of the guns of the ship. The base was created from many primitive shapes that were placed on top of each other and aligned into position. The barrels were made using edge loops and scaling the faces down along with extruding them outwards.

Star Destroyer - Bridge

The bridge was an interesting part of the ship to create, the basic shape was a cube primitive, from this I first created the deflector shield generators. I made 2 cylinders for the base and added some tall cylinders to the tops of both the base shapes, I then moved the sphere into position and aligned it with the center of the base. I then finished the deflectors by adding some small cubes to the top of the sphere. I am fairly happy with the result of the generators I would like to have found a way to create the proper shape as they are not spherical, something like reducing the amount of faces on the shape.

The communications array in the middle of the top of the bridge was fairly complex to create and scale accurately but the actual principle of creating it was not technically difficult. I made the frame using cubes and extruded parts near the base to create the block like shapes, I then added a lot of divisions into the front of the main array and extruded every other face to create the panels.

The detail on the front was made using cubes of various lengths that were duplicated and ordered in a semi-random method.

Star Destroyer - Engines

The engines took quite a while to create due to their complexity, The initial shape for the main 3 engines was done using a cylinder for the base and then using a sphere that I cut out using another sphere with the Boolean difference tool to create the bowl shape. I then added in a small pipe into the center along with a bunch of struts created in a similar manner to the ones on the life support pod. The 4 smaller engines were easier to create as they only required a cylinder for the base shape with a pipe to create the external ring and and another pipe in the center, they were then finished off with a cube primitive stretched out and attached to the central and outer pipes, this was then duplicated and rotated. The 4 long cylinders near the central engine were created just like the 4 smaller engines but they were stretched out and had 2 edge loops inserted and the faces extrude inwards to create the groove that runs all around the pipes.

Star Destroyer - Life Support and Hangar

The life support pod was created using a sphere for the main shape and a small pipe was inserted into the bottom. The only problem I ran into was creating the 4 struts on the sphere as I did not know how to go about creating this, in the end I settled with 2 pipes that I scaled the faces inwards to turn the original pipe shape into a thin ring and then moving them to form around the sphere. I took the bottom faces near the pipe shape on the bottom and moved them up inside the main sphere to hide them, looking back this was not a good idea instead I should have either used to Boolean difference tool to create the shape I wanted or delete the faces on the bottom.

Star Destroyer - Top Detail

A finished a bit of the detail on the top of the ship that is on the schematic, I also added in some extra detail on the top and side according to a reference image. I first moved a cube primitive into position and scaled it correctly, I then extruded the rear part upwards to meet the main body, the small detail on the top and side were created also using manipulated cube shapes.

Star Destroyer - Top Panels

The top armour panels for the ship have been created using cubes that were flattened and angled to be closer to the angle of the main body of the ship.

Star Destroyer - Making the Basic Shape

I created the basic shape of my Star Destroyer by starting with a cube and lining it up with my schematic, from this I Stretched out the cube and added some divisions to create the basic triangular shape of the ship. I then added the indents into the side of the ships using the Boolean difference tool to cut out the shapes that I wanted, from this I added some divisions into the side faces and then extruded them inwards to create the channels in the side of the ship. The last part of the main shape was to Add in some extra edges by connecting the vertices on the back of the ship, I then pulled the center vertexes inwards to create the engine housing. I created the shapes on the top of the main body by manipulating cubes and duplicating them and making minor adjustments along with extruding some smaller parts.

Imperial Shuttle - Finishing the Main Body and Cockpit

The Imperial Shuttle has now been finished, I added in the grooves in the body that the lower wings attached to and added the mechanisms to move the wing. I also added the turrets on the lower wings and the rear as well as the guns on the front of the main body. I had some trouble creating the engines for the craft though, my plan was to use the Boolean difference tool to cut out 2 cylindrical shapes as it looks in my reference images. However When using the tool it would not work as expected as it would not cut the shape out it would just remove the shape I was using to cut out the engines with. As a solution I decided to make the engines external to the main body, after looking back at what I had created I started to prefer this look over the original.

Imperial Shuttle - Lower Wing Detail

I have now added the detail on the lower wings, the mechanism that moves the wings has not been done and will be included when I add detail to the main body. The same methods used on creating the upper wing were also used on the lower wings.

Imperial Shuttle - Top Wing Detail

The first part of the ship I decided to add detail to first was the top wing as it was the simplest part to do, no advanced tools were used to create this just simple cube primitives with their edges manipulated to form the thin panels on the wing. I used the mirror and align tools to save time on getting the exact positioning of the detail right.

In-Class Exercise 4

For this exercise I had to model a derelict village with at least one building with an interior. I started working on a village church to start off, these practical exercises are not meant to be too time consuming and getting about halfway through my church realised that I would not be able to do a full village without spending too much time on it. The align tool came in handy to get all my primitives shapes exactly where I wanted them and I used the extrude tool a lot in order to pull out some detail in order to create the pillars around the church and the gate. The Boolean difference tool was also very useful in creating the curved shape on top of the gate and cutting away the interior of the church. Overall I feel that this exercise has helped me to better understand some of the basic tools in Maya, but despite being basic they have been crucial to creating my models so far.

Imperial Shuttle - Wings

The basic shape of the wings was another simple task for me to do, like most of my basic shapes the wings started off as cube primitives. The top wing was the easiest to do as it only required me to add one edges to my cube and play around with scaling the whole object and pulling some edges out to create the desired shape. The two bottom wings took a little bit longer, first I created the small part that attached to the main craft and then extruded the bottom face of this object downwards and outwards which left me with the correct angle for the wing. Then using the multi-cut tool to add in some extra edges to manipulate I was swiftly able to create the basic shape of the shuttles wings, I then moved it into position on the craft and mirrored it over to the other side. After this I combined all the wings with the main ship.

Imperial Shuttle - Cockpit

I have completed the basic shape of the cockpit, it was simple to do and only required me to create a cube primitive and morph it into a hexagonal shape. This was then fused with the main body of the ship to create the internal walkway from the cockpit to the rest of the ship. The cockpit was created again using a cube primitive, I angled it according to the schematic and then add some extra edges using the multi-cut tool, these edges were then pulled out to finish the basic cockpit shape.

Imperial Shuttle - Making the Basic Shape 2

I have expanded on the basic shape of the shuttle by extruding the top of the base shape to create the main body of the shuttle, I then created a new cube primitive and changed that into the shape on the top of the shuttle and extruded a small part off the back to fit the schematic I am using. Now that I have done this I am going to begin work on the basic shape for the cockpit.

Imperial Shuttle - Making the Basic Shape

Starting off with a cylinder primitive I then stretched it out into a cuboid with rounded edges, I then duplicated this and cut away a large portion away leaving only the rounded edge with the Boolean difference tool. From this I then moved the rounded edge onto the back of the main ships base and combined the meshes and target welded the vertices into position, after this I added in some extra edges to the corner and pulled them out to create a more rounded look to them.

Tie Fighter - Added Detail

Being a bit unhappy with the detail on the main body of the tie fighter I went back and had a look at my schematic and saw that I could add something to both the top and bottom of the model. Using the booleans difference tool I cut away at a sphere to create a small dome shape, I then further cut into that using some modified cube primitives to create the parts shown below.

I also added some minor detail that I saw on my schematic image onto the pylons leading to the wings using a few cube primitives and mirroring them to fit as needed.

Tie Fighter - Reflection

Now that I have finished creating my tie fighter I decided to review the process of making it. Overall I think it went well, I did not run into any problems whilst making it there were only a few minor incidents when I did not know quite how to make something, but after a few minutes of planning I was able to figure it out. However I think that I could have done better if I had added more detail to the cockpit as it does look quite bare, once my other models are finished I will go back to it and add in some more detail.

Tie Fighter - Finishing the Cockpit

I finished the cockpit by adding on the engines along with some small basic detailed shapes on the front and rear. The engines were created using pipe primitives, one was attached to the hull and angles slightly towards the wing whilst the other was face the same direction as the engine. I target welded the vertices together to create a smooth shape. The small detail was done by extruding a flattened cube primitive and manipulating the edges to create the angled parts.

Tie Fighter - Pylon and Wing Detail

I have finished the wing and pylons by adding more detail to them and I am happy with their final look. I added in an external ring around the wing along with some extra plates on both sides and extruded some structural beams from these to the outer ring of the wing. For the  pylons I added in the rest of the structural parts to complete the look, these were done using simple primitive shapes that were manipulated to the correct shape and extruded to create the desired look.