Week 1-2: Hard Surface Modelling, Subdivision Techniques

My first week of working on Maya started on October 10th with Richard Cunningham guiding us in the course. I have done my Bachelors in Animation, but it was focused on the 2D. Although we had an introductory 2-week workshop that taught us the bare minimum of Maya. But that was 4 years ago, and I did not remember any of it. So, this was basically the starting from the scratch for me.

My first attempt at modelling

Making headphones

After learning the basics of maya on day 1, I wanted to try and make a model of my own. I saw my headphones on the desk and decided to recreate it. The headphones were created mostly using the extrusion method with the bare minimum of subdivisions. I was just trying to make them look like headphones in the smooth preview. I just made a cuboid and added three edge loops to create a curve. In retrospect, I should have used the deform tools. I just didn't know about them.

If I were to make them now (10 days after my first attempt), I would use a bit more complex topology, would have added a few more subdivisions, However I managed not to have any ngons in this model.

Shoe first attempt

After making the headphones I still had the itch to make something, so decided to make something a bit more complex, a shoe. This was my poor attempt at making the shoe. I used an extrusion to create the hole for the feet and edge loops to create the basic shape. But it ended up having to many Ngons and tris and it became messier than I expected as I had messed up on the extrusion and the edge flow. So, I decided to give it another go.

Shoe second attempt

This attempt did end up being an improvement on the first one. I didn't have any tris and Ngons and also managed to have a bit more detail with a sole and a more defined shape. However, I was not able to add the kind of lining I wanted. I should have used my references properly and I admit making a proper shoe on my day one is a little more ambitious than I should have gone for.

Candle

This attempt was basically me trying to make something with a cylinder and also having some more organic shape with the melted part on it. To make the melted part I just created another cylinder that was shorter and dragged the bottom edges to make it look melted. And at the end I just placed on the cylinder, which might had left additional face inside the object, which is not good for the final product.

Stick grenade

This was my first time making an object by directly seeing it from the tutorial. But by doing that I learnt a lot about selection and extrusion. This entire video showed me a more efficient way of modelling. Most of the model was simple enough to make, however I had a hard time making the cap thing with a helix. But I ended up learning about a shape other than a cube and a cylinder and different ways to make something out of it.

Making the skier product

This was a task assigned to us in the classroom; to replicate a product as close to the original image as possible. My classroom attempt was a failed one as I tried to make it from a cube instead of a cylinder and it ended up looking weird.

The second attempt was a bit of a disaster. It started out fine where I was using the techniques taught to us, especially a technique called circularize. It helps to extrude a cylinder. I also learned how to make a bend using the curve tool. But then the entire model got green somehow when I was exploring, and I did not know how to undo it despite searching for the solution on the internet. So, I ended up making the model again.

My third and final attempt at the model ended up looking decent enough even the proportions are a little weird. But again, I did not know how to fix it and was tired of looking at this product at this point. But I did learn a lot by making this model and at the end repetition is the key to learning.