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Very basic modeling in Maya - Part 1
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This is a tutorial I made for a friend to show him the most basic easy tools for modeling with polygons in Maya. He was used to using Rhino and Lightwave but wanted to make a room in Maya. I'm using a mac so it might look a little different but all the tools are the same. The goal is the end up with something mostly room shaped.
1. Open a new scene
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1) Click on the "Polygons" tab in the shelf.
2) Click on "Polygon Cube"
OR
1) Hit "F3" to show the Polygon Menu Set
2) Go to "Create -> Polygon -> Cube"
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1) Ignore the "Drag for width and height" thing and just click anywhere on the grid to create a cube.
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Hit the space bar to show all the viewports (top, perspective, front, and side)
OR
Click on the icon on the left that looks like a box with 3 plus signs, it's the 12th one down from the first tool.
Sometimes hitting the space bar does nothing and you have to click on the icon.
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1) Hit "W" to select the Move Tool and move the box to the center of the grid.
OR
1) Hit "Control + A" until it opens the right window and type "0" into the x,y, and z coordinates.
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1) Hit "R" to use the Scale Tool.
2) Scale the box along the X axis.
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1) Scale along the Y axis.
Yay it vaguely resembles a wall
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1) Select the Move Tool again and move the box so that the bottom lines up with the top of the grid.
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1) With the wall selected hit "Control + D" to duplicate it.
2) Move the new wall away from the original.
OR
1) Go to "Edit -> Duplicate"
2) Move the new wall away from the original.
DO NOT copy and paste the wall. It'll look the same but it makes your scene messy and harder to find what you need later on, plus it copies and pastes any textures applied to the object and they fill up your scene and make gigantic files.
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1) Duplicate and move another wall so you have 3 lined up.
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1) Duplicate and move another wall.
2) Hit "E" to use the Rotate Tool.
3) Rotate the wall 90*
4) Line it up again the side of the other 3 walls.
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12) Scale the back wall to cover the length of the other 3, it doesn't have to be exact.
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1) Hit "Q" to select the default tool.
2) Select all the walls either by clicking on them individually or drag selecting over all of them
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1) Go to "Mesh -> Combine"
This makes all the objects selected into one objects. This does not merge all their points and edges to make them look like one object, so making a character out of a bunch of spheres and cubes then combining them in this way will not make a good model.
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This is what it should look like with everything combined.
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1) With the object selected go to "Edit Mesh -> Cut Faces Tool"
This tool with cut a line straight through your model. Unlike cutting a real object it will not create two separate halves, it's more like adding edges than cutting.
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To use the tool click and hold down anywhere in a viewport, this will create a line that shows you where it's going to cut. Moving your mouse will rotate this line. You can kind of see it in the Top View ,screenshots ignore my mouse pointer so all you can see is the line.
This tool is kind of confusing at first so you might want to just mess with it until it makes sense. You can get rid of your mistakes with undo (either "Control + Z" or "Edit -> Undo")
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1) Using the Top View make a cut about here-ish.
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1) And another couple there.
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1) Right click and hold down on the object
2) Select "Vertex"
Sometimes the right-clicking can be annoying and it comes up with "Complete Tool" or "Select All" just keep trying in different spots until it comes up with the right menu.
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1) In the top view drag select over these vertices.
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1) Go to "Edit Mesh -> Merge -> Box"
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1) With the points still selected hit "Apply".
2) If that does nothing adjust the threshold, either with the slider or typing in numbers, until it merges the points so there's now 1 at the top at 1 at the bottom.
"Threshold" just means the distance it will go to merge selected points. So a low threshold will only merge very close points, and a high threshold will merge everything into one point.
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1) Move the points along the Z axis so the wall looks even.
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1) Merge another pair of points.
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1) Merge another pair of points.
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1) Merge another pair of points.
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1) Merge another pair of points.
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1) Merge another pair of points.
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1) Merge another pair of points.
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1) Merge another pair of points.
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1) Merge another pair of points.
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1) Merge another pair of points.
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1) Move all the points to line up like this. Now you have something that looks kind of like the room my friend wanted to model.
If you see any mistakes or think this could be done better or another way let me know.
