01/05/09

Introduction to Maya.

Setup:

Maya Project System: File/Project/New
Network Drive Z (login name) = Your Personal Storage Area, maya and HTML folders
Network Drive Y (workspace) = Classes, Scratch, Projects, Applications

Maya Workspace:

Viewports/Views (press and quickly release Space bar to toggle between single and multiple viewports), viewport menus
Navigation (ALT+LMB, ALT+MMB, ALT+RMB)
Interface Elements (Status Line, Shelf, Time Slider, Range Slider, Command Line, Feedback Line, Help Line)
Tool Box
Interface options ( Windows/Settings/Preferences/- Preferences, Hotkey Editor, Marking Menu Editor)

Model Manipulation and Attributes

Coordinate System and Units. (Y-up vs Z-upWindow/ Settings/Preferences /Preferences /Settings. )
Create Menu (Primitives, Option Boxes, Interactive Creation option)
Object Selection
Toolbox, tool settings and shortcuts W E R.
Duplicating Objects (DO NOT COPY/PASTE within a scene or from one file to another).
Channel Editor
Attribute Editor
Pivot Center “Insert” to move Pivot Point. Modify/Center Pivot.


Scene Organization

Hierarchies: Grouping and Parenting
Hypergraph
Multilister
Renaming Objects
Display Layers

Resources:

Maya Help Menu
Visual Quickstart Guide Maya 8
Lynda.com

01/07/09

Modeling

Model is either a representation of a real object or an object in itself (art).

Type of Model

Relationship of
Interior and Exterior

Examples

Surface Model

Exterior is important. Interior not important. Metaphor: egg shell.

All character and prop models for animation.

Solid model

 Exterior and interior are equally important, the most presice representation of an object. Engineering: machine parts.
Volume Model Interior is important. Exterior may be hard to define. Gases, liquids, living tissue visualization.

Boolean Operations for Polygons.

Boolean Teapot Tutorial

Midori Kitagawa's introduction to modeling, coordinate systems and model types:
http://www.accad.ohio-state.edu/~midori/03_751/handouts/models.html
http://www.accad.ohio-state.edu/~midori/03_751/handouts/coord_sys.html

Introduction to Polygons

Access PDF on theory of Maya polygons at Y:/Courses/2008-2009/AC751_Berezina_W09/\poly_theory

1. Polygon Anatomy:
Manipulatable (translate, rotate, scale) in 3d: Vertices, Edges, Faces.
Manipulatable in 2d: UVs.
Unmovable, but good for diagnostics: Face Normals, Vertex Normals. Accessible via Display/Polygons

Tri vs quad vs n-sided face. Planar, Nonplanar,Concave and Convex polys.

2.Tri and Quad excercise.
Tools: Mesh/Create Polygon, Mesh/Combine (Shell vs Object), Edit Mesh/Merge Vertices.

3.Stairs.mb excercise.
Tools: Reverse Normals, Conform Normals, Delete Vertex, Merge Vertices.

6. Non-manifold - impossible to unfold flat. (t-shaped, bow-tie, reversed)
Mesh/Cleanup to get rid of non-manifold geometry.

Homework:
Read PolyPDF handout: Workspace/Courses/2008-2009/AC751_Berezina_W09/poly_theory.pdf
Hammer Tutorial: Workspace/Courses/2008-2009/AC751_Berezina_W09/Hammer.pdf

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