Introduction
In this 3 part tutorial we'll look at the whole process of creating and animating a character in Maya. For this we'll model, rig and finally animate our character using the tools that Maya provides. It's a very powerful program and there are many different ways to accomplish such a task but we'll be primarily using polygon modelling and IK joint animation to execute the project. The character in question will be a multi-limbed and tentacled robot creature, but the problems associated with animating so many limbs will be offset by the fact that the character will not be using them to walk on. This gives you a lot more freedom and takes away a lot of the problems to do with animating characters on the ground such as weight distribution, foot slippage and the more advanced aspects of joint control and rigging in Maya. Modelling will also be speeded up thanks to the new mirroring features in Maya 6 which lets you model one half of a symmetrical object and have the other half be automatically duplicated across a line of symmetry that you define. Despite the complexity of the model, many of the parts it is composed of are simply repeated objects which will also speed up the modelling time. Rigging can be the most complex part of the process. This is where you set up the structure of joints and deformers that you will animate and which in turn move and deform the model. Most of the time it's this 'skeleton' that is animated rather than the objects themselves. Maya has excellent tools for job but you still need to be careful and work out in advance what kind of rig you will need to suit the kinds of movements the character will be making.
If you don't have Maya yet you can download the free version, Maya PLE from Autodesk's website. Click here to go to the download page.
Step 1
Create a Poly cube, scale it up a little and move it above the ground plane. The best way to scale it is to click in the Channel Box on the name polyCube1 and then drag the mouse over the Width, Height, Depth attribute names (not the values) and Middle-drag in the 3D view to change these values interactively. You can do this with any numeric value in the Channel Box.
Step 2
Right-click on the cube and select Faces from the Marking Menu. Select the face that is on the positive x axis of the scene and press delete/backspace to delete it.
Step 3
Press F8 twice to get back to object mode (the cube turns green) then select Polygons>Smooth Proxy (options box) to open the options. In the Mirror Setup section choose Full +x as the mirror plane, then in the Display settings uncheck the Proxy Mesh Renderable box and click Apply.
Step 4
A duplicate of the existing geometry is placed in the scene, welded to the open edge you created on the x side of the model. Now if you select a face or point on the mesh and move it the opposite side will be modified too.
Step 5
Select the back polygon and extrude it using Edit Polygons>Extrude Face and move the new face along it's z axis. This will create a closed extrusion and a 'wall' between the two halves. Select this wall polygon and delete it.
Step 6
In vertex mode begin shaping the head of the Sentinel. By moving points instead of faces we make sure the center line of point stay on the line of symmetry. The head shape is tilted down and the front and up at the back.
Step 7
In Object mode go to Side view and choose the Edit Polygons>Cut Faces tool. Drag a line across the bottom of the model to slice in extra geometry.
Step 8
We'll create an opening for the legs by selecting the front side polygon created by the slice operation and extruding it inward twice. Each of these extrudes can be accessed in the Channel box if you want to tweak them after-the-fact. Just select their name and press the t key to activate their manips.
Step 9
The opening is adjusted to look less 'pinched' at the corners by moving some of the vertices. You can get a better display of the smoothed mesh by pressing the pageup keys to increase the mesh subdivision. Page down reduces it.
Step 10
Underneath the head we need to add some more geometry using the Split Polygon Tool. In Object mode click the yellow points from the side opening down underneath the large bottom polygon to split it creating the red edges indicated above. The resulting extra points can then be moved to round out the 'nose' area. ***Download the file Head2.mb
Step 11
In a new document we'll make the legs. Create a NURBS cylinder with 6 spans and height ratio of 10. Edit the CVs selecting a row at a time and scale them down to taper the ends.
Step 12
In object mode choose Animation menu set>Deform>Non Linear>Bend to apply a bend deformer to the cylinder. In the Channel box select the Curvature attribute and middle-drag in the view to bend the cylinder slightly.
Step 13
Add a Sphere to the top of the leg, then in the Outliner middle-drag the cylinder into to to make it a child. Select the hierarchy and choose Edit>Duplicate with transform. Move rotate and scale the duplicate in to position and repeat the procedure to make the three section limb.
Step 14
The claw is even easier to make. Add another sphere and edit one half of it's CVs to make the upper claw. Duplicate this and rotate it 180û to make the lower claw and add a third sphere for the joint. Parent the two claws to the joint sphere then move the hierarchy into position at the end of the arm. Parent this to the last cylinder of the arm in the Outliner. ***Download the file Arm.mb
Step 15
Open the Head2.mb scene again and begin adding detail. The first stage is to add some stretched sphere's to the body, partially embedding them in the head and rotating them to the desired angles.
Step 16
In top view select the CV Curve tool and draw one half of the eye profile making sure the first point is on the z axis (use grid snap). With the curve selected choose Modeling menu set> Surfaces>Revolve to revolve the curve and make the 'eye'. In the Channel box set the revolve axis to z by entering 1 (true) in the numeric field and 0 (false) for x and y.
Step 17
Add a flattened sphere to make the lens of the eye and give it a new Blinn material. Make this a child of the revolve then duplicate the group and move and scale them to make the cluster of eyes on the one side only (you may need to edit the CVs so that the eyes penetrate the head fully).
Step 18
Shift-select the duplicate eyes on the one side and choose Modify>Freeze transformations then Edit>Group. Select the Group in the Outliner and Duplicate it, then in the channel Box enter -1 in the x scale field. This effectively mirrors the group which can then be moved as one to the other side of the head.
Step 19
In the Outliner open the pCube1SmoothProxyGroup and select polySurface1. Make this surface live for drawing on by clicking the magnet icon (Make Surface Live) at the top of the interface. The body will urn to a dark green wireframe.
Step 20
Choose the CV Curve tool and begin drawing a curve directly on the body going from the main eye around the side and over the back protruding sphere.
Step 21
Add a NURBS Circle, shift-select the curve you just drew (easiest to do this in the Outliner) and choose Surface>Extrude. It may look wrong to begin with, so in the Channel Box select the Extrude item, and set the Use Component Pivot to 'Component Pivot. You can scale the circle to set the size of the tube. Add as many of these surface tubes as you like. Mirror these to the other side using the Dup-Group-Freeze-move procedure as in step 18
Step 22
Draw another profile curve in Top view to make the tail socket object. Again snap the first point to the grid to ensure proper surface is made. Select the Revolve tool and set the axis to z once more.
Step 23
Move this to the rear of the head and rotate it 180û in y so it's facing backwards. Duplicate this and move the copy in from of the original. Right click and choose Hulls. Select the excess bands of CVs by clicking on the Hull lines (dark pink) and delete them. Scale and move the other bands to get this rounded edged cylinder. You can add extra CVs in Isoparm mode, click-dragging on the surface and selecting Insert Isoparm from the Edit NURBS menu. Group these and name it TailSocket.
Step 24
We being the tail by creating a Poly cylinder. Set the Height to 1, Subdivision Height to 3 and Subdivision Caps to 0. In Face mode select the top and bottom Faces.
Step 25
Choose Edit Polygons>Bevel to create a beveled edge to the cylinder. In the Channel Box set the segments to 3 and then delete the cap faces.
Step 26
Duplicate this and scale it down slightly all round then scale it approximately by half in y. Move this scaled copy above the original and give it a new black Blinn material. Group these and rename the group TailUnit.
Step 27
Now we'll make the whole tail by instancing the TailUnit group. Select the group and choose Edit>Duplicate (options box). Set the number of copies to 30, the mode to Copy, and New Group, and set the translate value that each will be moved in the y axis (top row, center column of the numeric matrix). Tip -You can work this distance out by adding and moving a locator to the top of the group (ours was 0.47).
Step 28
Hit the insert key and move the pivot to the base of this new group then press w (Move tool) to return to normal. Move this new group to the end of the TailSocket and rotate it to the correct angle. We will only make one of these for now, the rest are duplicates but we will first need to rig this one for animation, which we'll do in the next installment.
Step 29
We'll make a clasping claw for the end of the tentacle. Add a polycylinder and set its height to 1, Subdivisions Axis=6, Caps=2.
Step 30
In face mode, select three alternate cap polygons and apply the Extrude Faces command. Move these upwards using the manipulator.
Step 31
Extrude the faces again then move the upwards again. Click the little blue circle to swap manipulator mode from global to local then scale them inwards. Finally edit the points to fine tune the shape - it doesn't need to be super-high-detailed.
Step 32
Move this object to the end of the tentacle and group it with it. The final file, including a single leg object added to the file (again ready for rigging and duplication next time) can be downloaded ***Head5Tail.mb
Notes
Revolve - In Maya the term Revolve is used to describe what is more commonly known as lathing in other 3D apps. The process is identical; draw a curve, define an axis to rotate it around to create a 3D surface. It's only the lingo that is different.Notes
Duplicating in Maya can be somewhat more difficult than on other 3D programs. BEcause of the way that nodes are created and linked you need to determine exactly how much of t his 'node-network' you wish to duplicate. When you create a primitive several nodes are created, the two main ones being a Shape node which contains the geometry information, and a Transform node which tells Maya where the geometry is in the scene. To duplicate an object and make it independent you need to use the Duplicate With Transform command which copies the Shape node of the selected object but links it to a new Transform node.Notes
Smooth Proxy in Maya is very similar to Subdivision Surfaces. It's actually more or less identical to Subdivision Surface modelling found in other 3D apps because it works by linking a low resolution 'cage' object to a high-resolution smoothed object. Both of these are are polygonal surfaces and can be edited using Mayas standard polygon editing tools.Many will find the Smooth Proxy method of modeling easier to handle than Maya's true Subdivision Surfaces though the latter has a lot more depth of control. Plus you can edit the smoothed surface ad different levels of smoothing to add very fine local details, whereas with the Smooth Proxy you can't.
Notes
All the scene files mentioned in this tutorial can be downloaded as a zip archive here.Images
Images are supplied for instructional purpose only and are not to be re-distributed without permission.
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Tutorial and images by Simon Danaher ©2006