Telling Tales: Week 5 - Props modelling on Maya

I have modelled some of the props for the animation in Maya. Dan taught me to use some of the modelling tools before I started doing it by myself. I am definitely more confident in modelling after he taught me how to do so. 

Most of the time, starting off with a cube makes it easier for modelling most of the objects, and adding more edge loops to the cubes so that it can be deformed using the Lattice Deformer tool.

The one time I used cylinder, when I modelled the bucket, I messed it up. I extruded the bucket inwards, and I ended up with too many edges. I made it almost impossible to unwrap its UV, so Dan ended up making a new model.

Bucket model that I made

Looks fine from the outside, but messed up on the inside

Some learning points:

• Work in low-polygon and stay organised. 
• Remembering to delete history before saving the final model. 
• Changing the function of the wheel button to middle click if necessary. 
• Thorough check of the model's edges, make sure that they are organised before unwrapping the UV map.

The bear mask was the most challenging to model. I started with a cube, insert 4 more edge loops on each of the dimensions, flatten it, and curve it with the deformer's Bend tool.

Bear Mask

A major problem occurred when Dan wanted to unwrap the UV because the mask had a lump of unruly edges inside. This happened as I accidentally selected the back side of the object multiple of times when marquee selecting and accidentally extruding them will create double edges. This is why it is important to stay organised and to check the model before unwrapping its UV. Some possible modelling tools that can be used to solve this problem: Multi Cut (to make new edges) and Target Weld (to get rid of unnecessary vertices), Bridge (make a face to connect two edges), Extrude (move a face inward or outward)

modelling tools that I am talking about

I learned it the hard way that it is important to get the model right on the first go, hence modelling in Maya requires a high degree of organisational skill and precision is needed so as to avoid problems in the next steps, such as texturing and even animating. 

Unfortunately, another bad thing happened. Because we keep on replacing the project folder without checking the content we lost the file of this second mask and the eagle staff. We decided that we will not bother to make another mask, but luckily I got an image of the mask. It was also nicely modelled, so it is such a shame that we have lost it.

Lost this one