#maya 2016

Saw these amazing Magic Bottles by Vera Velichko and decided I wanted to try and recreate these in 3D. 

So here’s the first one. Took about a week. Modelled in about a day, the rest was all texturing and lighting (also learning Renderman). The next one should go by quicker now that I’ve figured everything out...but I guess that depends on whether I am sticking with Renderman or switching over to Arnold which is now built into to Maya 2017. 

Still want to do a full res render as this is only half res. But I need the bf’s machine, as mine is just not physically capable at rendering full res.

Made in Maya & Renderman

A rather specific tip today for MAYA 2016 and up:

You can colour code items in the Outliner. 

Select the item you wish to colour code

Go into the Attribute Editor

Go to the drop down menu labelled 'Display'

Check the check box labelled 'Use Outliner Color', with a colour swatch underneath

Choose a colour and voilà

Wip - Kitty BeanBag

In the game industry, it’s fundamentally expected to have the ability to create quality content at a time efficient rate. When creating the assets necessary to construct the game, all the performing artists must work as efficiently as humanly possible to reach the deadlines necessary to ship the product on time. One of the most common issues with assignments taking up precious time is that some artists waste time creating the supporting edges on their models by manually placing in and delicately eyeing the edges to fit perfectly onto the model when they simply could use creases to get the best result in the fastest way possible. Creases are usually found in most 3D programs such as 3ds Max and Maya but the process of doing it is relatively simple to create a quality high poly model.

The process here is for Maya 2016 and is transferable in later Maya versions. To begin, creases allow you to smooth models, similar to control edges but is a nondestructive process for workflow. The first thing an asset creator must do is select the desired object to smooth with creases and enter edge mode. You then go to Windows, navigate to Relationship Editors and select Crease Sets. The best method to maintain organization is to use the set value of creasing for the naming convention for the specific crease and the type of mesh used. The crease range you want to be in is from .5 to 5.5, the set value is what the name of the crease is recommended to be, for example, Block Crease 5.5. from here you open Attribute Editor, navigate to Smooth Mesh and open Subdivision Levels where you set the subdivisions to six (6). From here you will be able to see the smooth mesh preview with the creases applied and the last step is to smooth the mesh. This process will significantly impact your workflow for the better and you will save a significant amount of time using this process.

Autodesk Explanation: