CSS105

CSS 105 – Project #2

Modeling Techniques

Assigning Date: April 10, 2007

Project Due Time: 11:00AM April 24, 2007

1. Project e-submission

2. Hardcopy Report

** Remember**: No late assignments will be accepted!

Purpose:

In this project we will practice the geometric modeling primitives/techniques we have studied in lectures. The main goal of this project is to help us relate these techniques to real-world objects we encounter daily, or how we can use these techniques in creating objects to communicate abstract ideas. We want to have some appreciations for the different kinds of modeling primitives (mainly NURBS and some Polygonal Objects. Sub-Div surfaces are optional), and the different kinds of techniques involved with creating and editing primitives.

In project-1, we have broadly but shallowly experienced with the general functionality of Maya. You should start thinking about the story you want to tell in your final project, think about what kinds of objects/characters would be involved. You want to use this (and next two) project(s) to practice building the kinds of objects/characters you will use in your final project.

Be careful though: start out simple! You want to build simple objects that qualify the following specified technical requirements before you start refining your objects. As we will learn (either now, or the hard way later) that: creating a rough, draft looking object is relatively simple. However, creating a highly realistic object is very difficult! Our goal is understand the process of creating objects that convey ideas, and not necessarily knowing how to create realistic looking objects. Realism is very difficult and requires huge amount of work and artistic touch, which are not the goals of this course. Have I said very difficult enough times to get your attention?

Tutorials:

Before you begin working on this project, you should read through the followings. In lectures, we have briefly learned the techniques. The goals of the following tutorials are for us to practice the how-to (e.g. how to use revolving tools in Maya). Due to the complexity of the Maya system, the tutorial can get tedious at times. We want to approach the tutorials with the understanding that, “we understand the concepts behind the techniques; we want to learn sufficient such that we can achieve our goal”. In this case, our goals are to accomplish the specified project to demonstrate our understanding of the subject, so we want to approach the tutorials using the criteria: “have I learned enough to work on my project”?

LMF: Lessons 5&6. For time efficiency, I recommend reading these two lessons (rather than following through the tutorial step-by-step). The important lessons we want to learn from here are the Maya User Interface, the many different windows, and where are the important buttons, editors, etc.

Lesson 5: Important how to

Maya UI Layouts, preferences settings, menus, shelf
Hot box
Display smoothness
Selection Mode and Selection in Maya
Manipulator tools (Translation/Scale/Rotate)
Channel Box

Lesson 6: Important how to

Dependency Graph: relationship of this graph to the scene we are creating
Idea that we can make/break connections with the connection window (just knowing we can do this is sufficient)
Scene Hierarchy (group/ungroup operation), how is that reflected in the dependency graph

Maya->Help->Tutorials

NURBS Modeling (all three lessons)

First NURBS Lesson: How to with revolve
Second NURBS Lesson: Idea that NURBS surfaces can be sculpted by working with each individual CVs.
Third NURBS Lesson: How to with loft

Polygonal Modeling

The how-to of polygon extrudes: splitting polygon, extrude to get new polygons, and the extrude manipulator.

SubDiv Surface (optional):

Working with Sub-Div surfaces. This is not part of the Project requirement, but I thought you’d be interested in seeing how Sub-Div surfaces can support almost infinite level of details!

LMF: Lessons 12 (stop at p225) and 13 (stop at page 263).

Lesson 12: Extrude with polygon
Lesson 13: More advanced how to working with NURBS surfaces.

Once again, remember, we are not here to learn how to create nice looking objects, rather, we are here to learn the process of creation. Follow through these tutorials remembering that you are learning how to use the tools and not how to create the exact same objects as in the tutorials.

Here is one approach you may consider:

Read through the tutorials (do not follow the steps).
When you are reading, take notes on the interesting capabilities of the software (I have listed some of the major, and more interesting ones above).
Read the Project specification requirement carefully.
Compare to your notes on the capability of Maya, notice what is important to complete this project.
Create simple scene that is sufficient for you to follow/practice what is described in the tutorials.

With this approach, you can practice using the software, re-affirm concepts discussed in the lectures, and complete the project all at the same time! J

Statement of Work:

Create a new project, name it: Project2_YourName (where YourName is your name).

In order to demonstrate we understand the different surface/object creation techniques and how to edit them after the creation, we will create one scene with one or more objects in the scene. You are free to design/create any object(s) you fancy. However, here are the technical requirements that your object(s) must meet:

At least four NURBS objects.
These NURBS surfaces must be created based on: Revolve, Loft, Extrude, and Planar.
At least one polygonal object, where the creation of your object involve:

Cutting of polygon faces
Extrude of polygon faces (after splitting of vertices)
You must rotate/scale/translate the extruded polygonal object.

Each object must be created in a separate maya scene file including all its construction history!
You should then import all the objects into your final scene, in this final scene file you should delete the construction history and organize/group your models accordingly.
Your scene must make sense. Think about your final project:

You should model objects from your final project. In this case, you must either describe what you are trying to model, include a picture of the object you are trying to model in your report (refer to the following), or otherwise communicate what you are trying to model to your readers (i.e. me), or
Create abstract objects that fancy you. In this case, you must include a paragraph describing/demonstrating what you are creating, what the abstraction is, and/or what you are trying to achieve.

You can create a bunch of meaningless shapes that satisfy the above requirements, unless you can describe or demonstrate what you are trying to achieve, you will not receive full credits!

You should assign colors to your object(s) that make sense to what you are trying to achieve.

Project Submission:

E-submission:

Copy your entire project folder structure over to \\Hermes\Classes\CSS105\Project2. By default your root project folder will be created in MyDocuments\maya\projects\Project2_YourName. Under this root project folder, you can find many sub-folders (e.g. clip, data, fur, etc.). Your scene files should be located in the scenes folder.

Hardcopy report: Submit a report describing what you are trying to model in your project. If you are trying to model some real object, please describe what it is, and/or include reference pictures showing what these objects are. If you wish to create some abstract artistic creation, please include a paragraph detailing what you are trying to achieve with your creation and why you believe you are achieving your goals. Also included in the report must be screen shots describing how your objects are constructed and transformed. For each object/component, you should describe with illustration and text highlighting the profile and construction procedure. Here is an example report showing how my revolved/loft objects satisfy some of the technical requirements.

Credit Distribution:

Revolve NURBS