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Ultimate Maya Guide for Starters

8/29/2019

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The Mission
Resources
Teaching people already familiar with 3D
​the basics to get started with Maya.
​
This is the internal documentation we have to teach beginners about Maya in the studio, we wanted to share it so anyone can learn from it. Feedback is welcome, if you find something we should add or change please let us know!
We're very active on Twitter
  • MayaLT 2019

Maya overview
Maya 3D spaces overview
Viewport

The viewport is where the magic happens: it's the space where you visualize all the meshes and perform all the operations regarding them.
Camera movement
Mouse
Space
ALT + LC
ALT + RC
ALT + MC
Max Visor, Minimize
Rotate Camera
Zoom In, out
​Pan camera
RC = Right Click
LC = Left Click
MC = Middle Click
Viewport Tools
Hotkeys
​1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Actions
Low res object
Smooth and low
Smooth model
Show Wireframe
Show Shaded
Show Texture
Show Ilumination
<- Don't model with this on, please
Maya viewport tools
Snaps
Snaps are used to quickly move something to a point of reference. It is a very useful way to move stuff precisely.
Maya snaps
X
V
C


To Grid
To Vertex
To Edges
Show and Hide Meshes
Shows and hides meshes. Can be useful for quick checks.
​For better organization, better use the Layer systems as described below.
Control + H
ALT + H
Control + SHIFT + H
Hide Selected object
Hide everything except selection
Show the previously hide
Outliner

The outliner shows every element in
​the current scene
​
  • Meshes
  • Groups
  • Joints
  • Lights
  • Cameras
​

If there is something hidden you'll be able to find it here.
​
You can make the outliner appear by clicking on:
Windows — Outliner
Maya outliner elements
Shelves

A shelf is a quick access space to tools and premade scripts by the user.
Maya shelves
shelf_custom.mel
File Size: 37 kb
File Type: mel
Download File

How to install a custom shelf on Mac
Go to the directory:
/Applications/Autodesk/mayaLT2019/Maya.app/Contents/scripts/shelves

How to Install a custom shelf on Windows
Go to the directory:
C:\Program Files\Autodesk\MayaLT2018\scripts\shelves
Modeling Tools

Most of the tools over here can be found on the Modeling Toolkit in Maya, but some of them are placed on the Custom Maya shelf or hidden in the menus.
  • Extrude — Extrudes along the selected axis
    • Polygons
    • Edges
    • Vertex
Maya extrude tool gif
  • Multi-Cut tool — Cuts, slices, and inserts edge loops. You can extract or delete edges along a cut, insert edge loops and cuts with edge flow and subdivisions, and edit in Smooth Mesh Preview mode.
Maya multi-cut tool
Maya modeling toolkit
  • Delete edges/vertex
  • Append to Polygon tool — Bridges faces from an edge to another one.
Maya append to polygon tool
  • Combine — Merges meshes into a single mesh
Maya combine tool merge meshes
  • Separate — Separates any non welded/merged faces into different meshes
Maya separate face into meshes tool
  • Mirror — One of the most used tools, mirrors models from side to side and merges the vertex in the seam line
Maya mirror tool
  • Extract Faces — Separates the faces that are selected into a different model.
Maya extract faces tool
  • Center point — Centers the pivot of the object in the middle of it.
Maya center point tool
  • Freeze Transformation — Resets any transformation done to the model making the current properties to 0, 0, 0 for Position and Rotation and Joint Orientation and 1,1,1 for Scale
Maya freeze transformation tool
  • Historic clean — Will clean any model inputs ( this is very useful because Maya drops performance with this and also gives some issues when modeling, use it often.
Maya historic clean tool
Materials

To add a material to a 3D object do a RC on it and look for the material.
If you wanna modify it's values you can do on the attribute editor, here you will be able to
​add a texture to the material.
​
The Hypershade allows you to see all the shaders in the scene and
​also have even more control over them.
Layer Editor

Layers allow to show and hide elements in the scene, it also helps to maintain the order in the scene.
​
1st column
  • V - allows you to quickly ​show and hide the layer
 
2nd column​
  • P - allow you to view the objects while working and hide them on play

3rd column
  • Nothing - Normal status, you will be able to modify elements.
  • ​​R - Referenced, you'll be able to see the modes wireframe in grey, but, cannot use for snaps.
  • T - Templated, you will see the model shades, and with a black wireframe, you won't be able to select the object but you can use snaps on them.
​
Maya layer editor window
You can change the layer name just by double clicking on it
Try to use colors to keep them organised
​in case the scene becomes big
MAYA Hotkeys

Transformation Tools
F
Q
W
E
R
Focus target
Selection tool
Move tool
Rotation tool
Scale tool
Maya transformation tools
Maya mouse click
Selection
LC + SHIFT
LC + SHIFT + Drag
Control + LC
B
​
SHIFT + >
>
F
TAB
Various Selections
Square selection
Restart selection
Brush
​
Increase selection
Decrease Selection
Light Focus
Drag Selection mode
<- Click & Hold + drag Middle Mouse to change size
Extra spicy hotkeys
Ctrl + A
G
Ins / D
Ctrl + D
Ctrl + SHIFT + D

​​
SHIFT + D
Ctrl + G
SHIFT + P
Arrow UP / DOWN
Ctrl + E / SHIFT
Attribute Editor
Repeat last action
Move Pivot
Duplicate
Duplicate Special
​
​
Duplicate with transform
Group objects
Ungroup objects
Move between Family groups
Extrude
<- (Preserves creation attributes, such as subdivisions, height, width, radius...)
UVs

These are used to apply textures properly to the 3D model.
Here are the ways to generate UVs within maya.
The most used in the studio are:
  • Automatic
  • Best plane
  • Cylindrical
  • Planar
Maya UVs window
Once generated you'll have to go to
the UV Editor tool.
​
Now Maya includes a UV toolkit that has a very intuitive interface, where you'll find the tools needed to modify your UV correctly.
Maya UV toolkit window
The most used tools are:
  • Unfold
  • Separate UVs
  • Sew UVs
  • Display Image
  • Dim Image
  • Texel Density (Get and Set)
The UV editor window uses the same shortcuts as the main viewport.
We hope it was helpful and you could learn something new!
Feedback is welcome, if you find something we should add or change please let us know!

We're very active on Twitter
Post by:

Daniel @toxsam

Daniel García (aka Toxsam) is the founder and creative director at Polygonal Mind.
In love with videogames since he can remember, passionate about geometry,
​VR addict and energetic persona.

Alex @Vontadeh

Alejandro Bielsa is a junior 3D artist working at Polygonal Mind's in-house team.
Passionate about videogames, vivid tutorial drinker and cat lover.

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How we made Totally Reliable Delivery Service characters

8/1/2019

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The Mission
​
​
Our friends at We're Five Games have been working on their game Totally Reliable Delivery Service, a hilarious physic based game with customizable characters. Our Mission was to help them achieve a great range of characters in a short period of time.
​
Resources
​
  • MayaLT 2019
  • Zbrush
  • Notion.so
The outcome
​

​We came up with a specific MayaLT workflow that could help us to reduce the amount of time we had to invest into making the characters. We ended up doing all character 36 variations in 2 weeks.

Similar yet different

The guys over We're Five Games provided references for the characters they wanted to have in the game. As you can see in the pictures there is a great range of customisation choices for your character.​
TRDS characters hand painted sketches
​On top of this, all the variations should work for both male and female models regardless the reference gender. So we had to be aware of all the differences between genders like breast and hips.
Zbrush TRDS male model perspectives
Character wireframe with MayaLT front and back
​So we started modelling the character bodies as bases to create the clothes on top.
We used Zbrush for quick shape blockout and then MayaLT for retopology and final fixes.

Workflow Brainstorm

​​Once we had the basic models done and rigged, we had to develop the most optimal ways to create clothes and accessories for all of them.

This project has a huge amount of work so you need to think ahead and figure out ways to shrink down production time. You never know if you'll need to add more content later on, so it's better to be prepared.​
Picture
At Polygonal Mind we like to gather around and start brainstorming possible workflows.
​
Should we make them separately or together? Can we use any new tool within Maya?
​What about Substance Painter?
TRDS characters sketches for body parts and complements
​After you have a few possible ways on the table, it's time to jot down the most relevant ones.
The whole process takes us around two hours, and if done correctly it will save you dozens of hours later on! Taking notes during the session is crucial, a whiteboard, pen and paper are always your best friend for these occasions.
For TRDS, we decided to make a list out of everything we saw on the concept, if you check the concept's pictures you can probably see that a lot of them wear a similar polo and pants, with small variations like long sleeves, open shirts, tank tops.

With this in mind, we started to look into things that are very similar and can be just done once and then create a variation via texture.
​
To summarise, pay attention to what's similar, what's different and... list it up. At the end, we reduced the clothing models to nine different shirts and ten different pants. Instead of producing 72 clothes at once, we sorted out a lot of extra work! And made it easy to modify, add, exchange, etc.
TRDS clothes variations preview

The magic behind UVs

​If you have done some 3D modeling, you probably know what UVs are. Just in case, they are what a 3D model looks like in 2D, this about a box when it's assembled and disassembled.
​
In simple terms, it's what we use to texture 3D models.

Box from 3D to 2D UV view
Having a good set of UVs per model is very important because we're going to use the same 3D model with interchangeable textures, this way we're just going to make 10 pants instead of 36.
Same goes for the rest of the clothes except for the special ones.
TRDS clothes UV textures compositon
When it comes to making perfectly interchangeable clothes with shareable UVs you can try one of these options:
​
  • Create the first set of clothes, then create the UVs, and use this first result as a base for the rest of the variations.
  • Create the variations taking into account the vertex count and transfer the attributes from one to another. (deeper explanation in the next section)
​
Usually this depends on what kind of model you are doing, in this case, we used both methods, the first one for texturing and the second one to turn models into female versions.
TRDS t-shirts variations colored

Transfer Attributes from Male to Female

One of the things we did to reduce production time was to make a male character and then use it as a reference for the female one. As you may have noticed male and female bodies have a few differences that made impossible to fit clothes for both models; breasts, slender waist, among others...​
MayaLT transfer attributes workspace preview
​So once we had all of the male variations we had to create their female counterparts.
To achieve this without having to create a new model for each polo we used one of the most useful tools Maya has in its arsenal:
Transfer attributes.
To use this tool you will need a source and a target mesh, they can vary widely on their topology (although is recommended to have at-least a similar edge flow). Both of the models will need to be in the same spot on the scene because of the sampling and the transfer process that occurs.
​
We'll explain more about how Transfer attributes works on a future blogpost.
TRDS male to female transformation with transfer attributes
Male to female transformation transfer attributes maya

Conclusion

Totally Reliable Delivery Service has been a great project to work on. It has allowed us learn new MayaLT techniques for character development in order to save time and work.
​
​We can't wait to see the game come out!
Totally Reliable Delivery Service characters screenshot

Post by:

Laura @Lauretta_38

Laura Usón is a 3D artist working at Polygonal Mind's in-house team.
Passionate about Warcraft, movies and creatures. artist by day and superhero at night.

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