Introduction to Maya 2013

In this lesson, we'll take a look at how we can project a curve onto a NURBS surface and then use that curve to create additional geometry. So let's say that we want to create a rim around a cockpit area on the top. So we want that to flow along with the shape that we have here. So what we can do is go to the top view and actually draw out a curve for that cockpit and then have that projected down onto the top of our existing NURBS surface. So we'll just start by bringing in a circle. And then we'll go ahead and just enlarge that a bit. And then we want to go ahead and shape it. So I'm going to go ahead and scale this down a little. And then we can go to component mode, and we can start to shape this. So I'll pull this point forward and then pull these points up a little bit. I'm only, in this case, worried about the shape from the top view. So go ahead and pull this back a little bit. And this is actually starting to get into some pieces where we don't see that trim. And so we'll go ahead and scale that out a little bit, maybe move these forward a little. It doesn't have to be exact, but just something like that. Let's go ahead and take our curve, straight up. So you can see, right now, it's completely flat. There's no shape to it at all. So what we want to do is project it down onto this surface. So with this curve selected and this surface selected, Shift selecting those, we'll go to Edit NURBS. And we want to go to Project Curve on a Surface. And we'll go into the options, and you can see that you can project along Active View or the Surface Normal. And then we have some other settings for tolerance and curve range, but we won't worry about that. We'll just make sure our curve range is complete. And so I want to go into the top view, because that's really where we want to project it down from. And then we'll go, Edit NURBS, Project Curve on a Surface. And now let's see what happened. So we have still our original curve. And then we have a curve that's been projected down onto this NURBS surface. And you can see it here, taking on the shape of that surface. Again, the history exists here. And so I can take this curve and move it around. And you can see that projected curve moves with it. So to actually get the curve to be able to get it separately and get it off of the surface, I'm going to actually go ahead and duplicate the surface curve. So this is under Edit Curves, Duplicate Surface Curve. And then I can center the pivot. And now I have a curve that I can use. Now I'll see it's had to add a number of points here versus the curve that we have here. In order to get that shape, it's had to go in and add those points. But once we've got the curve that we want here. You can see, we've got that curve. Now let me undo that. I can go ahead and delete our history on that. And then if we want to go ahead and select that curve that was actually on the surface, we can go ahead and delete it. So this is now our duplicated curve. And we can hide this initial curve as well. So once we have this curve, we can now use it just as we did with the pipes. So we can go ahead and create a new circle, or we can use the same, if we wanted to, if we wanted to disconnect that. But we'll go ahead and select the circle. And then we want to Shift select the curve. And let's go ahead and do an extrude. And you can see what we get here. Now let's take a look at how we can modify the shape a little. So we'll select our circle. And you can see, we can change the radius or scale it. So we can change that radius a little bit. We can also come in here and change the shape. So let's go ahead and get a couple of views here. So I'm going to move up in on this view. And then we're going to go into the top view and modify the shape. And let's watch over here what happens. So if I go ahead and start to take some of these points and move them, you can see it's actually changing the shape of this surface. So I can make it a little bit more squared off, just by squaring off the shape of the circle that I'm using. You can see, I can create a squared off shape for that, rather than a completely circular shape. So your modifications to your circle will follow through to the trim here. So just by using a curve and projecting that down, we were able to get some geometry that's fitted onto the surface. So that is going to come in really handy, as far as creating things that are fitted onto other things. And we'll use it again, as we go through the process of building the wings. So now tat we've got that cockpit rim, the next thing that we want to do is start to build the wings. So we're going to use several of the techniques that we've talked about up to this point. We'll use lofting, moving the curves in. Maybe this time, we'll just shape it on to the side there, rather than projecting it, because it does add a number of points to the curve. And we may not want that. But in any case, we'll go ahead, in the next lesson, and begin working on the wings of our jet.