Introduction to Maya 2013

In this lesson, we'll build some large scoops on the side of the fuselage. So let's go ahead, open up our plane. So right now, our fuselage is a piece of NURBS geometry. And let's say that we want to add some scoops or large pieces to the side here. Now the shape of those are going to make them easier to build with polygons. But what we can do, instead of building them from scratch, is actually use portions of this geometry to start from. So the first thing we want to do is actually convert this NURBS piece of geometry to polygons. So to do that, we'll go to Modify, Convert, and we want to go NURBS to Polygons. And we'll go into the Options and go ahead and reset those. All right. So we want to make sure that the polygons that we create are four-sided. So we'll choose Quads for our type. And then for the tessellation method, which is just how the computer decides to convert the NURBS geometry, which is calculated by mathematical formulas, how to convert that into a polygon faces, I'm going to go and choose General. And then in the U and V, which is different directions across the NURBS surface, I'm going to choose the last one, per span, number of isoparms. So for each one of these, I want to have a single corresponding polygon face. So for each one of these sections you can see between isoparms, I want to have one face. So I'll set that to one. Let's go ahead now and tessellate. So now it's left our NURBS piece intact. And so I can go ahead and turn off the NURBS surface. That leaves us with this polygon. So now we have the same shape, but now in polygons, which give us a little bit more flexibility. So what I'm going to do is go ahead and select the faces in here, that I want to include it in this scoop. So let's say these are the closest corresponding faces. All right. And now I'm going to deselect the other side. We'll only work with one side. And we'll see how that's advantageous a little bit later. But I want to invert the selection. So I'm going to hold down Shift and drag across. And that'll invert-- it's basically select everything that I didn't have selected. And now I'm just going to delete those. So let's go ahead and turn our NURBS geometry back on. So now we have this piece of polygon geometry here, if I can select it. We have this piece of polygon geometry, that fits the shape of this and also will allow us to create a little bit different look. So I'm going to go into the side view. And the front of it is right in here. So I want to add an edge loop right in there. So we're going to go to Edit, Mesh, Insert Edge Loop tool. And let's add an edge loop right across the front there. OK? We can now come in. And let's go ahead and delete those two faces, in front of where we added that. And then, down here, you can see that actually the base of it is right down there. So I'm going to go ahead and add another edge loop right in there and then do the same thing down here, as far selecting the faces. Let me go to Object. Here we go. All right. And so now what we can do is use this polygonal geometry as a basis for scoop. So what we'll do is go ahead and extrude it out. So I'll just say Extrude. I'm going to change our axis and just pull a straight out in the X. OK? And if you want to go to the front view, you can see how thick that actually is. So go ahead and pull it out. OK? You can check your different views if you want to. Turn our camera on. And you can see how that matches up. Now let's take those faces on the inside. And let's push them into the surface a little bit. And I'm just going to go ahead and delete those. Now what I want to do is a little bit of shaping here. And I'm actually going to hit three on the keyboard to toggle the smooth mesh preview. That will give us a good idea of what this is going to look like, when we actually smooth it. And so now I can take those points and match them up to our art work. I'll go ahead and pull those in a little bit. You can see as you pull them apart, it's going to give you a smoother transition. Pull this up a little. And right here, you can see how these are very soft on the front. And if you remember, that's going to require the addition of an edge loop. So let's go ahead and add that. So go Insert Edge Loop tool. Add an edge loop right here. And now go back and shape it, with that new resolution here. So bringing that front out a little bit, bringing this back in. And this is from the side view. We can also go from the top and front view to shape it a little bit. So it would be bringing that out a little, bringing the end out a bit. OK? And then from the side, I'm going to match it up. Whenever you're working with reference art, sometimes they're not going to match up exactly. But this should be pretty close. OK. So now what we want to do is to go ahead and add the inside or the opening there. And so let's go ahead and select those polygons. And I'm actually going to change this back to our little poly version. Let's go ahead and select these. Let's extrude. And let's just hit scale. We'll just scale this in a little bit, until we get the thickness there. And then do another extrude. And I just hit G on the keyboard, change my axis, so that I can use a world axis, and just push it straight back in. And just to make it a little bit tighter in there, let's go ahead and do another extrude and push it right back in as well. OK? Now we can hit three. I'm going to go ahead and take this and push it in a little bit, pull it out, depending on the look that you want. OK? Now as this comes over the top, you can see how it's very soft there. If you want more of a machined look, you need to, again, add some edge loops. So we'll add an edge loop here and here. That should help a little bit, give a little bit more of a machined look to it. All right. So we took the NURBS piece of geometry. And we converted it into a polygon shape and then used that polygon to actually build out a piece of geometry that fits along. So we could have taken a cube, and put it into position, and done the same sort of thing. But converting the geometry just helped us get something right in that area. It was already contoured the right way. All right. So once we've got our scoops in there, the next thing that we want to add is the actual canopy up here. And so we'll add the canopy and then a little bit of detail across the canopy, starting in the next lesson.