275
Chapter 10
An Example Model: A Closet
W
glass doors of a closet, create a shirt out of nCloth, and
then hang it on a hanger in the closet. Along the way, we will look at animating
an object from the perspective of its Object Space, and not World Space. We will also look
at rendering a scene from the perspective of an animated camera, making specic lights
shine only on specic objects, surgically adding edges to a polygon model, and timing an
audio soundtrack to the movement in a scene. Just as we do not use the default lighting in
a scene, we typically do not use the default camera either. Default lighting and the default
camera, along with the default Lambert that Maya puts on new objects, are only there to
get us going quickly when we are beginning to build a scene.
MULTIPLE COORDINATE SYSTEMS IN MAYA
We are going to look at the movement of a door of a closet in this example. Recall that there
are actually four coordinate systems in Maya:
1. World Space is the (x, y, z) coordinate system of the entire scene.
2. Object Space is the (x, y, z) coordinate system of a given object. e center of this grid
(0, 0, 0) is centered on the object, not the scene.
3. e Local Space (x, y, z) of a given object is the Object Space of its parent. is
relationship holds for every nonroot node in the hierarchy. is ensures that
although an object in the hierarchy might have its own independent movement in
the scene, it will be constrained by every other object all the way up to the root of
the hierarchy.
4. e Surface Space (u, v) of an object corresponds to the surface of a given object.
is means that as we construct a model, we must put objects into hierarchies in the Outliner,
and as we do this, we must keep in mind the way we plan on animating these objects.
276 ◾ 3D Animation for the Raw Beginner Using Maya
As an experiment, create a polygon cube; you might want to stretch it out and make a
rectangular prism. Next, go into object mode and rotate the model randomly; just don’t put
it back the way it was. Now select the object and go to:
any Main Window → Modify → Transformation Tools → Scale
Select the little box to the right of the word Scale, so you can see the settings of the tool.
ere are some choices labeled Scale Axis. Try selecting World, then look at the green,
blue, and red boxes of the icon for the Scale tool. ey stand for the x-axis (red), the y-axis
(green), and the z-axis (blue). Now change the Scale Axis to Object.
Did you notice that the Scale tool changed its orientation? is underscores the fact that
each object in the scene has its own coordinate system. We will rely on this as we animate
the doors of a closet.
OPENING AND CLOSING DOORS WITH THE
ROTATE TOOL, AND BOUNDING BOXES
In Figure10.1, we see a closet with two doors. In Figure10.2, we have gone into Object
mode and selected the right door. en while holding down the D key, we used the Move
tool to slide the rotation point (as shown by a yellow box with a circular icon in the center)
to the far right side of the door. e result is shown in Figure10.3. Now, in Figure10.4, we
are using the Rotate tool to open the door. e result is shown in Figure10.5.
e yellow box started out in the center of the door. If we had rotated the door then,
it would have rotated on its middle. is is another aspect of the local nature of objects
in Maya. An object always has a center of rotation. It is called the Pivot. With the closet
selected, the Pivot of the door will not change its placement with respect to the door or
with respect to the closet as a whole if we go between Local and World in the Rotate mode
settings, but the naming of the x, y, and z axes might change. When this is done, the colors
of the circles on the Rotate tool do change.
ere is a concept that is oen confused with the notion of a pivot point. It is not shown
in the gures, but if we select one of the doors, then go to Shading (in the blue work area)
FIGURE 10.1 Closet and doors.
FIGURE 10.2 Right door rotation point.
An Example Model: A Closet ◾ 277
and change Shading to Bounding Box, we will see a attened cube that has the door in the
center of it. is is the bounding box; every object has a bounding box that encloses the
object. e pivot point and the center of the bounding box can indeed be the same, but the
pivot point can be moved freely—and indeed, we just did that.
Aer moving the pivot of both doors and then rotating them, we get the image in
Figure10.6.
Also, if we select the closet as a whole, we can change its pivot. But we will leave it in the
center of the closet.
Adding Detail to the Doors with the Interactive Split Tool
e closet was made from a polygon cube, and each door was constructed from a single,
attened polygon cube, with the door panels made by extruding faces. e glass panes in
the center of the doors are simply rectangles that were not extruded; they are on the same
plane as the original cube, and all we had to do was assign both sides of each pane (at the
front and the back of the door) a mia_material glass material.
FIGURE 10.3 Rotation point moved. FIGURE 10.4 Rotate tool.
FIGURE 10.5 Door open.
FIGURE 10.6 Both doors open.
278 ◾ 3D Animation for the Raw Beginner Using Maya
For example, in Figure10.7, we are about to add some detail to one of the at doors. We
are selecting:
Polygons Main Menu → Edit Mesh → Interactive Split Tool
(Note that in Maya 2015, the Interactive Split tool has been absorbed into a new tool
called the Multi-Cut tool.)
We get an arrow-shaped tool, as shown in Figure10.8. We click on the le side of the
door, then on the right side, then hit Enter. We have added an edge. In Figure10.8, there
are already a number of splits that have been made, adding a lot of faces to our model.
We then selectively extrude some of these faces, and the resulting panels can be seen in
Figure10.9.
FIGURE 10.7 Choose Interactive Split tool.
FIGURE 10.8 e Interactive Split tool.
FIGURE 10.9 Aer extruding faces.
An Example Model: A Closet ◾ 279
In the Outliner (Figure10.10), the doors
have been made children of the closet itself.
The Render
We have done a few more things to the
doors. In particular, the door panels have a
white Blinn on them. e knobs have a gold
Blinn on them, and for the glass panes we
are using the mental ray mia_material and
have chosen the Frosted Glass preset. e
nal result is shown in Figure10.11.
One More Look at World Space versus Object Space
e closet as a whole has its own bounding box, its own pivot point, and its own orientation
in World Space. Each door has its own bounding box, its own pivot point, and its own ori-
entation—but the location of a door’s bounding box and its pivot point in 3-space, as well
as its orientation in 3-space, will change if the closet moves or rotates in 3-space.
MAKING A SHIRT OUT OF nCLOTH AND RENDERING
FROM A CAMERA’S PERSPECTIVE
We will now hang a shirt in the closet and view the scene from the perspective of a camera
that we create.
A Shirt Made of nCloth: Starting with a Basic Shape
To create nCloth, we need to be using polygon modeling. In Figure10.12, we see a cube. We
make the cube similar to the dimensions of a T-shirt, and create it with Subdivisions Width1,
FIGURE 10.10 e Outliner.
FIGURE 10.11 Doors rendered. FIGURE 10.12 Cube with edge loops.
..................Content has been hidden....................
You can't read the all page of ebook, please click here login for view all page.