Modeling an Axe in Maya - Curves to Polygons

hey guys in this tutorial we'll make an X and we'll be using curves to do it I process pretty simple select the EP curve tool you can click like this to make a curve just a simple line you can right click go to control vertex and select and individual CVS or control vertices you can see it's a little jagged II just press three that will smooth it and you can just build up yourself some curves you can hold C and drag this will let you a middle drag this will let you basically snap another curve to the curve that your you already have so you can do things like this and using this process I just made this X with the handle and will go from here so first thing is I want to create some lofts and to do this I want to be able to loft this curve with this one and then using these curves as guides so for this we're going to be using a viral actually but to do this I need to first cut this curve in the same way these two are separate and the reason they're separate is because we have a straight line here and then we have this curve here so I'm just going to right click select curve point and then left click and drag like this and then just let go about where I want that line to be like this and then I'm just going to hold spacebar curves and click detach like that so now we have two curves just like this and I'm going to use the EP curve tool now hold C click and drag like that so I'm holding C and then left clicking and dragging like that and that's going to make another curve so then we'll just move this around just to make other shape like this right now we're ready to make our by rail and for this we'll be using a by rail three because we have an extra curve here like this so let's do that first a hold space bar go to let's see where is it not curved surfaces by real and open the options to buy real three and we're going to change some settings here because the default options of course these operations are NURBS and nerves are great but we want to go straight to polygons because we'll be converting to polygons in the future anyway so I'm going to set this to polygons I'm going to set that I'm going to reset just to show you what the settings are by default to polygons then I'm going to set the type to quads tessellation method to general and then for the U and B type I'm going to change the you type here to per span number of I so prams and the same here and just set this to one for now like this and hit apply and what this will do is it will let you select a bunch of profile curve so it says right down here in the help it says select any number of profile curves so just drag selection over this one this one and this one and then when you're done hit enter so I hit enter and then select two rail curves so one and two and there we go this is exactly what we want it may do not look like it right away but trust me it is so I'm going to select it and just hide it and then I'm going to do the same but at this time I'm going to use a by rail to and the reason I'm using viral two is because this one we have three Plus profile curves but on this shape we only have two beginning an end so same thing polygons quads general set the bottom to the bottom one one one hit apply it's going to ask me to select two profile curves so one and two and then you don't have to enter because there you already select the two curves just select the top and bottom and here we go we have another shape here now I'm going to bring back the other one as well and you can see what it look like now they're black because our normals are reversed you can reverse the normals by clicking a button like this or go into mesh display and click in Reverse that will just flip the normals so now you can see what it looks like I'm going to turn on wireframe on shaded then if I select this edge here now I'm going to go into NURBS tessellate in the inputs like that much like the U number and drag it I'm going to drag it until I'm happy with it so how many divisions I want I want this many divisions like that and then select the V number here some select I'm selecting the V number here like this with left click then moving into my viewport and middle dragging and then I can add divisions like this so I think that's good and I also want to select these edges here and hit delete control delete so make sure you control delete the futures hit delete you can see the curve the vertices that will stay so hitting ctrl D will delete those as well and that's because we want to have a nice sharp edge here but we want to have divisions here so I'm going to select this one select the nerve tessellate options here let's select the V number and just match the same number here you can see another matching and then select the new number and drag that until I'm happy with what I have I can change this to 3d if I want this will give me in a more even distribution now the other thing that you might see is that you see how this the curves really don't line up the way I really want them to so we can fix that and to do that we just need to rebuild the curves so let's do that quickly I'm going to delete the shape and I'm going to select these two when I go to display and I'm going to go to NURBS and turn on edit points and now you can see the difference between these two curves this one has to edit points and this one to make the shape has two extra strip so it has four edit points so I'm going to select both of them hold spacebar go to curves and click rebuild and open the options for it and here if you if I just click rebuild with the default options it's going to change the curve shape and I don't want to do that because I want to see what the original shape was I want to stay to the original shape as close as possible so I'm going to undo that and click keep original this will keep the original curves so when I hit apply you can see the difference that we have so I'm going to undo that I'm going to change my degree from 3 to 5 and you can see it's getting closer so let's under that set it to 7 and that's pretty close so I'm okay with that so I'm going to undo it and turn off keep original and now hit apply so now it's going to divide pretty evenly and you can see the shape stays pretty much the same and we can see where edit points are they line up pretty well so now all we need to do just hide this go back into surfaces by rail select by rail to the options that we said before will be remembered so we just need to select here here here and here and there's our shape just going to reverse the normals go into NURBS tessellate let's unhide the previous hidden object so to unhide a previous object it's ctrl shift H so that's the last thing I hit so now it's unhidden and then I'm going to drag this and this until I'm happy with the output and you can see our lines line up a lot better now and we have even distribution of our edges here so I'm pretty happy with this and to finish this off I'm just going to combine merge clear history and now it's one object so pretty simple all right so let's do the handle okay so let's do the rest of the acts so let's do the arm out the handle and I'm going to do the same thing I need to split this so right-click curve point and drag a point like somewhere like to match that like this and then spacebar curves and do it here so you guys can see curves and detach somewhere in here there it is right so now we have two and it matches this the only thing is these two will not match so if I go to display NURBS edit points you can see the discrepancies here and what will this will do is it will create a skewed geometry so we don't want to do that so we want to rebuild I'm going to build the same way soakers rebuild and if we use the same options we had before it's going to do it the exact same way but if we look at them it's basically I have it set to four seven if I keep original you can see it's almost exactly the same so that's good so I'm going to undo it turn off keep original apply and it'll just match those up like that good now let's make a curve here like this and you can just hold V and the left click snap because we have edit points so you can once you show at the points you can snap to them so we'll just do a straight line across like this I'm going to hide this for now and then do a simple by rail as well so this just needs a by rail too so we'll go to surfaces by rail by rail to and then select one two three four like this and then I'm going to press once you do select everything you can press G this will redo the last command and but first we have to hide this the reason I'm going to hide this first is because to select this edge this curve by row will also select this edge sometimes so I want to hide it so it doesn't get in the way and then I can use by rail and then click here here and then here and here like this so unhide the last thing we hid which is this guy and this one's reversed so let's flip it like that and then let's do our test elation so we'll add three this way or four so three edges this way it means four in the you type and then something like this and then this guy and so did und got flipped that's not a big deal just slide that over and then for this I'm going to set this to 3d this will give us an a more even distribution this and probably let's do 35 probably 36 all right that's fine good enough select both combined merge clear history and now we have this shape in this shape so pretty good let's hide all the curves I'm just going to move them here and hide them and to do this I'm going to just make a group call it curves and control H will hide it ctrl G's to create a group I do this because if I need to ever bring it back I have it just a nice clean way of doing it and before we do the X we'll do the handle so first simple extrude will be good enough like this something like that do it in this direction so it's in the positive not a negative and then just add four divisions to oh that's because I press the alright so if I use the manipulator from the tool I can do that but because I use the Move command I just need to add it manually and that's okay we'll just set this to use the insert edge loop tool set it to multiple one add a division this way and now on around the soft and I'm going to use a symmetry first so I need to first Center this handle so modify and click freeze transformations then modify center pivot I'm going to hold X and just move the handle onto the into the zero grid line which is right here see the dark line and then let's freeze and reset and then clear history which is shift alt D okay now we can turn symmetry on so if I select these vertices hold ctrl and shift together right click go to symmetry symmetry and make sure our symmetry is set to either either x-axis and object or world it doesn't really matter but you can see now if I select this and other side get selected and this is useful because now we can work on two sides of the of the handle like this when I deselect this much I want to want to select just this edge here and then I'm going to shift right click and click slide edge and then I can just slide using middle mouse button slide the edge this way press G this will redo the slight edge and then just move it again so I'm go to one direction then the other one and then I move it back and what this will do is well let me just kind of round itself a little bit so again and you might have to just do this a couple times until you get it to where you like it so I like it there I think that's a nice rounded handle and I want to do the same to the side and I'm not going past this this is like a sharp corner that I want to keep so I'm not going to do that so the same here G and then just kind of slide this over G again and then slide in the other direction like that it's a little tricky sometimes to get it to slide in the direction you want so just do it a couple times until you get it now you can see our handle is nice and round and I'm going to just round this off so I'm going to click here shift double click this edge and then just press G again and this one I'm going to do the same thing but not as extreme just a little bit like that so this one is rounded more than this edge so it will give us a nice cleaner or a nicer look kind of look I'm trying to go for there looks good maybe that's too much that's fine okay that looks good now let's bevel this edge so select this and this and this shift right click bevel add a second segment and then just move the fraction to where you like it I think something like this a nice rounded handle on the bottom okay I'm going to babble just this edge so shift right click bevel edge but I'm going to add a segment here I'm going to click on chamfer on the on this will turn chamfer off and give us a sharper corner and they're just going to move this back like this and then I'm going to use this this is a target weld so first right click go to vertices use target weld and you can click this vertex drag it here and then we'll just delete this edge like that you can see a kind of effect that we get so now I'm just going to kind of shrink this a little bit and then shrink this one like that that's pretty good maybe just slide this one up a little so slight edge maybe this down slightly just so it's not pinching so much okay good all right so the same here shift right click metal edge add a segment turn chamfer off there we go self an edge clear history there's the basic handle but it's too straight I want to deform it a little bit so I'm going to go from the front view spacebar the forum and open up our lattice options I want to set the options here 2 2 2 2 30 30 30 like this cat apply and then what we need to do is add some T divisions like this and then I can scale this in a trans symmetry off because symmetry will mess up our scaling so like this want to scale this down to make a thinner to fit the the X head clear history now we can see it gets thinner here a little thicker there and then we have this tapered part that will go into the X X head so let's unhide the X head and I'm going to move it over like this select this edge here like that and then because we're right on the grid line we're going to hold X and then pre-select so I'm still holding X when I select this arrow and just drag it right into the grid there like this to create a sharp edge I'm going to select the rest of the vertices deselect the handle all right so now back to the forum lattice and I'm going to add s divisions I think nope nope few divisions I always forget but it doesn't matter okay so now right-click lattice select this and just move it down to great an edge and I press for we can easier to see what's going on here so there's our sharp edge around this off a little bit around the X X and L and this over like this and then just kind of push this in just to make a shape like that all right that's good so now I'm going to modify freeze reset and that should be good now if i duplicate scale in negative x to one like this we can select both combine merge and there is we have a good start going to double click this edge deselect these corners here and just do a simple bridge like that then select the edges here and click fill whole you can get to feel whole also by shift and right click and then fill wholesome right near okay now let's add an edge this way so multi one or complete on like this go from the top view i'm going to select these vertices here just move them back just around the self a little bit like that and now we need to create a hard edge for the X at the edge of the X so let's set this I'm going to use the insert edge loop tool it's also under insert edge loop tool set it to equal or complete on and no inserted edge flow that should be off and then add and inch this way like this and then one this way right that's good now what we need to do is now we need to add an edge along here to do this I'm going to do this to add little triangles here like this and same on the other side okay okay so we need to actually turn the autocomplete off then you can double click this edge select these edges here and then double click this one and then I'm just going to deselect hold control and just deselect this and this okay so if you hold ctrl and deselect it will let you just drop an edge on the edges you want so just like this hit enter now the only thing is when you have an open face like this when you if i press 3 you can see there's an edge here so I'm just going to select it and delete it like this then we just need to do the same on this side and just deselect that could enter press three delete this alright so now we can add a edge here for the hard edge here we can turn or complete back on and just an edge here like this and then one here like this okay and then you can go across like that right so now we have quads so it might not look like it but this is actually a quad so that's perfectly fine you can see we have a sharp edge but this is not sharp yet so we need to do that so that's an easy thing to do just double click this edge and this one I'm going to deselect these edges here and this one here is just holding ctrl shift right click bevel edge add a second segment turn chamfer off and increase the friction to maximum a fraction sorry turn select these edges here and just delete them and then use a go to vertex and then use the target weld just to weld this like that so preview you'll see now I have an edge we can sharpen that edge a little bit by using insert edgeloop tool' set it to a multi one autocomplete on and have an edge here and here so this will just sharpen this a little bit you can see now it's a sharper edge the cutting edge of sharper it's good I also want to sharpen this here as well so I'm going to select these edges here like this shift right click bevel edge add a segment chamfer off so that's a maximum delete both sides here like this and then preview now we just need to delete this this there we go so that's pretty much it but if you want you can also add a hole for the X for the X handle and that's pretty simple to do we're just going to use a simple boolean and let's see you must select both objects here I'm going to duplicate and hide ctrl H ctrl D to duplicate foliage to hide just that we have a version and then I'm going to select both go to billions and do difference maybe intersection Union nope okay so if that happens you just need to change the order so this is green and this is white so we just need to make it so that this is y and this is green so change the order of the selection now boolean difference and now we have a whole clear history and I'm going to cut this in half because I don't want to work on both sides but I can't really cut in half because of his face well I can but it's going to be a little tricky you know what alright so if we cut it in half we'll have an issue there so I'm going to do this let's select this much of the X and then hit extract which is this button here this will separate this little shift all due to clear history this will separate the front of the X and then the back of the X I can now separate this just makes it a little easier to work with I'm going to go through and delete all these extra triangles that are left over that we don't need I still don't know why Maya does this it's kind of annoying but you know smart doesn't 17 and still does it oh by the way a new feature in my 2017 is the dark bull outliner I don't know if you noticed it but if I have the outliner like this in the old Maya you can just grab it and drag it until the whole side of your Maya window here turns blue and drop it there and it's going to be just docked there which makes it a little easier so if you maximize your window you don't have to have this floating outliner window I like it clear that we don't need this edge actually so which will delete that as well all right that's good now we just need to connect I want to delete these edges because why not okay so not that one yet we need a corner first like this and rid of this so this one will stay I'll show you how to fix it later and then this we have to keep this curvature here so I want to connect like this and this one we will have to leave open just like the other side like that okay and use insert edgeloop tool' I'm sorry I'm a multi cut tool and just make a beveled edge like this just follow it now we can take this edge into the corner here I'm going to go this way go right here into the middle and then go down that way we can make connection there natural quads and this guy will just go from here to here like that and on this side same thing and then draw our bevel edge here this way like this get rid of this guy then we're going to it okay so now let's add an edge loop here equal distance autocomplete on and then one here see what that looks like it's good so now let's just mirror this so I'm going to double click the mirror and an easy way to check to see if which way the mirror is going to go is look at the manipulator down here so the X is pointing to the right that means we need X and mirror direction should be positive X like this and then we want to connect boarder vertices and set this to custom point zero one that's good and hit apply there and now let's bring back control shift H in this part I'm going to combine and I'm going to own only to select these vertices here and click merge the reason is we have such close vertices here if I try and merge this they'll merge together and cause an issue ok and then I'll also add a loop here just to sharpen this okay this that's the I cut here we go alright guys so let's just name this this is axe handle geo and this is ex ahead geo like this we only need two curves anymore and this is now ready for animation I guess and you should also freeze and reset your transformations that's always good to do in clear history and that's it I hope you guys enjoyed this tutorial if you guys want to see more just subscribe and hit the like button and in the next tutorial I will you vide this axe using UV layout so see you guys then

Channel: Alex Cheparev

Views: 42,782

Keywords: 3d, 3d printing, ninja, character, modeling, alex, cheparev, maya, tutorial, 2015, polygon, nurbs, curves, animation, layout, camera, vfx, visual effects, 3d animation, image planes, extrude, split, boolean, uv, uv layout, texturing, textures, hypershade, demo, reel, cartoon, design, axe, 2017, birail, bevel

Id: ngIaju1eM7s

Length: 31min 20sec (1880 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 12 2016