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I'm James Taylor; welcome to part three of the Maya gun modeling tutorial. This time we're looking at
creating the kind of detail that we need to really sell a hard surface model.
So we'll continue to use the tools that we did in the first two parts of this tutorial - so the multi-cut tool, connect components,
we use extrude to inset faces, as I'm doing here, and we also continue to rely heavily on the
bevel tool, for reasons I'll explain later. Now I've extruded the shape into the side of the gun body,
and I'm going to rely on my smooth tools to create the smooth caps at both the ends of this object. However I need to make use of the crease
tool here, and we'll also see the placement of my edges makes a big difference
in creating that round shape. I'm showing this to make one point - when working on hard surface models at the highest level we need to make sure
that our straight lines are straight, and our curved lines are curved smoothly. We can't get away with any
wobbly lines or jitter curves. Our viewer is going to notice details like that.
Ok, let's look at the ejection port on the side of the gun. I'll use my extrude and my bevel and my connect components tool to just
inset a little bit new detail, and then extrude that back into the body of the gun. Now, there's nothing really new or surprising here.
Where I want to draw attention to is the border that I create around the ejection port. I'll use extrude to pull that out and to separate these details
And this kind of detail is extremely important for creating hard surface models.
It creates a transition between two surfaces, and this mimics the way that actual manufactured objects are built. Parts have to be
connected together some how, whether it's with rivets or screws or glue. We want to mimic
that feature of actual mechanical objects in a model. I can't emphasize the importance of these transitions enough.
We want to use our extrude tool or our mesh extract to create extrusions, or to break faces apart,
so that we have nice crisp borders between shapes on our object.
Ok, let's build something more complicated. I'm working on the hinge for the stock. I've started with a cylinder, and I extruded a few
edges out, to create this extended portion here. Now I'll just grab all my faces and extrude inwards,
to create the depth of the surface. And that will line up with that pin object that I've created in the center. Now I need use my cut tools to get rid of
any overlapping geometry, and then create a socket that I can plug this object into, on the stock.
You'll see that I just inset some faces and create a square, that's about the right shape for my hinge. And I can delete those faces out.
I still need to worry about connecting all those shapes, though. So I want to combine these two objects together, so that I can merge verts.
I do need to make sure that I have an agreement in the number of verts on each side. Here you'll see I'm adding
in a couple verts on the stock, so it will match up to that gap between the two parts of the hinge,
so that when I do combine them, all the verts merge, and I won't have any smoothing problems.
Once everything is connected up, then I can start grabbing edges around the borders of my objects, and using the bevel tool.
This will add that nice beveled detail that's absolutely essential to creating the look of machined objects.
So I'll use a relatively small bevel, and I'm going to make sure to go in and use my Normals > Harden Edges,
on the edges of those bevels, so I get a nice, sharp highlight.
Next up, we'll look at two different ways of creating grip detail for our handles. The first way, I'm using a cube
cube, and I'll adjust the subdivisions until I get something that matches my reference.
And what I'll do, is delete every other set of faces, so I'm left with just a one side of faces, and I'll extrude those through the handle.
Once that's set, I'll delete history on both of those objects, and freeze transformations, and use my Boolean > Difference, to subtract those boxes
from the handle. Now, the resulting geometry I need to clean up, so use the merge verts toolto fix the outside,
and then the inside faces, I just delete, and then select around the edges, and use my fill hole to fill that in. Now I can select those new faces
and extrude them backwards, to create the depth in the surface here. Then I'll go through and select the edge loops around each groove,
and grab those edges and then crease them, to get nice, sharp edges.
Now onto the front of the gun, where we're going to use a completely different technique: we'll use bevel.
So I'll cut in two edges that define the outer extents of this area, and then I'll cut in and edge that sits on the center, and bevel that edge.
I'll adjust the number of segments on that bevel, until I get something that matches my reference. And now the process is similar to what
we were doing before. We see that the bevel does do something weird on the inside, so we delete those faces, and then just extrude the
faces on the side over into the center. Then I'll spend time cleaning up my geometry: so, straightening edges,
merging verts, making sure that everything is set.
Once I start extruding in this area, it becomes very difficult to change shapes.
I want to make sure that everything is correct before I do that.
Now I delete the border around a grip object. This will isolate the detail in this area, so that it won't
continue back into the main body and complicate things.
And instead of extruding, I'll bevel the edges to create the horizontal rows that I want.
This will make things easier, because it'll save me from having to bevel the final result.
I do the same thing on the side, and I end up with these shapes that I'll select manually,
and now I can extrude inwards. I see that that extra row that I cut in on each one of the subdivisions creates a nice little beveled area,
that keeps my detail very sharp. Naturally, I bevel all of these edges, so that they maintain their shape when I smooth. And then I use the
bridge and the fill hole tool to connect the grip and the body back together.
Here's the trigger guard, and now I want to attach it to the main body. I'll extrude out the open edges to create a flat surface,
and this new flat surface will be the connection point between the handle and the trigger guard. So I'll cut holes in the body on each side of
the trigger guard, and now I need to mesh these two shapes together.
I want to make sure that when I'm connecting two objects, I'm matching the topology perfectly. I'm adding in verts where I need them, and removing
verts where I don't need them. By connecting an object in this fashion,
we get a much smoother blend, and we have much more control,
than if we were to connect objects using Boolean, like we did with the handle. Keeping our topology as clean as possible, will make it a lot
easier to edit our objects. And we'll see what happens when we don't have clean topology, later on in the video.
Now onto the side logo. I start with a cube and collapse one set of edges to create a triangle. I bevel the remaining edges, and up the segments
on the bevel, to create nice round corners. And then I'll inset the center face, and collapse those edges.
Now it's a simple matter of using my cut tools to cut in the rest of the shape.
I'll even add tiny bevels to all my edges,
this is the kind of detail that we won't see unless we get very close, but it's the kind of thing that sets a high-quality hard surface model apart,
from a low-quality model. And we'll just cut in a socket on the main body,
and subdivide the edges on the socket to match up to the logo, so that I can combine the body and the logo together.
Next up is the rail on the top of the gun. And like a lot of machined objects,
the rail has a lot of repeated features. In this case, it's easier to build a small part of the object and then duplicate that part over and over,
to create the whole shape. I'll bevel all the edges and otherwise finalize the object, because once I start duplicating, it's difficult to make changes.
Then I'll duplicate the object and move it, and then go to my Edit menu, and used Duplicate with Transform.
That will duplicate my object and repeat the last transformation, making it extremely easy to create the overall object. All that's left is to
combine and merge my verts. And let's keep going with this top area, I'll build the scope here, and start from a cube.
I'll use my bevel on the corner and add a bunch of segments to round that edge out. And I'll do that along the rest of the mesh as well, to create
enough detail to get the nice mix of curvature and sharp edges that are here. And then the next thing
that I'll do is cut a line down the center of each side of the object,
and I'll bevel that line. I'll just take the resulting row faces and pull it straight out. In this fashion I'll create that beveled edge that I need.
Doing it this way gives me a little bit more control than actually beveling it, because the bevel tool doesn't work that great on strange corners
and curves, like I have on this object. Now, on the main body that are two little diials that I want to add,
and I'll start those as cylinders, and connect them up. And we'll do it very similar to those grooves on the
body in the last video. I'll inset some faces on the main body here, and delete those.
Then I combine these two shapes together, and now use my merge verts tool to connect all the verts from the cylinders to verts on the body.
Topology in this area is something we really want to pay attention to,
it will be very easy to get smoothing errors,
in a complicated area like this. So we pay attention to making sure that we don't have any triangles
that are too long, and that our surfaces remain flat. Then I can go through and crease my edges,
and I'm ready to start extruding out the rest of the details. So I just inset faces, and I pop them out, the same way that I created the rivet in
the previous video. Next we want to create these tiny pips that outline each one of the dials,
I'll start with a single cylinder, and all change it's pivot point to line up with the center of those screws.
And then all go to my Edit menu use Duplicate Special, and I'll adjust the settings so that I'm duplicating it multiple times,
and I'm adding a slight rotation to it. Just like Duplicate with Transform, I end up with all my shapes, but I spend zero time creating them.
Again, any time we can duplicate to create detail, we want to take advantage of that. Next up is the clip. And to create detail on the clip,
I'm going to use Booleans. So I've created these cylinders, I'll Boolean them out of the side of the clip, and when I do,
I'll see that I get open edges, instead of the shape that I expected.
This is because the original clip shape is an open shape. Once I close it off and make it a solid object, now when I Boolean I see that I get
different result. The Booleans are actually cut in there, and I have the right shapes.
So I do that on the back side as well. One problem with this approach, is the Boolean creates awkward tesselation in the region.
This makes it much harder if we need to edit any of my shapes. So I'll delete this open edge, and I'll see that that fixes my smoothing problems.
This does mean I'm not be able to edit anything on the clip, so I make sure that it's finalized before I Boolean.
Ok: now it's time to start adding final level detail. I'll start with a simple object on the stock, I'll smooth it and add a bunch of subdivisions,
and I'll start optimizing it. But this will be tedious to do manually, so I'll use my Symmetry tools.
So: hold Shift and Control and right click, and then turn on symmetry. And I'm going to make sure that I'm setting the symmetry to the right axis,
but usually it won't work. So I want to make sure to Center my Pivot, and then try symmetry again. This will usually fix it.
And in 2015 when we're using our symmetry, (our Mirroring tools) Maya will mirror not just the selection, but also actions. And at our highest
level of resolution, basically anywhere there's an angle, we want to add a bevel. So the angle where the cylinder meets the flat part,
I add a little bit of bevel. Around the cap faces at that the cap of the cylinder, I'll add a bevel.
And in most cases I'm adding relatively narrow bevels.
This will create a sharp highlight in the area, and that sharp highlight is really one of the keys to making our hard surface objects look tactile.
We want the viewer to feel like they could reach out and touch our object. And that's why I spend so much time here working on the bevels,
adjusting the bevels, making sure that the bevels flow into each other nicely. Bevels are that high level of detail that we really need
to create an awesome looking hard surface model. Here you'll see I'm adjusting some curvature,
this is the kind of detail that's small enough that one might think that the viewer wouldn't notice,
but taking care of details like these is what separates a good modeler from an amateur. Now on to creating bevels for the body.
The body is a much more complicated shape, so getting these bevels to work is going to be more difficult.
So I'm going through, and I'm meticulously selecting the edges that I need to bevel. And then I'll bevel these a small distance, and I
want to go back through and double check to make sure that everything beveled correctly.
In a lot of cases, bevel will work some places, but not in others.
While I'm doing this it can be easier to select face rows instead of selecting edge rows. You'll see I'm
just clicking on the faces. And then I can convert my selection to the edge perimeter.
Now I can go through and Crease these faces. That'll make it really easy to get the detail that I need when I start smoothing.
I do want to make sure to crease the corner edges as well, to make sure that I get a proper shape in those regions.
Now earlier I mentioned that bad topology would get us into trouble.
Here's the issue that we're having: the handle has a lot of different shapes on it, that makes it difficult to select easily. And if it's difficult to
select, then it is difficult to work with. I need to be able to crease this handle before I can smooth, so what can we do in a situation like this?
I'll select one groove on the handle, and then go to the Edit menu, and choose Select Similar. And we'll see that that selects a little bit,
but in order to Select Similar to be useful, usually we need to adjust the threshold. So we type in bigger numbers,
until eventually will select all the different grooves.
Generally it also select a bunch of other stuff, so double check the model to make sure to deselect those parts.
Ok, just like on that earlier piece, I've smoothed my object now.
And because I've creased everything, I should get a lot of nice, beveled looking detail.
The issue that we'll have, is that when we smooth our object, all the hard edges on our object become soft. So we have to go through
and select all those beveled edges, and use the Harden Edges command. And in a lot of cases, we'll be able to double click to select
an entire edge row, and then we can harden it. In other cases, we'll select by faces and and convert the face row to the edge perimeter.
In some cases, we don't have bevels, like on the grooves on the side. But we've got enough subdivisions that we can move around existing
rows to create the effect of the bevel. So I can take this row and push it out a little bit. I can take
the row near the bottom, and adjust its position, and then harden those edges.
And that'll give an effect that looks just like a bevel, if we didn't bevel ahead of time.
Here's a breakdown of the key points that we went over. You can click on any of these and go back to that part of the video to review.
Otherwise, that's it! Thanks for watching, I'm James Taylor.