To Sum Up...

Now that I have reached the deadline for this project and I can reflect on my work there are certainly some things that I would have done differently.  I feel as though I was very optimistic in this project and maybe created a pillar that was simply to big and complex for me to handle, especially considering that this was my first time using Maya.  Another aspect of this project that I did not handle very well was time management, I simply did not put in the effort that I should have outside of classes, if I had done this I feel my end result would have been so much better that what I have now, I know that I am more that capable of this I simply need to manage my time better, put in more effort both in classes but especially outside of classes and put aspects of my personal life outside class into perspective so that I will find the time to make the effort without any distractions.  However having said that, I also learned a lot from this, mainly I learned a software that I had never used before in the matter of weeks and really impressed myself, this makes me confident that I will achieve the results that I know I am capable of when I am using Maya or any other new software for that matter in the future.

Baking

Now that I have created a texture map I am going to try baking my billboard.  I started by creating a simple low res version of my billboard that I can use to bake.  I then simply dragged my low res model over my high res model and selected Rendering from the drop down list on the top left of my screen.  Next I opened the Lighting Shading tab and then selected Transfer Maps which opened up a tab that allowed me to bake my billboard.  After waiting almost 2 hours for my map to bake the final result was not really what I was expecting, I feel if I had added my texture map, allowed myself more time and not rushed myself my end result would have been much better.

Texture Maps

So now that I have welded my billboard I am going to create a texture map for my billboard and apply to the low res version of my billboard that I created.  As you can see it will be using a steel texture as its most suited to a billboard, I opened the image of the steel texture in Photoshop and added a grill like texture to it which I can use for the floor of my billboard when I bake it.

Welding

Now that I have created my billboard I am going to weld all of the parts together, this is really a very simple process.  To start off with I simply have to make sure that I have selected Polygons from the drop down list on the top left side of my screen, I thin select all the parts on my billboard.  I then click combine under the polygons tab, this then

welded all my parts together.

My Pillar

Here you can see my pillar.  I have decided to go with a billboard for my pillar as I feel it will stand out more than simply creating a simple pillar design.  The reason I choose a billboard was because it ties in will my UDK level of a neon skyscraper which I will be placing my billboard in at a later date.  Alternatively I could have created something entirely different for my level for example a fountain that I could have placed in the lobby of the skyscraper or a beam that I could have placed in on of the floors however I felt that these ideas were simply not as interesting and that creating a billboard would have provided me with the greatest challenge due to the complicity of simply creating the billboard.  I will later blog the process on how I created this pillar and some things I did to try and make it better.

Beveling

Today I am going to learn how to bevel objects in Maya.  I will be using the bevel tool from the High Poly Modelling tab in Maya.  After creating a square and selecting the bevel too this is what I got.  The bevel tool is supposed to be used for creating more rounded edges on objects in Maya however it has not done this and the outcome I got is not what I was looking for, therefore I need to fix this.

 

In order to do this I will simply need to change the number of subdivisions on my square, here you can see that I have set the width, height and depth of my subdivisions to 10.  Now you can see that I got a much better result.  The edges of the square are now much more rounded and simply looks much better.

Filling Holes

Today I am going to learn how to fill holes in objects, it is actually very simple.  Here I have a square with a missing face, I started this process by simple selecting two opposite edges connecting to the missing face.  I then simply selected the face filling tool from the High Poly Modelling tab, this then filled the hole in my square.