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.