Duplicate Tool

When you are making a model and you finally get one side of it complete and you want to make the other side the exact same way, a lot of people spend a whole lot of time just try to look back and forth trying to make the other side the exact same way. There is an easier way to do this though. You don't have to remake the whole other side or try to copy and paste. Just duplicate it and when you're editing one part on one side it automatically does it to the other side. Here's how you do it:

1) First you get your model. Mine is half a man. I have the arms, the legs, the head and the torso. 

2) Next, by hitting Alt and left clicking on your mouse, rotate your model so you can see the inner faces of your model. Then right click on your mouse and drag it over the Face option and then release. This will allow you to select different face on your model.

3) Then select all the inner faces. You can do this by holding down the Shift key and clicking on all the faces as shown in the image bellow.

4)Now you have it hallowed out and you can see the inside of your model.

5) Now right click again but this time drag your mouse over the Object Mode option and release. This will allow you to select the whole model.

6) After selecting your model, go to Edit and click on the box next to the Duplicate Special option. It is very important that you check the box and not just hit the option by it's self. You'll understand why in the next step.

7)The reason why it's important to check the box next to the Duplicate Special option is so this option box will pop up. Next to where it says Scale, in the first box, make sure it says -1 and not just one. This will allow it to mirror the first side of the model instead of just copying it. Also at the top make sure you click on where it says instance. Then hit apply.

8) This is what you should see now it duplicated and mirrored the first half but not the way we need it to be.

9) Select the second half and click on the move tool on the left tool bar and use the yellow arrow to position it in the right place to where it looks like an actual man.

10) Now you canmake any changes to any side and it will automatically do it to the other side. If you look in the image bellow you can see that I hovered my mouse over a part of the model on one side and it highlighted that same spot on the other side. Your model will always be symmetrical.

Now you have your 3D man =)

UV Mapping

UV Mapping takes a lot of patience if you are doing a very complicated and detailed model. I made mine as a box with my name around it and two smiley faces on the sides. Very simple.

1) The first thing you want to do is find the checkered UV Map Guide (the image bellow). If you are following along with me, then instead of looking for it on google just go ahead right click on the image and save it in your source image file. Don't know where that is? Follow the steps bellow the image.

(go to your documents library file and click on maya. Next click on projects, finally click on default. Click on sourceimages and save the image)

2) What you want to do is make a box. That's the easy part.

3)Right click on your mouse and hold and drag it down to assign new material. This will bring up the option box on the right. Right now what we are doing is placing the checkered map I had you save.

4)In the option panel on the side you can see that the first option says color. click on the little checkered box next to it. When another option panel click Lambert.

5) Click on the same checkered box once more. it doesn't show in the image bellow but another panel will pop up. Where it says image name, click on the little folder. Then when the option panel pops up click on file.

6) Once you've clicked on file click on the little folder once more. You will have to search for the checkered map. Again it's under sourceimages. 

7) Now, your box will not look like the one bellow right away. oh no, it's never that simple. before you lose your mind click on the little icon at the top that looks like a checkered sphere. Then you have your checkered box. Oh but we're not done yet.

8) Next, at the top under Edit UVs click on UV Texture Editor. What's going to pop up is the big red panel but it's going to have your checkered map. to get rid of that so you can see what your doing click on the display alpha channel icon (bottom row, icon third from last). Now since we are doing a simple box we don't need to do anything to it because the map is automatically set up perfectly. So click on Polygons and under that go all the way down to UV Snapshot. A little panel will pop up. Choose what size you want it and under image format save it as a Targa.

9)Now you can open your image in Photoshop (documents, maya, projects, default, images, outUV.tga) and fill in the boxes how ever you want. You can do anything from placing and image to drawing in your own. I drew in my name to where it would look right when it is folded. (My name is Alex not Lexa) Save your image as outUV1.tga (or name it whatever you want. that's just what you can save it as to follow the last step).

10) Go back into maya and click on your model. then click on the little folder once more and look for the image you just saved in photoshop (documents, maya, projects, default, images, outUV1.tga). Then you have your box  =)

Using the Extrude tool

Making 3D models is not easy, actually it's very hard. One thing you need to get used to is the Extrude tool. It took me hours to try to get it to do one thing. I couldn't get it until I saw my professor do it in less than ten seconds.

What I was trying to do was to make the extrude tool grab one face of a box and extrude it inward.

1) So I started with a simple box. 

(Those who don't know how to make one, choose the polygons tab and choose the box. It's the second icon)

2) Next right-click and and drag your mouse over Face and let go. This way you won't choose the whole object and you'll just select one face of the cube.

3) After that click on the top face, then click the extrude tool (it's the 16th tool from the left in the polygons tab) once you click on the extrude tool then click on the expansion tool on the left-side tool bar. Once you do that use the red and yellow handles to extrude the top face in.

4) Then click on the center top face and click extrude once more. Do not click on the expansion tool this time.

5) Finally, in the picture above you can see a blue handle. Click and drag that downward. This will make the box extrude down, making a hollow center.

6) Then your done and you just created your own hollowed out 3D box.