Alien Model - Back To Maya!

Maya! I have enjoyed a whole summer without maya and quite enjoyed it, dont get me wrong I enjoy Maya when it works but this year have been a whole new level of 'how the hell do I do this'. Anyway I will talk about the processes and methods used to create the alien model and rigging that we will be creating as part of this machinima project.

Firstly the refresher stuff that we had learned last year. We had a quick refresher on modelling techniques and ways of creating geometry, we also had to get used to the new log on system the college has implemented this year, it means we have to remember what settings and preferences we want to use in Maya and the mouse settings, it was tricky to start with but now I think we are all used to it and it is not a problem anymore, it was worth a mention though.

We started by modelling half of the alien and then duplicating it and merging the geometry, then we smoothed the alien and changed the geometry in non smooth mode because this is the way we have been taught to do things. We then jumped back into UV texture editing which I ended up being quite good at last year if I remember rightly. It was very time consuming making a nice mesh to work with but worth it if you wanted a nicely modelled character with no texture rips or messy tile mapping.

This is what the aliens texture started at (above) and then this is what it progressed to (below) the front UV of the entire character, what is needed next is splitting up the different parts of the aliens body parts and mapping them so that the tubes are then flat, which makes it easier to texture.

This is the finished UV texture map, it is very clean and very easy to use and understand, I think the actual model of the character I am creating for the machinima project will be a lot more complicated than this one and will take a little more time to UV map but if I manage to do it right it will be worth it. On a quick note I also learnt about a button which turns on UV colour mapping which means all outward faces will show up as blue but all back faces will show up as red, this makes the UV texture editor very easy to understand and would have been a help if I had known about this tool last year.