Modelling

by suba2022in 3D Asset Designon Posted on

Process

In order to model in any 3D software, I must be aware of the various tools that I have in disposal. Maya has quite a few useful tools that can help me with my modelling process, including the multicut tool (allows to create new vertices and edges in a mesh), target weld tool (snaps 2 or more vertices or edges together), bridge tool (creates a face between selected edges), bevel tool (makes the shape more blunt and round like) and smooth tool (smooths out any sharp edges near selected faces/edges), along with other options such as extruding (allows to stretch a selected face(s) of a mesh outwards in any size rotation), scaling, rotating and moving. All of these tools are useful for some purpose, such as the target weld tool being used to reduce or completely eliminate the amount of ngons (shapes with more than 4 vertices) in a mesh.

Main Body

I started this project off by creating a cylinder and adjusted its scale, position and rotation. After that, I selected the faces making up one of the circles and extruded them outwards, adjusting their size as I was doing so, rotated them and extruded them out in a different angle. I kept doing that until I got a shape that more closely resembles that of a Hallucigenia’s main body structure. there was one problem with this process, and that is the fact that the edges where I changed the direction of which I wanted to extrude my faces were too straight. Despite this issue, I was able to easily repair it with the help of the smooth tool, at the cost of having ngons, which I could easily deal with by using the target weld tool as I mentioned earlier.

On the other circular face I bevelled the edges so that that they would be more round and therefore organic, which is what I wanted to do as you do not often find straight edges in nature
There was one problem with the process described above, and that is the fact that the edges where I changed the direction of which I wanted to extrude my faces were too straight. Despite this issue, I was able to easily repair it with the help of the smooth tool, at the cost of having ngons, which I could easily deal with by using the target weld tool as I mentioned earlier.

Spikes, Legs and Claws

Then, I decided to focus on adding the spikes along the back of the Hallucigenia, so I created a cone shape and a torus shape, and adjusted their position, size and rotation on the asset. After that, I duplicated those shapes by using the duplicate special option (also known as instancing) and positioned the duplicated shapes appropriately, like seen in the screenshot on the bottom right.

First spike being positioned and manipulated
The spikes and torus shapes being instanced. This decision would lead to complications when moving them as the shapes would go in opposite directions. Which is why I should have combined these shapes before instancing them again (same happened with the legs). Also, I decided to slightly move the torus shapes into the body so that they are still visible whilst also not being to intrusive to the overall design of the asset

Next was the creation of the legs. The process of creating the overall shape of the legs was similar to that of creating the body, but with fewer segments and the legs being smaller.

Process of making the leg
Both legs positioned in the right place
Instancing process of the first pair of legs
Legs after being instanced, the process of instancing the legs was similar to what I did to the spikes and torus shapes, with the same amount of legs as there were spikes and torus shapes (8 pairs)

The leg claws had a similar process to the legs, the only difference being their size, shape, position and amount of them that were present in the asset (16 pairs)

Initial cone shape
Similarly to the legs, I extruded and bent the bottom faces making up the circle and changed their direction by using the rotate tool and then smoothed to more closely resemble a claw
Final result of creating the claws, I combined them into pairs to prevent previous mistakes from happening again

Eyes, Tentacles and Mouth

The eyes were the most simple part of the asset to make, I just created a sphere shape, adjusted its position, size and rotation onto the top of the head and then instanced it and adjusted the other shape’s position and rotation where appropriate. For the mouth, I created a torus shape and positioned, scaled on rotated it onto the the end of the head, like seen below on the right.

Positioning edges to fit in the torus object
The mouth with the torus object on. This decision was a mistake, as it would complicate the UV and texturing process later on, but I managed to blend it in at this moment in time so I left it how it was

Finally, I created 8 tentacles on the bottom of the neck near the front legs through extruding some of the faces nearby several times, allowing me to have several segments in my tentacles which can be rotated in different directions as seen below. However, since these extrusions ended up being square, I had to end up with utilising the smooth and bevel tools in order for the tentacles to look more smoother and more organic.

First extrusion when making the tentacles
The process of making a full tentacle, I would extrude and rotate the tentacles first, followed by a smooth and then a bevel right after
Final modelling result

After showing the result to my peers during a session, I had quite a few positive reactions based on its design and because of this I decided to keep the model as it is.

Problems with modelling

When starting off with this project I had a file that I only manged to get the modelling done on, due to unexpected crashes that occurred when I last worked on it, there are many reasons for Maya to crash and it could have been for a variety of reasons, and I did not manage to get the first file working again. I have overcome this issue through contacting various people for help, and when that failed to solve the issue (which it did), I decided to start creating a new file and starting all over again.

Screenshot of my previous file/asset before it crashed
A screenshot of my previous process of making my asset before restarting it. Restarting the project ended up working and it took me way less time to model it than the previous asset and it came with a time risk, but I was willing to take that risk rather than the file issue being fixed at the last moment. My change of approach to model the asset through instancing and using the bevel and extrude tools more came with a massive success as the new file is far smaller than the previous file, and is not experiencing any crashes at this moment in time.

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