Modelling in Maya... An Unexpected Challenge!

 This week has been nothing short of eventful... From hurricanes to family fun, I've been a bit busy. 

But don't worry, as usual, I've found time to make time for my art, which is invaluable to me! I'm so happy to have worked on this proxy model. 

Although it isn't everything I hoped and dreamed it would be, I'm happy I at least was able to make something. I would like to pursue my initial vision somewhere down the line (maybe this week!).

Well, you're here for my model, not my artistic goals! I can ramble as much as I want, but lemme drop some beauty shots here for you. I'll start with one from Maya!

This is the first screenshot I have ever rendered with Arnold and I think it looks pretty decent! There is some pixilation on some of the boards, which I'm not sure how to remedy, but overall, it looks nice! 

This render looks a little cleaner, but it might just be the angle. The weird pixilation is gone, though. And it looks really nice! 

I was initially hoping to make a Weighted Storage Cube from Portal, but time got away from me. I was learning how to rig for another assignment, which proved to be a greater challenge than I'd initially anticipated. Oh well, at least I gave both of them my best! 

Here's a moodier shot of the crate. I like this one because you can see the details a bit better. I had to make the boards thicker than I'd initially wanted because in some of the progress proxies, there were no textures whatsoever on them. They must have been too thin. Oh well, that's what proxies are for, after all! 

Here's a progress shot of some of my proxies! I just thought this looked cool. I really dig this texture from the Unreal Starter Content. 

Speaking of that texture... I took my love for it to the next level with this artsier shot. 

Same environment... Different lighting! I really like the atmosphere in this one. It reminds me of a dance club in the 1990s... My, that's awfully specific. 

Speaking of lighting... Here's some interesting lighting from my product shot round! 

Here are my boxes with harsher lighting on them, so you can better see all of the fine, fine boxy details. I can taste the splinters! Ouch! 

Speaking of lighting, here's a last beauty shot for ya! This one was taken with the standard Maya renderer and it looks really washed out. But, it's nice for looking at the details! Of which there are many!

But yeah! That was my assignment for this week. I definitely learned a lot about modelling and fighting with Maya from this project. Since we have more time to elaborate on this project in the future, I will be looking forward to readjusting this model for the next round. 

I actually ended up having to rebuild this whole thing three times, simply because my materials weren't showing up. In addition, my grid snapping has never snapped properly, so I lovingly hand-placed every single board. You're welcome.

In all seriousness, despite some technical limitations, I think this project went pretty smoothly. I learned a lot of new tricks about extrusion and beveling. In addition, I also got a crash course in UVs, which I will need to revisit in the future. 

I definitely was struggling with how to unwrap and cut the UVs and ultimately ended up just utilizing the default and auto layouts. I will be using those in the future until I gather my bearings. If anyone has any suggestions or tips for UV wrapping, I would love to hear them. I'm so lost when it comes to those!

But anyway, enough rambling from me! I'm gonna go submit this and keep watching Hurricane Ian, which may or may not be hitting my hometown. 

See you!