Guitar [WIP]

A project that I started working on in Maya is a guitar. This project was inspired by the fact that I know a lot of people, including my sister, who play the guitar. I used an image I found online to trace the shape of the guitar and my sister's guitar to estimate the depth of the guitar. I did not get to finish this project since I had to shift focus to my final project, but it is definitely a project that I want to go back to and try to finish.

Source image that I'm using to trace the shape of the guitar.
(TinyURL.com/qhj2nla)

My sister's guitar that I'm using to estimate the depth of the guitar.

The neck of the guitar is made from a NURBS rectangle. The body of the guitar is made from a Bezier Curve that I traced from the aforementioned picture that I put in Maya as an image plane. I then extruded the curve. For the front face, I projected the curve onto a NURBS plane and then trimmed the plane to the curve. I copied and pasted this trimmed plane to use for the back face. For the sound hole, I projected a NURBS circle onto the front face of the body and trimmed it. The guitar is colored using Lambert shaders. The scene is lit using an ambient light.

A screenshot from Maya that shows the guitar in development.

A rendered image of the guitar in progress.

Curves and Surfaces Model

For my Curves and Surfaces Model, I made a desk lamp. This was inspired by the desk lamp that I have in my room. As seen in the picture, the original lamp is all gray. I added other colors to my model to make it more interesting.

The lamp that inspired this project.

The base of the lamp is a NURBS sphere that's swept from 0°-180° in order to form a half circle. The shaft of the lamp is made of two NURBS cylinders. By placing a short thick cylinder on top of a long thin one, I was able to replicate the shaft of the original lamp. The rotation mechanism for the lamp is composed of a sphere that fits into the shaft and a cylinder that extends from that sphere into the lampshade holder. The lampshade holder is a revolved surface that originated as a curve. Its shape resembles that of a funnel. The lampshade is made of two parts. The first part is half of a NURBS sphere that forms the round portion at the bottom of the lampshade. The second part is a revolved surface made from a line to form the opening of the lampshade. The light bulb is also a revolved surface that originated as a curve. The lamp shaft and other metallic parts are colored using a Blinn shader. The lampshade and base are colored using a Phong shader. The light bulb is colored using a semi-transparent Phong shader. The scene is lit using an ambient light. There is also a spotlight that points out of the lampshade at the same angle as the bulb to provide light from the lamp.

A screenshot from Maya that shows the lamp in development and also includes a view of the shaders and Outliner.

A screenshot from Maya that shows the two different parts of the lampshade.

A rendered image that shows the rotation mechanism and lampshade holder.

A rendered image that shows a side view of the finished lamp.

A rendered image that shows the lamp at an angle with the light bulb.

NURBS Primitives Model with CV Editing

For my NURBS Primitives Model with CV Editing, I made a pig. I got this idea from the pig coaster that I have in my room. The coaster is a flattened out version of a pig, and this gave me the idea for how I could pull the CVs on a sphere into that shape and create the body of a pig.

The pig coaster that inspired this project.

The eyes and head are made out of various sized NURBS spheres. The nose is a NURBS cone with two spheres in it to form the nostrils. The mouth is a NURBS torus that is swept from 0°-180° in order to form the half circle shape. I edited the CVs on the torus so that it would wrap around the head. The tail and ears are made from NURBS cones. The cones for the ears are flattened. The body of the pig is made out of a NURBS sphere. I pulled and edited the CVs on the sphere to form body of the pig with the legs. The pig is colored using Lambert shaders. The scene is lit with two ambient lights. The pig's name is George.

A screenshot from Maya that shows the pig in development.

A rendered image of the pig.

Bouncing Ball

The bouncing ball tutorial is pretty much the standard Maya Tutorial. This tutorial is from the Learning Maya textbook. It helped me get comfortable with all of the basic tools in Maya. It also helped me learn more about texturing/shading, lighting, and rendering. Another useful feature of Maya that this tutorial introduced was particle emitters, specifically fire in this case. This tutorial serves as a good introduction to Maya.

A screenshot from Maya of the bouncing ball in development.

A rendered image of the final bouncing ball.

NURBS Primitives Model

For my NURBS Primitives Model I decided to make a penguin. This idea was partially inspired by the penguin from Super Mario 64. I did not try to model my penguin exactly like the one in the video game since I felt it was slightly complex for my first project. However, Super Mario 64 is one of my favorite video games, and racing the penguin on Cool, Cool Mountain is a lot of fun.

The Big Penguin from Super Mario 64
(http://www.mariowiki.com/images/4/44/Racingpenguin.png)

This was a good starter project because it helped me get acquainted with multiple NURBS primitives and the various tools and modeling techniques within Maya. The penguin is made mostly of NURBS spheres. The body, wings, and feet are just spheres that I elongated. The head is a sphere and the eyes and pupils are smaller spheres. The stomach is a sphere that I elongated and flattened. I then pulled the CVs on this sphere to get it to wrap around the body. The beak, which is a NURBS cone, is the only thing that's not a sphere. This project also helped me get comfortable with shaders, lighting, and rendering. The penguin is colored using a variety of Lambert shaders. The scene is lit with a combination of ambient, directional, and spot lights.

A screenshot from Maya that shows the penguin in development and also includes a view of the shaders and Outliner.

Below are rendered images of my penguin from three different views. The penguin's name is Pengy.

Penguin - Front View

Penguin - Top View

Penguin - Side View