Update on Maya Work

    This week has been busy for me getting everything ready for the OGR so these tutorial GIFs (the lamp post montage in particular) aren't specifically what I did today although they do include it as I was working mostly on the alleyway scene today and I think by now its all ready for lighting, UV mapping and texturing, which appears to be the next set of tutorials on the list.

    The largest challenge I had making this set was the windowframe, which I had to redo completely due to some horiffic rendering and warping on the model I had made independant of the tutorial video (It was after I made the lamp panes so I thought I could transfer my technique). Some of the joins to the window appeared to slope upwards as if the frame had melted. So while it may have contributed to the "old and battered" effect of the scene, I dread to think how it may have affected texturing, the new window model made with the tutorial is a lot cleaner so I am glad I referred back.

    At first I was confused as to what happened with the 3D text on the lamp-post when I told Maya to render everything in a selection where it seems to be twisting inside itself. Although that matter is resolved now - the text has such a detailed mesh on the edges that I don't need to tell Maya to render it.

    The crates and most of the lamp-post were made without looking at the tutorial which is where I went wrong with the window and why I rebuilt it more closely following the way the tutorial built it. At the time I felt the character tutorials gave me a firm enough understanding of the modelling basics that I could make these without watching an audio guide, although I began referring to the tutorials again once I compelted the structure of the lamp head curious to know how to prepare the lamp panes for adding a glow effect. Before going back I had used the planes provided to get an idea of what I was modelling and the proper dimensions (which I will definitely bear in mind for my own Maya models in future) but it seems that thing keeps cropping up where I try scalling using the 2D view and end up only scaling in one direction rather than two. I've so far found the yellow cube in the centre of the pivot is the best tool to expand everything evenly when in a 2D view.