Kantham
9th Aug 2005, 06:45 AM
First of all, hourences already started a such tutorial for a good while. I read his tutorial wich is for 3ds max, it was well explained for 3ds. But i was totally stuck with maya. A lot of friends asked me how to make that, i already had an idea how, but while thinking about texturing, i gave up even trying to do it. I learned it today and thought about making a tutorial for the community.
So let's get started.
There are few things that you already need to know. If this is your first time in maya ever, i would highly recommend that you learn the basic and viewport movement/usefully shortcuts. 3Dbuzz.com are the kings for that, concentrate on everything they will say, it help A lot And if you miss don't be shy to re-wind a bit.
=============================================
Expansions
=============================================
You start by placing a cube, once your cube is placed you set the modeling mode and start to work with faces.
Expend your cube, you can rotate the faces, scale them, it don't really mater as long as it don't become a pit or un-walkable places.
You can get something like that here:
http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/9271/sanstitre6zo.th.jpg (http://img187.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sanstitre6zo.jpg)
That is a good example, you can also do some holes in the ceiling for light effects inside your cavern from UED. But that will be shown later.
=============================================
Connectivity
=============================================
This is one of the most important thing while making a cavern. It need connectivity. Instead, it would be boring. As long as you plan to make a UT2K* map, the gameplay will miss it.
While you want to make a connectivity like here on the pic :
http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/2969/sanstitre1ac.th.jpg (http://img121.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sanstitre1ac.jpg)
You have a little problem. Because these faces are in the way to make a clean connection. change to select edges, and delete these. now you should get something like that once done :
http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/593/sanstitre5hk.th.jpg (http://img121.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sanstitre5hk.jpg)
Now it is much cleaner. Now we can proceed to make holes and connections.
Delete the 2 faces that you want to connect, then go on Edit polygons-> Merge edge tool
Now you will have another cursor, every edge that are missing faces are selectable. You should get something like this when you select a edge that miss a face :
http://img299.imageshack.us/img299/8500/sanstitre1dg.th.jpg (http://img299.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sanstitre1dg.jpg)
These purple edge are the ones you are looking for connect with that orange line. Once you click the purple edge a connection should be made (if there is nothing made wrong)
Now you just need to do the same for the rest and you're now getting it.
=============================================
Cavern morphing
=============================================
Now, what you have is not what you will get like finally result, of course not. Maya and any other 3D modeling programs are very powerful and flexible. The hang of them is the only hope you can get to make progress in it.
once that the connectivity are done and you are ready. We will now make it look A lot more like a cavern
The smooth tool that is. Very very strong effect that smooth in the mater of a second your model. It will act will faces selected or the model selected in object mode.
polygon-> Smooth
I highly recommend you click on the little box that is found on the right of it. So you can play with the smooth's settings.
The higher the smooth is, the higher the number of poly's you will get. The better the result will be.
2 is very high. Higher that 2 would be exaggerated. Especially if you have a big cavern.
http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/3876/sanstitre1qq.th.jpg (http://img235.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sanstitre1qq.jpg)
Here this is after the smooth morphing. The cavern have A lot of poly with a soot of 2 as i keep on mentioning. it is also bad for the collision calculation in-game after that. So please, for the sake of 1.2 GHZ (and lower) users, not higher than 2.
Now you need to edit polygons->normals->reverse
That is reversing the faces so it's now inside the cavern that you will walk in and not outside
=============================================
Texturing and final touch
=============================================
Texturing is a killer for newcomer inside maya. The box texturing (as we know it in UED) is very good for UED, but maya is made for UV mapping. That is why you will like my technique if you have (a pain in teh ass) difficulties with planar mapping.
Open your UV editor, and do a automatic mapping with these settings
http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/6932/sanstitre7hl.jpg
That will make the UV very clean and Uniform to it's size.
Now once this is done to your whole model, you will have to "hold right click" your model and go on UV
Now you select the whole model and you should now get some big green dots. Now press on the 'R' key and scale it while viewing the UV editor
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/5163/sanstitre5mg.th.jpg (http://img99.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sanstitre5mg.jpg)
Note that it can be very lagy with some low spec PC or Big cavern. you will have to guess the best fit your self from there. The gray square is the texture normal size, so for the cavern i made and that UV scale, it's kinda quite enough scaled.
So now you have like, what? 3 hours of texturing saved, for 10 second of eyes calculations.
Yes , that's almost over for maya, you can now export it if you want, you might want to try "smoother edge" to give it a smoother edge effect from ued. It apparently don't slow down performance, your model can look like having more polygons on it. But keep in mind that the lighting can look ugly sometimes with it.
=============================================
From UED 3.0 notes
=============================================
now that you have it inside UED, you will need to set the collision like that :
http://img68.imageshack.us/img68/3069/sanstitre0mq.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Now you can have fun with lighting and special effects such as emitters and such.
http://img68.imageshack.us/img68/1962/sanstitre6bm.th.jpg (http://img68.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sanstitre6bm.jpg)
Have fun making it. I hope it helped.
So let's get started.
There are few things that you already need to know. If this is your first time in maya ever, i would highly recommend that you learn the basic and viewport movement/usefully shortcuts. 3Dbuzz.com are the kings for that, concentrate on everything they will say, it help A lot And if you miss don't be shy to re-wind a bit.
=============================================
Expansions
=============================================
You start by placing a cube, once your cube is placed you set the modeling mode and start to work with faces.
Expend your cube, you can rotate the faces, scale them, it don't really mater as long as it don't become a pit or un-walkable places.
You can get something like that here:
http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/9271/sanstitre6zo.th.jpg (http://img187.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sanstitre6zo.jpg)
That is a good example, you can also do some holes in the ceiling for light effects inside your cavern from UED. But that will be shown later.
=============================================
Connectivity
=============================================
This is one of the most important thing while making a cavern. It need connectivity. Instead, it would be boring. As long as you plan to make a UT2K* map, the gameplay will miss it.
While you want to make a connectivity like here on the pic :
http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/2969/sanstitre1ac.th.jpg (http://img121.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sanstitre1ac.jpg)
You have a little problem. Because these faces are in the way to make a clean connection. change to select edges, and delete these. now you should get something like that once done :
http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/593/sanstitre5hk.th.jpg (http://img121.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sanstitre5hk.jpg)
Now it is much cleaner. Now we can proceed to make holes and connections.
Delete the 2 faces that you want to connect, then go on Edit polygons-> Merge edge tool
Now you will have another cursor, every edge that are missing faces are selectable. You should get something like this when you select a edge that miss a face :
http://img299.imageshack.us/img299/8500/sanstitre1dg.th.jpg (http://img299.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sanstitre1dg.jpg)
These purple edge are the ones you are looking for connect with that orange line. Once you click the purple edge a connection should be made (if there is nothing made wrong)
Now you just need to do the same for the rest and you're now getting it.
=============================================
Cavern morphing
=============================================
Now, what you have is not what you will get like finally result, of course not. Maya and any other 3D modeling programs are very powerful and flexible. The hang of them is the only hope you can get to make progress in it.
once that the connectivity are done and you are ready. We will now make it look A lot more like a cavern
The smooth tool that is. Very very strong effect that smooth in the mater of a second your model. It will act will faces selected or the model selected in object mode.
polygon-> Smooth
I highly recommend you click on the little box that is found on the right of it. So you can play with the smooth's settings.
The higher the smooth is, the higher the number of poly's you will get. The better the result will be.
2 is very high. Higher that 2 would be exaggerated. Especially if you have a big cavern.
http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/3876/sanstitre1qq.th.jpg (http://img235.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sanstitre1qq.jpg)
Here this is after the smooth morphing. The cavern have A lot of poly with a soot of 2 as i keep on mentioning. it is also bad for the collision calculation in-game after that. So please, for the sake of 1.2 GHZ (and lower) users, not higher than 2.
Now you need to edit polygons->normals->reverse
That is reversing the faces so it's now inside the cavern that you will walk in and not outside
=============================================
Texturing and final touch
=============================================
Texturing is a killer for newcomer inside maya. The box texturing (as we know it in UED) is very good for UED, but maya is made for UV mapping. That is why you will like my technique if you have (a pain in teh ass) difficulties with planar mapping.
Open your UV editor, and do a automatic mapping with these settings
http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/6932/sanstitre7hl.jpg
That will make the UV very clean and Uniform to it's size.
Now once this is done to your whole model, you will have to "hold right click" your model and go on UV
Now you select the whole model and you should now get some big green dots. Now press on the 'R' key and scale it while viewing the UV editor
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/5163/sanstitre5mg.th.jpg (http://img99.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sanstitre5mg.jpg)
Note that it can be very lagy with some low spec PC or Big cavern. you will have to guess the best fit your self from there. The gray square is the texture normal size, so for the cavern i made and that UV scale, it's kinda quite enough scaled.
So now you have like, what? 3 hours of texturing saved, for 10 second of eyes calculations.
Yes , that's almost over for maya, you can now export it if you want, you might want to try "smoother edge" to give it a smoother edge effect from ued. It apparently don't slow down performance, your model can look like having more polygons on it. But keep in mind that the lighting can look ugly sometimes with it.
=============================================
From UED 3.0 notes
=============================================
now that you have it inside UED, you will need to set the collision like that :
http://img68.imageshack.us/img68/3069/sanstitre0mq.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Now you can have fun with lighting and special effects such as emitters and such.
http://img68.imageshack.us/img68/1962/sanstitre6bm.th.jpg (http://img68.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sanstitre6bm.jpg)
Have fun making it. I hope it helped.