Pfff Finally finished the last assignment for the maya classes. Due to the open nature of the assignment I was forced to do a lot of research on the subjects. After long searches and a lot of trial and error I do feel I understand the topics that we dealt with.
I purposely went for a simple scene with toy train and plastic shapes. That way I didn't have to make everything that acurate and I only had to deal with fairly simple shapes. Tried to make a rollercoaster first but that turned out to be harder then I thought. I has to do mostly with the complex rotation which is still something I need to get my head around.
Definetly still have a lot to learn regarding shaders and rendering. I never really got past the modelling stage last year so I'm still very new to all of that. At least I'm not using a lambert all the time anymore.
Gotta learn more about subdivision modelling and how to make normal maps out of them. I try to avoid holes and complex cuts cause I'm afraid of bad geometry. But I really shouldn't and after you block out the big shapes you need a bit of that detail to turn it into a believable scene.
Learnt a few interesting things about curves and using motion paths and lattices to create curved shapes. Found a cool script for it too but still have to try it out.
All in all even though maya still gives me headaches (and it's modelling tools are outdated!!) I did learn to work with it a bit more. Learnt a few new tricks and found out how to keep track of my hierarchy using the hypergraph window. I gues it's all just continuous practise just like any skill is.
Joeri out....
