A new 3D Project in Maya...

This is something I'm actually creating in Maya, although the VTM was designed for 3DS Max (which I hate)...

I've gotta say, modelling this in Maya is SO much easier than it appears to be in Max.

It's far far away from being finished, I've only been working on it for about 20 minutes so far, so there's plenty of work still to do on it.


Btw, I didn't draw the reference images, they were included with the VTM (http://www.3dbuzz.com).

ooh looks nice, hope it turns out good !!
espicially color/texture...

Yeah, he's gonna have kind of a purpley colour...

I'm using the 3dbuzz reference sketches to roughly block it out, then I'm just gonna ditch the reference images, and tweak him to look more like na Asgard from Stargate SG-1

ooo, i like 'im

what happend to the other guy which you was doing?..
the 3d putty dude?

Well, I restarted that guy from scratch, got him completed (as far as modelling went), but then when it came time to add the bones and the skin weights, things didn't go quite as planned.

He was "kinda ok", but I totally suck at skinning models, so right now I'm working on some of the models I know I'm going to need to use in the relatively near future, then as my skinning abilities improve, I'll add the bones, setup the weights, and actually animate them.

The other guy, again I'm going to have to restart from scratch (which is a good thing because I wasn't 100% happy with him, and I've learned a few new tricks since then which should help out a lot in the animation department).

can we look at it? Coz you might think its not good and we might love it. If your like me (a perfectionest) i chuck work away that i have spent hours on then some people see it and think that its really good.

You never know we might be able to give you ideas on how you can improve it

Trust me, it's not good, I've already deleted it.

I know how to improve it, I'm just not experienced enough with the program yet

fair enough

axe, that is freaking awesome. I wish I had the money for maya. But I suppose I still have learning to do in max first.

So what do you have planned for this guy?

Yeah, I wish I had the money for my own copy of Maya too. Right now I'm working on it on a friend's machine, he uses it for work. Now that I've found an FBX plugin for Wings 3D though, I can work here in Wings, export out as FBX, and import into Maya to tweak it, texture it, etc.

Here it is so far, I only worked on it for an hour or so today.



I've thickened up the eyebrow ridges a bit, although I still want them a quite a bit thicker, plus the front of his head needs to come forward a lot. Underneath the eyes goes back a little too sharply for my liking too, there's PLENTY of tweaking to be done, and I've not even thought about the body yet, heh.

The mouth needs SERIOUS tweakage. I just put in the basic area for that and haven't messed with it since.

Ultimately he'll be presenting a Scifi oriented website.

The modelling is good but your materials are a bit crappy. it looks as if you have just painted this thing purple. Try and create an alien skin by using photoshop to create a bump map, then use photoshop again to create a skin uvmap. The modelling is slick but the shaders should be dropped.

good work.

Yeah, I did just paint the thing purple... this isn't a render, this is the window I'm actually working in

The shaders are extremely helpful during modelling so that I can easily see unsightly bumps & creases, inconsistencies in smoothing, and more easily see different shapes in the model as it's progressing.

Like I said, this isn't a final render, this is just how it looks while I'm working on it

Ultimately, I'll create a good texture with some bumpmapping... Give him more of a slightly slimey warty texture.

Well, I did manage to get some more time on to work with him a bit more...



Again, this is just the working window, not a final render

There's still a few more tweaks I need to do around the mouth area, and a few other minor bits, then I've gotta start working on the body

Oh yeah, and I've gotta give him a neck, so that I can attach his head to the body, heh

those eyes are going to be awesome!

Hehe, that's just a temporary texture for now... Eventually they're probably going to be a super high glossy black

But.. who knows?