P5

How to Guide for 3D Character Modeling and Animation

1) Initial setup

Before we start anything, we need to save our Maya project to a set location in your files. This is to make sure the files are all organised and easy to find when locating.

Go to File > Set Project. Then decide on the location in your computer, and click on Set.



Now go to File > Save Scene as and save your scene in the folder you want and name it appropriately to what you are doing.



2) Maya Basics

The keyboard shortcuts are:
Select tool 'Q'
Move tool 'W'
Rotate tool 'E'
Scale tool 'R'

To move around the scene:
Hold down 'ALT' on Windows or 'CMD' on Mac and then press left click to rotate in your persp view.

Hold down 'ALT' on Windows or 'CMD' on Mac and hold down the middle mouse button to drag around your scene, you can move left and right, up and down, and side to side.

Hold down 'ALT' on Windows or 'CMD' on Mac and hold down right click to zoom in and out of your scene, or just use the scroll wheel.

This is called the Shelf:


Here we have access to several tabs, which contain lots of useful tools. We will be using the polygon tab, which is normally selected at the start.

The Shelf alters depending on the option selected in the left hand corner. Let's leave this on Modeling mode:



Firstly, click on the cube icon.



This will create a polygon in your scene:




To the left hand side of the screen, you should see six icons in vertical order.

  Move

 Rotate

 Scale




Firstly, select your polygon cube, and move it up a bit:



Then hold right-click and select the face mode:



Now select the top face, and still using the move tool, drag the face upwards:



Now select the multi-cut tool on the shelf and go round the object, and click on the first cut to join them up. The fastest way is to hold down the CTRL key which will automatically go around for you. Do this four times around the object - it should now look like this:



Press enter and now hold down right click > faces > and select the center of your cut:



With that object selected, now click on the extrude icon in the shelf, or go to Edit Mesh > Extrude, or simply press 'E' on the keyboard. Using the arrows, push the selection back like so:



Now hold down right click > object mode and press 3 on the keyboard to smooth the object:



Now you have learnt how the main controls work in Maya, including extruding and smoothing!

2) Creating The Knight (3D Character)

Once you have completed the above tutorial, we can now make our 3D Character!

The first step is to import a front facing 2D image of the 3D character. To do this press the space bar, which will present you with this screen:



This shows you all your different perspective views. Now look at the bottom left box, which is the front view. Select View > Image Plane > Import Image. Find your image, double click on it.



Now go back into the normal perspective view, and push the picture back slightly to give you room to model the knight.



Create a cube, and smooth it by pressing 3. Now go to the front view (access by pressing the space bar).

Now we need to use the Vertex tool. This tool is handy when you want to manipulate certain parts of an object exactly how you want it. What we're going to do it take the 6 corners and select with the vertex tool into this shape. You can go back into the perspective view if you need to:



As you can see I have used the drawn template as a rough guidline. Don't worry, it doesn't need to be exact yet, as for now we want to use as little polygons as possible.

Now go back into the perspective view, and we will now start to model the inside of the helmet. To do this, we will use the extrude tool. Make sure to also use the mult-cut tool for refining detail. Follow the background image as closely as possible:



The knight's helmet should now look like this:



Now place the head back into the center of the scene:



As we go along, when implementing a lot of changes, remember to delete the history. To do this go to Edit > Delete All by Type > History



Now we are going to add the spine to the helmet. To do this, simply select the two faces on top of the helmet and extrude them upwards slightly like this:



Now, by using the face tool, select the outer rim of the helmet indentation, and extrude it outwards slightly to give more of a 3D look with more detail:



Now we are going to slice the whole head in half. Don't worry, this is to save lots of time as we can mirror the polygons at a later stage - meaning both sides will be exactly the same and we save lots of time by working on one side only:



We are now going to create the eyes. Firstly, create a cube:



And then scale it right down, and place it where the eye will be located:



Now make the eye thinner by using the face tool, and smooth it out until it looks as closely as you can to this:



Now we can mirror the helmet back together - to do this select the helmet with object mode and go to Mesh > Mirror. On the right hand side in the panel, change Merge Threshold to 0.001.



Now we can start on the neck of the knight. Firstly, select the four faces on the bottom of the helmet. Simply use the extrude tool and pull the 4 faces down to here. After wards, select the entire head of the knight, with the neck deselected, and smoothed it:



Now we are going to start with the main body. Create a cube, go to the side view, and by using the edge loop tool, create 3 looping edges, all cut evenly down the cube. Now drag the cube down to the neck of the knight, and in the side view, use the vertex tool to manipulate the top half of the main body to look like this:

 

Keep moving the vertices around until you get this result below. Make sure that you shift select a line of vertices to make it appeal more natural looking, instead of a block. Now select the two faces as shown below, and extrude them out to start on the arm:



Now select the entire model, and slice it in half again, this includes the helmet:





Create a cube, scale it down and use it as a ruler as I have here to make sure you are following the drawn examples length exactly, to keep it looking good:



To help us in our modeling process, we can hide the helmet for now. To do this, select the helmet only and go to View > Hide > Hide selected objects. Now (with the body still sliced in half) selected the outside faces of the extruded arm and extrude them out with the scale tool. Mirror the body too, the same way we did before:



Now with the multi-cut tool, draw out on the top of the body a neck shape like so:



Now hide the body, and show the head again. Select the bottom faces and extrude downwards like this:



Now show the entire body, take a look round in the perspective view and change anything you want and make sure you're happy with it:



Now, select a vertex around the edge of the body that we just created, press and hold V to snap the vertices to the knight's neck:



Now we can work on the arm of the knight. Select the outer edges of the inner arm, and extrude it out like so, with 4 sections:



Make sure that when you get to the wrist, you extrude outwards, because we need to make room for the hand:



Extrude the outer edges to create the palm, which will be difficult, but remember to add more edge loops as shown below. For the wrist, I used the scale tool to give it the look of a wrist:




Now, as quite an important step, we need to make sure that the arm needs to have eight edges. To do this, delete the faces of the wrist and make this change:



Now that this is done, we can repeat the previous step with the wrist:



Now, for the hand, make sure that you extrude the palm like so:



Now, using the multi-cut tool, create 5 sections where the fingers will be:



Manipulate the vertices with the vertex tool, and model the hand into this shape:



Now extrude the first four fingers like so:



We now need to refine our fingers slightly, by pushing edges down like this:



The hand is starting to come together now, so we can now leave the fingers and extrude the top of the hand like so:



As you can see, the knuckles are sticking out, but we will now fix this by pulling the start of the finger up to the knuckles:



Now move the edges on top of the fingers up to the top of the extruded top of the hand, and this should give a more natural look as shown here:



Remember to consider the size of the hand, make sure it isn't too big or too small by comparing the length of the arm and size of the body:



Now we can work on the thumb. Firstly, move the vertices around the thumb position to give the thumb a natural look:



Extrude out the face on the side, using the move and scale tool to do start to form the shape of a thumb:



Now smooth out the hand with the smooth tool (or pressing 3) and you have now created a basic hand! Let's refine some details:



Un-smooth the hand, and bevel the edges of the fingers. to do this, select the edges of all the fingers individually, and go to Mesh > Bevel. Set the bevel percentage quite low:



The hand should start to look more detailed:



Use the top view, select all of the vertices, and with the rotate tool, change the entire angle of the hand to make the character look more relaxed:



Now you have completed the hand! We can mirror the rest of the body back, including the helmet if you haven't done so already. To do this go to Mesh > Mirror. Don't forget to set the Mesh Threshold to a low value such as 0.0001 as this stops distortions. I will do this a lot to check that it's all lining up properly. Once you have done this, cut the model in half again:



Select the lower faces of the model, and extrude them out slightly, this is for the belt of the knight:



Now select the bottom of the model, extrude it downwards as much as you want for the waist of the knight. Select the faces on one side, and extrude them out to create a round lower half of the body, you want to create a smooth curve. Do this on the other side too, leaving a slight gap in the middle. Select the vertices, hold down V, and snap them together. Select the faces where the leg will be, and delete them. Your model should look like this:



Select the edges of the hole that you cut out, and extrude them outwards like so:



Extrude again, and pull the leg down, and extrude 3 times to get the knee bend look. Make sure to not make the leg too long, and stop when you feel that the length is right.

Now we will start the foot/shoe. Firstly, extrude the edges outwards to create a heel, and follow the image below to get the right shape. Extrude outwards on the front twice, leaving a flat surface on the bottom of the foot:



Connect your foot in a smooth shape like this using the snap tool (V):



Now look at your leg and foot, and check for any imperfections. It will look like this:




Now select the front view, and select the vertices of the foot and move it down and outwards:



Now mirror back the whole body, and you have now completely modeled the knight!



3) Texturing

To start texturing, select the faces of the helmet (Make sure that you select only the faces shown below, not the spine or the front of the helmet):



Hold down right click and go to Assign New Material > Arnold > aiStandardSurface:



Now click on the chequered box next to colour > File:




Select your file you downloaded online, or you can just use a colour if you would prefer.

Now applied your texture! (If your texture looks distorted, make sure to select all the faces again, go to UV and select automatic in the list as this will fix that issue).

Now you can texture your knight! Here is all my texturing complete as a guideline to follow. I manually selected each face for a part of the character, and gave it its own individual texture or colour to show detail. For example, the hands have their own texture, which meant I selected one hand, and shift selected the other to show detail:

This is the Hypershade window, accessed by clicking the blue ball at the top, which helps you get the perfect texture/surface:



4) Rigging

This is the part of the guide to rig your character so that you can animate it. Firstly, you need to make sure you have the right settings. Before doing anything, change from modeling mode to rigging mode:



Now to to Skeleton > Orient and select the small box to the right:



Which will bring up an option menu:



Make sure 'Orient Joint to World' is ticked and press apply. Close the menu.

Now we can start.

Firstly, go to Skeleton > Create joint and click just below hip. This will be the root joint:



Now go up the spine of the character, going up to the shoulders like so, placing one at the hip, the middle, the chest and the bottom of the neck:



Keep going up, placing one on the shoulder, top of the neck, face and top of the head:



Go to the side view, and pull the joints inside the character:



Make sure you set these settings:



Now we need to re name all of the joints as shown below, starting from the root. Then hold the middle mouse button, and drag the joints together appropriately. For example, start from the skull and go to the head, then the neck_top etc:




Now we need to start doing the joints for the arm and hands. Make sure you copy exactly as shown below. Make sure to put three joints in each finger:




Make sure the joints are inside the fingers:



Now name the joints as shown below:



And join them up again, by holding down the middle mouse button and dragging the joint into the other joint:



Now lets add the joints for the leg and feet:



Remember to name them appropriately as shown below, and then join them up:



Now go into orient joint options, and shift select all of the joints:



Here is a close up of the hand, make sure that you get all of the joints inside the fingers as this will keep the rig tidy:



Now we have finished the hand:



If you click on the root joint, you will be select the entire rig:



Now we need to create our controllers. Create a nurb circle as shown below:



Now that you have placed the nurb circles, you can







5) Animation

For animation, it's a good idea to have a level or back drop to have in the background. In my case, I have designed the inside of a castle.

Firstly, set the keyframe to 1, which you can check by looking at the bottom slider bar:



Now position the character into whatever pose you like, and using your control orbs and NURBS circle, press 's' to keep the position. You will need to do this to each control orb to move otherwise it will not save the pose:





Select another frame on the timeline, and press 's' again. Continue this pattern until you are happy with your animation. For my knight to walk, I would start by having the arms by his waist, and then progressively move each limb.

You can preview your animation at any point by moving the frame back to one and pressing the play button, there is also a reverse button if you want to look at it that way.

To render the animation, you will need to create a new perspective through cameras. To create a camera, go to Create > Cameras > Camera:



You can look through this perspective by going to Panels > Perspective > camera1. You can now control it as you would normally.

You can animate cameras too, by using the same technique by pressing 's' for each frame.

6) Rendering

To render out your animation, firstly change from 'Animation' to 'Rendering', and go to Render > Render Settings.

This box will come up:



Now change to these settings:







(These will need to be changed matching your scenes frames and what camera you want to render through)





Now that's all done, go to Render > Batch Render. Your animation will be rendering out your animation frame by frame of your final animation.

Now for compiling and exporting:

After you've checked if all your images are in the location you set it to, open up a video editing software. I will be using Adobe Premiere Pro CC as it has the ability to merge frames into a video.

Create a new project and go to File > Import and go to the folder where your .tif files are, next select the image sequence and select only the first file, make sure 'Image Sequence' is ticked.

Your video will now be imported into Premiere Pro.

Go to File > Export > Media. Now change the preset to whatever you want, preferably H.264, 1080p. Change the output name and click export.

You have now fully modeled, textured, rigged, animated and rendered!