Richard Tierney Project 4 Extra Credit Nov. 4th 2006 Creating Rammstein:

1. Let us start with the bottom leg portion, the calf, toes, and knee. a. Select create > NURBS Primitives > Cylinder. b. Go into component mode and enable point components and hull

components. Use the manipulator tools to mold the cylinder into this:

c. Select create > EP Curve. d. Using one of the perspective cameras, draw an EP curve similar to the

following and press enter when complete:

e. With the curve selected, shift+click the calf, then from your hotbox(hold spacebar) select edit NURBS > project curve on surface. Remain in the same perspective while doing this.

f. Select the calf, hotbox > edit NURBS > Trim Tool. Now click the upper portion of the calf and press enter. You now have an opening for a toe and can delete the original EP curve used.

g. For the left and right opening, create one curve, then duplicate it (ctrl+d) and change the duplicated curve’s Z scale to –1 (mirror geometry).

h. Repeat the previous steps to finish the opening for the left, right and back

toe. i. For the melding trim. Create NURBS Primitives > Circle. Place the circle

in the middle of the grid. Shift+click the calf > Right click + hold on the calf > Isoparm > shift+click the uppermost blue circle of the calf (top isoparm).

j. Hotbox > Surfaces > Extrude box icon*. Set style to tube, result position to At Path, Pivot to Component, and orientation to Path Direction. Click Extrude. Now select the nurbsCircle and rotate it about the X-axis 90 degrees. Scale the circle until the extruded surface looks like a trim around the edge.

k. Repeat this step on all NURBS edges created. In order to do this on a trimmed edge, use the line component of the NURB found in component mode instead of the isoparm.

l. Create > Polygon Primitives > Cube. Make the cube long along the y-axis and thin. Duplicate the polygon(ctrl+d) and rotate it along the x-axis 90 degrees. This will look as follows:

m. With both polygons selected. Hotbox > Mesh > Booleans > Union. They

are now attached. Go into component mode and select the two new faces created from the union.

n. With the faces selected. Hotbox > Edit Mesh > Extrude. Now use the manipulators and Extrude tool to create the following polygon:

o. Place a NURB Cylinder in the center of the extruded faces for the kneecap, or if you’re up for the challenge, create a series of NURB and polygon cylinders inside each other for a more complex joint:

p. Create NURB Primitives > Cylinder > Attribute Editor >

makeNurbCylinder tab > change Span to 6. This will give you more hulls to manipulate in component mode for a better looking thigh. In component mode, mold the thigh using the hulls and components to look like the following:

q. The toes start with a basic polygon cube and a lot of face manipulating and extruding. Using the extrude tool found in hotbox > Edit Mesh > Extrude.

r. Duplicate this toe 3 times and place them under the calf, protruding from

the openings created earlier. You now have a completed leg. s. Select the entire leg geometry and press ctrl+g to group them together.

Rename the group “rightLeg.” Also delete the history by going to Edit > Delete all by Type > History. This will ensure no strange transformations will happen to your leg when you manipulate the entire group.

t. Select the rightLeg group using your outliner: Window > Outliner > rightLeg. Now move it so it is not intersecting the x-axis and the left toe is touching the z-axis and duplicate it, scale the duplication’s z scale to –1 (mirrored geometry) and change it’s z value translation to a value of q+2|q| where q is the original translation value. This will give you a

complete pair of legs. These changes are made in the attribute editor.

2. Upon completion of the pair of legs, you have exercised the skills needed to

model the rest of the Robot. It mostly requires time, patience, determination practice, and trial and error. Let’s continue with the waist, torso, and upper body.

a. The waste is composed of NURB Cylinders, except for the black spine part which is a polygonal cylinder, allowing for the extrusion of every other face inward.

b. Mold the torso as a NURB. This will assist in creating the molding trim at

the edge of the piece (using step 1.i. as a guide). Once completed, select the torso and convert it to a subdivision surface then to a polygonal surface. This is done by select torso > Modify > Convert > NURB surface

to subdivision surface > subdivision surface to polygon. This adds a nice amount of faces to your torso. Now make openings for the arms by deleting faces from the side perspective. This is done in component mode:

c. To start the shoulders, go Create > NURB primitives > Sphere. In the

attribute editor, change the end sweep to 180 degrees and rotate the half sphere around the x-axis 90 degrees:

d. Using the EP curve and Trim Tool discussed in Part 1, and component mode, mold the half sphere into a shoulder pad like the following:

e. Place the new shoulder pad on top of the right shoulder and create the

spikes using create > NURB primitives > Cone. To make the cones not as sharp, select the top point in component mode and move it down closer to the middle of the cone. Duplicate the spikes along the shoulder:

f. Select the entire shoulder geometry and group it, delete history, and mirror

it to the left side of the robot just as we did the legs in Part 1.

g. The arms are very similar to the legs, in fact I used the same join for the elbow as I did for the knee.

h. To create the hand, start with a cube and continue extruding faces until

you get a palm like shape, with 4 finger sockets and 1 thumb socket:

i. To start a finger create a cylinder and place it in one of the sockets. Then

create a cube and one edge similar to the edge of the leg part created in

step 1.n. Now select both shapes, hotbox > Mesh > Combine.

j. Repeat this step for the tip of the finger, and then duplicate the fingers and

manipulate them into the other sockets. The thumb is the same as a finger with one less joint.

k. Group the entire arm, name it “rightArm” and mirror the geometry. Name

the new duplicated group “leftArm.” This is the same steps used on the leg in step 1.t.

l. I will leave it up to you to create your own facial structure; however, if you want the same eyes as seen here:

They can be created by using the following steps: place a polygon cube inside the face (must also be a polygon geometry) at an approving angle, select the face, then shift+click the cube:

Now go hotbox > Mesh > Booleans > Difference and the cube will leave its mark on the face, leaving an eye socket.

3. Texturing

a. Lets create a metallic surface for the main parts of the robot. Go to Window > Rendering Editors > Hypershade. From here, you can create many different types of lights, textures and surfaces. Under the “create” tab on the right, choose “Anisotropic.” This is a shinier surface that will work well for our robot’s metallic casing. Notice the material is now in your “work area” section in your Hypershade menu. In the new materials attribute editor, you can change the name, and attributes of the material. Call this material “metal” and turn up its Translucence to make it shinier. Mess around with the colors and ray tracing if your graphics card can handle it. When satisfied with your material select the surfaces/polygons you wish to apply it to in your perspective view. Now go back to your Hypershade menu and right click+hold “metal” and drag to “Assign Material to Selection.” Upon completion, the material will move into the main material collection above the work area in your Hypershade menu, as it is now part of your scene.

4. Organize your work. a. If you haven’t been grouping your objects like we did in step 1.s. it is

never too late to go back and organize them. Group everything together into groups such as “leftArm,” “rightArm,” “head,” “rightShoulder.”

b. It is also a good idea to parent the groups, this can be done by creating

another group inside a group. An example of this is creating “rightForeArm,” inside of “rightArm.” If your groups aren’t parented correctly (i.e. the rightForeArm group is not found within the “rightArm” tree) use the middle mouse button to click+drag the group title into the

desired position.

c. Creating a nice hierarchy like this in your outliner will make your future

projects on your robot easier, a good example of this is binding a skeleton to animate him.

5. Render a frame a. Go to Window > Rendering Editors > Render Settings. From here you can

change the quality of the render however be aware of your computer’s capabilities. Turning on ray tracing or other intensive options can crash Maya if your computer cannot handle it. From here you can change the resolution of the image, the size, file type, file format among many other things. Choose the perspective camera in the settings and align the camera as you’d like to. When done, choose the rendering menu pane from the pull down menu. Now go Render > Render Current Frame. Congratulations on the completion of the robot!