Pipeline 2 - Jet Pack Jones Head Modelling Preparation and Custom Shelves

 Orthographics  

  Firstly before starting any modelling, we have to place orthographs as a guide to help us model. The orthographics provided by our tutor are accurate in terms of sizing, meaning better accuracy when aligning them onto the Maya Grid. to begin with we will be modeling the head, so we only need to import the head ones at present. The body will be at a later stage.

  Using the multi-view, we imported the correct orthographic to the view selected (the top not currently needed). When imported, they are placed in the middle of the grid, so this ment selecting and positioning them to where is required so as to not to get in the way of the modeling. For resizing orthographs, its best to change them by scale and not height/width (this keeps them consistent in size).

  With the 3 quarter view, we had to make a new camera and reposition it to 45 degrees. Looking through the lens of this new camera makes placing the orthographs much easier. However, it's much too big and in the wrong place. By going into the orthographic attributes, placement and changing the depth to 25, this helps bring it into alignment with the others. 

  Once these was done, we lowered the brightness to 0.75. Working for long periods of time can cause eye strain, and reducing bright objects helps to stop this. Finally, placing them onto a layer and locking them means we can not interfere with their placement whilst modelling. 

Orthographs

Orthograph Set up

Custom Shelves

  Next was to think about what tools we would need for the modelling. Creating a custom shelf means we are able to keep everything we need in one place and not shift though loads of menus. This was done by going into the shelf menu, selecting new shelf and renaming it to as what is desired (mine was JPJ).

  Using a list provided by our tutor, we went through all the maya menus and selected (using CTRL + SHIFT) all the tools required. These then appeared on our new shelf and ready to use. 

  The main problem was the Outliner. The outliner doesn't have a selectable button, so we have to make our own. Using the Script Editor (which was cleared first), we used used the Echo All Command option found in History menu to bring up the code for the outliner (once pressed). Going to the top, we middle mouse dragged OutlinerWindow; scripting into the Mel Scripting box. Then highlighted it and placed onto our custom shelf, creating a button to bring up the Outliner.  

Custom Shelf Made

 

Next is to move on consideration of the head modelling and the beginning of rough blocking.