Hello I've got to do some conceptual mass modelling in Maya then export it to Revit to get a lot of compound curves. I'm modelling a Zippo light and it is for a class. Does anyone know any good tutorials for Maya. Or some hints, I've found some stuff on lynda, albeit thats 325 usd a yea/ 30 a month or so. I'm basically at this point, I've got the NURBS model of the bottom half of the lighter, its .5"x1.5"x1.625"(lwh) and I'm having trouble grabbing all the planes together so it moves it all as on "box" rather than individual planes. There's what grabbing one plane does, it moves it along the corresponding axis only. Cheers for the responses or at least views.
Hi, I'm a Maya user and could lend a hand, but I'm not too sure what/how your attempting to work.. I'm not familiar with Revit at all but are you just looking to export a single piece of geometry from maya to revit?
ps There are some maya modelling tutorials on vimeo.com (just search for maya modelling) let me know how you get on or if you need any help
First off, unless your moddeling character or cars, things with lots of smooth bits i would stay away from nurbs. I havent used maya for a good while, but as far as i can remember if u modeled the lighter in polygons and used subdiv surfaces (sub division) you can ad more detail. There is a polygon tool to make smooth corners, if its not sub div. You can convert poly models to nurbs once ur finished. One other thing to try is lofting/extruding. Create a zip lighter shape in illustrator or in maya using splines 2d. As if your looking at teh lighter face on. Then use the loft/extrude command to give it depth. http://www.creativecrash.com/ If your really stuck give me a PM and i can get maya on the go and try sort something out for you. Ive also checked some sites there are zippo mesh's available for free if you need em in a hurry.
You should be able to find tutorials for this on YouTube. They'll probably be using Polygon meshes though.
