Help with some modeling.

[Anonymous]

Just started using maya in  university and and as one of our tasks we have to model a pocket trumpet.
And so I have run into a dilemma 


In attempting to model these intricacies i wonder how would one experienced user approach it?
I have tried making tons of divisions then selecting every second face and extruding it inwards 
tho this to me sounds and feels like the dump way to do it
any solutions?
I am sorry for the pathetic question, I SEEK THE KNOWLEDGE! 

[ys.kuzi]

I would go with texturing it in stead saves alot of poly

[ys.kuzi · Accepted solution]

https://youtu.be/nEO6xtHpnhw?t=3m38s
Check out this part of the video will help you for sure

[Anonymous]

I'd also use a texture with a normal map and a heightmap. If I had to do this with polys however I'd just subdivide a cylinder with a lot of segments and I'd extrude the faces after selecting them the right way (select one, skip one, select one, and so on)

[Anonymous]

That's basically what I did in the end only fear is maya crashing with so many poly's but cant think of another way (since this is a modeling exercise I can't texture it and get away with the work sooo sadly can't do that.
Thanks for everyone's answers though!

[Anonymous]

I dont think there is an "easy" way to do that. Patterns and things like that need to be done by selecting face by face.. of course you could use a script to do that, but you also need to know the scripting languaje as well.. 

Honestly what you asking is not hard to do (there are not too many faces, imagine if you need to do a bigger surface and that is really common in modelling) , it only requires more time. Something really common modelling these kind of things.. in fact.

Using height maps and so on , lol, well, thats up to you but if you want real details on the surface (something really important in these type of models), thats not the correct way to do it of course. Thats the "cheap" way and should be only used if you are going to see the object from distance... (so you are not going to appreciate details).

[ys.kuzi]

there is one more way it is what i use for things like this set the pivot to the center and the shift d rotate around the whole thing i felt this is the lighting fast way to do it

[Anonymous]

Thats not the way to do it. Because in surfaces like this one, its important to keep the continuity of the shape. And doing it the way you are proposing you are creating different objects, and it will not look the same in the final render. Now, of course if your goal is not realistic renders or close - ups, your method will be totally ok.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Hey,

do you mean something like this?

Wireframe would be

Because for simplicity I have just filled the upper hole with no topology, smoothing is doing its job 😉

The first thing I did, I counted how many "things" i need. Ended up with 128 subdivs on a cylinder.

1. Then delete top and bottom faces of the cylinder if you like
2. select to left over faces
3. use the extrude tool with keep faces together turned off
4. add an offset you like
5. to bump those "things" out you can use local z offset
6. Done!

The image on the right I have used for counting.

Use the generated topology for enough detail and then use new ones. Like I did for the inner part of the "trumpet button".

Regards,

LifeArtist

[Anonymous]

Thats what the op did. He is asking if there is a way to do it WITHOUT selecting the faces you want to extrude...

[mspeer]

Hi!

@ys.kuzi and @Anonymous.

It's OK to make use of rotation for modeling and sometimes the fastest solution, you have of course to make sure that the modeled piece(s) can be completed to a full 360 degree object.

After the meshes are combined you have 1 complete object.

[Anonymous]

I didnt select every single face like he did. You can select the entire face loop within three clicks. I dont see a reason why we need to select every second face. Or am I wrong?

[mspeer]

Hi!

@Anonymous and @Anonymous

The problem was to select every second face what can cost a lot of time (in Maya), but the solution from LifeArtis handles this with just 1 simple selection which is a lot easier and faster.

[Anonymous]

Hm.. maybe im missing something here. How do you make a selection of a loop just with the second faces?????? o:O didnt have a clue you could actually do that... also he doesnt say anything about how he did that selection.

[Anonymous]

mspeer, shadows, reflections, and so fort doesnt work the same way if you put 2 combined objects than just 1. Thats the reason doing it that way is not recommended. But this also depends too if you want to render the model in maya itself, or somewhere else. Or depends on what you want to do with th emodel.

[Anonymous]

Hello,

you can make a continuous selection via double clicking on the next face to where the selection should go. Or if you double click the face right next to a loop it will automatically select the loop.

I forgot to mention that if you want to model one module and rotate it, you can use the duplicate special tool (edit -> duplicate special). You need to calculate the rotation so for example, 256 cylinder segments: 360/(256/2) = 2,8125 So then you have 1 face flat and 1 face needs to be extruded. And then you have to choose 128 - 1 copies because you have already one copy created.

The important part is to merge all the overlapping vertices by first combining all objects and then select all vertices zoom on one segment and adjust the merge radius so that the overlapping vertices are all merged. This can be done by activating the vertices hud.

Regards,

LifeArtist

[Anonymous]

Thats a nice tip, but again, i dont see you selecting one face and one not. The only thing you doing is to basically create 2 exact same objects and rotate em to look like the detail the op want and combining em. I mean, i almost prefer to manually select face by face lol. Only the merge part will take almost the same time.

[Anonymous]

Hello,

1. As I have written in my additional post I haven't seen a reason to select every second face. My two clicks comment was only referring to the method I have detailed explained above.
2. The method I have shown which was about the use of the duplicate special tool does not have anything to do with loop selection.

merge part:

If you have created the duplicates with duplicate special you then select them all and combine them. Then you need to select all vertices and do a merge.

I hope this cleared things up.

Regards,

LifeArtist