Computersight -

Welcome to my third tutorial in this series as a beginner we have covered basic texturing and modelling plus some other key features such as keyboard short cuts and some tools that you will use often.

The next step is to teach you how to import a file as a texture, also in this scene we will use pre built textures to create a floor.

Firstly you need to have completed both of my last tutorials for this one to work so if you haven’t please find them on here (tutorial 1) and here (tutorial 2). There are two before this one to complete search for the key word maya.

Above is the image of the scene we will complete at the end of this tutorial, so lets get started please open up maya 7.

Now we have opened the trash can scene we need to make some changes, firstly move the camera view in the perspective view so its something like above, don’t worry if your polygon plane floor doesn’t fit in the view we will be making this bigger next.

Now we need to select the sky polygon plane in the front view, press R in the front or side view and with the green scale box make the sky bigger so it fits perfectly in our resolution gate (if you cant see your resolution gate in your perspective view go view > camera settings > resolution gate. In the perspective view menu). This will make the sky fill the screen for our render, then go to the top view select the polygon plane floor and press R and with the blue scale tool make the floor big enough to cover the resolution gate.

You should have something looking like the image above, now we have the sky and floor plus the camera in the right place its time to move on.

Its time to begin naming our objects, technically you should have done this at the beginning but back then I thought I was doing the one tutorial it didn’t matter but now it does, open up your outliner window > outliner and lets begin naming the objects, click on a object or a group in the outliner and look in the perspective view to see what the object is, double click the name in the outliner type in a new one and press enter, do this with all the objects and groups until you have named them all, then using CTRL and LEFT mouse button click on all the objects associated with the trash can and press CTRL and G to group them, then rename the group trash can object.

Now we have everything named it will make everything a lot easier now, right moving on I believe the floor is way to boring for this scene and it needs something to make it more interesting so I decided to add paving slabs, so go create > polygon primitives > cube.

With the cube go into the outliner and name it paving slab, then in the top view press R and using the yellow scale tool box in the middle of the cube scale the cube until its just bigger then the width of the trash can aaround all sides. Then in the front or side view press R and with the green scale tool box scale the cube so its thin enough to look like a paving slab, this is your own personal choice of size.

Now we have one paving stone in the top view port press W and click the yellow box in the centre of the object and move it into the one of the corners of the scene so its got a tiny gap between the sky and the edge of the scene, then press CTRL and D to duplicate and then with the blue move arrow tool move it just above the last one with a tiny gap, repeat this until you have done a full row of paving slabs.

Now select all the paving slabs in the outliner and press CTRL and G to group them name the group paving slabs row, then go modify > centre pivot now press CTRL and D this will duplicate the entire row, press W and with the red move arrow move the paving slab row across from the last row you created but leave a small gap between them, then with the blue move arrow tool move them downwards so that the centre of the paving slabs is inline with the gap between the other row.

Now select both rows in your outliner press CTRL and D and in your top view press E and with the red tool shift them across so that there across from the others but with a little gap between, repeat this until you have covered the floor in paving slabs, in the outliner select all the groups of paving slabs rows and CTRL and G them name he group pavement and there is the floor it will look something like this below.

Now we have the sky and the floor but both are untextured so let’s begin by texturing the floor, remember the polygon plane we created for the floor that is under all our paving slabs, we are going to add a texture file to this next, browse on google and under images find a mud texture you want to use, type in something like free mud textures, then when you have a texture you like save it to my pictures on your computer. MAKE SURE THE FILE YOU DOWNLOAD IS A JPEG!

Now go window > rendering editors > hypershader now when its open look at the left hand side where it says blinn use the scroll bar and scroll down till you see one called surface shader and select this. We will use a surface shader because light does not affect them at all in the scene.

When you have created the surface shader we need to open up the attribute editor if its not open (located at the top under the minimize to taskbar) now where it says out colour you can see a slide bar and across from the slide bar a chequered box, click the chequered box, this should create a pop up window

This is the box that should have appeared, right at the top where it says 2d textures make sure this is set to normal other wise it will do a projection texture which is something we don’t want right now, then click the word file.

When you click the word file in the attribute editor you have some new choices, where it says image name and then the space click the folder across from the space, this will open up a browser, use this browser to select the image that you downloaded, once you have found the image LEFT click on the image and click open this will load the texture you downloaded on to the surface shader. Now in the hypershader click this tool below

This tool will open up all the section of the surface shader in the work area, I always do this so that its not a mess down there and I can easily get to the texture that I am using.

Right in the outliner reselect the floor (not the paving slabs) in the hypershader RIGHT mouse click and hold over the surface shader that’s our floor and select assign material to selection and then our floor now has a texture assigned to it.

Now repeat steps 10 to 16 but find a sky texture file ( http://thumbs.photo.net/photo/85919-sm.jpg the one I used) when you repeat these steps press 6 in the perspective view to see the textures applied to the scene you should have something looking like this.

We now have the floor and the sky textured but what about the paving slabs they look terrible just that plain colour so instead of using a texture we can load it lets use a pre built in tool to make one that could work.

Window > rendering editors > hypershader where it says blinn scroll down to a lambert, we will use a lambert because unlike a blinn they don’t shine, now in the attribute editor across from the word colour click the chequered box again and this time in the pop up box click Brownian. In the attribute editor we now have some options to play with to get the texture how we want it look below to see a image of the setting that we want for it and the colours

Once you have set the lambert up like this in your outliner select the pavement group and then in the outliner RIGHT click on the lambert we created hold down the RIGHT click and then chose assign material to selection.

There you go you have created the scene for the trash can its far from perfect but it has helped you learn some tools that are very handy to know in maya 7 and in all 3D packages.

Render the scene out if you remember how to and have a look at what you have created

In the next tutorial we will make a hedge for behind the trash can to hide some of the sky so it doesn’t look like its just been placed there, and we will also model a fence to go before the hedge, this will teach you some more tools that you might need to know