Rendering the Final Model in Maya

Here is my finished door in Maya. I added lights pointing at the door to bring out the textures and add shadows. I then rendered the video using a turntable rotation.

Here is the final video made in photoshop using the snapshots made by the batch render in maya, complete with lighting.

Problems I Had Whilst Mapping

The only real problems I had when creating my maps was changing my UVs which then didn't match my texture maps. To begin with I had all my small details on separate maps but I later decided to combine them all onto one map to make things easier. But I must not have saved this change in my Maya file so when I tried to apply my texture map it didn't work. I had to resize and move my UVs to fit over the textures. This was just a silly mistake I made by not being careful and although it took a while to fix it wasn't too much of a problem.

A big problem I had at this late stage was discovering a lot of hidden faces and problems within the swirly bits on top of my door. I noticed a lot of strange things happening on the UV map and once I investigated inside the model I kept finding big problems. I think it was created by the way I extruded along the curve I had made. After spending a while trying to fix it I decided to just get rid of them at this stage. Maybe this was a bit of a cop out on reflection but I just think it would have taken so long to fix the mess and I would have rather spent that time making the textures for the door look as good as I could.

My only other problem was getting my head around which maps were which and what they all did.

Normal Maps

Types of Maps.


Normals - a normal map creates the illusion of a 3D texture using RGB information.


Bump - A bump map holds the height information so it is like a normal map but is actually 3D


Texture- Texture maps are the colour and pattern you put onto the model.


Specular- Makes black and white stand out more and increases the depth to the 3D texture.


On my model I used normal and texture maps.

To make my normal maps I used a program called Crazybump. First of all I took the textures I had made in Photoshop and desaturated them to black and white.

Then opened the file in Crazybump.

you can then edit the settings to create the effect you want to achieve and the preview shows you what the texture will look like on the model.

here I also combined normals. For example on my ground I combined the normal I exported from Mudbox and the normal from my texture in photoshop.

Once the normals were all done I applied them to my model along with the texture maps.

After applying a lambert texture to each object select material attributes in this menu.

Choose file in this menu to load in your own texture

Select the file using the folder icon.

Adding the normal maps is a similar process.

Sculpting in Mudbox

When texturing my door I decided to sculpt extra detail onto the ground and the actual wooden door. I wanted to make my ground a bit more uneven and therefore look more natural and like a bumpy hill so I sculpted them in Mudbox.

First I created a sculpt layer and increased the subdivisions.

Then once I got the ground to look how I wanted to I then had to create a normal map.

I extracted the information on to a normal map to use with my texture map on my model.

Texturing

I textured my UVs using Photoshop as I feel confident using the program and it seemed easier than just painting straight onto it in mudbox. I used brushes to get lots of different effects for each object..

Once all my UVs were textured I simply applied the textures to the model. First applying a Lambert or Blinn ( for the shiny objects) 

Click material attributes

and click the checkered box next to colour. Now select file in this menu. Then locate the file

and the texture should load onto the model.

UV Mapping

In order to texture my door I needed to make a UV map of each object. The best way to describe a UV map is to think of making a 3D box out of paper, when it is unfolded it makes a net and a UV is basically an unfolded version of the shape to put the texture on and then wrap back around the object afterwards.

To make it easier to see if my UV map was correct and even I applied a checkered texture. This shows how your texture would look if you applied it. If the checkered pattern is uneven or distorted this means that your texture would be uneven or distorted when you load it on.

To load a checkered pattern onto the model you simply hold down the right mouse button to bring up this menu and apply a lambert texture as shown.

Then click the little checkered box next to colour and this will bring up the menu shown. Click on checker and the pattern will appear.

Different ways to create UVs

There are several different methods to create UV maps. The types I used were planar, automatic and spherical. Planar is good for simple shapes and is done by selecting the faces you want to map and then sewing them together to make a net type shape in the UV texture editor. Automatic is the one that I used most as it was the easiest to use. By selecting the object in object mode and then choosing automatic mapping Maya does all the faces for you and arranges them in the editor. Although using this method often means having to move around the UVs and sew them together to make a good map. Spherical is used for easily mapping spherical shaped objects, I used this to map the doorknob on my handle.

To start UV mapping first select the object you want to map and choose automatic mapping in the create UVs file menu tab. Then you can look at the UVs in the UV texture editor found in the edit UVs menu option. I found it easier to move the UVs out of the black and white square so it's easier to see the edges.

Here you can use the same selection options as in the modelling phase eg. face, edge etc and UV. If you select edge mode you can see on the UVs which parts of the UV are for the same edge and should therefore really be sewn together.

By holding the control key and holding down right click then selecting to shell you can select that part of the UV and all that's connected to it.

Then in the same way as the main Maya window you can move and rotate the UVs.

Put them near to the edge they need to be sewn to.

Then select move and sew edges as shown

The edges should then merge together.

I repeated this process for all my objects, making sure that the checkered pattern looked right. And that the shapes for my UV looked efficient. This was a long process but I knew I really had to take my time and get it right otherwise I would have a lot of problems later on that would be time consuming to fix.

I now had to fit all my UVs into the checkered square. UVs must fit in the square and not overlap, unless the are part of a separate object. As my door was all different objects I decided to do each object separately. Except for the map with all my small extra bits, like the hinges and handle etc. Once I had an object positioned properly I would click on the polygons tab and select UV snapshot. I then saved it as a Targa file to open up in Photoshop later. 

Fixing problems at This Stage

Once my door was at this stage and was ready to UV I had to check that it worked properly and didn't have any problems with hidden faces inside the model or any accidental extra vertexes.

In order to check this quickly I exported my whole door as an object file and opened it in Mudbox. When you try to subdivide an object in Mudbox that has hidden faces or five sided shapes it will tell you and won't be able to subdivide. 

I did this and found several hidden faces and vertexes. I think the mistake I made was  when I deleted edges sometimes I forgot to delete the vertexes at the end of them. If you don't delete the vertexes then  programs will still read them and it will expect an edge to be there and will read this as a polygon with more than four sides. Polygons with more than four sides cannot be subdivided easily or equally and therefore need to be avoided.

Some tools I found useful at this stage were the append to polygon tool and  the merge vertex tool.

The append to polygon tool is useful for rebuilding faces where there aren't enough edges to use the fill hole tool. For example I found that I needed to rebuild the edge of my door. I planned to not have it there as it wasn't going to be seen but because of the way my door geometry was made up I needed to put it back in to prevent having vertexes with no edges attached along the top curve of the door. I didn't want to just delete them as I would lose the shape. I thought by having vertexes it would count as a four sided shape but I didn't really realise you can't have a vertex that isn't attached to an edge.

by selecting the tool and the clicking on the corners of the face you want to rebuild it should appear.

Press enter and the face will appear. I carried on around the edge of the door until it was all rebuilt.

The merge vertex tool is useful when you have an extra vertex and want to merge it with one that is near it.

Simply click the first vertex and hold and drag to the other vertex, let go and they should merge into one.

Making the Door Handle

This is my completed door handle. It was fairly simple to make. I just used a flattened cube, a cylinder and a sphere for the actual doorknob.

I reduced the number of subdivisions and deleted the ends of the cylinder as they weren't necessary. I wanted it to just be a simple handle that you would see on a lot of older doors.

Making the Ground

I wanted to have ground under my door and I thought it was important to include it so that the door looks more like I intended it to. I want it to look like a portal into another world and in order to really make this clear I wanted to have it on a grassy hill with no walls.

First of all I created a large sphere under the door

I then selected the bottom half of the sphere using face mode and deleted them to make the rough mound shape.

I then used the edge tool to reduce the number of subdivisions (remembering to delete vertexes too) and I pulled edges out to make the ground uneven and more natural. I also flattened off the top for the door to sit on.

Making the Details for the Top of the Door

I started off by making the heart for the top of my door. I made it by making a cube and flattening it out to the right thickness, I then extruded the sides and beveled them to make the two rounded bits. Using the edge tool I moved some of the edges around to make the heart shape.

I then made the shapes to go around the heart. I wanted it to look decorative like the kind of detail you get on iron gates. I made it using quite simple shapes, I used two whole cylinders and two cylinders cut in half .

Then to make the twirly bits I used a curve in the same way that I made my arch. I created the CV curve then extruded along it.

Creating Normal Maps

Making Hinges

Making the hinges for the door was actually quite simple. I just made cylinders and resized them. I Then positioned them on the model. Because a lot of the shape wouldn't be seen as from the front of a door I decided that having the whole shape was not necessary.

I deleted the faces that wouldn't be seen and changed the geometry so that I didn't have any three sided shapes. Then I simply placed them on the door where I wanted them to be.

Making a door within a door

By first selecting the face where I wanted the door to go and using the extrude tool,

I could then adjust the size of the face which I would then extrude back to make a hole.

I did the same on the reverse of the door.

I then extruded backwards into the door and deleted the front face

I then deleted the faces of the extrusion I had just made, this left me with

a hole in the door.

Putting a door into the hole.

I simply made a new polygon cube and scaled it to the size of the hole.

 Now that the door is made and in the hole I now need to put the door onto 

a different layer to make things easier. 

This is simply done by selecting the object and then clicking the icon shown here.