Week 4 Class Practical: Part 1 - 2D Curves to 3D Objects

In the first part of this weeks practical I learned how to turn a 2D curve into a 3D objects by extruding it. In this first example I have been asked to create an archway shape that I can then later extrude into a 3D shape. To begin, I changed the camera to an orthographic mode, looking at the scene from the front. This will allow me to work on the shape of the curve more accurately in a 3D space. Below is a picture of the archway I have made using the bezier curve tool.

Once this curve had been drawn, next I had to turn it into a 2D plane. To achieve this the curve has to be transformed into a planar polygon using the "Planar" tool, located under the "Surfaces" menu. After opening the planar tool with the additional options window. In this window we specify that we want Maya to create polygons from this curve out of quads, with a count of 50. This is denoting the level of detail required of the model, the higher this count, the smoother our archway would be but also less efficient. Below are the options used in this conversion and the finished product of this conversion.

Next, to turn the 2D shape into a 3D object we have to extrude the surface of this planar polygon. After selecting the faces of this object, we select the extrude option like we have done in the past. I chose to extrude the shape out by 20 on the local Z axis as we are going to use this shape to create an American style mailbox shape.

To finish off the shape of the mailbox next I selected some of the inside faces and extrude them back into the object, giving the object a cavity like a mailbox would have.

Throughout this exercise I found the bezier curve tool to be a little unwieldy. I am hoping that as I continue through this weeks class practical exercises I will get a better understanding of how the tool works so I can control it better.