Week 4 Class Practical: Part 4 - Three-View Editing, Symmetry & Layers

Part 4 of this weeks practical will cover the techniques of three-view editing, using the symmetry tool and layers within Maya 2017. To begin with I need to import reference images for an f-16 model I will be making. The reference images I have are from the front, left and top of the model, so I need to import these into each viewport like in the last example. Once imported I manipulated the images so they create a 3D "box", essentially forming the workspace for this model. This involved moving each image using the move tool and rotating the side view so it matched the orientation of the plane.

The basis for the plane is a cylinder shape and we will move, scale and extrude parts of this object to create details such as the wings. Part of making this process easier is switching to an "X-Ray" view in the "Shading" menu when necessary, allowing me to see through the model to the reference image behind it.

Another useful tool when creating a model that is symmetrical is the "Symmetry Tool" in the modelling toolkit. Turning on symmetry for a specific axis allows me to work on an object much faster if that object is perfectly symmetrical. For example in the image below I only had to work on modelling one of the wings of the f-16 as the symmetry tool took care of the other side for me.

The final part of this section covers the usefulness of layers. Objects can be moved to layers so you can change their visibility as and when you need to. This is incredibly useful when you need to temporary switch off a part of your scene so you can view another part better. In this example, we will be putting the background images on their own layer so we can turn them on and off as and when we need them. To begin we have to select the "Layer Editor" from the menu box to the right of the viewports.

Once we are on this tool we need to use the + button to create a new layer, this one we called "BackgroundImages". Once created we need to select the layer and then select all of the background images we imported earlier (either clicking on them in the scene or selecting them from the outliner window). Once selected we can right click on our newly added layer and select "Add Selected Objects". Pressing the "V" button in the layer manager will now hide everything that was added to this layer.