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Sunday, November 30, 2014
Star Wars Lightsaber – Maya Modeling Tutorial << Part 3 >>
PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | PART 5 | PART 6 | PART | PART 8 |
PART 3: HAND GRIP
When you draw the initial curve, make sure the lower vertex on the curve is placed just below the lower black line of the first section.
Beveling the handle:
When beveling the handle or anything for that matter, always check your reference image to see what it actually looks like. With that said, majority of the edges are micro bevels (small) except for the edges between each section. Those bevels are much larger.
I selected the edges that need to be a bit larger here.
The Nubs:
The nubs can be a bit tricky so read them carefully.
In the side view select six center most faces and then extract them. Mesh > Extract .
Select the lower handgrip minus the newly extracted piece and switch to Face Mode. Delete them.
Select the center 4 faces and then Extrude them out. C
Switch the Front View and pull the manipulator out to fit the image below.
Scale them in the Y-Direction to fit the image below.
Select the top 4 faces and switch to the Scale Tool. Scale the faces only in the Z-Direction until it creates a tapered nub, making it a bit more narrow. And slightly in the X direction to soften the curve. Essentially, you are flattening the nub a bit, but not completely.
Now we are going to Duplicate the nub a few times. In Object mode, select the nub. Choose Duplicate Special and change the following.
Rotate Y: 60
Number of copies: 5
Select all the parts in the Lower Hand Grip and combined them. Mesh > Combined
Switch to Vertex Mode and Merge.
For the nub, we have to bevel all the main edges at the same time. First we have to select the two main perimeter edges. Since the main the edge is not an obvious loop, you can’t select it by double clicking on it. But if you select 1 edge you can select the edge loop by choosing Select > Select Contiguous Edges. Then while depressing the <shift> key repeat for the lower edge. And then while still depressing the <shift> key, select all the main corner edges for all the nubs.
Bevel all the rest of the Horizontal edges.
It should look something like this . . .
The Control Box:
Align Image Planes: To align correctly and efficiently, I first make a reference cube. Create a cube and line it up with the control box as shown. *Note that I made it to fit the largest part. We will use this to line up the rest of the image planes.
In the Top View, duplicate the last cube and scale it to fit image as shown below.
In the Top View on the last cube, insert 2 edge loops as shown below. Edit Mesh > Insert Edge Loop.
In the Top View, select the 2 top faces and extrude them out.
In the Top View, select the 2 top side faces and extrude them out.
In the Top View, scale to fit image as shown below.
Create a cube and line it up with the first ridge in the Side View.
In the Top View, scale the cube to fit the image. Then Bevel the edges of the cube. We will do this before we duplicate it. It is just easier that way.
We will repeat what we did earlier with the handle. Select the cube, duplicate it, move it to the second spot and then look in the Channel Box to find the distance it was displaced in the Y-Direction. Mine moved down –0.336, yours will be different, but close. Zoom in really close to make sure it was completely aligned. Then select the new piece and using the Duplicate Special change the following settings:
In my reference images there is a cover plate. Create a cube, place it and then Bevel it.
The last part are the screws. In the Front View, create a cylinder, scale, rotate and line it up with the image. Make sure you look in the Top View and line it up there as well.
In the Front View, create a cube, scale and position it as shown below.
In the Top View, scale and position the cube as shown below. Once that is done, apply a Boolean operation. Select the Cylinder then the Cube and the apply a Boolean difference. Mesh > Boolean > Difference This will subtract the cube from the cylinder.
Bevel all appropriate edges as shown below.
The Blade:
Make a cube and scale it to the size of the handle. Select the blade and freeze transformations. Modify > Freeze Transformations.
The blade is approximately 3 times the size of the handle, so we basically we just change Scale Y to 3 and then move the blade in place.
Insert edge loops at the top and bottom to control the roundness at the ends. I used 2 loop for the base and 1 for the top.
Now the model is done!!! We still have to render it.