Workshop 3: Polygon Editing and Extrusion / Batch Rendering

Liz Charpentier,  Arch 5420 Computer Animation & Storytelling , Exercise 2, University of Virginia, 2014. 

PART I. POLYGONS WITH EXTRUSION

extrude face basic extrude edge basic

I.A EXTRUDE A FACE

1. Create/Polygon Primitives/Plane (use the menu “box”)

2. Set subdivisions to 10 along width and 10 along height/Apply

poly 10 x 10

3. Scale the surface

4. Right-click on the surface and select “face”.

5. Use the select arrow to grab a face.

6. With the surface face still selected/pull out the Edit Mesh Menu

7. Select Edit Mesh/Extrude (use the menu “box”)

extrude face tool

8. Put all settings to “0” except divisions which should be set to 1.

9. Note: World coordinate space option is alternative to local object  coordinate space (see Local/World switch toggle icon, round target, that appears when selecting face).

( See also online help documentation  for tool)

extrude options

10. On Object select faces.

11. Apply individual extrude tool: extrude with arrow, scale face with box

result extrude face tool

I.B EXTRUDE A FACE ALONG A PATH CURVE

1. Select the edges/or faces you want to extrude and the curve you want to extrude along.

  • Select a Face & Choose Edit Mesh > Extrude (to extrude a face)

extrude face horizontal

  • Select an Edge & Choose Edit Mesh > Extrude (to extrude an edge)

 extrude edge

 2. To extrude along a curve:

  • Choose Edit Mesh > Extrude along with its option toolbox.
  • Turn on the Use selected curve for extrusion option.
  • Control the # of subdivisions that you want to smooth the extrusion along the curve
  • Set the Taper to 1 and othe values to 0
  • Select the face and then a curve perpendicular to and at the center of the face.

face along curve part 1

  • Click Extrude (to close dialog box) or Apply (to leave dialog box open.

 face along curve part 2

PART II. SUBDIVIDE FACE

      • Select the edges or faces you want to subdivide and choose Edit Mesh > Add Divisions
      • Set Mode to triangles or quadrangles.
      • Subdivision Level lets you subdivide multiple times. A value of 1 subdivides once. A value of 2 subdivides once and then subdivides each of the new faces again, thus yielding an exponential number of faces. Thus, a face converted to quadrangles subdivided 2 times yields 8 faces, and subdivided 3 times yields 16 faces and so on.
      • Click Subdivide.
      • Exponential option subdivides in  u and v direction for each face selected
      • linear option allows you specify subdivisions in u and v direction

[Also, You can also select the polySubd node and change the subdivision values and modes in the channel box or attribute editor.]

PART III: CREATE SIMPLE ANIMATION

  1. Add simple rgb color and transparency to objects.
  2. Introduce shaders/applying Phong shader to object with primary colors.
  3. Setup spheres with dynamics falling on deformed surface with gravity – dynamics module/Soft/Rigid Bodies/Create Active Rigid Body
  4. Use animation module/create deformers/non-linear/bend on base surface for bending in xy plane and zy plane. Add pyramid object from shelf. Apply resistence to both – dynamics module/Soft/Rigid Bodies/Create Passive Rigid Body
  5. Rendering a Key Frame Animation.
    • Go Window/Rendering Editors/Render Settings or Select render globals icon.
    • Go to Common TAB
    • Set Filename prefix to name#.ext
    • Set image format to jpg
    • Set start frame to 1 and end frame to end of sequence (i.e., 48)
    • Set image size to 640 x 480
    • Go to Maya Software TAB
    • Set quality to intermediate quality
    • Go to raytracing tab to turn on check-box for raytracing.
    • Go to File/Project/Edit Current menu & review or Edit the project folder to establish the “images” directory for individual rendered frames.
    • Select Render/Render Current Frame tool.
    • Make adjustments to lighting or any other adjustments needed.
    • Render again/if satisfy choose the Render/ Batch Rendering or select the Batch render icon.

PART IV:  COMPILE FRAMES FROM ANIMATION IN OPEN SHOT

  1. Open the OpenShot Program and import
    • Use the methods of workshop 2 to import the image squence and save it to an MP4 movie file..

  2.    Add a second sequence

    • Edit the Maya project folder to establish a second “images” directory for individual rendered frames.
    • Batch render.
    • Use the methods of workshop 2 to import the second image squence into OpenShot .
    • Select, drag and place the image sequence into track 1 of the OpenShot video editor.
    • Use the Export method within open shot from workshop 2 to save the two sequences to single MP4 movie file.